mercredi 12 février 2014

Non-Suspect Phone Conversations Compromised By Stingray

By Cornelius Nunev


What has the LAPD done now? According to L.A. Weekly, the police have used the allegedly terror investigation only StingRay technology and spied upon non-suspects.

Phone conversations reviewed

The LAPD has been getting some heat recently for inappropriate use of StingRay cellular phone technology. The technology was only intended to be used in terrorism cases, but it turns out that is not all the LAPD was doing. In fact, of the 155 StingRay cases from last year between June and Sept, 13 percent exposed innocent non-suspects. The LAPD officials have not commented on the technology and whether or not it was used illegally, but it was specifically given to them in 2006 with subsidies from the federal Department of Homeland Security in order to track terrorism. It has been found that the technology is used in many burglary, murder and drug cases as well.

The First Amendment Coalition executive director Peter Scheer does not think the LAPD should be able to use this sort of technology. It is pretty much extremely hard to avoid intercepting other people with the StingRay technology, according to those who use the technology, but the LAPD guides do not even make it clear whether or not this is unlawful.

Regulators getting around laws

Another troubling aspect of StingRay to civil privileges advocates is that the technology can circumvent the standard process of requesting location data from carrier networks before eavesdropping. Typically, authorities have required a court order before gaining access, but with StingRay, authorities can get around carrier monitors totally in secret.

How come privacy does not matter?

At this juncture, there's still a great deal of disagreement over StingRay's place amongst privacy regulations. The sophistication of the technology has put it ahead of the judicial curve, and ACLU attorneys like Linda Lye see StingRay as something that demands legal reassessment, as the potential for privacy violations is great.



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