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IRS: We Used Stingray Devices To Track 37 Phones (arstechnica.com)
An anonymous reader writes: In October, we discussed the troubling revelation that the U.S. Internal Revenue Service had its own stingray devices, which are commonly used by law enforcement to intercept phone signals and track criminal suspects. The IRS has now addressed these allegations (PDF), confirming that they do indeed have one of the devices, and are trying to get a second. The agency said it tracked 37 phones across 11 different grand jury investigations, and the devices were also used in four non-IRS investigations. They say, "IRS use of cell-site simulation technology is limited to the federal law enforcement arm of the IRS, our Criminal Investigation division. Only trained law enforcement agents have used cell-site simulation technology, carrying out criminal investigations in accordance with all appropriate federal and state judicial procedures."
Yea. Right
This is what your fear and cowardice brought you so wallow in it. Thanks a lot you baby boomer fear mongers.
Seriously, there need to be strict rules against spying...but those who cheat society by not paying there fair share in taxes deserve the worst the government who enables them to profit can offer.
Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once.
The IRS admitting to using this is sadly comforting, in that a government agency does not feel compelled to lie about it's use of Stingray. I am getting too used to being spied on everyday, everywhere, by everyone, about everything.
and well over 100k people working for them at any given time if you contractors and law enforcement doing their bidding. Thirty-seven violations is tiny considering those numbers. I hate to defend the IRS, but I have to in this case.
When we say the government is too big, this is exactly what we are complaining about. Why is the IRS operating a Stingray for a state murder investigation? Murder is not an IRS issue. But the IRS employs Stingray operators, and they don't always (ever?) have an occasion to deploy the Stingray on real IRS business, so they apparently get loaned out to other agencies and jurisdictions.
The IRS doesn't need a Stingray (certainly not 2 of them), and they don't need to employ Stingray operators. Is they ever need to actually use a Stingray in a real tax investigation, they can get one from the DoJ or DHS.
I think the real number is 42.
At this time, the focus should be on moving to encrypted voice communications. It is easy enough to do it with android and ios. At that point, it will not matter what tricks are pulled.
In a row?
The IRS knows they are untouchable now. They can willfully destroy any private group at will, as they did with conservative groups, without punishment - who cares if at the same time they are listening on cell phone conversations of taxpayers? They say it's only the enforcement arm, but since any taxpayer is potentially lying about taxes, the enforcement arm would cover everyone in the U.S....
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
every single word of it
From pattern matching experience I know that if they say 37, they mean 370,000 or more.
The 'truth' will come out probably in a few months or whatever and we'll all yawn.
At this point though, nobody has faith left in them, not faith that it won't be abused, not faith that it won't be used for political targeting, and no faith that it won't be used for gaming stocks etc.
I heard the penalty for treason is hanging. You take a rope and make 13 coils traditionally meant to be a foreboding number, but also because with 14 it gets hard to pull the rope through the hole. You take your traitorous scum bag, place the noose around their necks, and show them how much we enjoy traitors.
This would apply also to war criminals I believe.
The IRS does legitimately investigate criminal activity, some of which I agree is truly criminal and some of which I think is because of awful laws. For example, running a scam to defraud people of their tax refunds is a truly criminal act. Money laundering is a crime, but it's also associated with other forms of organized crime. This is also something that seems truly criminal. However, it also extends to pursuing willful sheltering of income and assets in offshore tax havens. Most countries don't attempt to collect tax revenue on these things, but the US does, and I'm not sure I agree with this practice. Yet this also falls under the umbrella of criminal activity.
If the stingray was only used 37 times, that doesn't seem like it's in demand enough to merit purchasing a second one. This seems like wasteful spending, something that the IRS has been accused of. Furthermore, I don't trust the IRS to properly keep records. One can only hope that the data collected from people who weren't the subject of a warrant disappeared along with Lois Lerner's emails.
I'm not opposed to using a stingray to track down money launderers associated with violent crime and terrorism. This actually makes sense. I'm not opposed to using a stingray to catch people running scams to fraudulently file other people's tax returns, which is on the rise and very costly. My biggest objection to the IRS doing this is that they've demonstrated that they shouldn't be trusted. Because of this, there needs to be very strong regulation of when a stingray can be used and very specific rules about data collection and retention.
"in accordance with all appropriate federal and state judicial procedures."
In other words, "as they damn well please".
Nae king! Nae laird! Nae yurrupiean pressedent! We willna be fooled again!
Does the IRS have warrants, signed by a Federal Judge? If not, people need to be imprisoned and the practice stopped.
Who checks that? This year, a number of US police-instituted murders have made international headlines, with exactly one of the murders being arrested. Plus a number of laboratories that perform forensic analysis for US police were found to ignore "appropriate federal and state judicial procedures", or just fabricate the results the police wanted. "Who polices the police" is a very necessary question and most times, the answer is a disturbing "nobody".
Was this really necessary? Forensic accounting not good enough?
Hey, they could just follow established procedure and have the UK and Australia spy on American citizens and then share the data with the US and vice-versa.
That way the US avoids spying on US citizens.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Of all the Criminal Enforcement branches of the law, the IRS's branch is most likely the ones who use this technology the way we expect them to, the way it was designed to be used. While DHS is likely to keep ALL the data they collect, I can easily imagine that the IRS will either not record, or swiftly dump, any data that isn't specifically attached to the investigation at hand.
Revenue Officers have a good deal more power to them than a typical investigator, as they can make determinations that ..really don't have a practical oversight to them beyond themselves. But, to balance that, they also are the ones who have to follow up on any of these determinations they make; they aren't typically passing it off. So, like you might think with typical governmental workers, I can't imagine they'd want to make more work for themselves than is necessary. So, keeping/reviewing data outside the specific needs of their case isn't likely something they're going to engage in.
That said, the Criminal Investigations arm of the IRS is small but have wide reaching powers, and historically, these agents are pretty judicial with the use of their power. If someone wasn't scrutinizing service contracts to see that the IRS has one, no one would likely ever know they've employed the use of one...because they use it the way we (the public) might expect them to. On people who are 'bad guys' avoiding the law, not typical citizens.
Awk! Pieces of eight. Pieces of eight. Pieces of seven... ERROR: General Protection Fault. [Paroty Error.]
IRS has a criminal investigation devision, these are real federal law enforement officers, they carry badges and guns. They investigate sophisticated fraud rings responsible for billions of dollars taken from taxpayers via identity theft and other schemes to defaud the treasury.
They should have the same tools available to them as other federal law enforcement agencies, like the FBI, Secret Service, DEA, ATF who have responsiblity to investigate organized crime. And of course they should be subject to the same oversight! To ensure they do not violate individual freedoms or misuse resources.
So personally I am glad to hear they are using technology to fight crime. It seems completely counterproductive and disingenuous when politicians and their lapdogs basically go "ooh IRS bad" all the time, it's like taking it out on the cashier at McDonalds that your burger contains GMOs. That guy doesn't make the rules. It is just a cheap tactic that politicians use when they want to get elected. Often serving a covert starve-the-poor "all government is bad" agenda.
The IRS is just there to collect the $$$ that the treasury is owed, if you're unhappy with the tax code or your tax rate, take it up with Congress. If you're unhappy with IRS taxpayer services, take it up with Congress, which keeps cutting their budget so they have even fewer workers to answer phone calls and help people understand the stupid complicated tax code. All of these cuts despite the fact that extra dollars sent to the IRS actually return large positive ROI for the treasury (and taxpayers).
I am not here to anonymously shill for the IRS CID, they deserve the same scrutiny as any other federal police force, no more no less. But personally I'd rather my tax dollars go to the IRS where they are returned manyfold, catching criminals and tax evaders, with limited mission scope, than to some of the other agencies that have a much more troubling history of domestic spying.
You are going to ruin this Stingray thing for all of us if you keep yapping about them.
Do what the rest of us are doing and use them quietly, never admit that you have them and parallel construct your cases from fruit-of-the-poisonous-tree, er, I, mean, "other" evidence.
(IMHO) is that the IRS is probably the government agency LEAST likely to abuse this device.
IRS, you can go suck some dick