Confiscating the Phone Records of US Citizens

[Tulsa Zephyr]

Saw "Snowden" last week...and regardless of what you may think of Oliver Stone or Edward Snowden, I found it to be a very sobering film and I know from previous experience, that the military and civilian milieu depicted in this film are very accurate.  The FISA courts tend to rubber stamp whatever surveillance is being requested.

[Hoss]

Saw "Snowden" last week...and regardless of what you may think of Oliver Stone or Edward Snowden, I found it to be a very sobering film and I know from previous experience, that the military and civilian milieu depicted in this film are very accurate.  The FISA courts tend to rubber stamp whatever surveillance is being requested.

Which one?  The one with Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Snowden?  Or the docufilm that documented it in real time.  I found THAT film to be very sobering.  Haven't seen the other one yet.

EDIT:  The name of the docufilm I'm talking about is CitizenFour.  Great movie.

[Tulsa Zephyr]

"Snowden" with Joseph Gordon-Levitt is what I saw last week.  I had seen "Citizenfour" a couple of years ago and it was definitely better.  Stone uses his film to flesh out the main character and put his actions into an historical context. 

[Vashta Nerada]

A powerful surveillance program that police used for tracking racially charged protests in Baltimore and Ferguson, Mo., relied on special feeds of user data provided by Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, according to an ACLU report Tuesday.

The companies provided the data — often including the locations, photos and other information posted publicly by users — to Geofeedia, a Chicago-based company that says it analyzes social media posts to deliver real-time surveillance information to help 500 law enforcement agencies track and respond to crime.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2016/10/11/facebook-twitter-and-instagram-sent-feeds-that-helped-police-track-minorities-in-ferguson-and-baltimore-aclu-says/



Police may have used facial recognition software and a private company's analysis of social media accounts to identify and arrest people with outstanding warrants during the unrest in Baltimore last year, according to a document released Tuesday by the American Civil Liberties Union.

The document was released by the ACLU in California as it announced that its investigation into the private company, Geofeedia, had resulted in three major social media companies — Facebook, Instagram and Twitter — rescinding Geofeedia's commercial access to their data.

In the document, Geofeedia touted its partnership with Baltimore County Police to pitch its services to police in Glendale, Calif.

Civil liberties advocates have criticized Geofeedia's monitoring, saying it can have a chilling effect on free speech and disproportionately target minorities. Last month, The Baltimore Sun reported that at least five area police departments paid Geofeedia to monitor, map and store citizens' public social media posts.

Geofeedia told officials in Glendale that the Baltimore County Police Department's Criminal Intelligence Unit had used its services "to heighten officers' situational awareness and help them stay one step ahead of the rioters," and that "police officers were even able to run social media photos through facial recognition technology to discover rioters with outstanding warrants and arrest them directly from the crowd."

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/crime/bs-md-geofeedia-update-20161011-story.html

[Vashta Nerada]

Hemisphere is a secretive program run by AT&T that searches trillions of call records and analyzes cellular data to determine where a target is located, with whom he speaks, and potentially why.

In 2013, Hemisphere was revealed by The New York Times and described only within a Powerpoint presentation made by the Drug Enforcement Administration. The Times described it as a "partnership" between AT&T and the U.S. government; the Justice Department said it was an essential, and prudently deployed, counter-narcotics tool.

Hemisphere isn't a "partnership" but rather a product AT&T developed, marketed, and sold at a cost of millions of dollars per year to taxpayers. No warrant is required to make use of the company's massive trove of data, according to AT&T documents, only a promise from law enforcement to not disclose Hemisphere if an investigation using it becomes public.

Those charged with a crime are entitled to know the evidence against them come trial. Adam Schwartz, staff attorney for activist group Electronic Frontier Foundation, said that means AT&T may leave investigators no choice but to construct a false investigative narrative to hide how they use Hemisphere if they plan to prosecute anyone.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/10/25/at-t-is-spying-on-americans-for-profit.html





Police surveillance: The US city that beat Big Brother
http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-37411250

Brian Hofer agrees that security cameras can prevent crime but says there is no evidence that mass surveillance does. And he argues that police departments only turn to "shiny gadgets" when relations with the public they are meant to protect have broken down.

"Instead of trying to repair these relationships we are just throwing more surveillance equipment at the problem."

[Vashta Nerada]

Police "pinged" the cell phones of anyone who had been in contact with fugitive Michael Vance, resulting in a number of dead-end raids on unsuspecting people:

According to channel 5 KOCO, officers believed that Michael Vance was on the property because of a ping on a phone that made it look like Vance was there. They explained that somehow he was using Bluetooth and wasn't actually there.
http://us.blastingnews.com/news/2016/10/deputy-sheriff-shot-while-looking-for-michael-vance-in-oklahoma-search-continues-00122129

FOX23 Katie Higgins talked to a woman in Shattuck, OK, whose home was stormed by investigators this morning during the search for Vance.
Earlier today I spoke to Linda Kotchey of Shattuck, OK. She says investigators stormed through her home early this morning. She say police told her they traced a cell phone ping to her address and thought Vance might be there. He was not.
https://www.facebook.com/KatieHigginsNews/videos/1429846177043701/?_fb_noscript=1

[patric]

It's like you people have never heard of the original draft of the 4th Amendment: "Persons shall be free from unreasonable search and seizure unless it helps the government do something they say they need to do." They shortened it in editing.

"Meet the new boss..."

Senate passes controversial spying law that scoops up Americans' phone calls and emails without a warrant

http://www.businessinsider.com/senate-extends-fisa-section-702-warrantless-surveillance-bill-2018-1

[patric]

OHP sifted through cell phone conversations of turnpike travelers to catch a coin box thief.

https://www.readfrontier.org/stories/secret-cellular-surveillance-orders-by-law-enforcement-are-increasing-in-oklahoma-and-proposed-law-would-expand-their/


Spokespeople for the Tulsa County Sheriff's Office and Tulsa Police Department both said only that agencies did not have a cell site simulator — and both said they did not know what a "StingRay" was.

Agencies that use Stingrays are required to deny its existence as a condition of their license... never mind how absurd it is that they would have never heard of one of the hottest surveillance tools in the ten years they have been around.  (cough...fairgrounds...cough..cough)

[TeeDub]

OHP sifted through cell phone conversations of turnpike travelers to catch a coin box thief.

https://www.readfrontier.org/stories/secret-cellular-surveillance-orders-by-law-enforcement-are-increasing-in-oklahoma-and-proposed-law-would-expand-their/

I guess my question is, at what point does your expectation of privacy end?

Should I get offended if a police force asks for cell phones that authenticated to a particular tower?    Note that is merely numbers, not name and address....   Name and address would require a subponea as it is considered CPNI.

[patric]

I guess my question is, at what point does your expectation of privacy end?

Should I get offended if a police force asks for cell phones that authenticated to a particular tower?    Note that is merely numbers, not name and address....   Name and address would require a subponea as it is considered CPNI.

I think the synthesis of the Frontier article was that The State casually disregarded the privacy of thousands for a petty endevour that should have been reserved for "fighting terrorism."  ....that, and we only know about it by accident rather than accountability.

I encourage you to read the rest of the story as it might better answer your question.

[TeeDub]

As long as you are willing to pay the NSA for the privilege of carrying a GPS tracker in your pocket, you have no expectation of privacy.

[rebound]

As long as you are willing to pay the NSA for the privilege of carrying a GPS tracker in your pocket, you have no expectation of privacy.

I get the glib comment, but that's not how it works.  Just because the govt "can" track you, doesn't mean they should.  I've got an Amazon Alexa in my house, and I know that if the feds want to hack that, they can.  But that doesn't mean they have the legal right to.  If they want the data, they need to go through the process. As long as there is a process, and it is open and followed, then it's cool. We can argue the actual rules, as long as they exist and are followed.

That said, I read the article and don't have a real problem with the request that was granted.  They had a set of thefts, and asked for the list of cell numbers that pinged the associated towers during that time.  (As I understand it, they did not get the personal info at that point.)  IF they find that a cell number comes up on a significant number of those towers at the time of the thefts, then that moves past a random search and into a specific, targeted, investigation.  They should then request a warrant to get the personal info of that particular number, as it would seem that this would be sufficient grounds to pursue.  Again, not a cop or a lawyer, but seems logical to me.

[patric]

I get the glib comment, but that's not how it works.  Just because the govt "can" track you, doesn't mean they should.  I've got an Amazon Alexa in my house, and I know that if the feds want to hack that, they can.  But that doesn't mean they have the legal right to.  If they want the data, they need to go through the process. As long as there is a process, and it is open and followed, then it's cool. We can argue the actual rules, as long as they exist and are followed.

That said, I read the article and don't have a real problem with the request that was granted.  They had a set of thefts, and asked for the list of cell numbers that pinged the associated towers during that time.  (As I understand it, they did not get the personal info at that point.)  IF they find that a cell number comes up on a significant number of those towers at the time of the thefts, then that moves past a random search and into a specific, targeted, investigation.  They should then request a warrant to get the personal info of that particular number, as it would seem that this would be sufficient grounds to pursue.  Again, not a cop or a lawyer, but seems logical to me.

It does assume the rules are always followed.  They arent.

The difference between a Stingray being just a "pen register" that shows non-personally identifiable information and a Stingray that siphons up every last bit of data in its range is only a mouse click.

There are thousands of documented instances where judges are mislead in order to avoid acknowledging that the technology even exists.

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/baltimore-city/bs-md-ci-stingray-case-20150408-story.html
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/07/fbi-didnt-need-warrant-for-stingray-in-attempted-murder-case-doj-says

[TeeDub]

It does assume the rules are always followed.  They arent.

The difference between a Stingray being just a "pen register" that shows non-personally identifiable information and a Stingray that siphons up every last bit of data in its range is only a mouse click.

Just because you have cell phone records or even all the conversations/text messages recorded, that still doesn't tell you who 918-xxx-xxxx belongs to until you get a court order.   

[rebound]

Just because you have cell phone records or even all the conversations/text messages recorded, that still doesn't tell you who 918-xxx-xxxx belongs to until you get a court order.   

General eavesdropping should not be allowed.  I don't want a govt that looks at all calls, particularly the actual conversation data, and then uses that data to track everyday citizens.   They need to have a reason, first, and then ask for the call and/or personal data.  This is, to me, philosophically similar to police setting up the random check stations for drunk drivers.  It's a blanket search that indiscriminately targets everyone, and then sweeps up whatever it can find.   I'm all for stopping drunk drivers, but general-public check stations are over the line.  (JMHO)