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Department of Justice Harvests Cell Phone Data Using Planes
Tyketto writes The US Department of Justice has been using fake communications towers installed in airplanes to acquire cellular phone data for tracking down criminals, reports The Wall Street Journal. Using fix-wing Cessnas outfitted with DRT boxes produced by Boeing, the devices mimic cellular towers, fooling cellphones into reporting "unique registration information" to track down "individuals under investigation." The program, used by the U.S. Marshals Service, has been in use since 2007 and deployed around at least five major metropolitan areas, with a flying range that can cover most of the US population. As cellphones are designed to connect to the strongest cell tower signal available, the devices identify themselves as the strongest signal, allowing for the gathering of information on thousands of phones during a single flight. Not even having encryption on one's phone, like found in Apple's iPhone 6, prevents this interception. While the Justice Department would not confirm or deny the existence of such a program, Verizon denies any involvement in this program, and DRT (a subsidiary of Boeing), AT&T, and Sprint have all declined to comment.
"...Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government.......But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security
Far from everybody were fooled by his charade. Many of us voted for him because the thought of Sarah Palin as Vice President was even worse and revealed a critical flaw in John McCain's leadership (while others were voting against McCain proper,) others were hoping to keep Republicans out of power period, and the next election, fielding Romney, was an even worse choice. So, no hope for change whatsoever and a desire to pick the lesser of two oligarchs.
If we're insistent upon an only-two-viable-party system, I wish to God the Republicans would field Presidential candidates who aren't worse fucknuts than the Democrat party candidate.
In 1982 the Justice Department tried to tally the number of Federal Criminal laws. After a full two years of investigation among 50 titles and 23K pages of law, they approximated 3,000. However, they could not come up with an exact count because of the breadth and depth of the source material. 32 years later the situation is almost certainly worse.
In 2013 Federal Agencies issued 3,659 final rules. A violation of any of which could tie you up in court for years trying to resolve.
A real-world example: a drug company in the course of making its product was creating as a byproduct: pure water. They wanted to dump it into a nearby body of water, even going to far as offering to precisely add salt to avoid disrupting the salinity of the body of water. The EPA refused saying it was industrial waste, even though chemically it was saltwater, nothing more.
Part of the theory behind the rule of law is that the common man has to be able to understand the rules in which he operates. Otherwise one is living in an environment which is functionally equivalent to ex post facto law creation. IE the Red Queen can sentence you if your existence falls under her gaze and displeases her. Right now in the United States there are so many laws and rules that even experts in a particular field cannot say with certainty if a person is in compliance.