
Emails Show Feds Asking Florida Cops to Deceive Judges - reirob
http://www.wired.com/2014/06/feds-told-cops-to-deceive-courts-about-stingray/
======
pstop
I'm actually surprised, I would have figured that by this point, there would
have been a revolution, or at least mutterings. The federal government is
actually circumventing the law and the justice system in order to illegally
incarcerate citizens. The American government is the enemy of the American
people by the governments own admission.

It turns out it wasn't Brave New World or 1984, rather it's both, each
enabling the other.

I just pray America elects someone who can turn this ship around, rather than
doubling down on the stupidity of it all.

~~~
x86_64Ubuntu
Revolution? You don't really understand revolution if you think the Stingray
is going to be the cause of it. Look at what the East German Stasi was able to
get away with, and there wasn't a world shattering revolution there.

I wish people would leave the drama to the Young and the Restless and stop
implying that the misdeeds of the NSA and other law enforcement in their
current state will lead to revolution. You still have clothes, you still have
food, the power structure at hand is stable, the key pieces of uncertainty
that can foment a revolution are missing. More importantly, you can talk about
revolution on a public forum without getting your door reduced to splinters.r

~~~
opendais
This + a stable Democracy really has a natural safety valve every 2 years.
Elections. That, and as long as people can leave the US permanently relatively
easily...the people who would seriously consider "revolting" and be
effective...they end up in other countries.

If things get bad enough, people will keep kicking out incumbents until things
stabilize.

That said, voter suppression is getting worse...not better. So that may slowly
close off the safety valve.

Personally, I plan to stick around until/unless I think the chance of me
getting arrested is greater than that of being hit by lighting. Then, I'm
going to bounce and find another country.

~~~
logfromblammo
The problem is that going to another country does not put you beyond the reach
of the US Government if you are an American. Even if you move your body, it's
still difficult to exit the system.

Elections don't seem to be working very effectively. Too many incumbents are
gerrymandered into unassailable districts, and are barely challenged in their
primaries.

I would also like to have a contingency country, but practically every one
that I would be inclined to pick is cheering the US on as it reshapes itself
into a police surveillance state.

~~~
opendais
This is about a revolution level event, not whether you think the process is
working.

It provides enough of an escape valve that if enough people who want to revolt
feel that way, things would chance before violence started.

You can also renounce your US citizenship which is what truly leaving
permanently entails.

~~~
logfromblammo
Renouncing one citizenship without first acquiring another is a great way to
destroy your own freedom of movement and generally undermine your own quality
of life. Stateless persons are usually treated according to the amount of
wealth they possess. As someone not particularly rich (by Western standards)
getting free of the US requires chaining yourself to a less objectionable
regime. As might be expected, the countries that people want to live in have
stricter immigration requirements.

The "just leave" escape valve is thus not very effective whenever the pressure
builds too quickly. Besides that, the smartest and wealthiest people leave
first. Anyone left behind is less able and possibly less willing to defuse the
crisis.

For most people, they have significant investment in their local community,
with financial, social, and reputation capital built up over many years.
Abandoning that represents a huge loss, and would require a proportionally
large threat to even be worth considering.

I don't expect emigration to change anything, unless some other country
miraculously changes its policy to out-freedom the US, and thereby suck all of
its brains out.

~~~
opendais
Renouncing your citizenship and finding citizenship in another country is
still easier, safer, and cheaper than starting a revolution.

Anyone capable of organizing and running an effective revolution is capable of
leaving the US with less risk & effort.

That is the point you are missing. This is about a revolution &
revolutionaries, not "is this easy for anyone? is this best for everyone?"

------
diafygi
Reminder to support the ones fighting this on the front lines:

[https://www.aclu.org/donate/join-renew-
give](https://www.aclu.org/donate/join-renew-give)

~~~
contingencies
Yep. Noticing the Wikipedia article on these devices has expanded, I'd also
encourage those with documentary skills and technological comprehension to
lend their time to increasing the availability of the immediately accessible
public record in areas of technology/politics as a means of effective protest.
The more facts are out there, and the easier they are for people to discover,
the greater the checks and balances on govscale surveillance.

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DanielBMarkham
So the mailman now remembers every letter you've written, the policeman is
able to trick your cell phone into telling you where you are and whom you're
calling, the state security service is monitoring all of your electronic
correspondence, and the IRS is able to _read_ any of your papers it wants as
long as your account has been flagged -- no warrant or judicial action
necessary.

Remind me where I live again? Because when I grew up, we were the free and
open society and the other guys, the _bad guys_ , were the ones in everybody's
knickers. (Recommended movie: The Lives Of Others)

Of note here is that it was the Assistant State Attorney, not the cops, that
had problems with being honest with the court. There's a guy who needs to be
disbarred.

~~~
fleitz
Perjury and obstruction of justice. The disbarring should at least follow a
minimum sentence, it sure would be sad if the ASA lived in a 3 strikes
jurisdiction.

Alternatively, throw out the warrant because it is the fruit of fraud, then
charge the ASA with conspiracy to computer fraud and abuse (unauthorized
access) with one count for each subscriber in the area, and refuse to admit
the warrant as evidence because it's null and void.

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graylights
So the problem is they claimed "Confidential Source" and the presumption was
that it was an informant? To me secret surveillance fits the definition of
"Confidential Source". I don't see any deception there. (EDIT: I've been
corrected, apparently legal definition defines source as person)

The real question is why can the magic words "confidential source" be used as
justification for a warrant without more clarification.

Well also the part about using the devices in the first place without warrant.

~~~
probably_wrong
According to this[1] definition, a confidential source is a _PERSON_ who
provides information. If this is so, then the judge that approved the warrant
was actually tricked: a _person_ providing information implies that the
information may be volatile (the witness may have seen something by pure
luck), and on top of that it also means that the information was obtained
through a legally sanctioned way (ie, a witness and/or a confession). If they
used a word that defines a person to identify something that was not a person,
then yeah, there was some deception involved.

If I read the article correctly, what happened is that the police obtained
information in ways they apparently weren't allowed to use (unconstitutional
surveillance), and then hid this fact under the pretense of a supposed person
giving that information. This is all kinds of wrong and, among other things,
voids those warrants.

[1] [http://definitions.uslegal.com/c/confidential-
source%20/](http://definitions.uslegal.com/c/confidential-source%20/)

~~~
thaumasiotes
There's a much bigger problem going on here. Why is it acceptable to say that
your information comes from a "confidential source" at all? The nature of the
claim is that it can't be verified; a confidential source cannot be
distinguished by any means from a fevered imagination.

I assume you can't get a warrant to search someone's house for drugs by saying
"he looks like a junkie to me". It would be too easy to ask how claiming a
"confidential source" is better than that. How is it _different_?

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EGreg
I wonder what the specifics are of the "I signed an NDA so I am not able to
tell the court anything, even with a subpoena" defense. Struck me as odd.

~~~
michaelfeathers
I'm assuming a judge can put them under contempt. If they lie, it's perjury.

The thing that is more interesting is the dynamic where neither happens
because judges are unwilling to tip the apple cart. I hope that someone is
doing a review of transcripts now to see if police in those courtrooms have
perjured themselves.

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dicroce
Freedom is cyclical... When oligarchs rule, they unknowingly give power to
anyone who will appeal to the mob... Whoever picks up that power will claim
it's for the "good of the people", and the people will gladly trade their
freedoms to be free of the oppressive rich elites... A people without freedom
and dependent on their king for everything is a weak people, and eventually
their empire will fall to pieces through some combination of internal fighting
and weak external threats. Falling apart is hard as the people have no emperor
providing free bread anymore and the people must learn to fend for themselves
again... from this rises individualism and freedom once again. Cyclical.

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kelvin0
Wow, this story makes me appreciate 'the Wire' even more. In the last 2
seasons the cops are trying to bring down some corrupt officials and their
thug cronies, using a shady wire-tap. In the end, they catch them but it
backfires because of their 'confidential source' which was also a shady wire-
tap setup ...

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bane
You know, I guess that speaks well of the independence and low level of
corruption of the judiciary.

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Torgo
Shouldn't these things be easily detectable? If you can use your GPS and radio
in your phone to get a list of nearby towers and one mytseriously shows up, it
seems likely this would be one of these devices.

~~~
hga
As noted in another discussion, there are official portable ones regularly
used for events, but those don't attempt to hide.

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thisjepisje
Do/can they perform an MITM attack with a stingray?

~~~
chk
From how I interpret the Stingray, it is executing a MITM attack. These types
of devices are sometimes refereed to as IMSI-catchers, and sit in between the
users phone, and the real network towers. [1]

My concern is what exactly is being contained, and collected. The cell phone
companies are already collecting the same data, but I would assume that with
the Stingray it makes getting access to that data much faster versus having to
request it from the cell phone network companies. The article mentions what
they are collecting with the Stringray, "When mobile phones—and other wireless
communication devices—connect to the stingray, the device can see and record
their unique ID numbers and traffic data, as well as information that points
to the device’s location. By moving the stingray around, authorities can
triangulate the device’s location with greater precision than they can using
data obtained from a fixed tower location." This technology could very well
advance, and allow them in the future to collect much more maybe. Gathering
location seems to be the biggest reasoning behind using the Stingray.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IMSI-
catcher](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IMSI-catcher)

~~~
chiph
I'm hoping that these devices don't interfere with 911 calls. The Enhanced 911
service uses GPS data from the cellphone (if available) and cell-tower
triangulation to locate the caller. If the Stingray device is acting like a
tower, and someone calls 911, wouldn't an incorrect (or no) location be
reported?

~~~
thisjepisje
On the other hand, if an accident does occur, the police are already nearby.
:P

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coldcode
In the long run, lying to judges eventually bites you in the ass.

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cowardlydragon
Stronger... grows the shadow.

