Docs: Responding To Katrina, FBI Made Cell Phone Surveillance Its Priority

v3rgEz writes: There's a lot of lessons that the federal government should have learned in the aftermath of Katrina. Increased domestic surveillance, however, appears to be the one the FBI took to heart, using the natural disaster as a justification for ramping up its use of Stingray cell phone tracking throughout Louisiana after the storm, according to documents released under FOIA to MuckRock.

Comments

What else would the FBI

[funwithBSD]

Federal Bureau of Investigation take away?

They are not FEMA, or any relief organization, they investigate crimes. Of course they found something that would make it easier for them to investigate, damn our rights in the process.

Re:What else would the FBI

[ColdWetDog]

Never let a crisis go to waste.

Of course the FBI is going to order stuff they think is useful. And they're going to cover it in the usual law and order gloss. Not that I think stingrays are the best way to spend money, but one does assume that organized crime is also going to look at the chaos triggered by the hurricane in order to do more of whatever it is that they usually do. Therefore the FBI needs to be prepared.

And the will likely use cell phones. Hence the stingrays.

If you look closer, you will undoubtedly find that every Federal agency used Katrina as an excuse to order all sorts of useful toys.

Sounds helpful

[hawguy]

If there's anything that starving, homeless people need in a disaster, it's someone to listen in on their phone calls...which they can't make because they have no way to charge phones and no working cell towers to connect to.

The FBI would be better off buying banks of phones with a built-in recording device connected to a wireless tower. At least that way they could help people while conducting their surveillance.

Katrina should be a learning experience

[Scutter]

The list of things that local, state, and federal governments did horribly wrong in Katrina's aftermath is virtually endless. There should be plenty of opportunities to learn from it but it looks like they just keep making the same mistakes over and over.