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Hidden FBI Microphones Exposed In California (cbslocal.com)
An anonymous reader writes: "Federal agents are planting microphones to secretly record conversations," reports CBS Local, noting that for 10 months starting in 2010, FBI agents hid microphones inside light fixtures, and also at a bus stop outside the Oakland Courthouse, to record conversations without a warrant. "They put microphones under rocks, they put microphones in trees, they plant microphones in equipment," a security analyst and former FBI special agent told CBS Local. "I mean, there's microphones that are planted in places that people don't think about, because thats the intent!" Federal authorities are currently investigating fraud and bid-rigging charges against a group of real estate investors, and the secret recordings came to light when they were submitted as evidence. "Private communication in a public place qualifies as a protected 'oral communication'..." says one of the investor's lawyers, "and therefore may not be intercepted without judicial authorization."
Surely they can't admit they've planted it there.
Ezekiel 23:20
They put a microphone in my iPhone.
Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
They can admit it, as this came to light as the article explains when the recordings were submitted as evidence.
It would be nice to have a crowdsourced google map however. Anyone know how to set one of those up?
Along those lines, california is a two-party consent state for wiretapped conversation-- this sounds like a zero-party consent program. Even in a public space, you can't record private conversations without both parties being aware and consenting to the practice. So I wonder if this involves some kind of waiver, otherwise the investigators, if operating without a warrant, would seemingly be in violation of this law, which is usually taken very seriously by judges in California
Finally, once that crowd sourced map shows up (which would be nice to include speedtraps, fake mobile towers, and license plate readers), there's no reason I could think of for volunteers to go have a private reading of some crime drama such as a scene from "Cops" or something-- hopefully no copyright laws would apply here.
On the threads about the FBI wanting to be able to crack into cell phones via backdoors - I said "well I can have a conversation walking down the street with somebody, and the FBA and NSA can't get into those. I mean, there has to be a way to catch EVERYTHING, right? Where does the surveillance state end? We should be required to wear recording equipment so that all conversations can be discoverable - just in case!". I was being ridiculous to prove a point - but then I read this! It goes to show you how the TLA agencies really do think there shouldn't be ANYTHING they can't discover. It drives them crazy that there could be anything private in our "Free" (ha ha) society... what we've learned in the past few years with Snowden, etc., is that even the tinfoil hats who thought there was no way... we are finding out that our worst paranoid thoughts about what the government COULD be doing... are in fact LESS than they actually are doing. Pretty much if you can envision it, it's already happening.
What this really means is that there is a group of people who are encroaching upon a wealthier and better-connected group of people's interest. And the FBI, serving its purpose, is being used as a tool to prevent competition.
Mod up the truth.
The FBI is doing it, so it must be legal... /sarcasm
It's time that these abuses of rights were charged as criminal offences. Sadly this requires an organisation with the ability to investigate the FBI and bring charges. The US constitution gives that power to a grand jury, but it would be a brave prosecutor who enpanelled one to do it.Oh well - here's hoping...
In the 1980's a high-rise Telecom building with no windows opened in my city and it had security cameras in the lobby to film anyone entering. This was ostensibly because communications hubs were considered a strategic civil asset to be defended from attack. Do you know that a lot of people refused to enter the building or take jobs there because they thought it was a violation to be recorded without their consent (banks notwithstanding)? A couple of years later it was a non issue. Now the cameras record us on the streets and nobody minds. Trepidatious at first, the authorities have found that there is little or no pushback at all to the encroachment on our privacies and rights and they're ramming home the intrusions while they can.
This kind of BS is behaviour I'd expect from an Eastern Bloc dictatorship rather than a Western liberal democracy. I say that reluctantly because invoking East Germany or the USSR is usually a sign of hyperbole. But ... what other countries plant hidden mics in trees to track citizens rather than aliens?
What they are doing is quite interesting legally speaking. So what are the realistic expectations of privacy in a public space, why would a sound recording differ from a video recording. The second point, the fine point about randomly recording events at a specific location, rather than specifically targeting an individual, does that public location have an expectation of privacy. The legal fine point, you sit in a public space with a smart phone and make a call, does someone sitting close by have an expectation that you will stop using your phone so as not accidentally capture and transmit their communications with someone else.
So cheeky but not really illegal as they are continuously recording a public space and have no control over who wanders into it and what they do or say in it, no different to a video security camera, so add in a microphone and is a security camera that monitors public space illegal.
Police have a duty to monitor public space and citizens had a right to monitor police in that public space. A fixed microphone at a location versus a mobile one tracking a specific individual. By happen stance when recording bird song in a public park I recorded two people plotting a murder, keep in mind the recording was purposeful but not targeted at a specific individual, except if you take into account the private communications of those birds. So provide that recording to the police or destroy for invading the privacy of those individuals plotting the murder, so which is the greater crime, invading someone's privacy or accessory before the fact to a crime, specifically in this case a murder.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
They're going to drop the "please" any minute now.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
...The ESP 8266-12E has a nifty 1V analogue input where you can attach a microphone to it with very little extra parts (we're talking a resistor and a cap here), and you have a powerful WiFi unit with an onboard 80MHz processor and 4mbit ram...guess what? It can connect to an encrypted WiFI connection, costs less than 2 dollars and with Arduino is so easy to code that a kid can do it.
You know...welcome to the brave new world where EVERYONE can listen to ANYONE.
What this world is coming to - is for you and me to decide.
Well, the Chinese middle class is doing pretty well.
Yo, dawg, I herd you liek microphones so I put a microphone in your microphone so you can snoop while you snoop.
No, the cognitive dissonance is that it's absolutely 100% legal to record a cop on his beat with your cellphone - even surreptitiously - in a public place, but it's illegal for the FBI to do it.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Is there any way to electronically monkeywrench cameras? Some way to fuck with automatic gain control so that the image isn't any good, some kind of discreet light source that could be aimed in their direction or omnidirectionally if you didn't know where it was?
Smashing them physically seems kind of counterproductive, as it has a lot of risk and may result in the camera being moved or hardened in a way that makes smashing impractical. Plus monitoring systems may flag a down camera, especially an IP one.
I think something like an aerosol hair spray might not be a bad alternative. It would apply a blurring film that would render the image mostly useless, be a lot less unobtrusive than a smashed camera to the casual observer. And in a lot of cases, few cameras are actively monitored so the results may last a long time before it was noticed. The camera would otherwise appear operational (active circuit for analog cameras, active IP status for IP ones).
Getting at the high mounts might be a challenge, but I could see some kind of "selfie stick" type of widget which would allow you to mount a can of whatever you're spraying to a pole and push the spray button from a handle.
The lack of warrant, or other check on power is the objectionable part of this.
First off police are public servants they have less rights to privacy while on duty or otherwise using the privileges/responsibilities that come with the job. Second there are legal differences between covert and obvious recordings, if I shove a mic in your face you're free to stop talking and insist it go away before continuing thats far different than clandestine monitoring. CA in particular is a 2 party state requiring that both parties are informed of any recording, that standard is for anytime it's reasonable to assume nobody else is listening so your right to have a private conversation on a park bench is supposed to be protected..
No sir I dont like it.
CA is a 2 party consent state, meaning not only do both parties have to be informed, they have to agree to be recorded.
I can reasonably assume that no one is eavesdropping on a conversation I have while walking down an empty street. It is therefore illegal (in a two party consent state) to record the conversation without both me and the person/people I am talking to agreeing to it.
Which makes such evidence inadmissible...
If I were an FBI agent promised a decent reward for making the lawsuit go away, maybe, I would've thought up a scheme like this... I'd demonstrate the zeal and the willingness to bend the rules (and the Constitution) — and the charges would be dismissed because the primary evidence will be thrown out.
I may get fired for the failure, maybe even reprimanded for the rule-bending, but not prosecuted for the bribery, which no one will even suspect...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Yes, that too... Still didn't answer the question. They tell you if you're doing nothing wrong you have nothing to hide, so again, why were they hiding the mics? I can see unobtrusive mics installed at a bus stand, but under rocks and in bushes? If they don't think they're doing anything wrong why not just have them in a huge grid at quarter block intervals? You have no expectation of privacy in public, I get it, but if two people are sitting on a bench in an otherwise empty park, is that realistic to not expect at least a degree of privacy? This is the equivalent of an agent hiding in the bushes with a mic, just trolling trying to catch random people. What happened to needing warrants for surveillance?
It's frightening that a federal group paid with taxpayer dollars, that was instituted to protect the law, now seems to break it with impunity. I fear for our future as it doesn't look like anyone is protecting the people anymore.
And it's a felony if you don't, making California unique.
Again, a warrant wouldn't be needed to survail a public area. You're confusing what's required to survail private property. To bug your house phone, would require a warrant. To listen to an open conservation on the street does not.
If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
Again, it can become grey area but there's lots of precedent for this. Walking behind two people on the street and overhearing their conversation does not require a warrant. There may be stipulations on what you can use as evidence in a court, and this might be determined on a case by case basis by a judge, but for information gathering purposes it is perfectly legal. It's a small leap from this, to putting a microphone at a bus stop and parking around the corner. You may not like it, you may feel violated, but this is the way it's always been. There's no new over extension of power here.
If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
The 1% now has so much wealth at their command they don't know what to do with it, which fuels these speculative bubbles.
If the middle classes had this money instead, they'd be buying houses and living in them--arguably much healthier for the market than the very rich bidding up these assets because they've got nothing better to do with their money.
It's just another of the ways that the 1% is going to destroy the goose that laid the golden egg--the middle class--via their own unfettered insane greed. Because unless the people have money, there is no market, eventually, for the things the rich make via their assets.
--PM
Local cops I assume are the ones who bug booths in diners and those juke boxes that allow you to select tunes from your booth but play from a central location are also rigged. I can't complain. Six well armed individuals got out of a car to rob the business that I managed. the cops were all over them before they got to the front door as they had recorded the scheme in a dinner.
George Orwell foretold of this future of Big Brother. The US populous and government representatives fell asleep as the pot of water slowly simmered towards a state of surveillance comparable only to the Soviet Eastern Bloc of its Cold War yesteryear. Shame on each of them for killing the American dream all in the name of fear.
Welcome to your Security State.
"There is no expectation of privacy in a public place."
There is an expectation of privacy in a public bathroom, do we apply the same rules to all public spaces? If I communicate in a public area that I would normally expect to be private, is that communication protected? This is something the courts need to decide.
One thing that isn't of question is disclosure of private conversation to third parties allows for damages to be awarded to the injured party. Someone needs to sue the FBI.
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WTF? I thought we lived in a free society?
BUT we've become the frogs in the slowing warming pot of water it seems.
'The unexamined life is not worth living' - Socrates
Feds, police, NSA, CIA, DOD, etc will attempt to cheat corners on gathering intelligence. Why?
Because it is SO DAMN HARD to get it in the first place. However, where I have a REAL issue is that FBI, Police, CIA, and DOD all have weapons, and all sorts of political will be behind them.
OTOH, NSA, does NOT carry weapons, other than for personal protection. NSA's job is just to acquire intel as well as safeguard our systems (which they are failing on the later). NSA's intel is used for national security, as opposed to going after individuals.
It is insane that FBI thinks that they have the RIGHT to do this.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Tell that to the people arrested for not getting the police officers to consent to being recorded.
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
.
In the above you/your are presumed to be plural, but it may be more entertaining to include the singular aspect as well.
That group of bovine standing over there appears quite portentous. That's right it's an ominous cow herd.
I'm assuming the microphone doesn't like the thing the news guy holds on TV.
We used to plant radio mics around for a laugh when we we're younger. Even with spare parts and dodgy soldering they were as smaller than a pack of chewing gum and looked equally inconspicuous. Unless you were an electronics person you'd have no idea what it was (or even that it was a thing).
wouldnt that be the fouth reich? tho that's EUs current situation so it'd need to be the fifth.
It's actually a huge leap, if someone's walking behind me, when I look behind me to see if someone's listening in, someone will be there.
A secret Jewish investigative technical sub-division of the FBI, along with liaison officers and technicians from the Jewish Subdivisions of the NSA and all other Jewish TLOs, are planting hidden, solar powered mics every 1" on center across the continental USA - there is no need to spy overseas when your citizenry is so chock full of bad intent and democratic / subversive Constitutional based values. Jews Jews Jews, etc. Get it?