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Post by avordvet on Sept 16, 2016 4:03:56 GMT -5
Long-Secret Stingray Manuals Detail How Police Can Spy on PhonesSam Biddle, Sep. 12 2016, 2:33 p.m. Harris Corp.’s Stingray surveillance device has been one of the most closely guarded secrets in law enforcement for more than 15 years. The company and its police clients across the United States have fought to keep information about the mobile phone-monitoring boxes from the public against which they are used. The Intercept has obtained several Harris instruction manuals spanning roughly 200 pages and meticulously detailing how to create a cellular surveillance dragnet. Harris has fought to keep its surveillance equipment, which carries price tags in the low six figures, hidden from both privacy activists and the general public, arguing that information about the gear could help criminals. Accordingly, an older Stingray manual released under the Freedom of Information Act to news website TheBlot.com last year was almost completely redacted. So too have law enforcement agencies at every level, across the country, evaded almost all attempts to learn how and why these extremely powerful tools are being used — though court battles have made it clear Stingrays are often deployed without any warrant. The San Bernardino Sheriff’s Department alone has snooped via Stingray, sans warrant, over 300 times. theintercept.com/2016/09/12/long-secret-stingray-manuals-detail-how-police-can-spy-on-phones/
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Post by avordvet on Dec 23, 2016 8:44:39 GMT -5
Police’s secret cellphone-surveillance tool can also block calls by the innocentLaw enforcement agencies in dozens of cities and states have suitcase-sized surveillance tools that simulate cellphone towers such as this one and can track individual cellphones. But the devices can also disrupt emergency calls placed by individuals who are not being monitored.December 21, 2016 3:02 PM, By Tim Johnson It’s no secret that state and local law enforcement agencies have grown more militarized in the past decade, with armored personnel carriers, drones and robots. But one item in their arsenal has been kept largely out of public view, to the dismay of civil liberties advocates who say its use is virtually unregulated – and largely untracked. The device is a suitcase-size surveillance tool commonly called a StingRay that mimics a cellphone tower, allowing authorities to track individual cellphones in real time. Users of the device, which include scores of law enforcement agencies across the country, sign a non-disclosure agreement when they purchase it, pledging not to divulge its use, even in court cases against defendants the device helped capture. www.kansascity.com/news/business/technology/article122259199.html
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