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Virginia Police Spent $500K For An Ineffective Cellphone Surveillance System (muckrock.com)
Cell-site simulators can intercept phone calls and even provide locations (using GPS data). But Virginia's state police force just revealed details about their actual use of the device -- and it's not pretty.
Long-time Slashdot reader v3rgEz writes: In 2014, the Virginia State Police spent $585,265 on a specially modified Suburban outfitted with the latest and greatest in cell phone surveillance: the DRT 1183C, affectionately known as the DRTbox. But according to logs uncovered by public records website MuckRock, the pricey ride was only used 12 times — and only worked seven of those times.
According to Virginia's ACLU director, "each of the 12 uses cost almost $50,000, and only 4 of them resulted in an arrest [raising] a significant question whether the more than half million dollars spent on the device and the vehicle...was a wise investment of public funds."
According to Virginia's ACLU director, "each of the 12 uses cost almost $50,000, and only 4 of them resulted in an arrest [raising] a significant question whether the more than half million dollars spent on the device and the vehicle...was a wise investment of public funds."
This is a non-issue. They don't throw away the car after one year.
The levels of incompetence and stupidity are hilarious. Thankfully, I don't live in the Commonwealth of Virginia. More like the People's Republic of Virginia.
Most longtime state government workers collect a small fortune in pension benefits, courtesy of taxpayers, 30-40 years after most private corporations had ditched their pension programs in favor of 401Ks. Each of those workers collects millions, if they life a normal lifespan.
This cost the VSP $585,265, and came complete with a whole bunch of accessories, including a Chevrolet Suburban outfitted specifically to run the device.
Two important questions remain unanswered
Every program that invades the privacy of anyone other than known or suspected criminals and their associates, should fail in a similarly spectacular fashion.
'The Economy' is a giant Ponzi scheme whose most pitiable suckers are the youngest among us and the yet-unborn.
... proof of concept.
They got their inspiration from Microsoft.
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
Water is wet and fire burns.
What I find amusing is the number of people that just go bonkers over their cell phones. That damn thing is nothing but an opportunity for LEO to bag you. It is not your friend. It will never be a source of exculpatory evidence. It only will be used against you and will never, not ever, show innocence. (OK, -almost- never)
Folks say "Oh, I'm not worried, I'm not a criminal".
Er, ever see the number of times a day the average American commits a crime? You may not think you are a criminal, but so many things are illegal that most do actually commit some sort of crime every day. It's just a matter of if LEO wants to enforce the law against -you- for whatever reason takes their fancy.
Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.
They paid into it, do they are owed it. Don't want to pay out pensions?
THEN DONT OFFER THEM
Simple as that. If you can't find anybody to work the job, then you'll just have to pay out more on the front end via higher pay?
Can't afford that? Then I guess you'll have to do with less, lower quality people doing the services you need.
Are these subscription services?
Virginia being one of the few states to have passed legislation curtailing the use of these exceptionally powerful devices, and mandating warrants and probable cause be obtained prior to their use.
So they don't just use this thing to go after people with an unpaid parking ticket at the discretion of the local meter maid. They actually have to get a warrant. I think this is a good thing personally. I'd rather they have this thing for when it's truly needed, but have it's use limited.
A glance at the log seems to show that in at least 5 out of the 12 instances it was used, the device turned out to be ineffectual in locating the suspect.
So it may not be 100% effective. Are we supposed to be shocked by this? Obviously it would be great if it was. But then, what is in life? Of course there are some qualifiers in the quote above. "A glance" and "seems to show". So we don't really know the full story. Just what the logs appear to indicate. It's kind of like looking at the output from your OBDII logs in your car and trying to judge how much fun you had on your vacation.
If the log fully documents all usage of the device since it was acquired, each of the 12 uses cost almost $50,000, and only 4 of them resulted in an arrest, she noted.
Do all investigations result in arrests? I'm pretty sure the answer is no. So why should this be any different. How much does a typical investigation that this thing be used in cost? I would guess it would cost a lot. I'd like to think they're not going after jay walkers with this thing. Did it also turn into a pumpkin? Can it not be used any longer? If not, then the cost per use to date is meaningless.
I live and pay taxes in Virginia and I suppose I'm looking at this a little differently. I'm happy they aren't running this thing 24/7. It almost seems the author feels they should be using stingrays every functional hour that it can be to get the most hours usage per dollar spent. I'm looking at this like my tap and die set. It cost me a bunch of money, but the few times I needed it at odd hours has made it well worth the cost to me. I'm also happy when it's not needed.
Oh great! With the release of this news story the Virginia State Police will feel they need to justify the purchase (rather than admit buying it was a mistake) and will use it whenever they can. It was only used in 12 cases? Wait 6 months and it will be 1,200.
Why worry about citizen's rights to privacy when you have to justify buying toys!
"Grab them by the pussy" -- President of the United States of America
Just because they only got four arrests out of 12 deployments is not a sign of poor performance (though the 7/12 operational success rate does not speak well) -- if the surveillance obtains information that exonerates a suspect, or keeps the police from pursuing a wild goose-chase, I would still count that as a successful expedition.
Remember, we're trying to reduce the fixation on arrests and punishment -- if we're going to demand at least one prisoner per deployment, it will happen, but probably not justly.
It's impossible to prove that your client was napped by an illegal wiretap if their is no record of said wiretap.
... or the beancounters'll get ya. MuckRock even sounds like a Wire character.
What makes you believe this story isn't fake news? At this point do you really expect the government to tell you the truth about how they are shredding the Bill of Rights?
I'm not saying it's impossible. Maybe this particular surveillance system didn't work well. In that case, you should be asking about the other ones.
Don't look at me that way. I was getting paranoid even before Putin's puppet snuck into the big white house. I also think Snowden is a sincere pawn and Hastings was snuffed by a hacked car. I'm going to play the insanity defense over the flying elephant. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
but...security! kittens! puppies! children! millenials!
What if the device has been used a lot, but the majority of uses are clearly illegal? For example, snooping on political enemies.
The logs would have been purged of the illegal uses, leaving only a small number of occasions that the device would have been used legally.
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
I think the main problem here is the FBI. For the past couple of years they have been touting this technology as "a magic bullet to fight crime" all the while suppressing the fact that it is a major fourth amendment violation because it does not target an individual subject to investigation but everyone in an area. So now states are starting to crack down on unrestricted use, putting this tech back in control of the courts, just like they did with thermal imagers. Now the police are finding that they can't use this to crack down on petty infractions but must save its use for actual crimes. Boo Hoo.