Cops Efforts To Conceal “Stingray” Surveillance Technology Allows Criminals To Walk

Secrecy Around Police Surveillance Equipment Proves A Case’s Undoing

 

 

 

” The case against Tadrae McKenzie looked like an easy win for prosecutors. He and two buddies robbed a small-time pot dealer of $130 worth of weed using BB guns. Under Florida law, that was robbery with a deadly weapon, with a sentence of at least four years in prison.

  But before trial, his defense team detected investigators’ use of a secret surveillance tool, one that raises significant privacy concerns. In an unprecedented move, a state judge ordered the police to show the device —a cell-tower simulator sometimes called a StingRay — to the attorneys.

  Rather than show the equipment, the state offered McKenzie a plea bargain.

  Today, 20-year-old McKenzie is serving six months’ probation ­after pleading guilty to a second-degree misdemeanor. He got, as one civil liberties advocate said, the deal of the century. (The other two defendants also pleaded guilty and were sentenced to two years’ probation.)

  McKenzie’s case is emblematic of the growing, but hidden, use by local law enforcement of a sophisticated surveillance technology borrowed from the national security world. It shows how a gag order imposed by the FBI — on grounds that discussing the device’s operation would compromise its effectiveness — has left judges, the public and criminal defendants in the dark on how the tool works.”

 

Washington Post

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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New Device From Tunnel Blocks Tracking Of Your Cellphone

Brilliant New Device Lets Protestors Block Surveillance And Stingrays

 

 

 

 

” Reports about agents using a Stingray on protesters to unconstitutionally monitor their phones are circulating widely, and now protesters have a way to fight back.

  Earlier this week an anonymous leaked recording exposed the agents monitoring the protesters’ movements by tracking their phones. A Stingray mimics a cellular tower, letting agents pry into citizens’ cell phones and gather their data/location without a warrant.

  Stingrays were supposed to be used for “terrorists,” but now they’re being used against us locally — which is unconstitutional.

  And that’s where a new product called Tunnel enters the scene .

  We’ve known that the NSA spies on us ever since Edward Snowden blew the whistle on them.

  But have you ever wondered if it’s possible for somebody to spy back on them?

  The NSA has a special way of protecting itself against such a possibility.  And you’ve probably never heard of it.

  To hide its own privacy, the NSA installs copper  – yes, you read that correctly: copper – around the equipment in its buildings.

  It turns out that copper has a unique conductive property that allows it to block surveillance, letting those who use it hide their activities from would-be spies.

  The main NSA headquarters is described as ”a building covered with one-way dark glass, which is lined with copper shielding in order to prevent espionage by trapping in signals and sounds.”

  The question becomes: if they can protect their own privacy with copper, why can’t we use this same technique to protect our privacy from them?

  Well now we finally can.

  Tunnel is a portable Faraday enclosure that uses a 100% authentic copper shielding system to surround your phone.  When your phone is inside, it forms a topologically near-complete surface to prevent non-ionizing radiation from penetrating its boundaries, letting you avoid surveillance.

  Thankfully, it’s not going to cost thousands of dollars, which has come as great news for protesters and other privacy advocates. “

 

 

   Be sure to read the rest at Filming Cops and while you are there grab their coupon code that will give the first 100 purchasers 35% off of the already discounted holiday price . Order yours today , we did and got it for a mere $43 with shipping thanks to the Filming Cops coupon . 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Technology In The Service Of Statism

32 Privacy Destroying Technologies That Are Systematically Transforming America Into A Giant Prison

” If you live in the United States, you live in a high tech surveillance grid that is becoming more oppressive with each passing day.  In America today, the control freaks that run things are completely obsessed with watching, tracking, monitoring and recording virtually everything that we do.  If we continue on the path that we are currently on, we will be heading into a future where there will be absolutely no privacy of any kind.  In fact, many would argue that we are essentially there already.  Many people speak of this as being the “Information Age“, but most Americans don’t really stop and think about what that really means.  Most of the information that is considered to be so “valuable” is actually about all of us.  Businesses want to know as much about all of us as possible so that they can sell us stuff.  Government officials want to know as much about all of us as possible so that they can make sure that we are not doing anything that they don’t like.  There is a constant hunger for even more information, and so the surveillance technologies just continue to become even more advanced and the Big Brother control grid being constructed all around us just continues to become even more pervasive.  Even though you may not be consciously aware of it, the truth is that it is surrounding you right now even as you read this.  We live in a society where liberty and freedom are literally being strangled to death, but most Americans don’t seem to care.

  Do you know who else gets watched, tracked and monitored 24 hours a day?

  Prisoners do.

  Surveillance is a form of control, and at this point we are little more than inmates inside a gigantic Big Brother surveillance grid.

  Posted below is a list of 32 privacy destroying technologies that are systematically transforming America into a giant prison.  Following each item, there is a short excerpt from a news report about that particular technology.  If you want to read the entire article where the excerpt came from, just click the link to find the source.  Individually, each of these technologies is deeply troubling.  But when you step back and take a look at them all collectively, it is absolutely horrifying…

#1 Spying On Us Through Our Televisions: Put simply, our TVs have started spying on us.

  Last week, there was a high-profile case in point. An IT consultant called Jason Huntley, who lives in a village near Hull, uncovered evidence that a flat-screen television, which had been sitting in his living room since the summer, was secretly invading his family’s privacy.

  He began investigating the £400 LG device after noticing that its home screen appeared to be showing him ‘targeted’ adverts — for cars, and Knorr stock cubes — based on programmes he’d just been watching.

  Huntley decided to monitor information that the so-called smart TV — which connects to the internet — was sending and receiving. He did this by using his laptop effectively as a bridge between his television and the internet receiver, so the laptop was able to show all the data being sucked out of his set.

  He soon discovered that details of not just every show he watched but every button he pressed on his remote control were being sent back to LG’s corporate headquarters in South Korea.”

   This is a very informative article that lists , with links , many many ways in which the technology revolution is being used by the State to turn America into a virtual gulag where nothing said or done passes un-noticed by our “betters” . If you are looking for a catalogue of present day surveillance technologies start here .

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