Slashdot Mirror
US Marshals Seize Police Stingray Records To Keep Them From the ACLU
An anonymous reader writes 'A routine request in Florida for public records regarding the use of a surveillance tool known as stingray took an extraordinary turn recently when federal authorities seized the documents before police could release them. "This is consistent with what we've seen around the country with federal agencies trying to meddle with public requests for stingray information," Wessler said, noting that federal authorities have in other cases invoked the Homeland Security Act to prevent the release of such records. "The feds are working very hard to block any release of this information to the public." ... "We've seen our fair share of federal government attempts to keep records about stingrays secret, but we've never seen an actual physical raid on state records in order to conceal them from public view," the ACLU wrote in a blog post today.'
Orwell was just 30 years late on his predictions...
What I wonder every time I see this: do the law enforcement officers involved ever think something like, "wow, by doing this I become one of the jack-booted thugs working hard to bring tyranny and corruption to this nation!" Are they complete myrmidons? Are they "true believers" who really managed to convince themselves this is all for some kind of nebulous greater good? Are they simply sociopaths with no conscience? Are they somehow brave enough to take on an armed criminal yet too cowardly to refuse bullshit orders?
What exactly goes through their minds? That's what I wonder.
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
So, I've been thinking of how could we prevent such a rogue device from operating on the cellular network? The way it is done is pretty easy actually:
* First you have to create a database of longitude / latitude coordinates of where we find cell tower sites at 100% signal strength.
* Next we allow Android's baseband processor to issue handoffs to cell towers that are within range of the GeoIP coordinate database
* So when a Stingray device pretends to be a cell tower, and it is not within range of the geoIP coordinates database, it will be rejected
This could be easily implemented in Android... and you could also add notifications when a cell tower was rejected due to being too far away from the known cell tower real location.
You ask a complex question. Much too complex for much of what passes for insight on /. these days, but I'll try to chime in.
I worked in law enforcement for several years. I was not with the federal government, but my state agency did quite a few joint operations with various federal agencies including FBI, DHS, ICE, EPA, and others. I've sat through the briefings and been part of the planning as well as the execution of many warrants. Here's my take on it -
Federal agents are a different breed. They are largely self-selected into the ranks and definitely fall into the category of "true believer". Their personal mandate varies, though it sometimes falls in line with the agency mandate (i.e., EPA is definitely about the environment and collects staff with a very dogmatic mindset). One thing holds true - by and large, federal agents have a personality of a soldier in the field. They follow orders without question and largely without independent thought. If it's not in the procedure manual or passed on a memo, it does not exist. These are the people that will, without fail, always walk only on the sidewalk in designated spots. The exceptions to this rule generally do not make a career in federal law enforcement service. You will see them get in and get out as soon as the resume is adequately seasoned.
So, if you want to know how this stuff happens, here's the break down. From on-high, some agency director or even the President sets out a mandate. Nothing too specific, but just a pet project or vision. It then filters down to the chiefs and assistant chiefs who begin to craft policy. Eventually, it winds its way through the machinations of the organization until it hits some SAC or ASAC's desk and then they issue a memo to their staff about the marching orders. From there, you get special agents who execute the orders. This can often be initiated because of a lead or other process, but it often happens with a phone call from some other agency that could use the assistance of a friendly. From there, the forms get filed, cases opened, and things escalate. Before you know it, it's on slashdot and people are asking WTF?
In the end, the lower ranks execute the orders to try and be good soldiers and get the next promotion, raise, and favorable posting. The middle managers take a bow, but remain safe behind their desk. The senior managers build plausible deniability. No one ever really gets in trouble, because after all is said and done, what US Attorney or AUSA is going to go balls to the wall probing one of their own agencies?
People have been demanding open government so politicians now need to promise openness and transparency to get voted in. Once voted in they realize they really don't want to be open after all and lately seem to go in the opposite direction totally, namely it's the people who are expected and forced to be open and transparent while we get record secretive governments.
Both my Provincial and Federal governments, right wingers both, have done the same and I expect it'll continue no matter who is in power.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
I was going to mod you up, but I can see others have taken care of that for me.
I say more or less what you have just written to people all the time and I would encourage others to do the same. Just look at all the nonsense which is posted on FB for example. I try to explain to these people that it makes no difference at all who is elected. They are all the same person. It is only a question of which industry group is pulling the strings.
The USA and NOT a democracy. It has be proven scientifically. Look to the recent paper published by Princeton. http://www.princeton.edu/~mgil...
Look to history people. It is a very rare thing indeed for an entrenched ruling class to be tossed out without blood in the street. The worst part is, the ones fighting you back are your brothers and neighbors who the ruling class have tricked into dieing to keep them in power, even though it is clearly not in their long term interest.
I have no idea what the real solution is, but I hope someone smarter than me can come up with something.