
Mysterious Planes Over Baltimore Spark Surveillance Suspicions - CapitalistCartr
https://www.aclu.org/blog/free-future/mysterious-planes-over-baltimore-spark-surveillance-suspicions
======
tomswartz07
If you're big into crowd-sourcing:

There are super-inexpensive RTL-SDR dongles[1] that can be used to track
airplanes such as this.

I'm not a lawyer, but I've fooled around with these dongles and a few programs
enough to discern that Gov't aircraft absolutely need to broadcast their info
on the 1090MHz band.

It wouldn't be much of a stretch to have a few people pop these up and see if
they could monitor the airplanes that are monitoring the city! :)

Just to expand a little bit:

You get an SDR, plug it in and use a program like `dump1090` or FlightAware.
The repurposed TV Tuner will then listen to data on 1090MHz and decode
airplane's Active Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B) messages.

The ADS-B messages typically contain flight callsign, location (lat,lon),
altitude, heading, and a few other tidbits.

There's a really active community around things like this. [2]

[1] [http://www.amazon.com/RTL-SDR-DVB-T-Stick-
RTL2832U-R820T/dp/...](http://www.amazon.com/RTL-SDR-DVB-T-Stick-
RTL2832U-R820T/dp/B00C37AZXK) [2] [http://www.rtl-sdr.com](http://www.rtl-
sdr.com)

~~~
sjm-lbm
Since, for whatever reason, I enjoy tracking flights as a hobby, here's a
couple of extra tidbits:

1) If you are in the right area, Flight Radar 24 might actually give you the
equipment for free. See here: [http://www.flightradar24.com/free-ads-b-
equipment](http://www.flightradar24.com/free-ads-b-equipment) for info.

2) It is unlikely that even aircraft that the government desires to be secret
will stop broadcasting ADS-B anytime soon, as one of the major usages is
avoiding mid-air collisions when airplanes are in airspace shared with
commercial airliners. Secret surveillance planes might be unpopular, but
they'll only be headline news if they were to run into a 757.

3) ADS-B broadcasts won't be required for all commercial airplane traffic[2]
in the US until 2020. As such, there's still quite a few airplanes without it,
particularly those that airlines plan to retire within the next five years.

[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_dependent_surveillanc...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_dependent_surveillance_%E2%80%93_broadcast)
[2] IIRC, the actual regulation is a requirement for ADS-B on all airplanes
flying at 10K feet or above.

~~~
nyolfen
genuine question, what do you get out of this hobby? i'm not trying to sneer
or trivialize it, i'm sincerely curious about what makes it interesting to
people who enjoy it

~~~
sjm-lbm
It's just an outgrowth of the fact that I find commercial aviation
fascinating, really. I'll occasionally pull up flights near where I am, but I
usually use tools to track whatever flights I find interesting for other
reasons (off the top of my head, for instance, American Airlines' first
revenue 787 flight was today, and I watched that one this morning).

------
jjwiseman
The one tail number that the initial Washington Post article linked to is
N39MY[1], which is a Cessna 182T registered to NG Research, PO Box 722 in
Bristow, VA. That company's web presence is close to zero, basically below the
noise floor.

If you google [po box bristow va] you find FAA records for a bunch of other
oddly named companies that all have similarly close-to-zero web presence and
addresses that are PO Boxes in Bristow: FVX Research, NBR Aviation, NBY
Productions, OBR Leasing, OTV Leasing, PSL Surveys, PXW Services. They all
seem to like Cessna 182Ts.

If you Google the tail numbers of aircraft registered to those companies, you
start to find forum and mailing list posts (often at sites that tilt toward
paranoid/conspiracy/right wing, but not always) with people discussing these
specific tail numbers and linking them to the FBI. Some of the supposed
evidence includes details of radio communications that people have heard, e.g.
talking about "being on station" or using callsigns that start with JENNA,
JENA or ROSS, which are supposedly used by the FBI. Other posts claim that
DOJ/FBI surveillance aircraft often squawk 4414 or 4415 on their transponders.

I monitor aircraft in Los Angeles using an RTL-SDR dongle. I keep a database
of almost every transponder ping I receive. You can see some more info,
analysis and examples of stuff I've seen (U-2, AF1, AF2, EXEC-1F, E-6
"Doomsday" planes) at [http://viewer.gorilla-
repl.org/view.html?source=github&user=...](http://viewer.gorilla-
repl.org/view.html?source=github&user=wiseman&repo=orbital-
detector&path=stats.cljw) I decided to check my database for planes that have
squawked 4414/4415 or used one of the suspicious callsigns: I found 8 aircraft
in the past 2 months, several of which exhibit suspicious behavior: Flying for
hours at a time without going anywhere in particular (I don't have position
information for them, but I know they're in the air and not leaving the LA
area), flying almost every day for months at a time, squawking 4414 or 4415,
and one that used a JENNA callsign. 2 of them are registered to companies with
PO Boxes in Bristow, VA. Another is registered to AEROGRAPHICS INC. 10678
AVIATION LN, MANASSAS VIRGINIA, which googling shows has also been linked to
the FBI/DOJ. Several others are registered to WORLDWIDE AIRCRAFT LEASING CORP
and NATIONAL AIRCRAFT LEASING CORP in Delaware, similar to other suspected FBI
front companies (e.g. Northwest Aircraft Leasing Corp. in Newark,
Delaware[2]).

(I call what I'm doing "persistent sousveillance": using historical sensor
data to retroactively identify and track new subjects, it's just that my
subjects are the government. One of the surprising things I've found is that
all you need to do is look: the weird stuff jumps out right away, e.g. Cessnas
registered to fake-sounding companies that loiter overhead for hours every
day.)

It's a lot of circumstantial evidence, but at this point it doesn't seem far-
fetched that I'm monitoring aircraft involved in persistent FBI aerial
surveillance.

My twitter has more info:
[https://twitter.com/lemonodor/status/595814966382469120](https://twitter.com/lemonodor/status/595814966382469120)

Edit: One other thing worth mentioning is that I was surprised at how many
local news stories I turned up while googling these planes & companies that
fit the template of "Citizens complain about mystery Cessna flying low,
circling over their neighborhood".)

[1]
[http://registry.faa.gov/aircraftinquiry/NNum_Results.aspx?NN...](http://registry.faa.gov/aircraftinquiry/NNum_Results.aspx?NNumbertxt=539MY)
[2]
[http://www.wired.com/2006/06/mystery_planes_/](http://www.wired.com/2006/06/mystery_planes_/)

~~~
jjwiseman
Many of these planes have more antennae than I typically see on a small plane,
e.g.
[https://flightaware.com/photos/view/168017-a0096f5188154b56a...](https://flightaware.com/photos/view/168017-a0096f5188154b56abc8224b804966f698bb500c/aircrafttype/C182)
which makes me wonder. I'd like to try to monitor and detect aerial Stingray-
type equipment as well.

------
MattGrommes
" Among the companies offering this technology are major defense contractors
working for the Pentagon and an Ohio company called Persistent Surveillance
Systems, which is trying to sell it to local police departments."

I know this is an unpopular opinion these days but the people working for
these companies should be ashamed. There is little use for this technology,
especially on US soil, except mass surveillance of the population.

~~~
vonmoltke
Also an unpopular opinion is that some people (I am not one of them FYI) think
mass surveillance of the population is a good thing. It can be hard to
understand that position, but there are people who believe mass surveillance,
security theater, and the like really are protecting them and that it is all
for their own good.

As long as sufficient numbers of these people exist there will be not shortage
of people who are not ashamed to staff the government agencies implementing
these things and the private companies that support them. Some will even see
it as a duty.

~~~
rhino369
It a tool like any other. It can be used for good or evil. What you are doing
in the middle of a Baltimore street isn't in any way private information. It's
a public as you get.

Sure, it could be used to perpetrate a Holocaust or something, but so could
the 101st airborne.

If the government wanted to go all Hitler on us, they already can get google
data, facebook data, medical records, essentially everything that is kept on
you. Hell, I bet google location services tracks me better than a drone does
(if the war in the Pakistan tribal areas is an example).

And drones are way easier to shoot down than googles datacenters.

~~~
task_queue
Do we really want to tie a noose at the end of all the rope we already hand
the authorities?

There are tools people with power shouldn't have access to, because people
with power do not have a good track record of using them in good faith.

~~~
rhino369
We trust the federal government with the power to, no exaggeration, annihilate
the world.

If the government were going to use its power for evil, it'd go knocking on
google/facebook/visa/amazon/comcast/grocery store/school/medical/whatever
database to find its enemy.

What do you honestly think is a bigger risk for you? Getting murdered by a
criminal or the US government via drone. Cause it's like 40k:2 for the past
couple year.

~~~
goldbeck
The government has quite a bit of power to do things other than actually kill
people. It can take away people's lives in many other ways.

Which is are the bigger risks for you? Getting your money taken from you by
the government via fines or getting it stolen from you by a criminal? Being
forced, under threat of imprisonment, to show up in a location at a specific
time and account for your actions by the government or by a corporation, your
work, your neighbor? Getting locked up in a basement by a criminal or locked
up in a prison by the government?

We give the government quite a lot of power. It behooves us to ensure that
power is kept in check.

------
mirimir
Some advice about cellphone OPSEC seems appropriate.

Protesters, or at least key organizers, need to be running apps to detect and
block IMSI catchers. And everyone not using them needs to put their phones in
Faraday bags.

I don't use smartphones, and so don't know what works best. Searching on
"detect IMSI catcher" yields hits for Android, but I see no apps for iOS.
AIMSICD looks like a good app. Maybe someone who knows this stuff well can
recommend one.

It's easy to make Faraday bags from aluminum foil.[0] To test, you just put
the phone in the bag, and call it. If it rings, there are leaks. It's
important to turn the phone off before putting it in the Faraday bag. That
will prevent rapid battery discharge through high-power attempts to reach
towers.

The hardest aspect is getting good electrical contact on all seams, including
the access flap. The maximum dimension of any hole in the bag must be small,
less than 1-2 cm. A gap at the seam that's 1-2 cm long, even if it's very
narrow, will leak (re-radiate) a lot.

The other thing to keep in mind is that aluminum foil gets brittle with
bending, and will crack. So you need multiple layers, and the layers must be
in electrical contact. Narrow strips of double-stick tape between layers are
OK to provide structural stability. But it's a trade-off.

[0] [http://www.instructables.com/id/RFID-Secure-
Wallet](http://www.instructables.com/id/RFID-Secure-Wallet)

~~~
hueving
If you're shutting off the phone. What's the point?

~~~
seniorghost
I believe certain signals are transmitted from your phone even if it's "off".
Removing the battery might stop some of them, but even this supposedly doesn't
stop everything.

~~~
hueving
Do you have a source for this? It seems completely wasteful and against the
interests of the manufacture not to sell a piece of shit.

~~~
mirimir
Here's How Others Can Easily Snoop On Your Cell Phone[0]

My phone at your service [1]

[0] [http://www.forbes.com/sites/adamtanner/2014/02/18/heres-
how-...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/adamtanner/2014/02/18/heres-how-others-
can-easily-snoop-on-your-cell-phone/)

[1] [https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/blogs/techftc/2014/02/my-
pho...](https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/blogs/techftc/2014/02/my-phone-your-
service)

------
rfreytag
Working from the IR surveillance mentioned in the article maybe they are
operationalizing ARGUS-IR
([http://www.darpa.mil/Our_Work/I2O/Programs/Autonomous_Real-t...](http://www.darpa.mil/Our_Work/I2O/Programs/Autonomous_Real-
time_Ground_Ubiquitous_Surveillance_-_Infrared_%28ARGUS-IR%29.aspx) and PBS
video:
[https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=13BahrdkMU8](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=13BahrdkMU8)).
It is a sort of "dirtbag" system but for visible and near-visible light.

[Note to self: don't be lit from below when being interviewed on camera, see
at min 1:08.]

~~~
cryoshon
This was my thought as well.

You deploy a system like this on an aircraft with long loiter times and you
have a visual history of the movement of as many individuals or vehicles that
it can keep track of. You pair this with a stingray on the ground or air, and
you can put names and electronic communications to the people being tracked
from above.

You can have a history of where a person has been, who they've been talking
to, what they've been saying if it's electronic, and you can get a great
picture of what they've been doing at each location, without a warrant, with
no way of opting out. This is an Orwellian dragnet. This is a police state.

The NSA-style rebuttal to this is that they're only capturing metadata. This
technology suite gives "only" where you've been, who you've talked to, and
when you've done those things. Of course it's fascist nonsense, knowing that I
was at a bakery at 9 AM leaves very little to the imagination.

------
adrianpike
One of the planes mentioned by the ACLU has done this before:

[http://www.reddit.com/r/nova/comments/2bgj1p/plane_circling_...](http://www.reddit.com/r/nova/comments/2bgj1p/plane_circling_over_mcleanlangley_area_last_few/)

------
JabavuAdams
I don't really see how we can roll back mass wide-area surveillance. It's much
too useful a tool. Hell, I'd want it.

I think the best we can do is to get transparency and at best to subject the
authorities to the same level of surveillance.

~~~
unabridged
I also believe mass surveillance is inevitable as the cost of cameras falls to
nothing. Once there are drones/balloons for $100 that can monitor a square
mile, they will be everywhere. And even if the government gets stopped from
using it, private businesses and citizens can't be stopped.

Our only hope is to fix the government so people are not put away for acts
that shouldn't be crimes. Let the brunt of this technology fall solely on
violent criminals and thieves.

------
dsugarman
I believe this must be the case but who has the resources to deploy something
like this? Does Palantir or some other contractor help mine captured images
for data? What is done with this data? There is no way BCPD has the resources
for this, does the FBI come in and feed them info? for what, arresting
rioters?

~~~
mc32
It's probably to detect a mutation from protest to violence and likely looking
for heat sources (fires). I'd certainly hope that in the event protests turn
into rioting and fires are lit someone is ready to send in the FD. A destroyed
neighborhood does not help the locals and only inconveniences them. Large
destruction would serve to disincentivize investment in a community which
needs all the investment it can get.

It's unfortunate that while protesters are a good portion locals, most
inciters of the rioting are people who don't have to live with the residue of
destruction.

~~~
dsugarman
This is interesting. I was playing volleyball yesterday in the inner harbor
(there is a small volleyball beach between Federal Hill and the water). The
fire department set up a bon fire right next to us and at some point a
helicopter started doing circles around us, I assume because it spotted a
fire. The helicopter is definitely different than the plane that has been
flying around though, maybe the plane triggered the helicopter or maybe they
have as many eyes in the sky as they can get.

------
alnsn
I once spotted a plane going circles over North London.

[https://mobile.twitter.com/nasonov/status/484027620993273857...](https://mobile.twitter.com/nasonov/status/484027620993273857/photo/1)

------
gtrubetskoy
They mention gigapixel cameras, my (brief) googling couldn't find any evidence
that such a thing exists, except for an experimental one at Duke
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ldQXHP7TFUE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ldQXHP7TFUE).
Although I suppose a gigapixel photo can be made by taking pictures by
multiple cameras at the same time just as well. Still, wouldn't that sort of
thing be available commercially, at least for the enthusiasts out there?

~~~
gtrubetskoy
I also found this detailed post on ARGUS-IS
[http://ambivalentengineer.blogspot.com/2012/08/argus-
is.html](http://ambivalentengineer.blogspot.com/2012/08/argus-is.html)

------
comrade1
Do blimps have to file flight plans? I lived in DC when they first started
testing surveillance blimps there around 2005 or so.

They were completely white with a black box on the bottom. I assumed that they
had a similar function to rc-135s with some sort of side radar that can track
all vehicles in real time.

Ah, well, here's an answer to one question:
[http://www.computerworld.com/article/2475827/data-
privacy/ma...](http://www.computerworld.com/article/2475827/data-
privacy/massive-blimps-over-maryland-to-conduct-24-7-domestic-aerial-
surveillance.html)

The blimps in 2005 looked a bit different - they didn't have such a large
obvious radar hump. Also, I'm pretty sure the blimps I saw were not tethered,
but hard to say definitively.

I still haven't found any info on filing flight plans though.

~~~
tobinfricke
When flying under Visual Flight Rules, one is not required to file a flight
plan.

------
CyberDildonics
The rise of skynet. John Connor needs to stop switching faces every movie and
take down these machines.

------
chrischen
The government also runs high resolution satellite cameras, and runs the
census.

~~~
themeek
Not just satellite mounted cameras but thermal imagers that can see bodies as
they move around inside houses.

------
ExpiredLink
> _The answer is, these are not your parents ' surveillance aircraft. _

But your grand-parents'. Nowadays they would use drones.

------
strictnein
Have these folks ever been to a major sporting event? Like a MLB all star
game, for instance? Same planes are there as well. They just circle around
slowly to give security an eye in the sky. If you have an important event or
large scale protests, this seems like a logical thing to have.

This article is a little out there and belongs on some conspiracy website.
Reads like an Infowars piece.

~~~
beat
It's the ACLU. I imagine they're more circumspect than Infowars. If they're
concerned, there's good reason to be concerned.

~~~
strictnein
Ehh... it's written by one of their writers, who doesn't seem to have a great
grasp of technology in general.

This alone disqualifies him:

> "super-high, gigapixel resolution cameras on planes, which are then used to
> monitor entire cities"

> "Every moving pedestrian and vehicle can be tracked: the beginning and end
> everyone’s journeys, and the route taken in between"

> "This gives the authorities the power to press "rewind" on anybody's
> movements"

Sorry, but he's watched too many bad TV shows and movies. Can you imagine the
storage needed to record gigapixel level video that would allow you to do
this? The real explanation is in the middle of the story, but it's so benign
that it hardly merits any discussion:

> "the flights were apparently carried out by the FBI at the request of local
> law enforcement, and that they were using infrared cameras of some kind "to
> monitor movements of people in the vicinity.""

So, you had a large amount of people out at night, spread out in a city, with
some acting violently. Not using this type of technology to get a handle on
the situation would be negligent. It's not some super secret mass surveillance
tech, it's fairly basic cameras that can be used to help police, fire, and
medical services respond as necessary. But the ACLU can't fund raise and get
clicks off that, so this guy wrapped it in nonsense and now its getting lots
of clicks.

~~~
goldmouth
In regards to the gigapixel cameras on uav's:

[http://www.theverge.com/2013/2/1/3940898/darpa-gigapixel-
dro...](http://www.theverge.com/2013/2/1/3940898/darpa-gigapixel-drone-
surveillance-camera-revealed)

"DARPA’s frightening ARGUS-IS, a record-setting 1.8 gigapixel sensor array
which can observe and record an area half the size of Manhattan. The newest in
the family of "wide area persistent surveillance" tools, the system can detect
and track moving objects as small as six inches from 20,000 feet in the air."

~~~
knowaveragejoe
To be fair, it's not only incredibly expensive to operate but expensive in
general. I highly doubt it's been used for any real purpose in the US.

