Emails Show Feds Asking Florida Cops To Deceive Judges About Surveillance Tech

Advocatus Diaboli sends this excerpt from Wired: Police in Florida have, at the request of the U.S. Marshals Service, been deliberately deceiving judges and defendants about their use of a controversial surveillance tool to track suspects, according to newly obtained emails (PDF). At the request of the Marshals Service, the officers using so-called stingrays have been routinely telling judges, in applications for warrants, that they obtained knowledge of a suspect's location from a 'confidential source' rather than disclosing that the information was gleaned using a stingray.

Comments

And?

[TemperedAlchemist]

It won't stop until the DoJ actually starts handing out serious penalties instead of a slap on the wrist for this sort of behavior. I'm talking jail time.

Re:And?

[msauve]

Since you're referencing the DoJ, I'd assume you mean jail time for those releasing evidence of illegal surveillance and deceiving the courts.

Re:And?

[BitterOak]

It won't stop until the DoJ actually starts handing out serious penalties instead of a slap on the wrist for this sort of behavior. I'm talking jail time.

It's only illegal if they counseled the cops to do this in a specific case. If they just told the cops that's what they should do in general, then it isn't a crime.

Re:And?

[stenvar]

Why would the federal government penalize itself? The DoJ presumably wants this to happen, as does the president; if he didn't, he could stop tomorrow.

Re:And?

[Bartles]

Slap on the wrist? As far as I can tell, they are just ignoring it, which makes me think they are complicit.

Re:And?

[LynnwoodRooster]

Federal Marshals ARE the DoJ. It's the DoJ itself asking local police to lie. Why would they hand out penalties to themselves? That's like asking Holder to arrest himself for being in contempt of Congress. Not gonna happen.

Re:And?

[Anonymous Coward]

One huge flaw in the USA system is that the DOJ is part of the executive branch which is tasked with investigating the executive branch.

It's like asking someone to arrest himself.

They'll do nothing.

Re:And?

[Anonymous Coward]

That is cute that you think that the DoJ cares about anything other than harassing black kids and those who ask difficult questions of politicians.

Re:And?

[tysonedwards]

Instructions were given to commit perjury, under oath, to a judge in any situation in which they were asked about the surveillance tech that they have at their disposal.

Perjury is a crime whenever it takes place.
Conspiracy to commit perjury or enticement to commit perjury both are also crimes, and this email chain shows that that took place.

The real question is whether the DoJ cares about going after cops as opposed to just going after the low hanging fruit like people who beat their wives, sell drugs, or annoy the wrong person in a position of power.

Re:And?

[dcmcilrath]

When is it ever advantageous to hit someone who can fight back?

Re:And?

[sumdumass]

It still could be a crime for the cops and prosecutors under state laws.

Not that it would matter much though. Most cops and law enforcement enjoy wildly lower criminal penalties for the same violations of law that would land us in some serious trouble. They call it color of law sometimes. FWIW, here is the federal law on color of law.. I looked for my state and it simply adds it to laws already in place.

http://www.law.cornell.edu/usc...

Re:And?

[gstoddart]

It's only illegal if they counseled the cops to do this in a specific case. If they just told the cops that's what they should do in general, then it isn't a crime.

If you don't think subverting some of the basic principles of the justice system, as well as the checks and balances in the system to prevent abuses isn't a crime, you're sadly mistaken.

This gets rid of your right to a fair trial. To not be subject to unreasonable search. To face the evidence against you. To trust that the cops aren't framing you.

If the feds and the police forces have decided they should be able to do this, then they have effectively become the worst sort of thugs and miscreants out there -- because they're legitimate thugs and miscreants who are allowed to do anything they see fit, all in the name of claiming to be the good guys.

No society where the police have unlimited power to cover up their own abuses and make any charge they want stick can last.

When federal law enforcement is telling local police how to subvert the justice system in order to conceal illegal, secret methods which wouldn't hold up in court ... the whole legal system is fucked.

When I was a kid, this kind of shit is what was attributed to the Soviets. And now, people seem to somehow accept this as normal.

You may think fascism is an OK idea, but the rest of us don't want that.

I think if a federal agent is telling law enforcement how to do an end-run around the Constitution, they should be hung for treason.

Re:And?

[Mashiki]

It won't stop until the DoJ actually starts handing out serious penalties instead of a slap on the wrist for this sort of behavior. I'm talking jail time.

You're making this statement about the most corrupt DoJ in the history of the US right. You want me to start laughing, or simply roll over and laugh? It won't stop until states refuse to pay attention to the DoJ and relegate it to the back room forcing in reforms.

Re:And?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's only illegal if they counseled the cops to do this in a specific case. If they just told the cops that's what they should do in general, then it isn't a crime.

Huh? I thought perjury was a crime, period. Isn't lying to a judge perjury anymore?

Re:And?

[sumdumass]

Which is why states need to prosecute the cops and district attorneys who are lieing and let them make the claims in court that the DOJ or Marshals are telling them to do it.

Interestingly, a federal prosecutor can take a case to a grand jury independent of DOJ permission and are protected from backlash by the civil service laws and civil employees union. Once it is at a grand jury, it is out of the DOJ's control. This is how prosecutors went after medical pot in California after Obama direct them to leave it alone. This is also how some feds prosecuted deportation cases after being told to ignore them.

Re:And?

[torsmo]

Can't the courts take sua sponte action in the matter, when it is clear that the dept. of justice is quite brazenly violating the law?

Re:And?

[swillden]

Instructions were given to commit perjury

I think they'll argue that it wasn't perjury. They weren't told to claim the information was from a "confidential informant" -- a snitch -- but a "confidential source", which isn't well-defined. I think the wording was chosen to mislead the judge into thinking they meant a CI, but without actually lying. Of course, intending to deceive may be perjury, even if what you say is the literal truth, but it's much harder to pin down.

Re:And?

[Bite The Pillow]

Because there are three branches. And judges really hate it when, as a whole, law enforcement lies to a judge repeatedly.

I'm sure there are exceptions, like small town law. And maybe federal district court in federal cases.

But any judge, for the most part, who finds that they ruled on unconstitutional information, is very likely to hold law enforcement to a way higher standard than "anonymous source".

There are exceptions. But don't let your cynicism abscond with the ability to read and think. You can do better, you and the three people who moderated you incorrectly.

The "Federal Government" is not one thing, and is not made up of people who all believe one thing. Both parties have lots of people who disagree with the general party line, and all three branches have people who disagree with the general government line. It's not hard to find exceptions to such a blatantly wrong opinion, but I can't find a list that will automatically be amenable to someone who has shown so little capability of thought, so I won't try.

Re:And?

[fuzznutz]

This is called suborning perjury and is a crime. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S...

Re:And?

[Anonymous Coward]

Perjury is a crime whenever it takes place.

History has shown that not to be the case when it involves DMCA takedown notices.

Re:And?

[Bite The Pillow]

Who is they? And just what have you looked at to conclude they are ignoring it?

I'm assuming that, since Marshals are law enforcement, you mean that the judicial branch is ignoring law enforcement lying, admitting lying, and going on record as doing so.

I don't think many people are aware of this. If you are not surprised, you should have let us know, as well as the ACLU, EFF, and other related organizations. Because this is really big news.

Would you be so kind as to list any, and if you really could be arsed, every instance where the DoJ handed out any penalty for this behavior?

The DoJ is Executive, as is the Marshals service. They all have the same goal of lying to the Judicial branch to maximize convictions. DoJ is the second third of justice, the part where someone presses charges, and has nothing to do with actual justice. "Bring someone to justice" really just means bringing them to a court where a justice of the peace gets to rule on what is allowed.

Oddly, law enforcement is all on the same side. And judges are all on the other side. Legislative branch is out of the picture at this point.

So yes, "they", unless I misunderstand, are not only complicit, they are the people who are issuing this information. They are getting slaps on the wrist by they, who are the same person, and by definition complicit.

You only think this is true, as opposed to it being by definition true? Or did you under-explain something?

And did moderators completely understand something you did not type?

Re:And?

[Anonymous Coward]

... judges really hate it when, as a whole, law enforcement lies to a judge repeatedly...

Just in case you do not know the link ...

http://www.justice.gov/marshals/

The US Marshals are under the Department of Justice, and the judges, are also under the Department of Justice

The Judges are unarmed employees of DoJ, while the US Marshals are ARMED TO THE TEETH

Please tell us how often do we see American Judges call up and punish the US Marshals ?

Re:And?

[Bartles]

Actually by they, I mean the DOJ. Eric Holder has completely abdicated his responsibilities and has become the most politically motivated Attorney General in my lifetime.

Re:And?

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you daft or something? These are federal marshals lying to state and local judges. The judges couldn't do anything about it if they wanted to (and it's not clear that they would even care).

The only people who could do something about it would be the superiors in the DoJ and the president, but that's where these policies originate in the first place.

Re:And?

[houstonbofh]

Or, just every defendant that this applies to having everything thrown out because of "fruit of the poisoned tree." If it stops getting convictions it will stop being used.

Re:And?

[Required Snark]

You want contempt for the constitution? Where were you when Cheney said he was not a part of the executive, legislative or judicial branch of government, so none of the rules apply? (Sound of crickets.....)

I'm pissed off a Holder as well, but obvious right wingers start calling him the most corrupt, all I smell is the stench of ripe hypocrisy. STFU until you are willing to call out someone on your side of the political fence.

Re:And?

[camperdave]

They could (and should) declare a mistrial and release the defendant.

Re: And?

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you follow history? It won't end until people start voting from the rooftops.

Re:And?

[Anonymous Coward]

Perjury is not a crime whenever it takes place. Family Law for one.

Re:And?

[Anonymous Coward]

" At the request of the Marshals Service, the officers using so-called stingrays have been routinely telling judges, in applications for warrants, that they obtained knowledge of a suspect's location from a 'confidential source' rather than disclosing that the information was gleaned using a stingray. "

I would not have thought that the police needed to be told. Isn't eavesdropping on a telephone call without a warrant illegal? If the cops tell the judge that's what they've been doing the evidence becomes inadmissible.

"It won't stop until the DoJ actually starts handing out serious penalties instead of a slap on the wrist for this sort of behavior. I'm talking jail time."

How is the DOJ to know about it, if the cops don't admit it? (And of course they won't.) Who is to know that it's happening, given that no one is watching to make sure it isn't? I suspect this kind of thing is much more commonplace than people generally realize. The cops listen in on phone calls until they hear something incriminating, then knowing what's going on, they go out and find evidence that they can use.

NR

Re:And?

[Anonymous Coward]

One problem: The DOJ /supports/ misleading the judges.

Re:And?

[Darinbob]

However judges can not prosecute in the US. Thus if the US Marshalls and local police are doing this, and the local prosecutors are happy that criminals are being caught so that they can be re-elected, then who's left to actually charge someone with a crime?

Re:And?

[Darinbob]

Judges are not a part of the Department of Justice. Judges are a part of the judicial branch, and DoJ is a part of the executive branch.

Re:And?

[Darinbob]

Congress is allowed to appoint special prosecutors. Would be nice if judges could do this also, but they most they can due is jail someone for contempt of court.

Re:And?

[Anonymous Coward]

It won't stop until the DoJ actually starts handing out serious penalties instead of a slap on the wrist for this sort of behavior. I'm talking jail time.

Gee, that's funny. We were demanding the same fucking thing when bankers vaporized trillions from the economy in 2008.

Instead of jail time, we handed out bonuses.

Don't expect a shitload of traction on this concept, no matter how much it makes sense or follows the very laws they're sworn to uphold.

Re:And?

[the_fat_kid]

I think that they may find that Judges do not care for being "mislead"
this would also be a fine time for them to dust off their judicial contempt sticks.

Re:And?

[spiritplumber]

When you are trying to prove that you're tougher than him.

Re:And?

[Anonymous Coward]

I wish there was someone on my side of the political fence. Democrats and Republicans are both pretty firmly on the right. It would be refreshing to have a leftist anywhere near power in the US.

Re:And?

[Carewolf]

In a court they don't have rules against lying, that is too ill defined; they have rules against intentionally misleading the court. Which is what happened here. Which is pergury.

Re:And?

[Anonymous Coward]

No they're not - they're US Marshals telling *local police* to lie to state and local judges. Those doing the actual lying will face the perjury or contempt wrath, and after enough of that will simply tell the Marshals to screw off, they're not taking the fall for them any more. One hopes.

Re:And?

[Anonymous Coward]

Fight back in what meaningful way, the cops don't have more power, however the judges can hold them in contempt indefinitely if he sees fit that what they have done deserves that, and lying to a judge isn't taken very lightly no matter what background or magic sky fairy you subscribe to.

Re:And?

[Mashiki]

Should I point out your ignorance now, when I tell you that I'm Canadian, was born there. And even I can see when someone is more corrupt then a previous administration? Right. Just remember he may have said that, but in turn didn't "act on it" like this current government is.

I'll take your apology now.

Re:And?

[Archtech]

"Because there are three branches".

All of which take their orders from the President. Not necessarily in a blatant, direct, overt way - usually just by doing what they know the President would like. That's how real power works and, trust me, there is only ONE branch that has any of that.

Incidentally, the same applies to the mainstream media.

Re:And?

[Archtech]

You just nailed one of the primary mechanisms by which the executive branch controls the judicial branch. If a prosecutor doesn't bring charges, the whole judicial system is rendered irrelevant.

Re:And?

[ganjadude]

the DOJ hasnt even investigated numerous issues that it should be investigating. Fast and furious for one, oh thats right, holder got to investigate himself, therefore no wrong doing was ever done....

this administration really makes the previous one look like saints

Re:And?

[ganjadude]

yeah, and where were you when nixon.... or ford..... or (insert any other president here)

look, pointing to past presidents is all fine and dandy, except when you do it to ignore current corruption, you are not doing anyone any favors. The facts are we live in the now, and in the now the DOJ and the obama admin are the most corrupt our country has ever had

Re:And?

[Anonymous Coward]

When is it ever advantageous to hit someone who can fight back?

It's one of the best ways to deal with a bully.

Bullies look for soft targets, and push as far as they can go without retaliation. If you make it clear there is a line in the sand that will cause you to fight back, they rarely cross that particular demarcation. Only if they themselves have something to lose in the fight (say, it costs them so much face that they cannot continue their habit of bullying) or if they are psychopathic will they proceed to harass somebody who makes it clear they will retaliate.

Usually the bully will push at you to see if you really mean to hold that particular line (and that pushing can be quite unpleasant) but ultimately he will back down if the rewards are not worth it (and they usually aren't). For the bullied, it's risking a short-term loss to avoid a longer period of unpleasantness.

This works with government too, although - because they are liable to see any challenge as a threat to the rule of law and because of their overwhelming power - , the "push back" can be very unpleasant. But it needs to be done, because otherwise they will continue to encroach upon our rights. The reason they are so successful is that fighting back costs people their lives (financially and socially, if not literally) while it is society as a whole that benefits, and few enjoy martyring themselves for a cause.

Re:And?

[rahvin112]

The president is not omnipotent.

There is a reason that pre-9/11 there were laws on the books that limited the powers of the FBI and other federal police service's. We relaxed a LOT of those restrictions after 9/11 and a we're reaping the corruption those laws used to prevent.

There is not much that's scarier than a someone who thinks they are doing the right thing by violating someone else's rights. It's a quick jump right into real fascism (not the word bandied about around the internet that most people don't know what it means and are misusing it). What makes real fascism so scary is that the people behind it are true believers that they are doing the right thing.

Re:And?

[Shakrai]

Congress takes orders from the President? I must have missed that part of my high school civics class. Why is Obama whining so much then about those obstinate Republicans in the House? Can't he just order them to do what he wants?

Re:And?

[Anonymous Coward]

It won't stop until the DoJ actually starts handing out serious penalties instead of a slap on the wrist for this sort of behavior. I'm talking jail time.

It's only illegal if they counseled the cops to do this in a specific case. If they just told the cops that's what they should do in general, then it isn't a crime.

It's only illegal.... what????

Seriously, people like you are too stupid to be allowed to vote. People with your level of stupidity shouldn't even be allowed to breed. Honestly, it is thought processes like yours, shared by millions of other morons, that is flushing this country down the crapper.

Re:And?

[Anonymous Coward]

Canadian faggots have no place in this discussion. He is correct, this isn't Holder, this is bigger than him.

Re:And?

[catmistake]

In Smith v. Maryland, 442 U.S. 735 (1979), the Supreme Court held individuals have no "legitimate expectation of privacy" regarding the telephone numbers they dial because they knowingly give that information to telephone companies when they dial a number.[16] Therefore there is no search where officers monitor what phone numbers an individual dials,[17] although the Congress has enacted laws that restrict such monitoring.

wiki

This case makes it clear that reasonable expectation of privacy regarding location is invalidated by carrying a cell phone because location information is given to a third party, the phone company. Thus there can be no reasonable expectation of privacy regarding location.

A strong case is already made in case law (more or less) that if an individual carries a cell phone they have no reasonable expectation of privacy regarding their location because they give their location information to a third party, the phone company. So the feds and the cops are foolish because they had no reason to lie and would have obtained their search warrants legally by telling the whole truth about their use of Stingrays.

But I don't think so, (and I don't want it to be so) because it fails the second part of Justice Harlan's test in Katz v US 389 U.S. 347 (1967).... because society at large would likely deem a persons expectation of privacy to be reasonable regarding their location (especially if out of sight, inside a private home) regardless of carrying a cell phone... because cell phones are ubiquitous, and the existence of cell phones should not invalidate the entire concept of reasonable expectation of privacy. But that's just my opinion, and, again, a strong dissenting case already exists in case law, and is the law of the land.

HOWEVER
the issue here is cops are lying to judges under the direction of federal agents in order to obtain search warrants

That's bad, and judges should rightly be pissed off about it. But no citizens' rights were violated. The police already had the evidence that the individuals they were seeking already committed a crime... the arrest warrant was already obtained, and they're just searching for the suspects, not using this technology to oppress innocent civilians.

The real problem is not that the government is out of control. The government does not move with a single mind... it is aggregate and it is not after anyone but criminals. The real problem is that citizens, including everyone posting here, are uneducated blathering idiots, and do not understand their rights, and do not even realize that they have already forfeited their rights by previous actions, such as owning and carrying a cell phone. We fucked up. We let the steady advancement of technology eat our rights because we were not engaged and did not notice, and now its a bit late to start blaming anyone but ourselves.

Re:And?

[Anonymous Coward]

I believe in some states anyone can act as a prosecutor.

Re:And?

[strikethree]

STFU until you are willing to call out someone on your side of the political fence.

Never STFU. Ideally, people should be calling shit out on both sides of the fence, but I would rather people be calling shit out on only one side of the fence than no sides of the fence. STFU is NOT useful here.

Re:And?

[bill_mcgonigle]

No society where the police have unlimited power to cover up their own abuses and make any charge they want stick can last.

Ah, the silver lining.

Re:And?

[stenvar]

The president is not omnipotent.

What the US Marshalls are doing is illegal. As head of the executive branch, the president not only has the power to tell them to stop, he has the obligation to do so.

We relaxed a LOT of those restrictions after 9/11 and a we're reaping the corruption those laws used to prevent.

I think it was foolish to relax those restrictions. But the justification for those relaxations was that the executive branch, that is, the part of the government the president is responsible for, was going to use these new powers responsibly and was going to guard against their abuse. As it turns out, Obama has either been asleep on the job or actively misusing those expanded powers, arguably even worse than Bush. I'd also point out that those powers were generally expanded in a bipartisan way.

What makes real fascism so scary is that the people behind it are true believers that they are doing the right thing.

You mean like when Obama justifies ignoring Congress or modifying existing law because he truly believes it's the right thing to do? Yes, you're right, that's scary.

Re:And?

[jeIlomizer]

This case makes it clear that reasonable expectation of privacy regarding location is invalidated by carrying a cell phone because location information is given to a third party, the phone company.

Then their decision was incorrect and ignores the spirit of the constitution.

Re:And?

[jeIlomizer]

it is aggregate and it is not after anyone but criminals.

Well, that just completely ignores history. Why not brush up on it?

Re:And?

[LynnwoodRooster]

Oh they could - but with your future as a judge (moving up to a Federal bench) in the balance if you attack your Federal masters, it becomes easy to brush it aside as "no standing of plaintiff" and dismiss.

Re:And?

[LynnwoodRooster]

I think if the House appoints a special prosecutor, the Senate still must follow through with conviction. And with the current political environment in the Senate, that's simply not going to happen.

Re:And?

[Anonymous Coward]

Cops are useless, all they do is mop up after the crime and trample all over your rights. Fuck that and fuck them.

Re:And?

[swillden]

You missed the last sentence of my post, apparently.

Re:And?

[swillden]

I agree. I doubt perjury charges will be brought, and doubt even more that they would be successful. But I do expect judges to take a much harder line going forward.

Re:And?

[Anonymous Coward]

who goes after a DA when they've committed a crime?

Re:And?

[Bartles]

In the real, non-pacifist world, it can do things like end slavery in the United States, end the murder of 6 million Jews in Europe, or end the tyrannical rule of Great Britain.

Re:And?

[Bartles]

Jury nullification is always a good option as well.

Re:And?

[Bartles]

The person who was injured.

Re:And?

[Bartles]

When did he say that? I think you just made that up.

Re:And?

[Music2Eat]

The real problem is not that the government is out of control. The government does not move with a single mind... it is aggregate and it is not after anyone but criminals.

Everyone's a criminal. Federal laws are convoluted, vague, and there's more of them then you can even begin to imagine. A Boston Lawyer wrote a book about how the average American commits three felonies a day. Without even being aware of it.

So, yes, the problem IS that the Government is out of control.

Re:And?

[BitterOak]

This is called suborning perjury and is a crime. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S...

It's only a crime if you're suborning a specific instance of perjury. If I write a book saying that people should lie on the witness stand all the time, that isn't a crime. In fact there have been books written on how to be a hit man (The Death Dealers Manual). It isn't a crime to publish such a book since it doesn't advocate a specific instance of murder, but just instructs how to do it in general.

Re: And?

[kenh]

You realize that the President heads up exactly ONE of the three co-equal branches of the US Gov't, right?

Re:And?

[Mashiki]

Canadian faggots have no place in this discussion. He is correct, this isn't Holder, this is bigger than him.

Always nice to see the "compassionate" and "open mindedness" of liberals on display. And funny we do, especially since our biggest trading partner is the US. And no he isn't correct, shall we count the ways with the various scandals directly involved in the DoJ in the last 6 years that were beyond the excess of the previous administration in terms of core and mulch-sectional violations of the law?

Re: And?

[kenh]

What the US Marshalls are doing is illegal. As head of the executive branch, the president not only has the power to tell them to stop, he has the obligation to do so.

Seriously?

The President - any President - has an obligation to order subordinates (like the US Marshals) to stop acting illegally? Conversely, can the President order subordinates to act illegally?

The office of the President is not a law enforcement position...

Re: And?

[stenvar]

The President - any President - has an obligation to order subordinates (like the US Marshals) to stop acting illegally?

I didn't say he had an obligation to "order" them to stop acting illegally; obviously, talking isn't going to do much good. He has the obligation to actually stop this. He could have started by firing Holder.

The office of the President is not a law enforcement position...

The president is the head of the executive branch and hence the DoJ. He has appointed Eric Holder and tells him what to do. Any major scandal in the DoJ is automatically the president's responsibility, because he either knew about it or should have known about it. That's his job.

What did you think the president's job was? Reading prepared statements off a teleprompter?

Re:And?

[Anonymous Coward]

The real problem is that citizens, including everyone posting here, are uneducated blathering idiots, and do not understand their rights, and do not even realize that they have already forfeited their rights by previous actions, such as owning and carrying a cell phone.

So by carrying a cell phone, which is practically required in today's society, I've voluntarily given up my rights? Thats a crock of shit and you know it. If they weren't ubiquitous and only carried by a certain few, that line of reasoning might work, but when, for example, your boss requires you to carry a cellphone, you're saying that he's requiring you to give up your rights just to be able to eat, and thats pure, unadulterated bullshit and you know it.

Re:And?

[Anonymous Coward]

TL;DR: Die on your feet or you will live on your knees.

Re:And?

[Anonymous Coward]

end the murder of 6 million Jews in Europe

You can't end a murder already committed. Since you seem to know how, please, let the rest of us know. Actually, better yet, die and take it to the grave with you. That's just a bit ripe for abuse.

Re: And?

[Archtech]

There's theory, and there is practice. In practice everyone takes their lead from the President. After all, who's going to betray the nation by disobeying the Commander in Chief in a time of war? (And we know it's a time of war because the President tells us so).

It's convenient for the President to be able to blame things he just doesn't want to do on a recalcitrant Congress. I didn't say that Congress always agrees with the President - I said it obeys him. Even if he tells it to block measures he wants the voters to think he favours. That way he can get the PR benefit of trying to do the right thing without the inconvenience of actually doing it.

As for the Supreme Court, it has often demonstrated that law, morality, tradition, and the Constitution mean nothing to it in comparison with the President's wishes.

Yes, I do know how your precious Constitution works on paper. And that's exactly where it stays - on paper.

Re:And?

[catmistake]

I'm not saying I like it, and in fact I said I don't like it... but the case law is pretty clear and you're welcome to see for yourself:

Smith v. Maryland - 442 U.S. 735 (1979) AND here's the wiki

It has been this way since 1979: there is no legitimate expectation of privacy regarding specific information when you knowingly give the information to a third party.

Its not a crock and I didn't make it up, as my references bear out. And again I stand by assessment that Slashdot has gone to the dogs and the idiots posting these days don't know much of anything.

Re:And?

[fuzznutz]

Nice theory, but if I had provided a device to a police department and said if you go to get a warrant, make sure you lie to the judge and don't tell them this is what you used to get your information, I wouldn't want to bet MY freedom on it. That is NOT like writing a hypothetical book. That IS suborning perjury.

Re:And?

[q4Fry]

I read the Wikipedia article, and I am not so sure that this situation is covered (IANAL). Wikipedia, at least, specifically mentions only statements that are "materially false." I do not know whether failing to "tell the whole truth" is considered perjury, but asking cops to say "it came from a confidential source" is not "materially false," even if it is misleading and reprehensible.

I would love to be wrong about this.

Re:And?

[david_thornley]

Nope. Only part of the takedown notice is on penalty of perjury: the part where you say "this is copyrighted material, and I own it or otherwise have control over it". The part where you say "and that's a misuse of my copyrighted material" is not under penalty of perjury.

I could issue a takedown notice for a YouTube video on the basis that I have copyrighted material (like the unpublished stuff that exists only on my disks and backups), without perjury.

Re:And?

[david_thornley]

So what you're suggesting here is that judges should be a lot more distrustful of "confidential source"s? If they refused to act without being given the nature of the confidential source, then the LEOs would have a choice between revealing what the source was or perjury.

Re:And?

[david_thornley]

As I understand it, the LEOs are asking for warrants based on these confidential sources, and possibly prosecutors are arguing that certain evidence shouldn't be excluded. The judges can't penalize LEOs and prosecutors directly, but they do control what goes on in their courts, and they can refuse warrants and exclude evidence unless they get the information they think necessary.

Re:And?

[david_thornley]

I thought Gitmo was fascinating contempt for the Constitution.

The Constitution is, in theory, a document on how the Federal Government is formed, and what it can do (although there are some sections saying what it can't do). Therefore, any Federal action needs to be based on the Constitution, and the Feds have no other legal authorization for their actions.

Therefore, either Gitmo is under Constitutional law, since it is run by the Feds, or the Feds have no authority to run it. The line about it not being on US territory was irrelevant.

Re:And?

[alexo]

This is the best argument for vigilante justice that I have ever heard.

Re:And?

[Anonymous Coward]

"it is aggregate and it is not after anyone but criminals."

that's cute to think that, but it's about as wrong as you can be. The IRS, for example, are not oppressing criminals, they're oppressing the opposition. Systematically. Whose to say the cops aren't using these tools as instruments of oppression? In fact, they are using them as instruments of oppression, you just don't know about it yet.

They're already telling the executive to lie about it to the judicial and legislative.

Re:And?

[Bartles]

You're an idiot.

Re:And?

[Anonymous Coward]

"The "Federal Government" is not one thing, and is not made up of people who all believe one thing."

That's important. Also when comes to NSA. Who knows how many "interests" are in there to get that information? Maybe they're keeping each other in check...

Re:And?

[q4Fry]

Yes, I am. This doesn't necessarily require revealing the name of a source (a CI, for instance), but there should be a way to construct a question that identifies whether the information was gathered with means that are constitutionally suspect.

The "how to present yourself in court" slides from at least one presentation designed for LEOs receiving tip "suggestions" from other (morally dubious) government bodies had a FAQ that included: (my reproduction, not verbatim)

Q: What if the judge asks directly if this came from [entity]?

A: Answer truthfully. Do not commit perjury.

I am having trouble formulating a direct, boilerplate question to be asked at every hearing (or made law?) that determines the nature of a "confidential source" without endangering the life of a low-level snitch in the case that they, not Big Brother, are the source. I am sure, however, that the ACLU could pose such a question.

String Them Up

[sexconker]

String them up in front of the courthouse.

Re:String Them Up

[dcmcilrath]

Who is going to do the stringing-up? The DoJ isn't going to arrest themselves... Sometime that you have a weekend free, try to pull over a cop and tell him he was speeding. See how that goes.

Re: String Them Up

[Anonymous Coward]

Get the fucking Marines

Re:String Them Up

[ganjadude]

get bundy and he crew out to washington, that would make for some good popcorn time

Re:String Them Up

[Loki_1929]

FedGov were fine with Bundy and crew while they were hanging out in the middle of nowhere running around with guns being all anti-government. If they got within 50 miles of the DC line, they'd be face-to-face with Apache gunships and worse and every one of them would wind up in a prison cell or a bodybag very quickly. No one will comprehend the full militarization of law enforcement in this country until an incident like that happens. Quite honestly, we're approaching the point where a major metro police force, combined with local Federal law enforcement assets, could hold their own in a fight with the US Army.

That should frighten people. It doesn't, partially because they'd never believe it, but it should. Sadly, I don't know how to turn back that tide. No politician will be seen taking resources away from law enforcement because that's political suicide. Violence would be deadly, destructive, and would only reinforce the need for even more militarization. And if violence is your only resort, you're truly in Hell already. Not really sure what else there is besides finding somewhere else to try again. The Founding Fathers of this country knew having a standing military was a huge risk to the freedom of the people. Restrictions were put in place later to ensure the military couldn't be used against civilians except in cases of total rebellion where the government has fallen. With domestic law enforcement's militarization, we have exactly what the Founding Fathers feared most: a force under the control of the government, operating domestically, which has far more firepower than the citizenry. They feared that because they understood that it removes the fear governments have of the reactions of the citizenry when they start working toward oppression and they understood a simple truth: power begets power, and that inevitably leads to oppression. The balance they sought was to keep a government responsive to the needs and wishes of an informed and at least somewhat wise citizenry. A government of regular citizens who cycle in and out of government service would continuously bring fresh ideas and fresh perspectives to maintain the power balance. Of course, the reality is that it's now just millionaires sponsored by millionaires and billionaires doing whatever they need to do to consolidate power even as they're re-elected decade after decade using political party identification.

Much of this is the fault of the people. We've become so soft and delicate that we can't imagine doing many of the things government now does for us. Police our own streets? That's dangerous! Protect ourselves and our families? That's dangerous! Hell, a good chunk of our population can't even feed itself without the government. We've stepped further and further back away from running our own lives and allowed the government to fill the vacuum. Why? Because it's easier and more comfortable. It's always easier when someone else is taking care of things for you. Everything has to be safe now. Everything has to be clean now. Everything has to be easy. And if it isn't, we expect the government to step in and take it over. Until all that's left is a bunch of sissies in padded outfits in padded rooms staring at a TV and drooling on the floor while an IV keeps them fed. We've allowed ourselves to become so weak and so uninformed that we're almost begging to be taken advantage of at this point.

Here's a simple example: Of the eligible voters who actually vote (see? I've eliminated something like 60% right there), how many can name everyone in the Federal legislature representing them and can describe the voting record of those representatives on the issues most important to that voter? Let's be incredibly generous and assume it's 20% (yeah, right). So that's 8% of the original. Now how many of those can name everyone at the state level representing them and can describe the record of those individuals on the voter's most important issues? Again, let's be incredibly generous and say 10%. Of those, how many follow all available candidates fo

nothing to see here, move along.

[Anonymous Coward]

but first pick up that can!

how come these hard drives were not erased?

[xxxJonBoyxxx]

odd that an actual paper trail was allowed to be released...wonder who forgot the degausser this time?

Re:how come these hard drives were not erased?

[thegarbz]

odd that an actual paper trail was allowed to be released...wonder who forgot the degausser this time?

Degausser? How old fashioned can you be? These days you just claim the hard disk crashed, delete everything and decide to re-purpose said flaky unstable drive on another machine.

Re:how come these hard drives were not erased?

[Bite The Pillow]

Sounds like you are referencing a single recent case instead of an actual tendency. The case being IRS persecution of right-leaning tax-exempt applicants.

Or is there more to this trend that we should know about?

"Every one" won't cut it, because I'd really like specifics.

Re:how come these hard drives were not erased?

[Anonymous Coward]

They were on loan to the IRS.

Re:how come these hard drives were not erased?

[camperdave]

odd that an actual paper trail was allowed to be released...wonder who forgot the degausser this time?

You'd have to have a seriously powered degausser to destroy an actual paper trail.

Re:how come these hard drives were not erased?

[thegarbz]

I was being facetious. But thanks for pointing out the details to all the others who take everything way too seriously.

Re:how come these hard drives were not erased?

[the eric conspiracy]

Thermite works great on just about any kind of storage media. Maybe even clay tablets.

Re:how come these hard drives were not erased?

[camperdave]

Thermite works great on just about any kind of storage media. Maybe even clay tablets.

On the other hand, it may just fire the clay or leave you with a metal cast of the data you are trying to destroy.

Clearly illegal?

[Anonymous Coward]

Isn't this a clear case(s) of warrantless wiretapping?

Re:Clearly illegal?

[EzInKy]

Probably, but these guys are from the branch of government that determines what is constitutional and what is not.

Re:Clearly illegal?

[MachDelta]

Depends on who you ask. Their excuse here is that they're not wiretapping anything, they're just playing 'Marco Polo' with your phone while moving around so they can triangulate where you are so then they can get a warrant. Supposedly, they aren't listening to your calls (not that you'd have any way of verifying that or even challenging it in court) so it doesn't count as wiretapping. In reality, this is taking a page out of the NSA's playbook and trying to skirt the law on a technicality.

Re:Clearly illegal?

[Anonymous Coward]

No. The Supreme court is where constitutionality is determined, and you can easily argue that they get things wrong. Law enforcement agents are definitely not where it is determined. Ultimately, PEOPLE get to decide what is constitutional by VOTING out bad politicians (we should get rid of almost every single one of them in D.C. of all political stripes) but sadly, most of you have abrogated that responsibility out of laziness and apathy. Apathy rains supreme in America because all that matters to most is the handouts and reality TV.

Re:Clearly illegal?

[Anonymous Coward]

If I did this to someone, I'd be charged with wiretapping and/or wire fraud and go to jail. Using electronic equipment to track someone's position isn't "Marco Polo", it's surveillance and in the US (when the rule of law is obeyed) requires a warrant.

Re:Clearly illegal?

[Anonymous Coward]

Melbournite with a whistle here.

The Stingray tech does not wiretap in the traditional sense. In fact, surveillance does not require any calling activity, or even for the phone to be powered on. This thing is cutting edge for the industry, and has been in engineering for a very long time. It's bad news, and the only way the average person with a cell phone can avoid it is to remove their unit's battery.

Here's a related article: http://money.cnn.com/2014/06/06/technology/security/nsa-turn-on-phone

Illegal, but very useful.

[Anonymous Coward]

Everyone associated with the use of illegal police methods and the conspiracy around that NEEDS TO BE PROSECUTED.

Re:Illegal, but very useful.

[scottbomb]

Problem is, the same people who initiate the prosecuting are in on it. Have you heard of a guy named Eric Holder?

Re:Illegal, but very useful.

[EzInKy]

"Activist" judges, the ones who are willing to overrule laws based on Constitutionality no matter what Congress or the President says, have been pretty much shackled by will of the people who want their personal prejudices enforced.

Perjury?

[Hairy1]

Isn't this kinda like....um.... perjury? I'm pretty sure that kind of thing isn't taken lightly by the judiciary. Furthermore, isn't it law enforcement meant to be role models for following the law?

Re:Perjury?

[Anonymous Coward]

Cops are required to lie as a normal part of their job. The only thing notable about this is that the Republicans are extending that to inside the courtroom.

Re:Perjury?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's been fine at the Supreme Court level so long as you preface it with "argle bargle"

Re:Perjury?

[JonWan]

"Isn't this kinda like....um.... perjury? I'm pretty sure that kind of thing isn't taken lightly by the judiciary. Furthermore, isn't it law enforcement meant to be role models for following the law?"

You know it's sad when this statement is modded funny instead of insightful.

I guess about all we can really do is laugh, at least until the general public wakes up.

Re:Perjury?

[Fjandr]

Not to judges. This will result in retrials or having sentences vacated.

Re:Perjury?

[Anonymous Coward]

Not unless the perjury affected the outcome of the case. A case can be imperfect but that does not mean it, or any decisions, gets thrown out unless it would have affected the end result of the case.

Re:Perjury?

[ArchieBunker]

Guess you've never been in court with a cop. Cops lie to judges and persecutors all the time. If cops don't have enough evidence for a warrant they say an anonymous informant tipped them off and the judge rubber stamps it.

Re:Perjury?

[Bite The Pillow]

People with brains, pleas meta moderate. This is at the same plus five as "ha, the whole federal gvmt is in on it and everyone with a government paycheck thinks exactly the same thing" above.

Only one can even remotely be correct. So either very stupid people have mod points, or there are a lot of moderators who don't bother to share their inside information with us.

Re:Perjury?

[Fjandr]

The difference is in whether you can prove the cop lied. All the judges I know take serious offense to being lied to, even by cops.

Re:Perjury?

[drinkypoo]

I guess about all we can really do is laugh, at least until the general public wakes up.

Those who remember the lessons of history are doomed to watch everyone else repeat them.

Re:Perjury?

[Attila Dimedici]

UM, this story is about the U.S. Marshalls Service telling the police to lie in court. The U.S. Marshalls Service is part of the Department of Justice, which answers to the President, who is a Democrat. How exactly is this the Republicans doing anything?

Re:Perjury?

[Loki_1929]

If the general public wakes up, most of them will beg the government for Ambien so they can get back to sleep. This isn't an issue of education; it's a problem of apathy.

pejury

[Anonymous Coward]

Can somebody explain to me how this could possibly fall outside the definition of "perjury"? This seems like exactly the situation for which "contempt of court" was created.

Re:pejury

[Anonymous Coward]

Contempt of court is when the judge knows you are lying, you are misbehaving in court or the judge just doesn't like you. No this is conspiracy to obstruct justice on the part of the DOJ and perjury for any cop stupid enough to tell the lie on the record in court. That records of this have come out means that now the EFF, ACLU etc can file suit and put a stop to it. The bad part is some people who belong in jail are going to get out because the government took a shortcut and then lied about it.

Re:pejury

[Anonymous Coward]

Can somebody explain to me how this could possibly fall outside the definition of "perjury"?

Because it is the police committing the perjury. The courts traditionally refuse to prosecute cops for perjury, even when the defense has overwhelming evidence of such.

Re:pejury

[ArchieBunker]

You basically summed it up. Cops straight up murder people and district attorneys refuse to press charges fearing they will lose the backing of the police. The head of the brotherhood of police is on record saying that police misconduct is so rare it doesn't even exist.

Re:pejury

[Bite The Pillow]

The refusal to press charges is more based on the difficulty of proving it.

In the most basic understanding, the decision on whether to press charges depends on how likely a positive outcome is. Sometimes you have to go with it regardless, but mostly you get a choice where the truth and the evidence are not weighed for justice, but for victory.

Proving the officer lied when law enforcement is assumed to be telling the truth is rather difficult, and requires extraordinary evidence.

A document instructing law enforcement to lie doesn't mean law enforcement lied. You have to show the judge that someone lied. In that case, it is simple perjury. If the judge decides, it is also, or instead, contempt of court. Contempt is a judicial ruling, while perjury is determined by the legislature and prosecuted by the executive (aka the people who instructed their people to lie).

Contempt is usually immediate, so there is no reason to prosecute the exact same behavior for perjury if it is already being punished by contempt.

Lack of desire to prosecute is nowhere in a judge's mind when deciding to levy contempt of court.

Re:pejury

[ArchieBunker]

Show me a case of a cop doing jail time for wrongfully killing someone. I don't mean a month long sentence either, hard time like common folks get.

Re:pejury

[Uberbah]

The refusal to press charges is more based on the difficulty of proving it.

Just as a subcategory, the number of cops who skate after straight-up murdering people on camera makes that a laughable statement. What's the next joke - saying money has little influence on politics?

Re:pejury

[Anonymous Coward]

It would only be perjury if it were a lie. But "confidential source" only means that they're not telling where they got the information from, which is entirely accurate.

Re:pejury

[Loki_1929]

BART police shooting of Oscar Grant is another one. Cop grabs his gun and shoots a guy who's laying on the ground and the guy dies the next morning. 2 years. Minus time served. If the roles were reversed and Grant had shot the officer, he'd have spent the rest of his natural born life in prison.

Re:pejury

[Anonymous Coward]

The head of the brotherhood of police is on record saying that police misconduct is so rare it doesn't even exist.

Which is, of course, yet another lie. Oregon has recently convicted a State Police Captain of 6 counts of "official misconduct" for embezzling money by using his state issued credit card for personal use. Since he was actually charged with a crime I am assuming it was done for political reasons, somebody wanted him out of the way for their own advancement.

Re:pejury

[the eric conspiracy]

Despite the statements on Slashdot to the contrary. cops do server major jail time in these cases.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...

It may not happen enough but it does happen.

Re:pejury

[Anonymous Coward]

Here you go.

This guy regularly drank on duty, and got drunk one day and crashed into some motorcyclists, who were stopped at a stoplight, at 50+ mph and killed several of them. Convicted of 9 felonies and gets 16 years in prison. Indianapolis has been cracking down on corrupt cops quite a lot in the past few years; there have been busts of cops involved in prostitution rings, cops busted selling firearms to felons, and other things.

Unfortunately, there don't seem to be many other cities that actually want to get rid of police corruption, but Indianapolis police have actually run stings specifically to catch corrupt cops.

Why are all of you so naive ?

[Anonymous Coward]

You still believe in justice ?

Looking at the behavior of the government of the United States of America under the Obama Administration, you guys really think that Justice can still prevail ?

Do you think Obama will allow that ?

Re:Why are all of you so naive ?

[Fjandr]

This will only stop when people start constructing and using guided missiles to blow up any cell tower that's not in a location already know to the public. Simply lock onto the stingray signal, and boom, no more dirty cops.

Re:Why are all of you so naive ?

[Runaway1956]

Why, exactly, do you think it alright to make this issue partisan? Did the Obama administration pass the Patriot Act? Did the Obama administration create the secret courts? Which surveillance laws, exactly, did Obama have passed?

The fact of the matter is, GOVERNMENT is out of control. Two administrations, one led by each of the major parties, has abused the system, and encroached on the rights of American citizens. The first administration oversaw the enactment of these unjust laws, the second administration is merely pushing the boundaries of those laws.

The problem is GOVERNMENT, the problem is not a specific administration.

Let us address the real problem, and let's stop using Obama as the boogeyman. The real boogeymen are the DNC and the GOP.

Re:Why are all of you so naive ?

[DaHat]

any cell tower that's not in a location already know to the public

While I admit that I've never asked... do you think your average cell phone company will give you a list of geo-located towers they operate? ... as well as those of their partners who offer services which they piggy back on?

Re:Why are all of you so naive ?

[Trax3001BBS]

any cell tower that's not in a location already know to the public

While I admit that I've never asked... do you think your average cell phone company will give you a list of geo-located towers they operate? ... as well as those of their partners who offer services which they piggy back on?

I thought I had many more book marked but http://www.deadcellzones.com/ is all I have in my list. If you access any of the cell phone areas of the UseNet you can get access to lots of links mainly for the height of the antenna so planes can miss the new ones (there is a height limit).

I seem to have more jammers (schematics) than anything else, most have been taken down.

Re:Why are all of you so naive ?

[Anonymous Coward]

any cell tower that's not in a location already know to the public

While I admit that I've never asked... do you think your average cell phone company will give you a list of geo-located towers they operate? ... as well as those of their partners who offer services which they piggy back on?

Do you honestly think it would be that hard for one of the most abused pieces of hardware in our telecommunications infrastructure to NOT be mapped via a simple app or even crowdsourcing?

Given the number of connections established in any given second, I'd say that map could be built in under a minute.

On top of that, as much as certain vendors want to pimp the fact that they have 99.9999987% coverage across a specific area, I think you actually COULD get a list of towers they operate. They're practically proud of the infrastructure they built (and bought).

Re:Why are all of you so naive ?

[davester666]

It didn't start with the patriot act, that was just taking advantage of 9/11 to move things along much faster than they could have without it.

Re:Why are all of you so naive ?

[Anonymous Coward]

It isn't a partisan issue, but if anyone can fix it, it's the current administration. Previous administrations are no longer in power and future administrations haven't been elected yet. Obama could stop it but doesn't, so of course it's his fault.

Re:Why are all of you so naive ?

[nospam007]

"do you think your average cell phone company will give you a list of geo-located towers they operate? ."

Just google "cellphone towers in the US"

No need to bother the phone companies.

Re:Why are all of you so naive ?

[drinkypoo]

If you were going to solve the problem of dirty cops and you had guided missiles, you wouldn't use them on cell towers that would just be replaced with an insurance payment.

Re:Why are all of you so naive ?

[drinkypoo]

While I admit that I've never asked... do you think your average cell phone company will give you a list of geo-located towers they operate? ... as well as those of their partners who offer services which they piggy back on?

They don't have to. When they acquire a broadcast license, the license is posted by the government and it contains a location sufficient to locate the tower, a frequency, and a transmit power limit.

Re:Why are all of you so naive ?

[C0R1D4N]

It's the job of NSA/CIA etc to be trying to do all this shit as much as possible and with as high a quality as possible. It's not their job to pay attention to the constitution or any of that. The failure is in the whole "checks and balances" aspect of our system not checking or balancing.

Re:Why are all of you so naive ?

[Anonymous Coward]

If you hear someone knocking in the next few hours, run.

Re:Why are all of you so naive ?

[sjames]

Perhaps if you ask right, such as "What are the coordinates of cell towers we shouldn't destroy?"

Re:Why are all of you so naive ?

[ganjadude]

Did the Obama administration pass the Patriot Act?

yes, actually he did, he re authorized it making it his now, he could have easily declared it over but instead he kept the power. it is his fault that we still have it

Did the Obama administration create the secret courts?

we dont know if he did or not, but we do know he is using them, there is no point in worrying about past presidents abuse when we have a current one abusing power

Which surveillance laws, exactly, did Obama have passed?

once again we simply dont know being that the most transparent government is about as transparent as tar, but we do know that under obama surveillance has increased, again this is something that he could have rolled back but didnt

Re:Why are all of you so naive ?

[sjames]

Actually, it *IS* their job.

Meanwhile, this is the Department of Justice. It is most CERTAINLY their job to obey the Constitution and such basics as not commit or suborn perjury.

Re:Why are all of you so naive ?

[DanielRavenNest]

You don't need a list of towers. Just fly a RC drone around with a signal measuring phone and snap a photo when you get close. Official towers should be pretty easy to distinguish from unmarked vans or police cars. No fancy equipment is needed to measure signal strength. Just a mirror in front of the phone that reflects the signal meter to the camera.

Re:Why are all of you so naive ?

[Anonymous Coward]

The real boogeymen are the DFL and the GOP.

FTFY. The DNC is just a convention that the DFL hold, just like the GOP hold the RNC at about the same time.

Re:Why are all of you so naive ?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not their job to pay attention to the constitution or any of that.

It is the job of all citizens, therefore it is also the job of institutions.

Re:Why are all of you so naive ?

[Anonymous Coward]

So, you're just going to ignore that oath they swear to defend the constitution from enemies both foriegn and domestic? I don't. NSA = traitors to their country.

Re:Why are all of you so naive ?

[Wootery]

Help Brendan pay off his student loans [brendansstudentloans.com]

You're asking for free money from strangers, to pay off your student loans?

Classy. I tend to donate to more urgent causes, personally.

Re:Why are all of you so naive ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Having said that you see why he was --Allowed--- to be president.

Yes, I see full well why he was allowed to be president. He met the requirements. Any insinuations that there was some other reason why he was allowed to be president reveal your bias.

Now, if you had instead meant to say elected (which admittedly does not work as a simple find/replace for allowed), then you may have something.

Re:Why are all of you so naive ?

[Jane Q. Public]

Obama could stop it but doesn't, so of course it's his fault.

This.

And according to the best information we have, he has not just not stopped it, he's actively pushed to make it far worse.

So yes, it is definitely his fault, no matter how you look at it.

Re:Why are all of you so naive ?

[Megol]

Yet again you demonstrate your limited knowledge of the US government.

The president can't do whatever he wants. - repeat until you get it.

Re: Why are all of you so naive ?

[tgrigsby]

"Anonymous Coward" indeed. The surveillance you're misattributing started under Bush.

Re:Why are all of you so naive ?

[Bartles]

Why, exactly, do you think it alright to make this issue partisan? Did the Obama administration pass the Patriot Act?

Yes. Barack Obama signed it into law on December 31st, 2011. For the rest of your points, refer to my second sentence.

Re:Why are all of you so naive ?

[Jane Q. Public]

Yet again you demonstrate your limited knowledge of the US government.

Really? Would you care to have a contest?

The president can't do whatever he wants. - repeat until you get it.

Again: really? Let's see: he has personally pushed EPA rules without Congressional input, which is arguable illegal. He has engaged troops and materiel in wartime activities, again without approval of Congress, which is definitely illegal. He has engaged in killing American citizens without trial or conviction, which is illegal about 100 different ways, both domestically and internationally.

But more to the point: Obama personally approved expansions of NSA surveillance, and weakening of Constitutional protections. We know this from leaked documents. His "plausible deniability" is so full of holes you could use it for a screen door.

Re: Why are all of you so naive ?

[kenh]

Obama, in almost every area you mentioned, expanded the activities you want to toss back on Bush.

Where Bush sunset the Patriot Act, Obama renewed it.

Warrantless wire taps were just expanded under Obama in the last week or so.

Etc.

When you take a bad idea from a previous administration and renew/expand it, in some small way it becomes your program too. Unless, apparently, you are a Democrat.

Re:Why are all of you so naive ?

[OhPlz]

The president can't do whatever he wants. - repeat until you get it.

Legal or not, the current President seems to think that he can do whatever he wants via "executive order".

With the lap-dog DoJ, the President really can do just about anything he wants.

Re:Why are all of you so naive ?

[camg188]

There must be some really simple work-around that they seem to be trying to hide.
Maybe something like the fact that a cell phone can choose which cell base it connects to.
I'm not familiar with the cell tower side of the phone connection, but I imagine that every cell base location must have a unique ID, even a stingray. Seems like your phone could very easily be set to only connect with a cell that has a particular ID. It would then be very easy to set up a whitelist of known actually cell tower locations, to avoid a stingray in the middle.

Re: Why are all of you so naive ?

[Runaway1956]

And, you've glossed over the point that GOVERNMENT is the problem.

When the administration changed, was there a major upheaval, accompanied by a massive change of personnel at NSA? I don't remember any such thing. Had you been employed at the NSA, it would have been a pretty smooth transition. Old business would have become new business. Same old same old - just continue with the routine.

Re:Why are all of you so naive ?

[Anonymous Coward]

His "plausible deniability" is so full of holes you could use it for a screen door.

Depends on the size of the holes - wouldn't wanna let the flies in.

Re:Why are all of you so naive ?

[david_thornley]

DFL? I thought that was local to Minnesota, where the Democrats merged with the Farmer-Labor party a long time ago, although pretty well nothing survives of them except the names. I don't know of a good TLA for the Democrat party.

Re:Why are all of you so naive ?

[Bartles]

This is the oath of office for the Attorney General. Arguably, it his primary duty to uphold and defend the Constitution.

'I (name), do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.

Re:Why are all of you so naive ?

[tolkienfan]

Er, he was suggesting targetting the stngrays not the official cell towers...

Re:Why are all of you so naive ?

[Fjandr]

I don't store my guided missile parts at home. :)

Re:Why are all of you so naive ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Bush did not know, did not understand, he just did not speak with me, but my list of people he did talk to is... precisely the people he would omit if he had talked to me and know...

Re:Why are all of you so naive ?

[rezme]

This is also the oath sworn by every member of the armed service

Does this taint any verdicts?

[ShaunC]

When (e.g.) a forensic examiner is discovered to have manipulated or faked various test results that were introduced by the prosecution, this often results in hundreds of prior cases being reviewed. Every case that person touched as an expert or as a witness is called into question. Verdicts are vacated, people get released from prison.

Shouldn't that scenario be playing out here? Any case in which a supposed "confidential informant" was used in these Florida jurisdictions is now potentially in question. Defense attorneys should be lining up over this.

Re:Does this taint any verdicts?

[Loki_1929]

It won't happen for precisely the reason you stated. If one got through, it would open the floodgates and overwhelm the judiciary. I'm not saying it's right, but that's the reality.

Well then

[EuclideanSilence]

Let's see if you are allowed to own and use a stingray (which is basically a cell phone tower mimic). I wonder how innocuous the police will think they are then.

Re:Well then

[Bite The Pillow]

It's insightful because you equivocate individual citizens to law enforcement, because clearly their super powers are exactly the same.

Are you, as an individual with a stingray device, allowed to request judicial approval to investigate and/or detain a potentially lawbreaking citizen?

I'm very fucking well not talking about unconstitutional horseshit, where you ask rhetorically whether some agency should be able to ask permission from some secret bunch of righteous dudes.

I'm talking about you, as a non-law-enforcement person, being remotely the same ballpark as law enforcement. It;s not. They don't think it's innocuous, they think it's legal.

If you are going to fight something you should really understand it, and not make terrible rhetorical arguments. Or, you can be like this guy and say stupid shit, your call.

Police don't think they are innocuous, nor illegal, nor any other negative. They believe themselves necessary, and for that reason individual non-law-enforcement people are not necessary. So they would advise you to stay out of it and give them whatever info you have.

Be honest, and rhetoric be damned.

Re:Well then

[camperdave]

Side question here. The FCC regs say any transmitter under a certain power level does not need a license. So, can a theatre owner operate a low power stingray or other cell site simulator to attract all of the cell phones in the theatre and never pass ring signals to them?

Re:Well then

[Anonymous Coward]

Side question here. The FCC regs say any transmitter under a certain power level does not need a license. So, can a theatre owner operate a low power stingray or other cell site simulator to attract all of the cell phones in the theatre and never pass ring signals to them?

Guess that depends on if you're going to pass E911 signaling or not.

(Yeah, yeah, yeah...I know...back in my day we used to be as much as a couple dozen feet away from a device capable of dialing 911. Now we must ensure and guarantee that people can still carry this around in the palm of their hand, because apparently humans are unable to function in life without 911 in their hand, so sayeth the lawyer...)

Re:Well then

[Anonymous Coward]

I like the way you think.

Downside is the reason Stingray's work is that cellphones default to the compatible cell tower with the strongest signal where they currently are, so the stingray would have to at least be powerful enough that it appears stronger than more distant cell towers. Now it may be that that still allows them to stay below the threshold of what the FCC ignores, but it would be something that would make it require a certain minimum power level

Re:Well then

[drinkypoo]

So, can a theatre owner operate a low power stingray or other cell site simulator to attract all of the cell phones in the theatre and never pass ring signals to them?

No, because it's both a denial of service attack and interference with the normal operation of a licensed device. And you shouldn't have to ask.

Re:Well then

[camperdave]

No, because it's both a denial of service attack and interference with the normal operation of a licensed device.

I'm not familiar with the intricate details of the regulations in the so-called "Land of the Free", but wouldn't those objections also apply to the operators of the Stingray as well?

Re:Well then

[drinkypoo]

I'm not familiar with the intricate details of the regulations in the so-called "Land of the Free", but wouldn't those objections also apply to the operators of the Stingray as well?

Yes, but national security bullshit bullshit national security terrists bullshit.

Re:Well then

[AK Marc]

Are you, as an individual with a stingray device, allowed to request judicial approval to investigate and/or detain a potentially lawbreaking citizen?

No, because I don't need judicial approval to investigate or detain a lawbreaking citizen.

Police don't think they are innocuous, nor illegal, nor any other negative.

"Innocuous" is a negative? I don't think that word means what you think that word means.

The difference between me and a cop is that if I'm wrong when I arrest someone, I'm personally liable. Beyond that, there isn't much else that should separate us (depends on your jurisdiction).

Re:Well then

[T-ice]

Oh, but you can. Well it's not exactly the same thing. Have you heard of a femtocell doodad? When I first heard of stingray, I thought back to an interview from a guy at blackhat or defcon, I can't remember which. Anyway, here's a few links. I remember hearing them say that the traffic from the devices communicated w/o encryption to the servers. Supposedly that was fixed, but may very well still have more vulnerabilities like this one.
http://hackaday.com/2012/04/12...
so 1) they already do sell things with retarded capability to consumers
2) the argument "we don't want the criminal element to know we have this kind of capability because they'll know how we find them" is invalid.

http://money.cnn.com/2013/07/1...

http://www.digitaltrends.com/m...

So you are saying ...

[Anonymous Coward]

It won't stop until the DoJ actually starts handing out serious penalties instead of a slap on the wrist for this sort of behavior. I'm talking jail time.

It's only illegal if they counseled the cops to do this in a specific case. If they just told the cops that's what they should do in general, then it isn't a crime.

Are you saying that if a CAP told all his/her clients how to cheat on tax it is *****NOT***** a crime, unless that CPA specifically instructs one particular client on how to specifically take advantage on ONE PARTICULAR SECTION OF THE TAX LAW ?

Re:So you are saying ...

[jeIlomizer]

Its no different than all the youtube videos that show people how to break the law and start off with a "this is for education purposes only" line.

It's significantly different, because these people are in positions of power in the government and have the ability to easily ruin people's lives.

Easy solution

[vandelais]

Have the manufacturer of the "so-called Stingray", whatever that means, change the branding or release a version called "confidential source".
After all, one of those "so-called Stingrays" killed Steve Irwin.

stingray

[rossdee]

aren.t they also used to take out people who hunt crocodiles?

So you are saying ...

[Anonymous Coward]

It won't stop until the DoJ actually starts handing out serious penalties instead of a slap on the wrist for this sort of behavior. I'm talking jail time.

It's only illegal if they counseled the cops to do this in a specific case. If they just told the cops that's what they should do in general, then it isn't a crime.

Are you saying that if a CAP told all his/her clients how to cheat on tax it is *****NOT***** a crime, unless that CPA specifically instructs one particular client on how to specifically take advantage on ONE PARTICULAR SECTION OF THE TAX LAW ?

Its no different than all the youtube videos that show people how to break the law and start off with a "this is for education purposes only" line.

Papers please, comrade.

[Anonymous Coward]

We don't need warrants. We don't need to disclose our methods. We don't need to tell the truth.

We're the fucking cops, and anything we do is OK because it's done in the name of justice.

Wake up, America. Your police state is happening all around you.

Doesn't this mean the Well is Poisoned?

[Anonymous Coward]

So if defendants who were prosecuted in situations where this tech was used were successfully prosecuted in the time after this request had been made, doesn't that mean that those prosecutions can now be challenged on admissability grounds? If so, it is easy to see why the government went to such lengths to keep the ACLU at bay.

Signal

[SleepyHappyDoc]

I seem to remember an old jailbreak app for iPhones, called Signal I think, that triangulated positions of the cell towers you were connected to and plotted them on a map. I wonder if something like this could be used in an app, to warn people when a stingray was capturing their signal. If your app "remembers" the positions of towers, and it suddenly sees a new one, or it sees one that is not stationary, seems to me that'd be a good sign that something wasn't right. Is this possible, or am I misremembering?

Even better would be if the app connected with others to create a crowd-sourced database of where and when they are used.

Re:Signal

[NormalVisual]

MIT is already working on something similar.

Re:Signal

[turp182]

Here's more info regarding the link that NormalVisual provided.

Spidey is an Android app that tracks the cell towers available at a location and can supposedly notify you when new towers show up (or at least identify them by comparing against prior scans).

I've been trying to use it, but I can't get it to pick up more than one tower at a time, in downtown St. Louis (I would expect several towers to be visible).

Here's a presentation about the application:
https://docs.google.com/presen...

Here's the download link for the app:
https://rink.hockeyapp.net/app...

Re:Signal

[matbury]

The simplest solution is to leave your phone at home if you go anywhere near a protest, demonstration, rally, or any kind of democratic participation. If you really need to communicate with people, get a burner and dump it after the event.

I think that's what activitists and anyone with mischievous intent would do. So they won't get caught/identified so easily but anyone else who doesn't come prepared in this way will.

Of course, if the suspect was a CEO, politician, banker, etc. they'd have nothing to worry about. The cops would just pass them over as beyond suspicion. As long as perjury only convicts minorities, the poor, and those engaged in democratic participation, nobody in a position of authority cares.

Re:Signal

[Anonymous Coward]

You are very naive. The NSA has developed software to track "co-travelers". Even if you don't carry your normal phone, if you associate your phone to someone else being tracked (which is virtually everyone), in any manner, you're opening yourself up to being tracked. Burner phones aren't any good if you identify yourself by behavior. ID by behavior is the new norm, not the exception.

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/12/meet-co-traveler-nsas-cell-phone-location-tracking-program

Re:Signal

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem is that even with a burner or a powered-off phone, it doesn't prevent real-time surveillance. The Spidey App is not effective in practice, either.

CTOS...

[Anonymous Coward]

After hacking my local CTOS system I am able to prevent law enforcement from tracking me

Perjury anyone?

[EmperorOfCanada]

Perjury anyone? Shouldn't there be a whole bus load of policemen going to jail? I am fairly certain that any of us would be going to jail if we deliberately falsified documents going to a judge for something as serious as a search warrant.

This would be an excellent exercise in eliminating a whole swath of police who don't respect our rights. I would also hope that they put them in general population so that they can encounter first hand the monsters that their injustices have created.

Re:Perjury anyone?

[camperdave]

The problem isn't just the police officers; the ones who instructed the police to lie should also be getting jail time. Sadly, as others have pointed out, the only ones with the authority to bring them to justice is they themselves.

Re:Perjury anyone?

[countach]

This is outrageous, and what's worse, once the public believes the police will lie to secure the verdict they want, the confidence in the entire justice system is undermined.

Re:Perjury anyone?

[Anonymous Coward]

Really throwing the pigs under the bus is a good step. Maybe next time they won't be so quick to colaborate with evil on violations of civil rights when their ass becomes street bacon.

Re:Perjury anyone?

[Anonymous Coward]

This is outrageous, and what's worse, once the public believes the police will lie to secure the verdict they want, the confidence in the entire justice system is undermined.

And where have you been? Police have been routinely lying in traffic court for decades.

Re:Perjury anyone?

[PPH]

The local police will just claim that they are operating under federal orders not to discuss the particulars of the technology. National security, you know. And the Feds issuing those orders are beyond the jurisdiction of state and local judges. Supremacy Clause of the Constitution.

What judges need to do is just throw out cases where the source of the leads cannot be discussed. Whether by some technical means or confidential informant, a defendant has the right to cross examine witnesses.

The problem with cross examination seems to be that it applies to a different case than the one the defendant is being tried for. Law enforcement's parallel construction takes pains to ensure that proper evidence is collected for the case on trial. Drug-sniffing dogs did in fact alert on the suspect's vehicle. How those drug-sniffing dogs came to be on the scene, whether legally or not, is a different case. Its not the one on trial at the moment. And its going to take a judge with one big set of balls to call out the local cops, let alone their federal overlords.

Re:Perjury anyone?

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem isn't just the police officers; the ones who instructed the police to lie should also be getting jail time. Sadly, as others have pointed out, the only ones with the authority to bring them to justice is they themselves.

Those who had warrants execute against them based on this prejury can at least bring a civil suit against the local police, us marshalls and DoJ for violations of civil rights(4th amendment at a minimum).

I would hope the ACLU would be filing such suits soon.

Re:Perjury anyone?

[AK Marc]

It's not purjury to coach someone to give true but misleading information. A "lie" is a misleading statement. A lie needn't be false to be a lie. But the actionable lies must be false and damaging. A non-damaging lie (in most cases) isn't actionable. Nor is a true lie. The police are coached in misleading without telling a falsehood. Prosecutors are coached in how to admit evidence and respond to discovery in a manner that avoids certain truths from being revealed.

That you don't know the rules (by design), doesn't mean anyone broke them.

Re:Perjury anyone?

[EmperorOfCanada]

But they were saying confidential informant, not electronic spy gizmo.

Re:Perjury anyone?

[AK Marc]

If the electronic spy gizmo was "confidential", then define "informant" in such a manner that it wasn't a confidential informant.

The lawyers proabably spent lots of time making sure it was legal to lie.

Re:Perjury anyone?

[EmperorOfCanada]

If you have ever met a lawyer who works with cops you will have met a very frustrated lawyer. Some cops understand and can apply the rules. Many others do not have a clue and couldn't apply them anyway.

I know one lawyer who was telling about their many years of working with cops and what was interesting was that they much preferred the local cops as they knew the routines way way better. But the grander more respected police force was borderline useless when it came to i dotting and t crossing. Plus this lawyer would do their damnedest to keep the latter off the stand unless there was no alternative at all.

So I suspect that with this technology that some may have bent the rules and will get away with it. But I suspect that others didn't even know which rules shouldn't be broken and are so guilty that they are more guilty than the people they were trying to catch. Hopefully through the abuses of these people that the whole program is shut down.

Re:Perjury anyone?

[AK Marc]

But the grander more respected police force was borderline useless when it came to i dotting and t crossing

I've seen a video of a cop advising a suspect to cooperate because the legal consequences will be worse if he doesn't (threat of harm to extract information is called "torture"). The cop was in trouble for giving legal advice, something cops are banned from doing. He was cleared of wrongdoing. "cops can't give legal advice, so it obviously wasn't legal advice, it was an interview tactic."

We need a law that makes it illegal for cops to lie in their official duties. Personally, I'd leave that in effect for under cover, but I expect that "except for under-cover work" could be added, so long as under cover work was specified and required a warrant, or other verifiable paper trail.

The feds are scared

[jonwil]

The feds are probably scared that if state cops release all this info (or allow it to be brought up in a court where defense lawyers could get the info in questioning), it could A.Allow the bad guys to figure out how to detect these devices (and therefore not do anything incriminating over their phones when they detect one or possibly even find ways to avoid the monitoring all together by e.g. switching carriers for their throwaway phones) or B.Give the bad guys information they could use to get a judge to say "you need a warrant to do what you did, you didn't get one therefore your evidence is inadmissible"

Re:The feds are scared

[NormalVisual]

Of course they're afraid of that. Heaven forbid we actually allow the accused to exercise their right to a fair trial.

Re:The feds are scared

[Anonymous Coward]

The feds are probably scared that people will figure out who the "real bad guys" are.

Re:The feds are scared

[Anonymous Coward]

They don't think they're the bad guys. They think they're the good guys, in the same way the audience of 24 thinks the hero is the good guy - the thug needs to give up the information so a little torture is justified.

I'd like to see someone innocent get beaten up by the cops on TV, just to scare people a little. Shame it won't help because unlike 24, they'll make themselves feel comfortable by saying "Well, it was just TV..."

Re:The feds are scared

[strikethree]

it could A.Allow the bad guys to figure out how to detect these devices (and therefore not do anything incriminating over their phones when they detect one or possibly even find ways to avoid the monitoring all together by e.g. switching carriers for their throwaway phones)

All of the real bad guys already practice signals discipline. This only catches the lazy and the petty criminals.

What my prior statement implies is that there is no compelling reason to violate the constitution with these devices.

I'm Gonna Whistle Blow

[Anonymous Coward]

What they don't tell you about the Stingray is the all sorts of illegal things it has been developed to do as a "fake" cell tower. This thing is capable of far more than triangulating a cell phone's location, all of which is a huge invasion of privacy. Because of the Stingray tech, there is only one real way to protect yourself from surveillance while carrying a cell phone: removal of the battery.

The cops are being encouraged by the government and Harris Corporation to keep from revealing these devices as a source because they want to avoid a situation where they have to reveal everything the Stingray is capable of doing.

For those who can make the connection, let's just say that I've lived in Melbourne for years.

Re:I'm Gonna Whistle Blow

[Anonymous Coward]

Protect yourself from surveillance by removing the battery? Your innocence is astounding. Unless you can manage to mount a concerted effort to obscure the data (chaffing, mixnets, etc.), you're still being tracked--and you're pretty much putting a giant flashing light on your head saying, "HERE! ME!"

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/12/meet-co-traveler-nsas-cell-phone-location-tracking-program

With neither public debate nor court authorization, CO-TRAVELER collects billions of records daily of cell phone user location information. It maps the relationships of cell phone users across global mobile network cables, gathering data about who you are physically with and how often your movements intersect with other cell phone users. The program even tracks when your phone is turned on or off.

Re:I'm Gonna Whistle Blow

[david_thornley]

Removing the battery is generally unnecessary. When you're going about your ordinary routine, generally carry your phone. You may want to leave it at home a few times. When performing a clandestine activity, leave the phone somewhere else (you might ask a friend to carry it), and carry a burner if you need one.

Not having an innocuous-looking profile is suspicious in itself.

Re:I'm Gonna Whistle Blow

[IsoQuantic]

I have seen Stingray from Harris Corp in action and agree with your assessment of its capabilities.

The liars build the camps for themselves

[Anonymous Coward]

All these official liars build all these FEMA camps for themselves, they just don't know it yet.

One day the people will get fed up with being lied to and spied on by all these officials without integrity.

There are historical and biblical precedents of such kind of unintended use of punishment devices build by alledgedly superior people.

people are the problem.

[cheekyboy]

And who works for the govt, your average joe fat pack in an office.

Who approves of the laws and pushes them? Your employed cops and lawyers.

Too many people with high qualifications and so called smarts are just "Doing their job" like the S.S. in Germany did.

Time to say, FU boss, quit, or dont even go applying for govt jobs, leaving it empty for foreigners (who came from bad regime govts and are use to oppression, who then go on creating more of it)

Re:people are the problem.

[mariox19]

It's not simply that they're "just doing their job." Some of them justify what they do that way. But some of them have convinced themselves that they're on the side of the angels. They catch "bad guys"—that's the simpleton phrase they use. So, anything they do is okay, because the ends justify the means.

What?! Do you like bad guys or something?

The average person cannot integrate anything so abstract and complicated as the need for constitutional restraints: meaning, why government power needs to be restrained, even if in the short run of particular cases the "inconvenience" of such restraints lets the "bad guys" get away. The only thing the average person is able to digest is so-called "patriotism," the fight of "good guys versus bad guys" (in this case, literally, cops and robbers), and the kind of chauvinism of association that allows them to believe that they and the other great bunch of guys on the job are hard at work doing good.

This kind of mentality can accommodate any kind of political circumstances just as happily as any other—America, Iran, Cuba, the old Soviet Union, Nazi Germany, or what have you. That's what's so scary.

Undermine police testimony in subsequent cases

[Anonymous Coward]

If it can be shown that a police officer has deceived a court in the past, that fact can be brought up in subsequent trials to undermine the credibility of his testimony.

Re:Undermine police testimony in subsequent cases

[EmagGeek]

Forget subsequent trials. It will also undermine the previous trials and those convictions could be thrown out.

All of those officers lied on the stand and should be charged as such.

You became older

[Anonymous Coward]

"When I was a kid, this kind of shit is what was attributed to the Soviets. And now, people seem to somehow accept this as normal."

Such kind of shit hapenned at all decades. Name one decades you will find a similar justice scandal or abuse if you dig enough.

The difference is that now that you rgew up, you became interrested in such news. And it won't progress , america will continue to sink into oligarchy, and thanks to the two party system, people will continue to get "gamed" at election.

App to detect stingray

[EmagGeek]

A stingray is basically just a base station emulator, right? It should be theoretically easy to detect whether or not your phone is connected to one based on the output power setting on your phone's radio, and knowing the distance to the legitimate towers around you.

Since all phone adjust their power output to the minimum necessary to maintain a link to the base station, If the power setting on your phone is too low for the distance, there is a good chance you are connected to something much closer to you.

All we need is an app that knows where all of the towers are located (freely available information on the web) and that can make a reasonable calculation as to how much power should be required to maintain a link for a given phone position.

Any thoughts?

Re:App to detect stingray

[Kernel Kurtz]

It won't be long before IMSI catchers are easily detectable. Even though I have nothing to hide, I can't wait for that day.

https://opensource.srlabs.de/p...

http://forum.xda-developers.co...

https://github.com/jtwarren/sp...

Re:App to detect stingray

[Anonymous Coward]

Someone at MIT is working on one called spideyapp, it is not available at the moment but there is a webpage to leave an email address to be notified if and when it launches.

It is guaranteed to have a false positive rate of many thousands of incorrect

Re:App to detect stingray

[Anonymous Coward]

an app already exists here:
https://github.com/jtwarren/spidey

Partsian can be effective

[Anonymous Coward]

If you make it a partsian issue and put the blame squarely on a single individual and make sure that individual feels the pain and is punished for wrongdoing then you will stop both sides from doing it. If you make it non-partsian and say both sides are equally bad, that gives everyone a free pass because they just say the other guy would do it too.

Throw the guy currently doing wrong in jail and you break the chain of corruption. Defend the guy currently doing it saying both sides are bad and you give both a free pass to continue.

Not sure why that is difficult to understand.

Re:Partsian can be effective

[jeIlomizer]

If you make it non-partsian and say both sides are equally bad, that gives everyone a free pass because they just say the other guy would do it too.

"Everybody's doing it!" is not a defense.

Besides, this is no reason to ignore the truth: The government is full of evil scumbags, and it's a non-partisan issue.

Throw the guy currently doing wrong in jail and you break the chain of corruption.

Doesn't work. Never worked.

Defend the guy currently doing it saying both sides are bad and you give both a free pass to continue.

No one is defending him.

Not sure why that is difficult to understand.

Because it's illogical.

Who Watches the Watchers?

[turp182]

A very apt question in this case.

And the next question, Who Prosecutes the Watchers?

Re:Who Watches the Watchers?

[Anonymous Coward]

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

We the People do. It's our own goddamn Constitution. Do your job.

Tell you what...

[jpellino]

Art Mullen would never stand for this. See what happens when you send a shoot from the hip deputy back to Florida. Wait, what? Actual US Marshals did this? Nice way to jeopardize current and past cases, guys.

Criminal sanctions for Harris board/officers?

[Anonymous Coward]

From TFA:

"The Harris Corporation, a Florida-based company that makes one of the most popular models of stingrays called Stingray, has made law enforcement agencies sign a non-disclosure agreement explicitly prohibiting them from telling anyone, including other government bodies, about their use of the secretive equipment."

18 USC 1622:
"Whoever procures another to commit any perjury is guilty of subornation of perjury, and shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than five years, or both. "

Connect the dots...

I may be naive...

[Anonymous Coward]

..but how is this not perjury? I"m pretty sure the police have to provide judges with signed affadavits.

Goodbye Internet, it was good while it lasted.

[Anonymous Coward]

And thus the web fractured, and with it the wireless data links as well, for they were useless without the web. Distrust of any system that wasn't yours gathered enough entropy to kill the world wide cybernetic beast. In death there is new beginning. The removal of supply does not decrease demand. Just as the wired BBS before sprang up to meet the demand of citizens they soon sought to self organize their own Fidonet-esque shortwave radio network, where there were no carrier fees - Simply erect an antenna and connect the radio and its cache and become part of the network.

At first the regulatory body balked, but power gained illegitimately is quickly removed. Protocols with end to end authenticated encryption were established. Connection graphs where no node need be trusted became standard. Just as the unknown delivery of packet signalling granted leeway for the Internet to bloom, a new emergent phenomena began, and harnessed a little more chaos with a more advanced network and filter. Looking back it's clear that information has always followed such a decentralization process, why even back to its very roots as DNA.

So began the golden Age of Information.

So cover it under wiretapping?

[jpellino]

This might be more laziness than malice. Front load it with a warrant with a judge's approval. Hard to imagine nobody involved would not want it that way - technically they are intercepting a signal, it is supplying information they could not get without using that signal, and as wiretapping there's a clear procedure for how much and how long you can do, with a warrant approved by a judge. That seems to be the direction GPS tracking is headed, though there's a third federal case about to go on.

Re:So cover it under wiretapping?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistinguishable from malice.

Laziness is a failure to do your job. In other words, you are not competent.

Overturns abound in Florida

[Anonymous Coward]

Now ever judgement where a "confidential source" is attributed will be reversed, nice going you fucking retards @ the U.S. Marshals service.

May as well come clean on stingray, because until you do, all prosecutions across the country are in danger of immediate reversal if the perp has a cell phone, because now, it's illegally obtained evidence.

You're going to end up making more criminals walk because of your ass-hattery.

Take Back the Law

[Anonymous Coward]

A group of us are working on the creation of citizen initiated laws (ballot questions) designed to help force the government to give up some of its control. One of those initiatives has a direct bearing on what we are talking about here. If you want to actually do something to help change this, email us at info@takebackthelaw.org (no web page yet, but a web design volunteer would be appreciated)

Question: Should agents of , including any and all agents of any of its political sub-divisions, be required to be truthful when dealing with it citizens? This law has some specific, narrow exceptions for police work.

A "Yes" vote will enact the following legislation:

All agents and employees of the state, including its political subdivisions (agencies, counties, cities, towns, etc) are required to be truthful in all dealing with the public. It shall be unlawful for any agent of the government of or any of its political subdivisions to lie to any member of the public or any citizen in the performance of their duties, including lies of omission. Any member of the public damaged by a lie made by a public official in the course of their duties may sue the state or political subdivision for all damages reasonably caused by the lie. Where applicable, this section shall serve as a waiver of immunity.

Certain extraordinary police functions may require police to lie to a citizen or the public for limited times and in limited circumstances. Police must obtain a warrant based upon a very strong showing of probable cause in order to legally lie. The warrant application and issuing warrant shall detail who they will be lying to, what information they expect to gain from lying to the public. Where a law enforcement officer obtains information based on a lie, and a warrant was not previously issued allowing that lie, all information and evidence obtained shall be deemed fruit of the poisonous tree, and shall be inadmissible in any court action.

Ethical cops ....

[PPH]

... would just hand the Stingray back to the U.S Marshals and tell them that if they can't testify truthfully in court about the source of their evidence, they can't use the device. As far as I can see, the Florida cops have a piece of equipment on the premises which has no legal use.

A smart defense attorney might be able to impeach police testimony merely by exposing the presence of such equipment.

just find who sent those emails

[Anonymous Coward]

and shoot them in the head. problem solved.