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US Suspects Listening Devices in Washington (apnews.com)
For the first time, the U.S. government has publicly acknowledged the existence in Washington of what appear to be rogue devices that foreign spies and criminal could be using to track individual cellphones and intercept calls and messages. From a report: The use of what are known as cellphone-site simulators by foreign powers has long been a concern, but American intelligence and law enforcement agencies -- which use such eavesdropping equipment themselves -- have been silent on the issue until now. In a March 26 letter to Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden, the Department of Homeland Security acknowledged that last year it identified suspected unauthorized cell-site simulators in the nation's capital. The agency said it had not determined the type of devices in use or who might have been operating them. Nor did it say how many it detected or where.
The agency's response, obtained by The Associated Press from Wyden's office, suggests little has been done about such equipment, known popularly as Stingrays after a brand common among U.S. police departments. The Federal Communications Commission, which regulates the nation's airwaves, formed a task force on the subject four years ago, but it never produced a report and no longer meets regularly. The devices work by tricking mobile devices into locking onto them instead of legitimate cell towers, revealing the exact location of a particular cellphone. More sophisticated versions can eavesdrop on calls by forcing phones to step down to older, unencrypted 2G wireless technology. Some attempt to plant malware.
The agency's response, obtained by The Associated Press from Wyden's office, suggests little has been done about such equipment, known popularly as Stingrays after a brand common among U.S. police departments. The Federal Communications Commission, which regulates the nation's airwaves, formed a task force on the subject four years ago, but it never produced a report and no longer meets regularly. The devices work by tricking mobile devices into locking onto them instead of legitimate cell towers, revealing the exact location of a particular cellphone. More sophisticated versions can eavesdrop on calls by forcing phones to step down to older, unencrypted 2G wireless technology. Some attempt to plant malware.
Does the 'deep state' with its 'globalist' interests count as a foreign power yet?
Does the federal government count as a foreign power yet?
Because their interests probably don't align with yours.
Sure, it could be foreign agencies .. that's plausible.
It could also be that these groups found that every fucking law enforcement and government spy agency was doing so much of this shit they'd better just shut up about it and pretend it's all OK.
Face it, America ... you live in a surveillance state, and most of your Constitution is now optional.
Stop fucking claiming you still live in a free country, or don't live in an oligarchy which only really serves the interests of corporations and the wealthy -- because that hasn't been true in years.
This is totally manipulating the general public. Let's create more fear... rather than let the intelligence agencies do their job.
Of course there are listening devices in Washington. They exist in Moscow as well- and all other countries.
Here's how it works:
Make people dumb everything down. Then scare the crap out of everyone. Then hold an election.
Works almost always.
Another consultant who stuck it out.
"We are the Priests, of the Temples of Syrinx..."
If the US has been caught spying on close allies like Germany and Israel, then you can reasonably assume that Russia, China, North Korea, and others are spying on the US. (we've caught Israel spying on the US for example)
At this point I assume that even the UK spies on the US. And that Sweden probably hosts spies from other countries at the Embassy of Sweden. I guess we all like keeping an eye on our friends and there is no such thing as absolute trust between nations.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
Because... All of the backdoors required to make surveillance of the masses possible..
Time for individual point to point encryption for just about everything..
Let's be a bit more specific. This is another typical NSA / NIST fuckup. When the cell phone systems originally started providing encryption, they looked at the systems. Instead of identifying problems and insisting they were fixed to improve the security of US civilian systems, they identified strengths such as the original stream cipher in GSM and insisted they were weakened. Now the backdoors / deliberately ignored faults they left in the systems are being used by foreign powers to monitor their own citizens and politicians.
Every time a politician or especially representative of one of the US TLAs demands weakened crypto, backdoors or escrow you should recognise them for the traitors they are to your country.