Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

The Heavily Redacted World of the FBI's Tracking Technology Unit (muckrock.com)

Posted by timothy on from the how-to-get-on-the-really-good-lists dept.

v3rgEz writes: If you search the FBI website for details the Tracking Technology Unit, nothing shows up: They have no official home page, their leadership is not mentioned, and the few public mentions of the group seem to be at court appearances where members explain that information they gather cannot be released publicly. But a recent FOIA request for information on the FBI's shuttered warrantless GPS tracking program shed a little more light on this secretive unit, whose motto is "Factum Non Verba": Deeds, not Words.

53 comments

  1. "Deeds, not Words" by NotDrWho · · Score: 2

    Do they have the gold-lame spandex suits and cool motorcycles too?

    Deeds Not Words

    --
    SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
    1. Re:"Deeds, not Words" by Notorious+G · · Score: 1

      Ha, exactly what I was thinking! Megaforce, what a frigging disaster that was.

    2. Re:"Deeds, not Words" by NotDrWho · · Score: 2

      Hey, nothing is a *complete* disaster when it's got motorcycles that shoot rockets!

      --
      SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
    3. Re:"Deeds, not Words" by yodleboy · · Score: 1

      "Do they have the gold-lame spandex suits and cool motorcycles too?"

      Gold Lame? I can make my MP3's shiny now??

    4. Re:"Deeds, not Words" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I wonder if a "MegaForce membership kit", including the patch, membership card and reflective bike decal would be worth anything at a comic convention if they were all new and unused in the original packaging?

    5. Re:"Deeds, not Words" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Ha, exactly what I was thinking! Megaforce, what a frigging disaster that was.

      To be fair, MegaForce was hardly the only action movie of the early 1980s to feature wildly implausible plots, weapons or vehicles. The 1985 Schwarzenegger film, Commando comes readily to mind. And the Airwolf and Night Rider television series were also famous for cheesy 80s action.

  2. Better motto by russotto · · Score: 4, Insightful

    How about "Mendacium non veritum"... "Lies, not truth".

    1. Re:Better motto by gstoddart · · Score: 3, Funny

      Well, they could also go with the more accurate ... "All your base are belong to us".

      --
      Lost at C:>. Found at C.
    2. Re:Better motto by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That's the standing motto for the whole government.

    3. Re:Better motto by yodleboy · · Score: 1

      Google translate for ""All your base are belong to us" comes out as "Omnia quae nobis sunt turpia".
      Latin geeks, how accurate is that? I can't wait to pOwn someone online and type that in. : )

    4. Re:Better motto by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "Factum Non Verba": Misdeeds, not Words.

      By mistranslating it, I committed a misdeed. See what I did there?

    5. Re:Better motto by KGIII · · Score: 1

      Don't use that. A direct translation is all of us are ugly.

      --
      "So long and thanks for all the fish."
    6. Re:Better motto by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "Factum Non Verba"

      By looking at the words I'm sure it is supposed to be translated as "Facts not spoken".

  3. Fuck these Constitution-ignoring traitors by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Very little of what the government does should be secret, all of that should be confined to foreign intelligence operations, and no domestic law enforcement agency should be operating in the shadows. You took an oath, you traitorous pieces of shit.

    1. Re:Fuck these Constitution-ignoring traitors by Phusion · · Score: 1

      yeah guy, you tell 'em!

      --
      640k ought to be enough for anyone.
    2. Re:Fuck these Constitution-ignoring traitors by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      We know him as "guy" but the FBI has his home address.

    3. Re:Fuck these Constitution-ignoring traitors by Coren22 · · Score: 1, Insightful

      What proof do you have that they aren't getting warrants for their tracking activities? It is quite an assumption that you are making that they somehow are ignoring the constitution; which is something the FBI is forbidden from doing.

      Since the tracking has been in court cases, and none of the court cases were thrown out for illegal data gathering methods, more likely you are the one who doesn't know what they are talking about here.

      --
      APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
    4. Re:Fuck these Constitution-ignoring traitors by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      It's right in the summary, "a recent FOIA request for information on the FBI's shuttered warrantless GPS tracking program."

      It's in the first sentence of the article, "In 2012, the FBI's warrantless GPS tracking system went dark - after a Supreme Court ruling forbid the practice."

      They were not using warrants. It's the entire point of the story.

    5. Re:Fuck these Constitution-ignoring traitors by rtb61 · · Score: 1

      Any action of government that would affect the vote of a citizen should be made public prior to elections. A elected government representative somewhere and at some time signed off on this and their position should be up for review based upon it. As an empathic example, clearly the other commenter had severe issues with this and it clearly would affect their vote and as such under electoral law it should have been made public. The core of any democratic constitution is maintaining that democracy and democracy can not exist based upon ignorance and lies. If it will affect a citizens vote than under the entirety of a constitution that citizen has a right to know. When any so called democratic government uses tax payer funds to keep secrets from it's citizens that they knew would affect the outcome of elections, they have committed electoral fraud and breached constitutional law and should be prosecuted for doing so.

      --
      Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
    6. Re: Fuck these Constitution-ignoring traitors by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You got owned by anon there. How does it feel to be publically shamed like this?

    7. Re:Fuck these Constitution-ignoring traitors by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And which alcohol serving establishments he drives home from. Remember: you don't need to blow a .08 to get a "wet and recklous". ; ) Thanks MADD!

    8. Re: Fuck these Constitution-ignoring traitors by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Sick burn!

    9. Re:Fuck these Constitution-ignoring traitors by Coren22 · · Score: 1

      If all that is the case, you should be able to point to it somewhere in the constitution. As it is, the government has many programs that are considered Secret and Top Secret, and the whole point of those programs is that they need to remain that way as it would cause grave harm to the US for them to be commonly known about. You are essentially saying that the government isn't allowed to run secret programs, because that "hides" the information from the electorate. I encourage you to tell your representative that you believe there should be no secrets in government, I am sure it will be an interesting conversation. If you are from a country other than the US, I encourage you to contact your reps and tell them how you think all their programs should be out in the open with no secrets.

      --
      APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
    10. Re: Fuck these Constitution-ignoring traitors by Coren22 · · Score: 1

      The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

      So, your assertion is that it isn't reasonable, the court ruled that it wasn't, the program was shuttered. It isn't unconstitutional unless the program continues, which so far there is no evidence of.

      How does it feel to be owned?

      --
      APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
    11. Re: Fuck these Constitution-ignoring traitors by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You wrote:

      What proof do you have that they aren't getting warrants for their tracking activities?

      Anon wrote:

      It's right in the summary, "a recent FOIA request for information on the FBI's shuttered warrantless GPS tracking program."

      The first paragraph of the article says:

      In 2012, the FBI's warrantless GPS tracking system went dark - after a Supreme Court ruling forbid the practice, an FBI lawyer stated that 3,000 units were turned off and pulled out of service.

      And finally, I'll respond to you with a quote from you:

      How does it feel to be owned?

      BURNED!

    12. Re:Fuck these Constitution-ignoring traitors by rtb61 · · Score: 1

      Talk about off track. I did not say all programs need to be public just those programs that would affect the vote and as such the government is not allowed to spend money on electioneering by keeping secret those things that would affect the democracy. Right there in pretty much every countries constitution, the government is not allowed to use it's offices for electioneering purposes, elected officials are not allowed to use tax payer funds to stay in power, that is a sure sign of the end of democracy. Basically affects the vote and the citizens have a right to know, would not affect the vote and for national security reasons needs to be temporarily secret then fine but that information must also be released as soon as practicable. The electorate has a constitutional right to know anything that will affect their democratic choice.

      Your premise that government is allowed to keep secrets about lies they tell the public to keep in power, is just so horribly corrupt. Keep secrets about criminal actions they have taken. Keep secrets about citizens lives they have illegally taken. Keep secrets about mass corruption in government. Keep secrets, well, when you get that bad why bother keeping secrets at all, just kill everyone that disagrees with you, worked for the old monarchy, so try it on for your new monarchy.

      --
      Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
    13. Re:Fuck these Constitution-ignoring traitors by Coren22 · · Score: 1

      In that case, maybe you misunderstood what this is about? This is about a program that tracks the vehicles of those under FBI investigation to attempt to find their associates involved in the crime. This program has nothing to do with electioneering, and its effect on the election is the same as any other program the government doesn't publically talk about.

      This program doesn't help anyone stay in power, so the whole premise that it should be public knowledge makes no logical sense just as secret and top secret programs are not meant to be public knowledge, and they don't support the elections in any way.

      --
      APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
  4. Cliff notes by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    They install a device in a car, that acts like a USB modem.
    Lots of talk about properly hiding this tool in the car, don't get burned, etc.
    They run a site survey first, running a spectrum analyzer to see what you are doing.
    They plan a test run of how to secretly install this tracker on your car.
    They plan for situations where you lose their tail or discover their tracker on your car.
    They later intentionally let you spot them, so they can see any new things you do when you think you've been had.
    Training about looking through GPS logs to determine valid leads to follow up on.

    Looks to me to be more of pigs doing things they shouldn't be doing. Make sure to document well anything you find out. Their current operation is basically security through obscurity which we should have no problem further documenting so we can avoid/detect it.

  5. Comment by WallyL · · Score: 2

    The [redacted] works hand-in-hand with other government agencies, including [redacted], to provide real-time [redacted] to [redacted] threats both on- and off-line. Because of the growing threats of [redacted] in our increasingly globalized society, the [redacted] performs large-scale [redacted] to support the functionality needed to [redacted] [redacted]. If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear, [redacted].

    1. Re:Comment by zlives · · Score: 2

      give me [redacted] or give me death.

  6. UNCLASSIFIED // RELIDO by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Anyone else notice that the vast majority of those pages are marked as unclassified and/or non-secret yet severely redacted?

    1. Re:UNCLASSIFIED // RELIDO by tsqr · · Score: 1

      Anyone else notice that the vast majority of those pages are marked as unclassified and/or non-secret yet severely redacted?

      This is not at all unusual. Sometimes documents are declassified because the content is no longer considered sensitive. Sometimes documents are declassified by redacting the sensitive content. More information here.

    2. Re:UNCLASSIFIED // RELIDO by Coren22 · · Score: 1

      As far as I can tell, the markings AC is talking about are not declassifications, the documents are actually marked unclassified. There are reason codes given for the redactions, though I don't know what those align with.

      --
      APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
    3. Re:UNCLASSIFIED // RELIDO by tsqr · · Score: 1

      As far as I can tell, the markings AC is talking about are not declassifications, the documents are actually marked unclassified. There are reason codes given for the redactions, though I don't know what those align with.

      Well yes, the documents are actually marked unclassified, because they have been declassified. Documents that have been declassified, whether due to being redacted or because the information previously considered sensitive has been determined to no longer be sensitive, should either be marked unclassified or have no classification markings. To the best of my knowledge, documents bearing classified markings are never intentionally made public by the government.

    4. Re:UNCLASSIFIED // RELIDO by Coren22 · · Score: 1

      BUT, information that is declassified will have the original classification marking, but crossed out. In this case it is marked as unclassified, and there is no other classification marking.

      http://www.archives.gov/resear...

      Items are absolutely declassified after a certain amount of time, the national archives has a whole division dedicated to this activity.

      Here is an example of a declassified document, you can see the classification of Top Secret is crossed out.

      https://nsarchive.files.wordpr...

      --
      APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
    5. Re:UNCLASSIFIED // RELIDO by tsqr · · Score: 1

      Items are absolutely declassified after a certain amount of time, the national archives has a whole division dedicated to this activity.

      Yes, some items are scheduled for declassification after either 10 or 25 years. Some aren't.

      Here is an example of a declassified document, you can see the classification of Top Secret is crossed out.

      I'm sure you noticed that the example document is over 50 years old (and appears to have been redacted with white-out). The rules have changed since then. 18 CFR 3a.31 - "Classification markings and special notations" has the details, but specifically, "When classification changes are made, the classification markings themselves will be changed or canceled, and each copy or item of the material will be marked with the citation of authority."

      By the way, congratulations on posting without triggering a diatribe by the hosts file guy.

    6. Re:UNCLASSIFIED // RELIDO by Coren22 · · Score: 1

      50 years is the automatic declassification period for TS labeled items. My curiosity about that document is that it is both marked "Secret" and "Top Secret" as well as says to not automatically declassify, which is unusual to me.

      APK still stalks me and will occasionally respond, but I and others were finally able to successfully get him to give up on the constant attack by having his hero (who deemed his code "safe") contact him about the issue he was making of himself and explain why it wasn't helping his cause.

      --
      APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
  7. Trot out the cool patches by ThatsNotPudding · · Score: 2

    But a recent FOIA request for information on the FBI's shuttered warrantless GPS tracking program shed a little more light on this secretive unit, whose motto is "Factum Non Verba": Deeds, not Words.

    Always a bad sign when the Federales whip up a slogan for themselves - doubly so if it's in fucking Latin. A little pomp and circumstance to round off the sharp edges of the police state.

    1. Re:Trot out the cool patches by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Fucking latin? Is that some kind of specialty dialect?

    2. Re:Trot out the cool patches by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's descended from a common Indo European language, Pigfucking Latin, which also gave us Pig Latin.

    3. Re:Trot out the cool patches by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Always a bad sign when the Federales whip up a slogan for themselves

      Heh, look at page 53 in the document window at the bottom of the article where they talk about themselves, just replace predators with law enforcement.

      "Technology may be ushering in a golden age of stalking, in which predators use GPS, cellphones and other devices to track and terrorize."

    4. Re:Trot out the cool patches by AHuxley · · Score: 1

      Re "a slogan for themselves":
      "Why the US Launched a Spy Rocket With an Earth-Sucking Octopus On It" (December 7, 2013)
      http://motherboard.vice.com/bl...
      All part of the very long term collect it all domestic dragnet surveillance and the use of insignia badges with Latin phrases.

      --
      Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
  8. Awesome! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Thanks feds for supplying us with a 500 page Madlib!

    My tax money hard at work!

    Anyone have some good ones for the headline photo? https://muckrock.s3.amazonaws.com/news_images/GPSCov3.png.1200x400_q85_crop.png

  9. NSAmabinladen by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    We'll have to wait until the NSA backdoor gets hacked to find out.

  10. Deeds rather than words, indeed by Bearhouse · · Score: 2

    There were no words - since their "deeds" appeared (from TFA) to consist of redacting over 300 pages of what he did request, (which was pretty innocuous and non-specific, BTW; he just asked what TOWNS the program had been active in...)
    They then fill-in with a bunch of boilerplate to look like they had actually complied with the request.
    Bad-faith bureaucratic stonewalling at its finest.

    The main payload in the article is that the dude infers that a program that was declared illegal was simply repackaged and buried deeper, hence the desire to not give away too many details since they'll probably being doing the same old....

    I'm happy to pay my taxes to live in a state of law, since democracy cannot exist without it.
    But I'm increasingly of the impression that I'm getting short changed on both.

    1. Re:Deeds rather than words, indeed by zlives · · Score: 1

      hey the Supreme is working on making taxes(dues) on unions not required....

      "We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union... blah blah"

  11. can you say.. Ummmmm by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Man I can get more value out of a wet fart in a crowded (or crowd funded) elevator than this crap..

    1. Re:can you say.. Ummmmm by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Verba-dampus-flatulence

      actually, could you get more value ?? It may be a toss up considering the amount of intellect needed to decipher the document @ hand

      reminds me of
      some thing
      alpha zappa crapper

  12. Where are the courts to protect us? See below.. by Tokolosh · · Score: 4, Insightful

    "I often wonder whether we do not rest our hopes too much upon constitutions, upon laws and upon courts. These are false hopes. Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women; when it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court can save it; no constitution, no law, no court can even do much to help it."

    US judge and judicial philosopher Learned Hand (1872-1961).

    --
    Prove anything by multiplying Huge Number times Tiny Number
    1. Re:Where are the courts to protect us? See below.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Best quote I've seen on the subject. Similar to what Ron Paul said when he left. paraphrasing: The constitution requires good men behind it in order to be effective. This is why it no longer works. (speaking to congress).

    2. Re:Where are the courts to protect us? See below.. by AHuxley · · Score: 1

      Its really what a good defence lawyer can ask about and find was done from a standard POTS warrant or beacon copy and paste tracking.
      ie the gov is doing NSA collect it all on domestic hops of friends friends from one persons court paperwork for a cell phone or tracking one SUV.
      A good lawyer should be able to see what else was built from one case. How was so much information found from one court order that might not even be for their client...
      Methods and what a court allowed. Beacon was for gps? Why the hours of open mic voice conversations from the SUV in sealed court then? POTS warrant used for cell phone and all connections to other cell phone and their metadata too? Crafted gov malware pushed into a lot of cell phones or computers?
      How did the case even evolve? What was the first mention or discovery of their client? Metadata? An unexpected voice phone call mentioning a name, location in full? Informant? Paid? Granted early release? Chat down? SUV seen in an area of interest?

      The way all that is prevented is by ensuring the guilty person can never pay for a good legal team. Would a lawyer work for free over years out of friendship or other considerations? That can usually be detected before a case and steps taken avoid the gov facing any such legal risk in open court.
      The "free" gov gifted lawyer is reduced to asking for a copy of the "deal" and takes it into their client. Hints about the much better terms when cooperating, even release if many more people can be found with more cooperating...

      --
      Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
  13. At court appearances by PPH · · Score: 1

    At other times, cooling their heels in a jail cell contemplating the judges contempt order for refusing to release information.

    That's a world I could happily live in.

    --
    Have gnu, will travel.
  14. Obligatory Latin correction by spiritplumber · · Score: 2

    "Acta Non Verba", not "Factum Non Verba". Geez.

    --
    Liberty - Security - Laziness - Pick any two.