U.S. Planes Spy On American Phones

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You are being spied on everywhere, all the time, by everyone...even on planes. Thanks to DarkStar_WNY for the link.

CNNMoney has independently confirmed that at least one federal agency, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, has used this technology on planes since 2010, according to government documents. The planes carry a box that serves as a dummy cell phone site. That device mimics actual towers, duping nearby cell phones into connecting to it instead of a real phone company tower.
 
So I use any device which interferes with cell phone signals at all, felony. The government does it... 'MERICUH!
 
This is for your own good they tell us! The government has our best interests in mind! If you are a good citizen and have nothing to hide you should have nothing to worry about! Put a gun to your head and call it freedom! MURICA! Oh the sweet illusion of choice and freedom! The inevitible is coming, youll see it when it happens!
 
So I use any device which interferes with cell phone signals at all, felony. The government does it... 'MERICUH!

The first thing the government does when creating laws in exempt themselves from it, which to me speaks volumes about their priorities.
 
Doesn't matter since the few times I have flown in recent years, I've put my phone in airplane mode.
Nothing for them to monitor if there's no signal.
 
This is for your own good they tell us! The government has our best interests in mind! If you are a good citizen and have nothing to hide you should have nothing to worry about! Put a gun to your head and call it freedom! MURICA! Oh the sweet illusion of choice and freedom! The inevitible is coming, youll see it when it happens!

The scariest part of all this is that neither party is interested in eliminating these intrusions by the government, and in fact constantly expand them.

Oh sure Republicans will rip into Obama for these activities and democrats will excuse it, but if a member of the next President is a member of the GOP suddenly the democrats will condemn it and the Republicans will support it.

Ironically these same politicians and agencies that seek total transparency for the public, where they know everything we do, strongly oppose any sort of move to require transparency on their parts.
 
Doesn't matter since the few times I have flown in recent years, I've put my phone in airplane mode.
Nothing for them to monitor if there's no signal.

No no no. This isn't on a commercial flight. This is federal planes in the air, with boxes spoofing cell tower signals, grabbing up cell traffic.
 
3...2....1.... lcpiper will show up in this thread praising the shit outta the government spying on its citizens. about six times per page per thread.
 
Doesn't matter since the few times I have flown in recent years, I've put my phone in airplane mode.
Nothing for them to monitor if there's no signal.

Huh?

Try reading the story again, or for the first time, it's not talking about tracking your phone while you are on a commercial jet but instead using small aircraft to track it as you go about your daily life.
 
So where is what's his face again with the "they never spy on American Citizen's or use anything on them" crap....
 
3...2....1.... lcpiper will show up in this thread praising the shit outta the government spying on its citizens. about six times per page per thread.

Thats the one! "they wont use it, blah blah blah, it is not for American Citizen's cause they don't monitor them blah blah blah"

:D
 
Don't worry guys! They may hoover up every single piece of information possible, but they're not spying on us! Super-duper-pinky swear, we have all this data but will never use it against anyone!

I mean, just look at the FBI under Hoover and imagine what he could/would have done with this level of power - nothing, because everything is roses and unicorns, guys!
 
I'm totally not a cellular phone network engineer, but there's a lot of stuff behind the antenna in a cellular network including like security equipment that only allows a carrier authorized node b to handle signal transmissions to and from handsets. In order for like an individual to not notice something is wrong (I mean if they're actively using their phone) is for the airplane based cell to be part of the carrier network which means moving lots of data and whatever to allow phones to continue to work seamlessly. That means carrier authorization, which is believable, but also a lot of pretty heavy, power-intensive equipment is flying around in the sky. I dunno if this is really that realistic. I mean anyone who's looked up close at a fully outfitted tower knows there's a ton of stuff hanging off it and put inside of it. Plus, IDK how they'd handle hand-off once the plane moves away and its signal gets weaker without someone noticing.
 
Doesn't matter since the few times I have flown in recent years, I've put my phone in airplane mode.
Nothing for them to monitor if there's no signal.

It's not the phones on a plane that they are tracking, tho they could maybe. They are tracking/locating suspect phones from devices that are used from a plane. They fly around with the box on locating badies they are tracking or hunting for.
 
Oh, and this isn't spying, it's not. It's specifically looking for an individual's cell phone by hunting it down by it's cellular identity. It even says that when it connects to a device that isn't the one it's looking for it drops the device and releases it's signal.
 
Oh, and this isn't spying, it's not. It's specifically looking for an individual's cell phone by hunting it down by it's cellular identity. It even says that when it connects to a device that isn't the one it's looking for it drops the device and releases it's signal.

Bullshit. I doubt it drops anything. You should (supposedly) know our government better then that.
 
Oh, and this isn't spying, it's not. It's specifically looking for an individual's cell phone by hunting it down by it's cellular identity. It even says that when it connects to a device that isn't the one it's looking for it drops the device and releases it's signal.

As did Google's cars driving by looking at Wifi signals. It was all deleted, super serial guys.
 
Ignoring the grand ,misdirection by the article's author, do you really think this is a violation of your privacy?

A plane is up there looking for a specific cellular ID sampling the sea of cell phones until it finds and locks onto the suspect's phone signal. Then they track the guy down through direction finding based off the signal strength and direct the cops on the ground to his location for arrest.

The article just says it's scooping up your phone information but if they wanted to say it accurately then they would have described it like I did. But they didn't, cause they want it to sound damning, they want you to swallow whole their misrepresented bullshit.

Does it matter that they have a warrant for the guys arrest?

When I was driving with my Family on a trip we were on the interstate rolling around Nashville at night, suddenly a bunch of cops cars, mostly unmarked fired up their lights and sirens and basically corralled and herded about 7 cars, ours included, off to the side of the road. I thought it was one of those mass traffic speed trap stunts they do sometimes but then they all started jumping out of their cars with guns drawn and I knew it was something else. Soon enough they came over, told us it was a bust on a drug dealer, and told us we could leave and help slow the traffic so we could safely get back on the road. Now some of those cop cars must have had dash cams right, and they must have gotten my Plate Numbers right, just scooped it up. Well they could use that to track me, that I was in Tennessee traveling South. Is that any different? Is that something that should bother me?
 
I blame you for his appearance in this thread! :p

I just can't stay away, I find it very amusing to see you guys go nuts believing the lies thee reports write, you guys just can't go near a cliff without jumping. It's hilarious.

You are your own worst trolls.
 
Ignoring the grand ,misdirection by the article's author, do you really think this is a violation of your privacy?

A plane is up there looking for a specific cellular ID sampling the sea of cell phones until it finds and locks onto the suspect's phone signal. Then they track the guy down through direction finding based off the signal strength and direct the cops on the ground to his location for arrest.

The article just says it's scooping up your phone information but if they wanted to say it accurately then they would have described it like I did. But they didn't, cause they want it to sound damning, they want you to swallow whole their misrepresented bullshit.

Does it matter that they have a warrant for the guys arrest?

When I was driving with my Family on a trip we were on the interstate rolling around Nashville at night, suddenly a bunch of cops cars, mostly unmarked fired up their lights and sirens and basically corralled and herded about 7 cars, ours included, off to the side of the road. I thought it was one of those mass traffic speed trap stunts they do sometimes but then they all started jumping out of their cars with guns drawn and I knew it was something else. Soon enough they came over, told us it was a bust on a drug dealer, and told us we could leave and help slow the traffic so we could safely get back on the road. Now some of those cop cars must have had dash cams right, and they must have gotten my Plate Numbers right, just scooped it up. Well they could use that to track me, that I was in Tennessee traveling South. Is that any different? Is that something that should bother me?

Police dash cams are, right now, scooping up every license plate on the road, not just when they're chasing drug dealers. So, yeah, it should bother you. Running for public office? Hey I have a buddy in the force, I can pull a dump of all your locations and run a crosscheck on the addresses. Wait a minute, that address is owned by a woman who isn't your wife...jackpot! Or maybe you were blowing off steam at a bar with some friends, instead of somewhere else...the possibilities are endless.

Meanwhile, (and I love that all of this mounting evidence that corporations and governments are scooping up every single bit of electronic data we use/leave behind is "misdirection by the author), I do not doubt they're logging all of call's metadata of non-targets, times, locations, etc. That's all just sitting around, waiting to be used.
 
Welcome to the USA. Police and Surveillance State. It's for your safety. We are Professionals.
 
Also, lcpiper, given that "those who are ignorant of history are doomed to repeat it"; how do you square the circle that only 50 years ago the FBI was using wiretaps of MLK, Jr. and sending him letters seeking to get him to commit suicide? It isn't like all of this is hypothetical; this shit has happened, in this country.
 
So they are listening to our cellphones and text messages. What are we going to do about it? oh just complain on an internet forum and then just go back to status quo.

Fyi, You have to be into some naughty shit for them to start tracking you.
 
On the bright side, this must be really cheap.
 
Police dash cams are, right now, scooping up every license plate on the road, not just when they're chasing drug dealers. So, yeah, it should bother you. Running for public office? Hey I have a buddy in the force, I can pull a dump of all your locations and run a crosscheck on the addresses. Wait a minute, that address is owned by a woman who isn't your wife...jackpot! Or maybe you were blowing off steam at a bar with some friends, instead of somewhere else...the possibilities are endless.

Meanwhile, (and I love that all of this mounting evidence that corporations and governments are scooping up every single bit of electronic data we use/leave behind is "misdirection by the author), I do not doubt they're logging all of call's metadata of non-targets, times, locations, etc. That's all just sitting around, waiting to be used.

Oh fucking stop.

How in fuck do you simpletons jump to the conclusions that I address everything the government does. I don't. Almost everything I talk about is related to the DoD intelligence Services and mostly the NSA. There is a reason, one because I have some experience with it, and two, it's so easy for the reporters to lie about things the public hardly understands because it's so secretive.

You act like I am working against you but I am not. There are threats to our freedoms, there are people who are doing things they shouldn't, there are people trying to manipulate you. They're doing a great job, and by not actually reading things and looking into what you are being told and challenging what is commonly accepted, you make yourself an easy target. You my friend are the low hanging fruit, the easy mark.

Wake up, you are somebody's Chump.
 
Oh fucking stop.

How in fuck do you simpletons jump to the conclusions that I address everything the government does. I don't. Almost everything I talk about is related to the DoD intelligence Services and mostly the NSA. There is a reason, one because I have some experience with it, and two, it's so easy for the reporters to lie about things the public hardly understands because it's so secretive.

You act like I am working against you but I am not. There are threats to our freedoms, there are people who are doing things they shouldn't, there are people trying to manipulate you. They're doing a great job, and by not actually reading things and looking into what you are being told and challenging what is commonly accepted, you make yourself an easy target. You my friend are the low hanging fruit, the easy mark.

Wake up, you are somebody's Chump.

I'm the easy mark because...I believe the government is monitoring substantial parts of its populations' digital communications?

What am I the mark for, a magazine subscription? I don't exactly see a bunch of rich oligarchs fighting against that regime, so please enlighten me what masterful Illumanti-style organization is manipulating me in this way?

And you're the one who brought up police dash cams and recording license plates, so again, not sure why you're yelling at me. :confused:
 
Also, lcpiper, given that "those who are ignorant of history are doomed to repeat it"; how do you square the circle that only 50 years ago the FBI was using wiretaps of MLK, Jr. and sending him letters seeking to get him to commit suicide? It isn't like all of this is hypothetical; this shit has happened, in this country.

I won't deny it and I have no need to "square it".

I have no need to defend anything, I stopped defending when I retired from the Army 17 years ago.

I only point out the lies and deceit of the media when I see it and when I see people accepting those lies. Unfortunately, instead of asking why I think something is wrong all I get back is a label or two and frankly I would have thought by now you would have figured it out.

You know this article has a great graphic of the planes and the signals and the bad guys and the cops. Does the picture match the written accusation?
 
there are people who are doing things they shouldn't, there are people trying to manipulate you. They're doing a great job, and by not actually reading things and looking into what you are being told and challenging what is commonly accepted, you make yourself an easy target. You my friend are the low hanging fruit, the easy mark.

Wake up, you are somebody's Chump.


Exactly.
 
Police dash cams are, right now, scooping up every license plate on the road, not just when they're chasing drug dealers. So, yeah, it should bother you. Running for public office? Hey I have a buddy in the force, I can pull a dump of all your locations and run a crosscheck on the addresses. Wait a minute, that address is owned by a woman who isn't your wife...jackpot! Or maybe you were blowing off steam at a bar with some friends, instead of somewhere else...the possibilities are endless.

Meanwhile, (and I love that all of this mounting evidence that corporations and governments are scooping up every single bit of electronic data we use/leave behind is "misdirection by the author), I do not doubt they're logging all of call's metadata of non-targets, times, locations, etc. That's all just sitting around, waiting to be used.

Besides them being the usual cheating, lying jerks that say they like dark hair when they really are drooling over some peroxide blonde slut behind your back which makes them deserve every awful thing that happens to them afterwards, people who cheat on their spouses are a lot more likely to have or eventually have money problems, relationship problems, and sell themselves out to other governments out of desperation. So yeah, I say keep and eye on everyone as much as possible and force them to stay faithful out of fear of being caught and then make the consequences really, really awful like putting "I'm a cheating jerkface!" on their government issued ID and then entering them in a database a lot like they do with perverts that get caught.

So anyway, if you're not doing stupid stuff, you have nothing to worry about. If you are doing stupid stuff, um, leave your phone at home. You'll prolly still get caught cheating though since the people that do stuff like that are usually too stupid to get away with it when they're dating someone with like half a clue that checks out everything you're doing.
 
So they are listening to our cellphones and text messages. What are we going to do about it? oh just complain on an internet forum and then just go back to status quo.
Fyi, You have to be into some naughty shit for them to start tracking you.

Americans love the Status Que. It's to hard for most to actually get up and make changes.

How would you or anyone know when they start tracking someone? What are the red flags? You don't know. No one does. Only they do and I know it changes from person to person, agency to agency. And what policy's and people are watching at the time.

The bureaucrats, people, geeks and nerds behind all this spying and privacy issues, they are exactly like you, me and everyone on this planet. Just because you work for the Government or NSA does not make you some kind of Demi God of goodness, professionalism, intelligence or righteousness. Otherwise I'd never have a job :) Or 3/4 or hell...all.. of the ex military nerds I know with various degrees of social, emotional, relationship, financial and mental issues.

Don't put anything past anybody..ever.

And the longer you are in an organization, eventually the more corrupted you become. Everyone. That is why so many people want to get rid of career politicians and bureaucrats.

These Agency's are also so compartmentalized no one person or group can ever know what is going on in the others.
 
Oh fucking stop.

..... There are threats to our freedoms, .....

the only threat to my freedom is my government.

Sure, a terrorist could kill me (because of decades of interventionist foreign policy... by our government) - but it's far far more likely I'll be murdered by a police officer than a terrorist.
 
I'm the easy mark because...I believe the government is monitoring substantial parts of its populations' digital communications?

What am I the mark for, a magazine subscription? I don't exactly see a bunch of rich oligarchs fighting against that regime, so please enlighten me what masterful Illumanti-style organization is manipulating me in this way?

And you're the one who brought up police dash cams and recording license plates, so again, not sure why you're yelling at me. :confused:

Well, we are replying back and forth pretty fast, and I am pacing myself, don't want to push my 6 post per page limit.

I don't know who it is, but someone is doing it. Doing a great job too. I am pretty much the only one here that reads this article and says wait a minute, the facts presented don't add up to the conclusions that are pushing out there in a doggie dish for us to swallow.

All our phones have a cellular ID that is used to identify the phone when it establishes a signal with the towers. Immigration and Customs Enforcement(ICE, part of DHS), have a known suspect they want to get their hands on so they are using the signal from his phone to find him. Those are the facts presented. The rest, is all been conjecture, inuendo, bullshit.

Here is ICE's website, http://www.ice.gov/ go read their mission, go read what they claim they have been doing for our tax dollars.

This government documents they linked to in the article are purchase contracts for an upgrade of some of their existing Stingrays to Stingray IIs along with training for four people, less then 2 million so really cheap as government acquisitions go.

But this report doesn't just talk about ICE and how they are using this equipment so that we can decide if we think it's cool or not, they go way beyond that.

First this quote from some ACLU dude;
"This is a disturbing progression of the federal government's use of this technology, " Nathan Freed Wessler, an American Civil Liberties Union attorney in New York told CNNMoney. "What's different about this... is that it vastly increases the number of completely innocent bystanders whose information is being swept up by law enforcement."
It's over the top, the reason for putting the Stingray in a plane isn't so they can gather more signals from more phones, it's so they can use the direction finding part of the equipment package to rapidly locate the phone they are looking for. I know this from my Army days, airborne collectors can fly a "track" and are able to sample several hits on a signal from different angles to rapidly narrow down the area the signal could originate from.

This quote is odd;
An official at the Department of Justice would not confirm or deny the use of flying spoof cell towers.
ICE belongs to DHS, not DoJ so I guess they were just asking around hoping that someone might tell them something that would show if more agencies were using Airborne Stingrays.

This type of spying has increased dramatically since the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.
Umm, again, is this spying? I am asking you and the others if what they say ICE is using the Stingray IIs for, in planes, is it spying the way the article says they are being used?

Local police and federal agents make widespread use of these types of devices. Public records, such as this Florida court transcript, have revealed that police use this technology to gather information about suspects.

https://www.aclu.org/files/assets/100823_transcription_of_suppression_hearing_28unsealed_pages_11-2429.pdf

And if you read this linked document the writer provided the cops start by going to the cell phone provider to see if the phone is in use within their jurisdiction and to get them close enough to "walk to the device, to the handset."

So in essence, these Airborne Stingray IIs allow the cops to bypass going to the cell provider to get the general location. Now I don't know if this is completely legal or not but that is not what I have spoken on. What I have commented on is how this article approaches this topic and depicts what is going on in a way that misleads the reader into believing things are going on that are not actually happening. My proof is in the comment from the readers right on this forum.

I can't tell you who is behind it or what their goal is. If you wanted to know that you would need to find out who is paying who and for what. I don't think the media is going to report on that though do you?
 
the only threat to my freedom is my government.

Sure, a terrorist could kill me (because of decades of interventionist foreign policy... by our government) - but it's far far more likely I'll be murdered by a police officer than a terrorist.

Oh no, it's not the only threat. You would have to be a fool to beleave that other countries are not threats to your freedom. All you guys got terrorist on the brain, go visit Ukraine or Iraq if you need a wake up call, just don't expect to make it back alive.
 
the only threat to my freedom is my government.

Sure, a terrorist could kill me (because of decades of interventionist foreign policy... by our government) - but it's far far more likely I'll be murdered by a police officer than a terrorist.

This right here! Its already happened! September 11 anyone? The truth were the government killed 3000+ of its own citizens by knocking down the world trade center towers. Does anyone honestly still believe the phony terror hysteria and the lying media that Arabs living in caves did it? I love how the goverment pretends to inform us govern and protect us by killing us off.
 
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