CBS Reports 'Suspicious' Cell Phone Tower Activity In Washington DC (cbsnews.com)

"An unusually high amount of suspicious cell phone activity in the nation's capital has caught the attention of the Department of Homeland Security, raising concerns that U.S. officials are being monitored by a foreign entity," reports CBS News: The issue was first reported in the Washington Free Beacon, but a source at telecom security firm ESD America confirmed the spike in suspicious activity to CBS News. ESD America, hired preemptively for a DHS pilot program this January called ESD Overwatch, first noticed suspicious activity around cell phone towers in certain parts of the capital, including near the White House. This kind of activity can indicate that someone is monitoring specific individuals or their devices... According to the ESD America source, the first such spike of activity was in D.C. but there have been others in other parts of the country. Based on the type of technology used, the source continued, it is likely that the suspicious activity was being conducted by a foreign nation.
The news coincides with a letter sent to the DHS by two congressmen "deeply concerned" about vulnerabilities in the SS7 protocol underlying U.S. cellular networks, according to an article shared by Slashdot reader Trailrunner7. Senator Ron Wyden and Representative Ted Lieu are asking if the agency has enough resources to address the threat. "Although there have been a few news stories about this topic, we suspect that most Americans simply have no idea how easy it is for a relatively sophisticated adversary to track their movements, tap their calls, and hack their smartphones."

Comments

This is why the travel ban is needed

[Anonymous Coward]

This is precisely why the travel ban is necessary. There just isn't enough information available to properly vet anyone coming from the countries on Trump's travel ban. We can make the process of entering the United States take ten years instead of two and we still won't have enough information to discriminate threats from innocent people. Unfortunately, the terrorists ruin it for the real refugees. This is precisely why the Muslim ban is needed, because there are very real threats to our national security and recent history indicates that a very disproportionate amount of those plotting terrorist acts are Muslims. It is a testament to our law enforcement and intelligence agencies that we haven't had another attack on the scale of 9/11. However, there are always individuals who are engaging or plotting insidious activity against the United States, which is precisely why the travel ban is needed to keep them out. This is the compelling state interest to justify Trump's travel ban against predominantly Muslim countries.