Cops Deploy StingRay Anti-Terror Tech Against $50 Chicken-Wing Thief (theregister.co.uk)

An anonymous reader shares a report on The Register: Police in Maryland, U.S., used controversial cellphone-tracking technology intended only for the most serious crimes to track down a man who stole $50 of chicken wings. Police in Annapolis -- an hour's drive from the heart of government in Washington DC -- used a StingRay cell tower simulator in an effort to find the location of a man who had earlier robbed a Pizza Boli employee of 15 chicken wings and three sandwiches. Total worth: $56.77. In that case, according to the police log, a court order was sought and received but in many other cases across the United States, the technology is being used with minimal oversight, despite the fact it is only supposed to be used in the most serious cases such as terrorism.Annapolis police never found the thief.

Comments

True Crime

[BradleyUffner]

The real crime here is that 3 sandwiches and 15 wings costs $56.77.

Re:True Crime

[Anonymous Coward]

The critical point (left out of the story) is that the culprit robbed the deliveryman at gunpoint. When you stick a gun in someone's face, the value of what you steal doesn't make your crime less serious.

Re:True Crime

[Calydor]

If you can't cite a single reputable source for the chicken wings and sandwiches being stolen at gunpoint (or with a knife or any other potentially lethal weapon) then we have no way of determining whether you are talking out of your ass or not. The fact that you are posting anonymously then points in the direction of not wanting to tarnish an otherwise proper reputation, and that only lends credence to assuming you are full of it.

TL,DR: Citation needed.

If it's available, it will be used..

[QuietLagoon]

... it is only supposed to be used in the most serious cases such as terrorism....

A law enforcement official once told me that he will use any and all tools that are available to him, regardless of their intended usage.

.
So stories like this no longer surprise me.

Re:If it's available, it will be used..

[TheGratefulNet]

no one is watching the watchers and this is the result of that.

power, unchecked, gets us this.

but keep giving the cops more destructo-toys and spy gadgets. I'm sure there is another boogeyman we should all be afraid of.

look, kids today at least know the reality. when I grew up, we were taught to respect and trust the cops. now, kids know better. so, at least the truth gets out there. sadly, though, it is not helping change the way things are done.

Re:If it's available, it will be used..

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the point is that the court order shouldn't have been given... since this is an 'national security' level tool... and we're talking about a pizza shop.

Re:If it's available, it will be used..

[whoever57]

I know this is slashdot .. but did you miss the part in TFS where the cop GOT THE COURT ORDER FIRST????????

Did you miss the part where Stingray devices involve massive privacy breaches on the general population, so using one for a trivial robbery is massive overreach.

Yes, I know they got a court order, but it would be a safe bet that the police obfuscated the actual nature of the Stingray device, because that's what they do.

Re:If it's available, it will be used..

[Lumpy]

Which is why you never EVER trust a cop.

They are not there to protect you, understand that.

Re:If it's available, it will be used..

[Anonymous Coward]

Wait, so you think we got fucked somehow because an armed robber is off the street? You're dumber than the Trump voters.

Re:If it's available, it will be used..

[Harlequin80]

While you may feel stitched up about their response I don't believe the reality is what you think it is. Identify theft is likely to cover multiple jurisdictions and hence fall under a larger organisation like the FBI. Your local police have neither the resources or the skills to track that type of crime, so they do what they are meant to, they document the offence and the details and it will get slurped by the FBI or whoever is looking after that type of case and it will be data matched and investigated by them.

With an armed hold up, you have someone who is willing to threaten someone with a weapon for a small return. The logical step is that that same person is also willing to harm someone for a small return. They are much more geographically restricted and pose a clear and present danger to the wider community. You also know that there will be no long term record trail, such as that created by identity fraud, so you have a very small window to successfully catch them.

Simple questions

[Anonymous Coward]

If police are spending lots of money on stingray devices, shouldn't they use them to track down enough criminals to justify the expense? Also, if the individual really did commit the crime, isn't it fair for the police to track him and apprehend him?

I suspect I'll get downmodded to -1 so people can avoid the questions and pretend like they're not here. Can anyone actually answer the questions rather than evading them through moderation? I don't think Slashdot is capable of giving good answers.

Iron Law of Law Enforcement Agencies

[crunchygranola]

Any "tool" of surveillance or coercion provided to a law enforcement agency, on the pretext that it is necessary in extraordinary circumstances, will be soon employed in routine circumstances.

"Thief" or "Robber"?

[mpoulton]

The summary says he was a "chicken wing thief", but the story says he "robbed" the employee. Theft and robbery are different, for good reason. Stealing property is nonviolent. Robbing someone of property (i.e. taking it from a person by force or threat of force) is a violent crime. When someone sticks gun in your face and demands that you hand over the goods, it doesn't make much difference if the goods are chicken wings or jewelry, does it? Without more information about what this guy actually did to forcibly acquire those chicken wings, it's not very reasonable to conclude that this should have been a low priority case and the cops went overboard. Was he armed? Did he really threaten force? Did he assault the guy? TFA does not answer the real questions.

Re:So?

[Frank Burly]

Yeah, the value of the stuff stolen is beside the point: robbery is much worse than theft. I think the most likely scenario is that they employee was robbed of the chicken wings and his/her cell phone, and that police inferred that whoever had the cell was the robber (how else would they know the IMEI, phone number or the suspect?). I am OK with intercepting a signals from an stolen phone because there is no reasonable privacy expectation in something you stole.

Armed Robbery

[ShooterNeo]

The crime was armed robbery, where the criminal pointed a loaded handgun at a human being and threatened to kill them if they did not give up their property. That's what makes this a serious crime - the threat of imminent death. It is completely legal to respond to an armed robbery by basically summarily gunning down the robber without warning.

They couldn't find him?

[gurps_npc]

That is the real crime. It either means:

1) The tech doesn't work.

2) They had the wrong phone number - which most likely means they hassled some innocent man.

3) A guy that stole $50 was smart enough to beat their technology.

Re:So?

[lgw]

They had a court order to do it and that is a felony.

So these obscenely privacy-violating devices that totally ignore the Constitution (100% of the intercepted traffic was innocent people, after all - wiretaps are supposed to be very specific), which were originally pitched as "for national security and terrorism" now have the bar lowered to "violent felony" (where no one was actually hurt). This year. The bar will be lower still 5 years from now. The government never gives up power.