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Montreal Police Monitored iPhone of La Presse Journalist Patrick Lagace (www.cbc.ca)
Montreal police have reportedly spied on La Presse journalist Patrick Lagace, tracking his cellphone calls, texts, and locations. According to Legace, the police department "obtained the court-authorized search warrants because they believed the target of one of their investigations was feeding him information." However, he said "the story in question was actually first reported on by a competitor, leading him to believe the investigation was actually a thinly veiled attempt to learn the identity of the sources within the police department." CBC.ca reports: La Press reported Monday at least 24 surveillance warrants were issued for Patrick Lagace's iPhone this year at the request of the police special investigations unit. That section is responsible for looking into crime within the police force. The warrants were used to track Lagace's whereabouts using the GPS chip in his iPhone. The warrants also allowed police to obtain the identities of everyone he spoke to or exchanged text messages with during that time. It's part of a "culture shift" among law enforcement and judges that began with the passing of Bill C-51 under the previous Conservative government, he said. Henheffer pointed to other recent cases where law enforcement has been spying on journalists or fighting for them to turn over the names of anonymous sources in court. In September, the Surete du Quebec seized Journal de Montreal reporter Michael Nguyen's computer because they believed he illegally obtained information cited in a story he wrote. At the same time, the RCMP has been trying to get a reporter from Vice News to hand over background materials used for stories on a suspected terrorist. Last May, CBC News revealed that a rogue group of Mounties investigating the leak of a secret document spied on two Canadian journalists for more than a week without any authorization.
If you're not a cop, you're guilty.
Last May, CBC News revealed that a rogue group of Mounties investigating the leak of a secret document spied on two Canadian journalists for more than a week without any authorization..
I read this as :
Last May, CBC News reported Mounties had investigated two Canadian journalists for more than a week over the leak of a secret document. No charges were filed.
~ People that think they are better than anyone else for any reason are the cause of all the strife in the world.
Police does what they can do, not what they are allowed to do! "The end justifies the means"
More at 11!
This is something of a big deal here. There always has been mistrust of police since the 1970's in Quebec.
When you start spying on journalist, you are are only one Putin away from dictatorship.
Pun intended.
If your going to have a cell phone on you know the gov, mil, police will track you.
The ability to plot you and your contacts is easy. The ability to log what other phone stopped with and for how long is within a nations city or state police budget per case.
A park bench, a cafe, walking side by side for any length of time can all be discovered. With cell phone mapping it will all be logged and can be played back.
Don't meet contacts with your phone. Have a friend take your phone with them into an area and wonder around to create a fake map.
You can still be tracked on CCTV, by vehicle registration plate but thats is a given.
Do not trust any soft power down, remote turn on is alway a gov/mil supported option in many devices.
Anyone in the press should be aware of how police counter the media with all the tools they can get.
Journalists caught on tape in police bugging (21 September 2002)
https://www.theguardian.com/uk...
Your phone is designed to be wire tap friendly as sold globally. Don't carry it near contacts or use it to create vast amounts of disinformation.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
They must share the bed with Apple, otherwise, doesn't the carrier only have access to much less precise cell tower localization?
Isn't that a serious back door?
Was he using an iPhone or an Android?
Elok
I hope the press gets really indignant about this. They sure don't seem to care much when it is not a member of the press whose privacy is violated.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
What shocks me the most: the public reaction to the news. I'm from Quebec, saw the local news and everyone from mayors to prime ministers had their word about the incident.
It's mostly about the police's power and journalist's source protection. Almost no one mentions how the whole operation was sanctioned by law, and that *anyone* can easily be spied on the same way (that seems to involve way more than cell tower math), and almost nobody seems to question the fact that most phones are manufactured in a way where the consumer has no reasonable way to opt-out of surveillance.
Am I late to the party or is this dystopia something humanity wilfully agreed on?
Oh, right, convenience of a portable candy crush game trumps everything, don't make me think.
Remember last week when all you bootlickers were telling me that you'd talk to the police because you don't think you'll go to jail for doing it and you want to help others that badly? You know, back there on the article about the cell dragnet the police put together to text 7500 phones that were within the vicinity of the crime scene?
Yes, my memory works just fine, and my sense of morality is largely unchanged. Yes, I remember thinking that that was a fairly 'clever' modern way of canvassing the neighbourhood!
You still willing to talk to the police?
Yes, absolutely.
Canadian police are corrupt. Keep your yap shut, always. Or take a risk.
I'd certainly go as far as to say that some people are corrupt, some people are police and there's probably a non-zero subset of these groups. However I don't see this as sufficient reason to abrogate my 'civic duty' or my responsibility to assist in the shaping of a society in which I'd be happy to live, so, thanks for the 'advice', but I'll take the risk.
But realize, they have no respect for you or your rights.
You do realise this isn't the 70's anymore right? I'm pretty sure the number of incidents in which a 'suspect' has been tied to chair and beaten with a rubber hose until they squeal like a pig to the pigs has fallen, since then, to approximately zero (in my country and the country in question, at least). Furthermore, you do realise that, in the case in question, the police applied for and got legal warrants for their surveillance. Journalists may not be compelled to reveal their sources, but there's no absolute protection on them for crimes they might commit in pursuit of a story, nor is there any protection on their sources if they can be identified without the journalist intentionally giving them up.
Depending on what you do there's a healthy level of paranoia (don't carry your cellphone if you're going to meet with your snitch; don't set your dead drop in an area covered by cctv cameras; etc.) and then there's batshit crazy. I can't help thinking you're heading towards the second camp...
I wish I had mod points to mod you up. You're apparently being voted down for truth.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Sounds like they used proper procedure which is good. However considering the change of what was actually taking place the big question is A) Did the police lie to get the warrants from the Judge, or B) Did the Judge make a mistake and overstep? I'm guessing A. They likely made up a bogus reason in order to get at what appears to be whistle blowers. Which if that is the case I expect some heads to roll. I don't see this as something where law enforcement will be "closing ranks" as sometimes happens, as if the above is the case you have a situation where the police are making the judicial system, and a particular Judge look bad, and undermining not only their authority but their reputation which is a pretty big deal when the whole thing really depends on the people having confidence in the system. As such, I suspect if this makes it before a Judge, I expect the reaction to be severe...
Anyway I guess we'll see.
A tracking warrant also allowed the SPVM to activate the GPS chip in the iPhone
Is this actually possible or did the journalist make this up because cell tower triangulation sounds too complicated for the average reader?