NYPD Has Used Stingrays More Than 1,000 Times Since 2008

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One thousand times since 2008 means that the NYPD has, on average, used a Stingray once every three days for the past eight years. Let that sink in for a few minutes. :eek:

The NYPD has confirmed that it owns and operates Stingrays—controversial surveillance devices that spy on cell phones nearby and that can be used to track location—the New York Civil Liberties Union announced today. In response to an NYCLU FOIL request, the NYPD disclosed it used Stingrays nearly 1,016 times between 2008 and May of 2015 without a written policy and following a practice of obtaining only lower-level court orders rather than warrants. This is the first time the extent of the use of Stingrays by the NYPD has been made public.
 
And if they do NOT use them and there is a terrorist attack then the same police bashers will just say they had all that tech available and didn't use it. Sounds about right for retard Americans.
 
Vildayyan2003 said:
And if they do NOT use them and there is a terrorist attack then the same police bashers will just say they had all that tech available and didn't use it. Sounds about right for retard Americans.
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No doubt there. Violating personal security is always shamed until either it prevents tragedy or doesn't.
 
Vildayyan2003 said:
And if they do NOT use them and there is a terrorist attack then the same police bashers will just say they had all that tech available and didn't use it. Sounds about right for retard Americans.
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Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.
 
Lith1um said:
Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.
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Said an old guy that would not even be able to comprehend the world and the dangers faced today as they were writing down what people could and could not do. Safety always comes at the cost of liberty, there is no other formula for it. Take even a simple one, you have to drive on the right side of the road. Keeps you safe by restricting vehicles to a certain side of the road, but now you don't have the freedom to drive on whichever side you want.
 
Vildayyan2003 said:
And if they do NOT use them and there is a terrorist attack then the same police bashers will just say they had all that tech available and didn't use it. Sounds about right for retard Americans.
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And even if an attack did happen while they were actively using the device, they'll just request more money and something far stronger
 
Steve said:
One thousand times since 2008 means that the NYPD has, on average, used a Stingray once every three days for the past eight years. Let that sink in for a few minutes. :eek:

The NYPD has confirmed that it owns and operates Stingrays—controversial surveillance devices that spy on cell phones nearby and that can be used to track location—the New York Civil Liberties Union announced today. In response to an NYCLU FOIL request, the NYPD disclosed it used Stingrays nearly 1,016 times between 2008 and May of 2015 without a written policy and following a practice of obtaining only lower-level court orders rather than warrants. This is the first time the extent of the use of Stingrays by the NYPD has been made public.
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Ummm, 2008 to 2015 is like over 6 years, at 365 days a year = once every 2.16 days. Given that, since they are using the device to find a phone, and it's a search tool, I can easily see how in the course of searching for a specific phone they might use it several days straight before they wind up close enough to the target phone to find the guy.


Let that sink in a few minutes.

People need to stop thinking of Stingrays as dragnet surveillance tools. People who have actually used them have explained this on more then one occasion. They punch in the number for a phone they want to find, go to where they hope to find that phone, and the stingray searches through all the phones that connect to the device to try to identify and locate the targeted phone.
 
Lith1um said:
Guarantee they used it to spy on Occupy Wall Street.
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You may guarantee it but it requires the updated model of stingray with optional equipment and software to allow you to spy on a phone call or do anything more then find one specific phone at a time. If a phone that isn't the one you punched in to find connects, the device just disconnects and keeps right on searching for the one it's set to find.

I place no faith in your guarantees. It's "possible" that you are correct. But guarantee is pretty fucking strong when the tech do do so didn't exist until a couple of years ago.
 
Nothing like an unbiased source.

The NYPD has confirmed that it owns and operates Stingrays—controversial surveillance devices that spy on cell phones nearby and that can be used to track location
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Nothing like listing a devices primary function as if it's an aside and listing a possible capability as if it's the primary function of the device.

The NYCLU’s FOIL request to the NYPD is part of its advocacy to lift the shroud of secrecy surrounding police departments’ use of surveillance devices, such as Stingrays and X-Ray vans, that were developed for military purposes but are now deployed in New York neighborhoods.
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And it's so convenient to report how these devices were developed for "military purposes" while our military was in fact engaged in supporting another government's police forces.

Maybe you just had to be there to get it.
 
I wouldn't say I am naive, I would say I don't yell fire without smoke.

Unless you have something better than a wild assed guess about whether the NYPD response to this FOIL request is not complete, then that's all you have, a wild assed guess.
 
and following a practice of obtaining only lower-level court orders rather than warrants
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Don't see how you'd need a search warrant to use a tracking device. Listen in on calls or read text messages yes, but to find its location, no. So really a judges order would be all you'd need. As long as they're getting judicial approval and not using it to follow their ex-girlfriend's new boyfriend around, I don't see a problem.
 
lcpiper said:
People need to stop thinking of Stingrays as dragnet surveillance tools. People who have actually used them have explained this on more then one occasion. They punch in the number for a phone they want to find, go to where they hope to find that phone, and the stingray searches through all the phones that connect to the device to try to identify and locate the targeted phone.
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Yes, we'll just take your word that that's all the Stingrays can do versus all the reports to the contrary.
 
Doc, it's all over the web, months ago. The general capabilities and usage of a Stringray is to find a specific phone. It does this by tricking phones in the area to connect to it so it can find the one it's looking for. Once it finds the phone it wants, it leads you right to it.

A couple of years ago they developed some new optional packages that allowed the latest versions of the Stingray to listen and record the conversations of the target phone. Are the Stingrays full capabilities classified and protected, yes. But Stingrays have been around for many years and it's ridiculous to spend all your time focusing in on what it may be capable of instead of how and why these specific devices are being used.

Why does anyone have to guess?

Now if you are the MYCLU and you are asking for this info from the NYPD and you find out these devices wouldn't allow the cops to actually snoop in on conversations cause they don't have the gear for it then it's not going to further your crusade now is it? Si instead you spend your time carefully crafting your news report with statements like I quoted. You just lay out the full possibilities, even if you know they don't apply, and let the reader assume the worst.

Besides, I already told you, there are guys right here on this forum that have used them themselves while in the service. You don't have to believe me, believe them.

This isn't just the NYCLU that plays this game. Most reporters today use the same tactics. When I was doing intel work for the Army, we always used words like possible, probable, may, could mean, tentative. You never issued a report that said anything concrete because if it comes back that you are wrong then you look terrible, your credibility is shot.

Reporters and writers today do the same thing, but some of them go too far. They don't just leave things a little open to allow for mistakes, they actually purposely lead the reader down false paths.

So when you read "all those reports to the contrary" do yourself a favor, actually READ them and be just a little skeptical of the fancy wording.
 
Can't the police get the location of the phone straight from the phone company with a warrant? Are you stating that these 1,000 uses were merely to locate some phones/people?
 
Yes that's what it's for, and the phone company isn't nearly accurate enough. The phone company is limited to tracking your signal based on cell tower convergence and there might not be many towers near where they expect to find your phone. This device let's the "circle the block" they can zoom right in on your phone and follow the signal right to your door.
Furthermore, they are doing it live so even if you are in a car they can chase you down. I don't know about you but I can just see the conversation between the phone tech and the cops on this one;

The phone is at 555555555 officer.

Officer "I am standing at 555555555 and the phone's not in the ice skating rink."

"Well the towers are only accurate to 200 meters at best officer" that phone is somewhere within two football fields of your location".

Officer "shit !"


But with a Stingray, it's "We expect to find him at work".

"He's got friends at work, if we just show up, they'll warn him off, we can't just hand around".

"Na it's good, we got the judge to let us use the stingray. We just plug in his phone and wait for the stingray to lock it up, then we walk him down"

"That'll work"
 
Thanks for the info, Icpiper. That actually sounds like a beneficial tool for law enforcement, provided they use it in a legal manner.
 
DocSavage said:
Thanks for the info, Icpiper. That actually sounds like a beneficial tool for law enforcement, provided they use it in a legal manner.
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You are welcome, and you are correct, and we do want the NYCLU and others to keep an eye on it.

But we don't need them making mountains out of molehills either. The way I see it, if the NYCLU had evidence, something stronger then a paranoid concern, then these articles would be more assertive and less dodgy. As it is, these articles read like they are trying to win something through a PR campaign.

It's like they want to ban the use of Stingrays just because "they could be used" improperly. There is worse the cops are capable of, we already know this. Corrupt cops are nothing new. Some are good people, some are crooks and some are sadistic and even murderers.

We know this. And the only way we'll have a chance of minimizing the bad guys is getting the good cops to deal with it. They know who's wrong, they know.
 
lcpiper said:
But we don't need them making mountains out of molehills either. The way I see it, if the NYCLU had evidence, something stronger then a paranoid concern, then these articles would be more assertive and less dodgy. As it is, these articles read like they are trying to win something through a PR campaign.
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maybe it has something to do with the fact that nobody has earned the benefit of the doubt that youre so willing to allocate yourself
 
lcpiper said:
I wouldn't say I am naive, I would say I don't yell fire without smoke.

Unless you have something better than a wild assed guess about whether the NYPD response to this FOIL request is not complete, then that's all you have, a wild assed guess.
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Wasn't talking about NYPD, was talking about cops in general, but there is plenty of dirt out there about NYPD too if you care to look for it.
 
Darunion said:
Said an old guy that would not even be able to comprehend the world and the dangers faced today as they were writing down what people could and could not do. Safety always comes at the cost of liberty, there is no other formula for it. Take even a simple one, you have to drive on the right side of the road. Keeps you safe by restricting vehicles to a certain side of the road, but now you don't have the freedom to drive on whichever side you want.
Click to expand...


The world was no less dangerous then.

The people today do not even comprehend the dangers they face today.

If the people today were the people back then, there would be no NYPD today.

They would have marched in a straight line in blue coats outnumbered and dead because they didn't want to offend the British.
 
Vildayyan2003 said:
And if they do NOT use them and there is a terrorist attack then the same police bashers will just say they had all that tech available and didn't use it. Sounds about right for retard Americans.
Click to expand...
They're doing it without warrants and attempting to prevent information about their use of Stingrays from leaking to the public.

Even going so far as to throw cases or drop prosecution if attempts to gain information about their use is sought by the defense.

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/...rs-drop-cases-than-disclose-stingray-details/

You are, how ever inadvertently, attempting to provide cover for behavior you'd expect from a 3rd rate Gestapo-like police state and not the US. At least not what the US is supposed to be (ie. land of freedom, etc.). This is real life, not a episode of 24, and its not terrorists they're generally using these Stingrays against.
 
lcpiper said:
It's like they want to ban the use of Stingrays just because "they could be used" improperly.
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There is no "could be" about it. Stingray use has been almost entirely warrentless and the legal arguments in favor of their current use rely on specious readings of the law that are indefensible when brought in public court. Which is why the cases keep getting dropped or associated evidence thrown out when they're being used now the details are coming to light.

lcpiper said:
Corrupt cops are nothing new. Some are good people, some are crooks and some are sadistic and even murderers.
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You can't use the "few bad apples" fallacy when the warrantless Stingray use is widespread and the norm.

lcpiper said:
And the only way we'll have a chance of minimizing the bad guys is getting the good cops to deal with it. They know who's wrong, they know.
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Actually they don't know. Even if they did know they don't need a Stingray to bust people either. Police testimony is evidence in a trial so they'd just have to watch a drug deal or whatever go down after watching the suspect and boom.
 
The only group less trustworthy or honorable than the nypd is the lapd.
 
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