thewayne: (Cyranose)
[personal profile] thewayne
Stingrays are $100,000 devices that simulate cell phone towers and are used by law enforcement to capture a suspect's cell phone traffic. The problem is, it also captures EVERYONE ELSE'S TRAFFIC. There has been tremendous controversy about 4th Amendment rights because it's such a blanket capture of traffic. Many criminal cases have been dropped because the defense attorneys have pressed for details on the Stingrays and the prosecution abandoned the case under direction of the Federal Department of Justice to not reveal details.

Well, apparently they now they have smaller hand-held devices that are 1/20th the price and can filter for just a suspect's traffic. And the 4th Amendment problems remain.

http://www.wired.com/2015/08/security-news-week-police-use-mobile-cell-phone-trackers-avoid-court-orders/

Date: 2015-08-24 09:23 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] porsupah.livejournal.com
The tragedy, of course, is that there's still such support for pervasive surveillance, and lack of regard for civil liberties, amongst the general populace. Not that there isn't substantial opposition as well, thankfully. Perhaps unsurprisingly, support for such appears to be quite solid amongst the elected, modulo the occasional recommendation for some nominal window dressing.

Date: 2015-08-24 12:50 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] artkouros.livejournal.com
I have to wonder though, can you rally claim privacy for what permeates the air? Don't I have the right to detect and decode any and all electromagnetic signals that come onto my property? If a cop stands on a public corner and sees and hears and sniffs what's going on around him no one would object. Why is it different if he extends his senses with an antenna?

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