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BPD document confirms use of cell-phone trackers
By adamg on Thu, 11/19/2015 - 2:16pm
The New England Center for Investigative Reporting reports Boston Police signed an agreement with the FBI under then Commissioner Ed Davis to use "StingRay" devices that can be used for real-time tracking of cell phones.
Perhaps the most controversial provision requires the BPD to notify the FBI if any prosecutor intends to disclose sensitive information in court, and to seek dismissal of those cases if the FBI determines that such disclosure might compromise the technology.
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Comments
What was that one of our locals once said?
The frustrating part is that neither major political party, nor local elected official, is challenging things like this.
Thats basically all
Rand Paul does.
Boston is not alone, the use
Boston is not alone, the use of "Stingray" Cell site simulators is fairly widespread. Here is an unredacted copy of a similar agreement obtained by the ACLU signed by Erie County NY https://goo.gl/CKA7JQ
In case you didn't know The City of Buffalo is located in Erie County.
Copsuckers
Where are the commenters that are constantly stumbling over themselves to lavish the BPD with praise simply for doing their jobs when stories like this and the one about the police breaking into that guy's house and arresting him for no reason drop? ACAB
Here!
I am right here! I don't mind. I have nothing to hide and if it keeps you and your family as well as mine even a liiiiittle safer, then I am more than happy to have them tap my phone. I DO think the police do a great job and I think if you spent a little time with a PO, you'd see the insanity out there. Mistakes happen, and yes, it is absolutely unfortunate, but they didn't say "hey, I'm bored. let's go break a guys door down, arrest him and see what happens for sh ! ts and giggles tonight!" It wasn't for no reason. Wrong guy? Wrong apartment? Yep! But have you ever been lead to believe something that turned out not to be accurate?
Location tracker
To be clear, the report states that this system tracks location and does not monitor calls' content. Huge difference, in my book.
That being said, before I get too worked up about this report, I'd like to know: (a) whether a warrant is required, and; (b) the degree of precision with which this system can locate a device. The report doesn't answer these points, unfortunately.
Congratulations on your
Congratulations on your willingness to live in an Orwellian nightmare. Not all of us are with you.
Where did we hear this before?
Not supporting privacy rights because you have nothing to hide is like not supporting freedom of speech because you have nothing to say.
If you have nothing to hide, then please do the following for us:
Spurious
If a public official wants to track where my cell phone goes during the day, have at it. It would be incredibly boring. I think that's the case for the vast majority of people, at least the law abiding ones.
The things you bullet-point have tangential connection, or absolutely no connection at all, to cell phone tracking. (Sexual practices? Tax evasion?)
The fact is, if the cops really wanted to, they could stake out my house (or your house, or anyone's house) and tail me everywhere I went. This is just a technological extension of that.
The how is important
If the police follow you all day you can confront them in a trial. If they buy the data from Verizon you can cross-examine someone from Verizon. But in the case of this technology you can't confront anyone. You can't talk to the company who made the products. You can't even know that's how they tracked you. This is a big deal.
Also important is that they won't talk about how much they spent on this stuff, nor how it's usage might be causing technical problems for the people they aren't attempting to track.
Tracking you
There is a large multinational company tracking you at every moment of the day. They likely know when you wake, how long until you leave for work, the route you take, how frequently you speed or turn without fully stopping. How long you sit at your desk. Where you go for lunch. How much exercise you get. Your heart rate. What you google. What you buy at Dunks. Where you go at night and how well you sleep.
It is either Apple or Samsung.
The data is out there. Facebook knows me very well and I've never even entered the URL into a browser. You can't stop the modern world from creating data about you.
At the end of the day it pays to live a boring, honest, monogamous, law abiding life.
Yes laws are perfectly
Yes laws are perfectly written. So much so that they never change. Police are infallible and corruption has never existed in any capacity. Racism doesn't exist. So let's just shuttup and never challenge anything because if JP Resident doesn't have a problem then noone else's problems matter.
Would you let them into your
Would you let them into your home to search your files? Search your computers? Search your bedroom and closets? What about your children's bedrooms and clothing? Their toys?
Would you let them read your mail, your email, your diary? Would you let them monitor your conversations with your spouse, children, and parents?
This is illegal, unconstitutional, and does not make us safer.
Need for reform
I understand we live in a world where dangerous people may cause harm indiscriminately to many people (terrorism, for example) but if BPD used these devices as Baltimore and Chicago police have, it is a sad state affairs in the commonwealth.
We would have to add this to the corruption scandals of the past, the inscrutable inner-workings of some state agencies (some which are not even "public safety" agencies), not to mention the debacle of the drug lab scandals involving Mses. Dookhan and Farak.
I would hope people petition their legislators to ask for what people have done in California and Utah -- if you want to track someone, get a warrant. It will undermine trust in public institutions further and thus give pretext to underfund certain agencies because of public discontent. Taxpayers of course shouldn't pay for things that are unconstitutional or illegal...no matter how "well-intended."
Why is this surprising?
Just about everyone publishes their life on Twitter, Facebook and don't seem to give it a second thought.
That is information I am
That is information I am INTENTIONALLY putting out there. I do not want people to read my private conversations with my family and friends, I do not want them to read my emails, I do not want them to view every detail of my life.
Your argument is a wonderful example of a logical fallacy.
OH boohoo.
If you are really that worried and want to stop being tracked get one of these:
http://www.amazon.com/Black-Hole-Faraday-Bag-Isolation/dp/B0091WILY0
Otherwise deal with the people you elect.
A faraday cage is not capable
A faraday cage is not capable of stopping the type of surveillance the stingray system does. In order to stop stingray prying a cell phone user would have to limit their phone use to areas outside the range of the stingray tranceivers which is at least very difficult because they are reportedly mobile.
FBI and BPD are still blatenly lying
The stingrays do far more than location tracking, numerous disclosures have proven that they can be used to capture both voice and data traffic. They are playing NSA-level games with semantics probably by keying in on an older/obsolete platform called "stingray" while not mentioning that they have some new platform with a different name that they don't have to tell us about because the question specifically says "stingray" or whatever ...
Lets not also forget the standard games they play by hiding behind different LEO agencies. The FBI can say with a straight face that they did not put stingrays and high-res imaging assets over Baltimore during the protests because the planes that did the work belonged to the DEA etc. etc.
Lets review what these things do:
Just think about that for a moment. These devices are considered so sensationally invasive that the feds will make criminal cases just vanish into thin air rather than admit stingray use. AND the police have to sign confidentiality agreements and NDAs before they can get one.
These devices are so powerful
Actually, in most cases, they just lie. Look up the term "parallel construction."