Finally, a reason to pay attention to Tacoma.
The basics:
-In 2006, Tacoma Police applied to the Justice Dept. for requisition of hardware that tricks all cell phones w/in a half-mile radius into recognizing it as a cell tower. Cell phones then transmit metadata to the device, which can then be trolled for suspicious activity.
-The device is basically an advanced pen register. Except that it applies to everybody within .5 miles of use. By the way, you usually need a judicial order before using pen register. On each individual suspect.
-Tacoma applied for the hardware under the auspices of protecting against IED's. Because there are so many of those in Tacoma.
-Up to now, it has been used for purposes of criminal prosecution rather than anti-terrorism measures. See above re. "nobody wants to bomb Tacoma".
-Local judge in charge of granting tap warrants had no idea that this was a thing.
Why should you pay attention to this? Because if Tacoma can get it, who can't. I guarantee that you'll see more instances of stuff like this cropping up. In fact...
How is this not already national news? How do we even pretend that this is anywhere near constitutional? Why am I being forced to take Tacoma, WA seriously?
Well... to be fair: 1) It's a wire-tapping device, not "PRISM lite." 2) It works by being in physical proximity of your target, jamming the nearest tower, spoofing the network and acting as a relay for cell phone traffic to/from that tower. 3) They're not exactly uncommon. 4) They formed a major plot device of Season 4 of The Wire, back in 2007. 5) Their functionality is so simple and obvious that their patents have been vacated in England. 6) It's not even the cops' fault they didn't disclose everything. 7) They actually cost more than an MRAP or other military cast-off (and have demonstrably better applicability in law enforcement) 8) You and I both know that the Tacoma News Tribune is an out-and-out rag and always has been. They didn't even really start covering David Brame until they were doing retrospectives. (for those of you not local to the PNW, it's quite a story). So. Yeah, wiretapping. But I've never seen any evidence that Stingrays are more than a localized violation of unlawful search and seizure. If you want to use anything you get out of one you need a wiretapping warrant, same as it ever was. Does it potentially scoop up other cell conversations? Yeah, but it's not a dragnet device like anything associated with the NSA is. It's not a data collection device, it's a data interception device. You need a target before you haul it out of the storage shed.
1) Yeah, I was waiting for somebody to call me out on that. In defense of my shitty title: from what I remember, the domestic application of PRISM (at least so far as we know) was limited ("limited") to bulk telephonic metadata collection of generally everybody. All the other scary stuff was applied only to overseas correspondences where at least one of the senders/recipients was a foreign national. So when I say "PRISM lite," I mean: similar indiscriminate bulk collection and storage of same kind of data sought via PRISM's domestic application. Clearly, the scope is. Um. Much more limited. Now, I anticipate a major objection to the above, and recognize its validity (see response to your conclusion below). But I see enough logistical similarities between PRISM and Stingray to draw some parallels, however superficial. Anyhow, that's my meager justification for walking right up to the line between hyperbole and lie. Didn't cross it, though! I could be a modern blogger. 2) However, that .5 mi radius thing, it's a little fuzzy since Stingray is readily portable. 3) I know, that's the link I gave too- doesn't make me feel better about the whole thing, though... 4) Thanks for reminding me to go back and re-watch The Wire. There goes my night. And the night after that, etc. 5) THEN WHY ARE WE SPENDING SO MUCH MONEY ON THEM GAWD DON'T WE HAVE BETTER THINGS TO DO ARGH 6) This is gross. 7) What's an MRAP? 8) Yeah, there's not much coming out of Tacoma that's not raggedy. Schmata city, man. (Aside: I have a theory that traffic alway slows down around Tacoma because everybody's constantly rubbernecking: damn, what happened to that place? Apropos of nothing.) My attention to this piece was drawn by a radio section on KUOW, though, who I have considerably more respect for. They saw the whole shebang as legit enough to interview the reporter. It was pretty interesting- will dig around on the KUOW website for it later to see if I can find a link. 9) Yeah. There is a gulf between what PRISM does and what Tacoma cops are doing. One takes all telephonic data and searches for connections later; the other searches for a predetermined target by grabbing all the telephonic data it can and sifting through the chaff to get to the wheat. And maybe that should be bad enough- is "at least it's just illegal wiretapping" the standard we should be reaching for these days? But beyond that- if the difference is somewhere between procedural and philosophical, aren't the safeguards, as well? After all, in Tacoma's case, current testimony from the judge in charge of such things points to the conclusion that Tacoma police were flouting due process, both from an individualized get-a-pen-register-warrant-for-this-suspect standpoint as well as within the broader application of the hardware which, after all, had been acquired for counterterrorism purposes and was still theoretically subject to the "warrant whenever you want to use it" maxim. Guess what I'm saying is that yes, PRISM and Stingray are different in the ways you already pointed out. But the nature of the beast means that they don't really have to be if the operator doesn't want them to be. And if operators have already shown a proclivity for sidestepping warrant statute for sake of convenience, what's to say they'll stop there? I do apologize for the manipulative title, though.
Right. So here's why I think a discussion is important, and why I think we should all know the difference between the Tacoma PD and the NSA. If the Tacoma PD wants to put you under surveillance, they have to apply for a wiretap in a public court. The records are sealed, yeah, but if they want to use what they get, they have to make it public. They apply to public officials for a limited scope of surveillance based on a discrete set of evidence that justifies their request. If the NSA wants to put you under surveillance whoops they already did. They're supposed to apply to a secret court that rubberstamps everything for unlimited dragnet surveillance that can last forever. What they find they don't have to report to anybody but they can use it forever without any legal justification whatsoever. So cell phones can be bugged. Cell phones can be surveilled. That's entirely appropriate. I want the police to be able to catch and prosecute criminals. I want them to observe the criminals' civil rights while doing so, and I want the criminals to have the full recourse of the criminal justice system. The case law, precedents and procedures involved in cell phone tapping are an adaptation of the laws of surveillance we've been working on since the invention of the telegraph. That stuff, even when it's in a sealed court document, tends to be pretty public and pretty straightforward. The NSA stuff, on the other hand, is entirely new, entirely unprecedented, and entirely outside of the legal system. The NSA has basically said "it's easier for us to record everything everyone ever says in speech or in writing, index that shit, then go back through it all six years later if we decide it's useful to see if you're a spy or not." Except it isn't even about spying. They've farmed out their data to the DEA before, fer chrissakes. That shit is beyond shady, it's a blatant and grievous violation of the bill of rights. Yeah, there are some disquieting aspects of hijacking a cell tower to surveil a target, namely that you get everything going into that pinch point. But if you're local cops, you can't use it. If the defense lawyer can prove that anything you got from something you weren't allowed to use, you can't use any of it. More than that, you aren't recording all of it, you're recording the call you want. You also have to be there on the day. You also have to be sitting there listening when it happens. You also have to observe your target's civil rights or face the legal and procedural ramifications. All in all, there are checks and balances and it's part of a system of law enforcement. By contrast, the NSA can say "that fluffle guy. I wonder what he was doing June 24, 2012" and look it up. they don't have to tell anybody they did it, they don't have to tell anybody why, and they can keep that shit forever. And if you happened to be, say, talking on the phone about smoking an ecigarette that day and four years from now Altria successfully petitions to make the possession of ecigs a felony, the NSA can hand that tape over to the DEA and send you to jail. Does that make sense?
This should bother everyone, what a niche group to point out. This would make a lot more sense, however I'm still waiting for evidence of mass surveillance being particularly effective at stopping stuff like this. (Though I think the drug war is useless.) Maybe someone can enlighten me?The devices are indiscriminate in the information they collect, and that bothers civil libertarians.
“Chances are the city of Tacoma is not using it to find IEDs,” said Soghoian of the ACLU. “They’re using it to get drug dealers.”