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FBI Says Search Warrants Not Needed To Use "Stingrays" In Public Places
schwit1 writes The Federal Bureau of Investigation is taking the position that court warrants are not required when deploying cell-site simulators in public places. Nicknamed "stingrays," the devices are decoy cell towers that capture locations and identities of mobile phone users and can intercept calls and texts. The FBI made its position known during private briefings with staff members of Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) and Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa). In response, the two lawmakers wrote Attorney General Eric Holder and Homeland Security chief Jeh Johnson, maintaining they were "concerned about whether the FBI and other law enforcement agencies have adequately considered the privacy interests" of Americans. According to the letter, which was released last week: "For example, we understand that the FBI's new policy requires FBI agents to obtain a search warrant whenever a cell-site simulator is used as part of a FBI investigation or operation, unless one of several exceptions apply, including (among others): (1) cases that pose an imminent danger to public safety, (2) cases that involve a fugitive, or (3) cases in which the technology is used in public places or other locations at which the FBI deems there is no reasonable expectation of privacy."
How is this not, basically, wiretapping (for which a warrant would ordinarily be necessary)?
They do, however, require a license to transmit on those frequencies, which they do not have.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
The FBI doesnt get to make that decision, A Judge or congress will
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
So if I should happen to live next to a public place, and their signal penetrates my walls into my private residence, can I sue them for trespassing and for intercepting my calls in a place where I would have an expectation of privacy?
Of course not. *sigh*
And it is well known that our Government now considered ALL CITIZENS as criminals who merely have not been convicted yet.
on a phone call? These people are trash, they destroy our freedom for the sole purpose of making their job easier. Yep, the terrorists won by turning us against ourselves.
Interfering with the orderly operation of vital infrastructure would be a crime if done by an ordinary person.
Why can the the police get away with it, without any special permission.
This is addressed to the plutocrats, so ill keep it short and sweet. I get that the cloistered elite arent to be concerned with this, but your cash cattle certainly care. If we keep going down this road, you can expect to lose everything. we will stop using your app stores, stop using your wireless towers entirely, and form small mesh networks as was the case recently in China. these networks in 20 or 30 years will grow into an encrypted tor mesh, from which you will realize no revenue outside of the occasional new "cell phone" you decide to belch forth. your films and music will never earn another cent. and in the short term i'll buy an inexpensive mp3 player and leave my phone sitting at home, turned off, as most of us should. This should be of grave concern as well, considering ubiquitous passive wireless scanning systems employed in some of the largest stores in the world would certainly become far less reliable without a willing and oblivious captive audience.
and most importantly you'll have created a new generation of hardened hackers and leakers who now believe in retribution, as freedom is clearly subject to arbitrary terms and conditions outside the realm of a government by, of, and for the people.
Good people go to bed earlier.
Has any law enforcement agency ever maintained that they need a warrant for anything?
Well, traditionally not the ones that want to have any of that evidence actually be accepted in a courtroom.
Unfortunately, old-fashioned traditions like due process are illegal now.
They've been automatically classified as obstructing justice in the war against terror, hence the now-accepted norm of shoving Rights up your ass sideways.
If the FBI would get upset about a random citizen using said device, then what makes them think they don't need a warrant?
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
They can do things that drastically infringe on basic rights and freedoms without oversight and consequences. The police in all its forms becomes more and more like criminal gangs and grab every bit of power than they can get.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
Somehow I doubt they'd see it the same way if someone setup a rogue femtocell on the sidewalk outside an FBI office...
What does this button d$#%* NO CARRIER
Many of us suspect this has been true for a lot longer than people realize. The rot has been going on for a very long time.
If the FBI is openly saying the 4th amendment is meaningless, they've been ignoring it and the rest of the laws for a very long time.
As long as people accept "you have nothing to fear if you have nothing to hide", this will get worse.
Nobody gives a shit about their liberty, they want to know when American Idol is on, and when they can get the next iPhone.
9/11 just killed any last pretense of caring about the law and liberty. And that is spilling into the rest of the world, so much so that the US is more or less the enemy of freedom and liberty on the planet.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
i guess i didn't realize that the devices could distinguish if you are on a public side walk vs on your private lawn/apt next to the sidewalk...
Does this let a mall cop deploy an xray machine at the mall to see through pretty girls clothes, saying in public, clothes should not provide them with an expectation of privacy?
Sent from my ENIAC
Just like the true Stingray can only live under water, these Stingray devices, I've heard, stop at the lawn. The CANNOT, by definition, trespass the space line between the sidewalk and the lawn, so you'd be safe if you were standing on the lawn. They can crawl over concrete, though. So they can go up your driveway and onto your porch, but the threshold into your house/apartment stops them dead in their tracks.
Is that a roll of dimes in your pocket or are you happy to see me?
So if they tap a wire at the curb, it's a public place, and no warant is required?
So I guess it's OK for me to set up and run a Stingray-type device on private property near FBI/DoJ/DHS/TLA buildings and facilities and/or their individual personnels' home residences then, right?
Be careful what you wish for FBI/DoJ, you just may get it.
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
Because when you are in a public place you have no right to the expectation of privacy
Cellphone signals do not stop conveniently at the walls of your dwelling. How do you propose they sort out which signals are only coming from a public location? (Hint: they cannot)
Whether a communication goes over a physical wire or via the airwaves should have zero legal bearing regarding whether a warrant is needed. The police still need a warrant to tap my phone calls from work. Why should wireless be subject to different rules merely because it isn't tied to a specific physical location?
If you are walking and talking down the sidewalk in town other people are able to hear your side of the conversation.
And the police are welcome to listen in to what I say out loud in public. That doesn't mean they are automatically granted the right to hear both sides of the conversation. For that they need a warrant. The party on the other end of the conversation has rights too.
A StingRay detector for some rooted Androids exists: http://www.tomsguide.com/us/an...
So, I could see crowdsourcing StingRay mapping. Rooted Android + SnoopSnitch + IOIO board + interface application + Google maps + web site. If enough snoops were deployed, you could have a real time map of all StingRays in operation.
We have a DOJ that ignores or unequally applies criminal law, natural law and the constitution.
We have judges who can be extremely activist and not rule properly.
We have a president who ignores the legislative branch when he doesn't get what he wants.
We have senators and representatives who take bribes, uh I mean campaign contributions.
What in the world could possibly go wrong?
Those things are easily detectable with just an arduino with gsm shield, event without connecting to any network or even a sim card, just by dumping the id's and strength information to the terminal and little thinking about the numbers seen.
Nor is it illegal for a police officer not to read someone their Miranda rights. It simply makes it harder to build and try a successful case.
While I may not like it, arguably if they listen to everyone, but only go after the two caveats (danger to public safety, fugitive), that listening in on everyone else is "no harm no foul".
I think many are missing the distinction between whether something is "admissable in court" (warrantless seach) vs. whether it's illegal to do the search. My understanding is that detectives can, and do, conduct warrantless searches, but know it may not be admissible in court, and could even vacate other evidence (fruit of the poisonous tree). But does any enforcement agency try to stop or arrest agents making illegal searches? I don't think so. That is what makes it a legislative inquiry - a law would have to be passed making the eavesdropping a crime, not just useless to prosecutors.
Gently reply
The use of unwarranted electronic intercepts of data belonging to Canadian and EU citizens is a clear violation of both the US/EU Data Privacy Treaty and the US/Canada Data Privacy Treaty.
By our US Constitution, international treaties signed by the US Senate, as both of these were due to majority affirmation, have higher legal standing.
The FBI is lying.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
I always thought that a cop who violates ones rights should share the jail cell. Until we put a price on it, nothing is going to change.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
I get into the "Life in a Police State" meme as much as the next guy, but if you think that this stuff started after 9/11 or any other recent event, I suggest that you study more history of this country.
The FBI has been ignoring the 4th Amendment and using available technology to do so since the organization was created. Before that, the Feds would contract with detective agencies, like Pinkerton, that would often ignore the 4th Amendment (as well as others). Local law enforcement have been ignoring it and, when caught violating it, retroactively making up enough story (depending on how friendly the local judiciary is) to artificially demonstrate compliance for even longer.
The person who wrote "the rot started in 1787" is correct. People with authority often (usually?) lose sight of what they are defending and need to be reminded of it. This can take the form of new laws or lawsuits or civil action or something else.
But the real problem is that, on the whole, the people of this country only really care about the particular rights that they wish to exercise when they want to exercise them and otherwise don't give a damn (or, to be more polite about it, are too busy living their lives to be concerned).
Not only that, but I think everyone here is missing a big point : as far as I know, a stingray does not snoop on a phone conversation, since it would need to be connected to a phone company's telephone backhaul network to either a mobile switching office (think older switched telephony) or to a SIP gateway. Rather, a stingray acts as a stand-alone site which your phone inadvertently registers with, but if you attempt a call or send a text message you'll get a failure.
What it does is gather basic info about your phone - ESN & phone number, your carrier, and perhaps GPS coordinates (for E911). It can't snoop on your phone conversations because you can't place a call. Someone more up to date on 3G and 4G wireless networks can elaborate, My info is based on older 1G/2G cellular networks...
"A little misunderstanding? Galileo and the Pope had a little misunderstanding."
Just like the true Stingray can only live under water, these Stingray devices, I've heard, stop at the lawn. The CANNOT, by definition, trespass the space line between the sidewalk and the lawn, so you'd be safe if you were standing on the lawn. They can crawl over concrete, though. So they can go up your driveway and onto your porch, but the threshold into your house/apartment stops them dead in their tracks.
This is true, but can be misleading. See, the FBI uses Soccer out-of-bounds rules. So, it's not over the line until the whole-of-the-signal is over the-whole-of-the-line. Unfortunately, due to the wave-form nature of the signal, this means the surveillance is only actually illegal after they have turned the device off.
If the cops can do it without getting any exceptional permissions, then it must not be a crime for private citizens to do it, either. Right? Right? (Why is everyone looking at me like I just said something amazingly naive? And WTF is with all the Blade Runner "little people" quotes? I saw that movie and don't remember that many midgets.)
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