Slashdot Mirror
EFF Begins Investigating Surveillance Technology Rumors At Standing Rock (eff.org)
Electronic Frontier Foundation has dispatched a team of technologists and lawyers to a protest site in Standing Rock, North Dakota, to investigate "several reports of potentially unlawful surveillance." An anonymous reader writes:
The EFF has "collected anecdotal evidence from water protectors about suspicious cell phone behavior, including uncharacteristically fast battery drainage, applications freezing, and phones crashing completely," according to a recent report. "Some water protectors also saw suspicious login attempts to their Google accounts from IP addresses originating from North Dakota's Information & Technology Department. On social media, many reported Facebook posts and messenger threads disappearing, as well as Facebook Live uploads failing to upload or, once uploaded, disappearing completely."
The EFF reports "it's been very difficult to pinpoint the true cause or causes," but they've targeted over 20 law enforcement agencies with public records requests, noting that "Of the 15 local and state agencies that have responded, 13 deny having any record at all of cell site simulator use, and two agencies -- Morton County and the North Dakota State Highway Patrol (the two agencies most visible on the ground) -- claim that they can't release records in the interest of "public safety"...
"Law enforcement agencies should not be allowed to sidestep public inquiry into the surveillance technologies they're using," EFF writes, "especially when citizens' constitutional rights are at stake... It is past time for the Department of Justice to investigate the scope of law enforcement's digital surveillance at Standing Rock and its consequences for civil liberties and freedoms in the digital world."
The EFF reports "it's been very difficult to pinpoint the true cause or causes," but they've targeted over 20 law enforcement agencies with public records requests, noting that "Of the 15 local and state agencies that have responded, 13 deny having any record at all of cell site simulator use, and two agencies -- Morton County and the North Dakota State Highway Patrol (the two agencies most visible on the ground) -- claim that they can't release records in the interest of "public safety"...
"Law enforcement agencies should not be allowed to sidestep public inquiry into the surveillance technologies they're using," EFF writes, "especially when citizens' constitutional rights are at stake... It is past time for the Department of Justice to investigate the scope of law enforcement's digital surveillance at Standing Rock and its consequences for civil liberties and freedoms in the digital world."
The police seem to think they have limitless powers, it is disgusting. They were given extra powers to deal with the likes of ISIS, not for repressing peaceful protestors. They need to learn they work for the people and not a few company owners.
By now it should be public knowledge for any protester against any government that their personal communication devices and the communication itself will be always under attack. Whoever goes to such protests and especially anyone who is networking with others about it, needs to encrypt all devices and all communications. Not just at the protest itself but in their private life too. One is always under threat to get arrested. If one is arrested the cellphone is the first thing confiscated and of course tried to access. Any US protester who uses US communication services like google, whatsapp, facebook for anything is simply a dumb fool. How many NSLs have been granted wrt Standing Rock already?
Governments infiltrated protest movements 50 years ago with COINTELPRO including assaults on people, did the same in the 90s cross border in Europe, fathered children with activists even and now of course will attack all communications, in meatspace and online. Attacking communications is the first step since it's easy: they own the means of communication. Google hast to comply, since it's the law. They didn't change the amount of effort they will go to, they just changed their tactics. The amount of effort is comparable to spies going deep undercover, to live whole lives over decades to infiltrate, so eavesdropping on communication is a very small and minor step.
Please call them protesters or demonstrators. Calling them water protectors is biased toward the protesters just as calling them dissidents or terrorists would be biased toward the pipeline supporters. The story itself is interesting and is news for nerds. I do want to hear about technology and possible indications (such as battery drain rate) that surveillance is occurring. I would prefer that the summary is not politically biased as I can make my own opinion as to if the pipeline is a good thing or a bad thing.
I know it is a pipe dream, but could we please get back to being a news (for nerds) site and not a political discourse site?
Battery life is lower in remote areas with poor cell coverage for a number of reasons. The radios in the phones transmit at the lowest power needed to maintain a connection. Out in the boonies where the cell towers are just barely in range the phone has to use the maximum wattage which kills the battery. Data rates are usually lower as well (1X or maybe 3G)., which results in longer transmission times to send and receive data, which again kills the battery. So the battery part is no surprise to me. Poor and intermittent data connectivity can also result in applications freezing, and I had at least one older Android phone that would lock up and crash if cell service kept dropping in and out over and over. When riding in the mountains I'd have to just turn it off and only power up to use it when I needed it.
I'm certainly not saying they aren't being monitored or hacked or whatever, but a number of the things they are reporting are normal to those of us who are often out in the country where cell service is marginal.
Better known as 318230.