Massive police surveillance state

If you thought that only the NSA was violating the Fourth Amendment rights of Americans by intercepting their communications, think again. Thanks to so-called “Stingray” phone tracker technology, the FBI — and thousands of local police agencies — are now routinely spying on millions of Americans, without search warrants. Naturally, they are trying to keep it secret. That’s the way secret police states work.

The FBI and the Obama adminstration are taking the position that no search warrants are needed, because (so they say) citizens have no expectation of privacy “in public places.”

The letter was prompted in part by a Wall Street Journal report in November that said the Justice Department was deploying small airplanes equipped with cell-site simulators that enabled “investigators to scoop data from tens of thousands of cellphones in a single flight, collecting their identifying information and general location.”

The bureau’s position on Americans’ privacy isn’t surprising. The Obama Administration has repeatedly maintained that the public has no privacy in public places. It began making that argument as early as 2010, when it told a federal appeals court that the authorities should be allowed to affix GPS devices on vehicles and track a suspect’s every move without court authorization. The Supreme Court, however, eventually ruled that warrants are required. What’s more, the administration has argued that placing a webcam with pan-and-zoom capabilities on a utility pole to spy on a suspect at his or her residence was no different from a police officer’s observation from the public right-of-way. A federal judge last month disagreed with the government’s position, tossing evidence gathered by the webcam that was operated from afar.

In their letter, Leahy and Grassley complained that little is known about how stingrays, also known as ISMI catchers, are used by law enforcement agencies. The Harris Corp., a maker of the devices from Florida, includes non-disclosure clauses with buyers. Baltimore authorities cited a non-disclosure agreement to a judge in November as their grounds for refusing to say how they tracked a suspect’s mobile phone. They eventually dropped charges rather than disclose their techniques. Further, sometimes the authorities simply lie to judges about their use or undertake other underhanded methods to prevent the public from knowing that the cell-site simulators are being used.

The bastards maintain that because your cell phone puts out a signal into the air, if they can intercept it in a public place (meaning anywhere in the air), then it’s not private, and thus the Fourth Amendment does not apply. (They freely admit that the devices, by mimicking cell phone towers, draw in all cell phone communications in any area where they are placed.)

The Harris Corporation that makes these things refuses to sell them to anyone other than cops, which fascinates me, because if the cops are intercepting phone calls without search warrants, then why shouldn’t citizens be able to do the same thing? Unless the police have some special, God-given right to just spy on everyone without warrant, I’m not getting it. Think about it: if the signals your phone puts out are in fact in an unprotected “public space” then why should the police be the only members of the public allowed to listen in? Because it is illegal to wiretap and listen in, you say? Well, if there is no warrant, then it is illegal wiretapping. Massive surveillance by police, who have no more right to illegally tap phones than anyone else.

Shouldn’t citizens be allowed to counter it by having access to the same technology?

I think someone ought to sue the squalid Harris Corporation and force them to provide public access to these devices. Naturally, they hide behind the phrase “national security“:

The National Security Agency’s spying tactics are being intensely scrutinized following the recent leaks of secret documents. However, the NSA isn’t the only US government agency using controversial surveillance methods.

Monitoring citizens’ cell phones without their knowledge is a booming business. From Arizona to California, Florida to Texas, state and federal authorities have been quietly investing millions of dollars acquiring clandestine mobile phone surveillance equipment in the past decade.

Earlier this year, a covert tool called the “Stingray” that can gather data from hundreds of phones over targeted areas attracted international attention. Rights groups alleged that its use could be unlawful. But the same company that exclusively manufacturers the Stingray—Florida-based Harris Corporation—has for years been selling government agencies an entire range of secretive mobile phone surveillance technologies from a catalogue that it conceals from the public on national security grounds.

Details about the devices are not disclosed on the Harris website, and marketing materials come with a warning that anyone distributing them outside law enforcement agencies or telecom firms could be committing a crime punishable by up to five years in jail.

These little-known cousins of the Stingray cannot only track movements—they can also perform denial-of-service attacks on phones and intercept conversations. Since 2004, Harris has earned more than $40 million from spy technology contracts with city, state, and federal authorities in the US, according to procurement records.

National security? These massive Fourth Amendment violations and invasions of the privacy of millions by local police departments across the country are the the antithesis of national security. I submit that the Harris Corporation and every God-damned police department involved is threatening national security. If violating the Constitution and creating a police state unimaginable in scope even to Heinrich Himmler or Lavrenti Beria does not threaten our national security, then what does?

In another delicious irony, at least one apparatchik judge has held that the public is not entitled to know anything about the use of the devices.

A local judge in Arizona ruled Friday that the Tucson Police Department (TPD) does not have to disclose records related to the use of stingrays, also known as cell-site simulators, under the state’s public records act.

According to a Saturday report from Capitol Media Services, a state news wire, complying with reporter Beau Hodai’s public records request “would give criminals a road map for how to defeat the device, which is used not only by Tucson but other local and national police agencies.” Hodai sued the TPD and the City of Tucson in March 2014 to force them to hand over such records.

Huh? The government justifies their use by saying that the Fourth Amendment doesn’t apply because they are used in public places where there is no privacy, but citizens are not allowed to know anything about their use because… the government is entitled to privacy???

How Orwellian can these people get?

Who the hell do they think they are?

MORE: I think it is worth noting that some of the people in our government seem to care. (At least, they create an appearance of caring.)