Law & Disorder / Civilization & Discontents
After months of silence from feds on flying phone surveillance, EFF sues
Since WSJ report on "dirtboxes" flown by US Marshals, few details have come out.
In the suit, which was filed in federal court in Washington, DC, the EFF asks the court to compel the DOJ to immediately produce the documents. The DOJ did not immediately respond to Ars’ request for comment.
Last fall, The Wall Street Journal reported that the US Marshals Service (USMS) was using small, fixed-wing Cessnas equipped with so-called DRTboxes—“dirtboxes.” The devices are receivers that spoof a cell tower to gather data from citizens' phones below. The purpose of such collection is to target and spy on criminal suspects, but the data from any nearby citizen's phone is also collected by such devices.
The dirtbox gets its name from the Boeing division that makes them—Digital Receiver Technology or DRT. On its website, Boeing says that DRT creates “a miniature yet powerful receiver measurement capability to test and monitor wireless signals... While other products require multiple scanners linked together to perform similar system measurements, Boeing offers this capability within a single portable product.”
The devices are believed to have stronger capabilities comparable to the “StingRay,” a trademarked product sold by the Harris Corporation, which has been very tight-lipped about its specifications. Stingray, though, has come to be used as a generic name for this entire class of devices, which are also known as cell-site simulators and IMSI catchers. While stingrays have long been known to be used by federal, state, and local law enforcement, this marks the first time that such an agency has been reported to have deployed the equipment onto airplanes.
No way, no how
In a newly disclosed document, Ars also reported Tuesday that the FBI has been notified every time a local law enforcement agency receives a public records request under state law.
Christopher Allen, an FBI spokesman, declined to answer Ars’ previous questions on this policy, but on Tuesday provided a statement that the agency has previously used in other related legal cases.
The statement reads:
The FBI has, as a matter of policy for over 10 years, protected this specific electronic surveillance equipment and techniques from disclosure, directing its agents that while the product of the identification or location operation can be disclosed, neither details on the equipment's operation nor the tradecraft involved in use of the equipment may be disclosed. The FBI routinely asserts the law enforcement sensitive privilege over cell site simulator equipment because discussion of the capabilities and use of the equipment in court would allow criminal defendants, criminal enterprises, or foreign powers, should they gain access to the items, to determine the FBI's techniques, procedures, limitations, and capabilities in this area. This knowledge could easily lead to the development and employment of countermeasures to FBI tools and investigative techniques by subjects of investigations and completely disarm law enforcement's ability to obtain technology-based surveillance data in criminal investigations
Source for this and a whole lot of links on the Stingray issue...
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/02/after-months-of-silence-from-feds-on-flying-phone-surveillance-eff-sues/
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