[HN Gopher] Secret Service, ICE,and fake cell tower spying
___________________________________________________________________
Secret Service, ICE,and fake cell tower spying
Author : LinuxBender
Score : 231 points
Date : 2023-03-04 14:01 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.theregister.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.theregister.com)
| AtlasBarfed wrote:
| Oversight is just another big lie.
| macinjosh wrote:
| Why are there no consequences for these people?
| anigbrowl wrote:
| Because every time someone proposes meaningful consequences a
| bunch of moaners come out with procedural arguments arguing
| that their conception of a just system is more important than
| the reality of an unjust one, and they get offended if you
| challenge their civic religiosity. Judicial opinions are full
| of such Paglossian nonsense.
| hgsgm wrote:
| Because When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary
| for one people to dissolve the political bands which have
| connected them with another, and to assume among the Powers of
| the earth, instead of a ting, we retreat to the bread and
| circuses.
| browsertasker wrote:
| I hope to read good comments, i like this topic.
| nine_zeros wrote:
| For most of my life, I didn't understand the American aversion to
| government.
|
| But having lived in this country and having seen innocent people
| put into precarious circumstances by poor government processes, I
| get it.
|
| The US government is very very incompetent. It is very important
| to keep power away from government agencies in America.
| mjparrott wrote:
| This is why making the government more effective or powerful
| has major unintended consequences. Checks and balances,
| fundamental rights, separation of powers are all beautiful
| things that are under-appreciated today
| can16358p wrote:
| Do you really think governments and government
| organizations/forces obey the law?
|
| Don't get me wrong in an ideal world they should, but we're far
| from that world.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| The vast majority of time yes. Nobody obeys the law absolutely.
| The government is comprised of human beings.
| LocalH wrote:
| When one is in a position of authority, where they assume
| rights that the individual does not have, then even a single
| misuse of that authority by that person, no matter how minor,
| should lead to blackballing from ever being allowed to be in
| a position of authority again, including political office.
|
| Want a police force that actually deserves respect? Then you
| must weed out the bad apples with vigor, and make it _very
| clear_ that their behavior will not be tolerated.
|
| We could start by getting rid of "qualified immunity" as it
| stands, and recraft it in a _much narrower_ fashion.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| I agree with all of that. Police need more training, higher
| standards, higher pay, and more consequences for misconduct
| or betraying their mission and values.
|
| We also need to be more forgiving when mistakes are
| genuine.
| kytazo wrote:
| Haven't read it yet but keywords like Secret Service, ICE,and
| fake cell tower spying are music to my ears
| CyberDildonics wrote:
| It's unfortunate that what everyone was afraid of happening but
| expected to happen, happened.
| sambull wrote:
| Now it will probably be a service offered by private entities
| via satellite.
| O__________O wrote:
| Worth noting that both Secret Service and ICE likely have
| exceptions to Fourth Amendment protection against unreasonable
| search and seizure based on context. Without specific examples,
| it's hard to say if laws as is are being violated. If laws are
| not being violated, then real issue is if the exceptions should
| stand.
| roywiggins wrote:
| It's not really an exception so much an application of the
| "reasonable" part, right? You don't have a right against search
| and seizure, just unreasonable searches and seizures. The
| existence of a warrant makes a search definitely reasonable,
| but there are contexts where a search can be reasonable without
| one.
| notch898a wrote:
| As if they need much effort elsewhere. ICE (HSI) got a search
| warrant against me because an anonymous dog allegedly accused
| me of wrongdoing. That anonymous dog allegedly told an
| anonymous officer, who allegedly told an HSI detective. I was
| served a warrant based off 3rd degree, inter-species hearsay.
| How do you even argue against that. I still have no fucking
| clue what that was all about and I never interacted with a dog
| that alerted on me.
|
| Then the cost of the (fruitless) search warrant was sent to
| collections, and I now have debt collectors chasing me where
| the debt document literally says guarantor "ICE" on it.
| starkd wrote:
| Had to read this many times to understand what you are
| talking about, but referring to the use of police dogs as
| "interspecies hearsay" seems like a novel defense. Legally, I
| would think the use of K9 teams would count as valid evidence
| for a search. I did not know they billed people for the cost
| of exectuting a search warrant. Is that really a thing?
| notch898a wrote:
| They handcuffed me, tossed me in a cell, then dragged me to
| two different hospitals by prisoner van, then told the
| hospital to search me for an alleged "drug conspiracy" up
| my ass. Literally. Then the hospital sent me the bill after
| nothing was found.
| quickthrower2 wrote:
| Sounds horrendous. There is no remedy for you here I take
| it? Sue them?
| 77pt77 wrote:
| This guy [1] won 1.6 million/
|
| [1] https://edition.cnn.com/2014/01/16/justice/new-
| mexico-search...
| starkd wrote:
| So, it sounds like they cloaked the search in terms of a
| "medical procedure". That surprises me, but I guess by
| now it shouldn't. They do this kind of thing, when they
| know they can get away with it.
| notch898a wrote:
| So I decided to test that exact theory. The warrant
| wasn't actually signed by the judge until about halfway
| through my detention.
|
| So I complained to the nursing board, that the nurse had
| searched me without consent and without a signed court
| order after a doctor had explicitly noted I was fully
| alert and oriented and denied informed consent.
|
| The nursing board denied the complaint, stating a nurse
| acting under the command of an officer is acting in a
| "search" and not bound by nurse practice act that would
| make it impermissable to act without a signed court order
| or informed consent (if individual alert and oriented,
| which dr documented I was).
|
| That's the gambit. When you legally claim it was a
| search, they call it a "medical procedure." When you
| attack the medical procedure, they call it a search. They
| just flip flop so it's impossible to hold anyone
| accountable.
| O__________O wrote:
| Sounds like their position is law enforcement officer
| commanded the nurse to perform a medical procedure which
| as result of it being related to a border crossing was
| legal if there was "reasonable suspicion" which you have
| said the claimed to have based on your responses and lack
| of cell phone.
|
| To be clear, not stating I agree with situation, fully
| understand law, your perspective, law enforcement
| perspective, etc -- but claim that body cavity search
| requires a warrant once reasonable suspicion is
| established at a border crossing to my knowledge is
| inaccurate if you're claiming it is.
|
| Example of Google search that appears to return search
| results supporting this:
|
| https://www.google.com/search?q=is+it+legal+for+us+custom
| s+t...
|
| Disputing reasonable cause is very hard to do. Most
| people would likely find it reasonable to be suspicious
| of a person lacking a cell phone. Also appears judge
| granted a warrant, which to me confirms they believed
| their the threshold for reasonable suspicion had been
| passed.
| newjersey wrote:
| > Disputing reasonable cause is very hard to do. Most
| people would likely find it reasonable to be suspicious
| of a person lacking a cell phone. Also appears judge
| granted a warrant, which to me confirms they believed
| their the threshold for reasonable suspicion had been
| passed.
|
| I don't know what I stumbled upon but it definitely does
| not meet my threshold of reasonable suspicion to do an
| involuntary body cavity search for anyone solely because
| they do not own a cell phone.
|
| Also I would hope the public pays for all costs of
| whatever involuntary search or medical procedure
| regardless of whether the search results in evidence of
| guilt but definitely if the search does not yield
| anything.
| O__________O wrote:
| To do X is irrelevant, what matters is if it meets legal
| definition of reasonable suspicion, which I assure you is
| both extremely low at border crossings and that law
| enforcement is very aware of how to establish it; hence
| why the warrant was granted.
|
| Way to address issues like this is not online or at a
| border crossing -- but by changing laws themselves. I
| assure that vast majority of people support laws like
| these, otherwise they would not have been in place so
| long.
|
| Again, I am not saying I agree with situation, but
| attempting to accurately describe the reality of it.
| 77pt77 wrote:
| Are we talking something similar to this [1]?
|
| [1] https://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2013/11/05/man-
| seeks-mi...
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| > think the use of K9 teams would count as valid evidence
| for a search
|
| If the dog handler lies 100% of the time, would you ever
| know?
| thephyber wrote:
| Interesting that they can charge you for a search.
|
| Another note: depending on your state, you might have a lot
| of power in challenging the debt collection. Make sure you
| demand they send you proof that they hold the debt, that it
| is in your name, etc. even if the debt was legally applied to
| you, some debt collectors buy debt that is insufficiently
| documented.
|
| I'm curious if a small claims court could help you.
| nine_zeros wrote:
| > Then the cost of the (fruitless) search warrant was sent to
| collections, and I now have debt collectors chasing me where
| the debt document literally says guarantor "ICE" on it.
|
| Wait, am I understanding this correctly? You got a bill for a
| bullshit search warrant issued against you?
| O__________O wrote:
| Use of K9s as pretext for plausible cause is well known
| issue, that said, without knowing specifics of the situation,
| impossible to comment on legal merit of them submitting the
| cost of search warrant for debt collections.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| > submitting the cost of search warrant for debt
| collections
|
| I'm not sure how that would even work.
| notch898a wrote:
| The way it works is they have a private party perform
| part of the search, then have that party bill it to you.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| Annoying, for sure, but short of them having a your
| signature acknowledging responsibility for the cost, it
| should be straightforward to shut down the debt
| collector's efforts.
| LocalH wrote:
| Until that debt gets sold to a collector that couldn't
| give two shits about what is legal
| O__________O wrote:
| Depends on context, jurisdiction, etc -- for example,
| given topic is US law enforcement, here's one example of
| costs of investigation assigned for collection based on
| outcome of a case:
|
| https://www.findlaw.com/legalblogs/criminal-defense/when-
| do-...
| thephyber wrote:
| Your statement ignores the fact that this article's info comes
| from the DHS Inspector General's report on CSS usage within the
| department. The IG did the legwork to figure out that agents
| didn't comply with department policy, nor the relevant Pen Tap
| and Trace statutes.
|
| In the case that agents use the already well established
| workarounds for 4A protections, the agents must still file for
| a warrant post hoc within 48 hours, which they didn't do, hence
| the article.
|
| And Stingrays / CSS devices are used, there is always an
| unreasonable search applied towards all phones accidentally
| intercepted, so there is good reason for both department policy
| to be followed, and for a judge to at least review this after
| the fact.
|
| Your comment is lazy. The IG report exists for a reason. It
| removes almost all of the ambiguity you pretend might exist in
| these cases.
| user3939382 wrote:
| I can only imagine the people running these organizations share
| the perspective of Jack Nicholson in A Few Good Men
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9FnO3igOkOk
|
| They believe they _are_ the law, not that they 're subservient to
| it.
| mindslight wrote:
| I once heard a park ranger literally say "I am the law" while
| telling a story to a random visitor about how she had her
| sister with dogs come live with her, even though dogs were
| prohibited in the park (or something like that).
|
| This isn't to impugn park rangers in general nor the fantastic
| national park system, just a datapoint about how warped
| people's viewpoints can get with even an inkling of power.
|
| The whole concept of sovereign immunity needs to be massively
| neutered, especially as extended to individuals employed by the
| state rather than the state itself.
| dylan604 wrote:
| There's a reason Cartman's "Respect my authority" bit is so
| good. These types of roles are especially attractive to a
| particular personality type. There are jobs where it is best
| to have people that do not want to be in that position vs
| having people seeking to be that position.
| projektfu wrote:
| I see that even in my condo's HOA board. There are three
| types - those that are lurkers but will vote occasionally,
| those that do not really want to be there, but they feel
| they are qualified and it's their duty to do the work, and
| those who want to exercise power and exempt themselves from
| the declaration/by-laws as much as possible. You need at
| least one of the second to balance one of the third.
| bladegash wrote:
| Having had worked in DC much of my career, more specifically
| within the IC, I think more likely they believe in a general
| utilitarian philosophy that "the ends justify the means".
|
| It is a common Western world view to begin with, but my
| personal observation is it is especially common in the grayer
| professions of the world.
|
| Took me personally reaching a point in life and asking the big
| question "do they really?" or in my case, "doesn't it matter
| how you get to those ends, too?" before my own worldview/choice
| of profession began to shift.
| zmgsabst wrote:
| The impact on public morale when your "necessary" actions are
| discovered is an outcome too.
|
| I find people who say "the ends justify the means" tend to
| ignore outcomes of their actions which don't support their
| desired bad behavior -- and generally completely ignore
| higher-order effects, such as the corruption of the US IC
| undermining the US rule of law in a way no foreign adversary
| ever could.
|
| I don't think US IC members have the wisdom to know what ends
| come from their means -- they just shut their eyes, utter the
| catechism, and commit illegal acts that undermine the US.
| ethbr0 wrote:
| Imho, _A Few Good Men_ is a great movie because, especially
| for 1992, it spoke directly to those gray areas.
|
| About ten years later, after 9/11, the US established
| Guantanamo Bay detention camp, where in 2023 there are
| still people (32?) held outside of normal legal processes.
|
| I would expect that the 32 remaining, out of almost 800
| total, are a clear threat to the United States.
|
| But is it right to keep them there? What are the moral
| implications of the rest of America looking away while ugly
| work is done with their authority and in their name?
|
| Colonel Jessep isn't 100% wrong (Santiago's death may have
| saved lives, but his death shouldn't have happened), and Lt
| Kaffee isn't 100% right (Jessep broke the law, but people
| are not owed unvarnished truth without earning it).
|
| Everyone's who's worked for a large corporation, even
| outside the IC, knows that many things are done in that
| grey area, with the expectation bosses would deny asking
| someone to do it. See the recent news about Union Pacific
| train wheel bearing inspections being pressured to pass.
|
| To me, the balance of any system is accepting an optimal
| level of corruption/abuse, in order to permit efficient
| functioning. Grease lets things slip, yet also decreases
| friction.
|
| It's ugly, sad, and terrible... but also necessary. A
| perfectly enforced code of laws would rapidly implode any
| country in the world, because it wouldn't leave room for
| interpretation and exceptions.
| zmgsabst wrote:
| Sure -- but that's already substantially back-pedaling
| from "the ends justify the means" as a general policy.
|
| And by that same argument, arbitrarily lynching some of
| the corrupt actors -- despite knowing that everyone is
| operating in such gray areas and such things are
| necessary -- is the counterbalancing force to that
| necessary corruption. The tension and friction which
| makes it work. You define the gray area through those
| prosecutions at the edges.
|
| Each foray into the gray zone becomes a risk -- and so
| only the necessary ones are made, rather than normalizing
| a culture of corruption.
|
| Without that, you have all slip and no stick, so the
| machine falls apart. Which is what we see in the US IC
| (and businesses): too much lubricating corruption; not
| enough punishment. Taken too far "out of tolerance", the
| machine becomes broken or even dangerous to keep
| operating -- and so must be replaced entirely.
|
| If you want to tell me you have the wisdom to operate in
| such gray areas, then you should be aware of that
| necessary reality too.
| youainti wrote:
| What I've realized is that the means _determine_ the ends,
| both intended and unintended.
| beebeepka wrote:
| "we do what we must because we can"
| e2le wrote:
| "For the good of all of us."
| newjersey wrote:
| Except the ones who are dead
|
| But there's no sense crying over every mistake
|
| We must keep on trying till we run out of cake.
| m463 wrote:
| I also wonder if reality is more like No Country for Old Men
| hermitdev wrote:
| I think part of the problem is the apparent lack of
| accountability for violations. I mean, what were the
| repercussions for any of the violations the OIG found? Careers
| need to be ended and people sent to jail over this. This is a
| civil rights violation en masse and needs to be treated as
| such. There should be no exceptions; a warrant should be
| required per the 4th amendment.
| claytongulick wrote:
| While I definitely sympathize with your sentiment, TFA is
| mostly about how confusing and inconsistent the laws are.
|
| According to the article, Ron Wyden and several others tried
| to pass a bill to clarify the guidelines, but it didn't make
| it out of committee.
|
| Perhaps we should write good, clear laws and guidelines
| before we break out the pitchforks.
|
| I may be naive, but I still believe that most law enforcement
| officers want to do the right thing, and dedicate their lives
| to helping others.
|
| Of course egregious violations should be prosecuted to the
| full extent of the law.
| mxkopy wrote:
| > I still believe that most law enforcement officers want
| to do the right thing
|
| It's been legally determined that "the right thing" is 1.
| protection of property 2. protection of the status quo
| (i.e. the rule of law regardless of what the law is) 3.
| does not include the safeguarding of the welfare of people
| (see DeShaney v Winnebago and its impacts).
|
| You say "some bad apples" - the tree was selectively bred
| to make anemic, putrid fruit.
| [deleted]
| tsimionescu wrote:
| > I may be naive, but I still believe that most law
| enforcement officers want to do the right thing, and
| dedicate their lives to helping others.
|
| That is extremely naive, especially when talking about
| these sorts of federal entities.
| supportlocal4h wrote:
| It can be true and still be problematic. If a small city
| has 100 LEO, and 15 are bad apples, the overwhelming
| majority still want to do the right thing.
|
| Unfortunately 15 is still a very big problem. If they can
| break the law with impunity it can rightly be said that
| the police force is doing more harm than good. Even
| outnumbered 6:1 the bad apples have a larger effect on
| the community.
|
| Unless the 85 good apples focus their attention
| specifically on the 15 above all other crime. If they
| enforce the law against the 15 until the problem goes
| away, or until the ratio is 30:1 and it is really hard
| for the 3 bad apples to collude... well then maybe.
|
| No organization is perfect. But the rule enforcers have
| to be held to a higher standard.
| Enginerrrd wrote:
| I actually think you're missing the mark on bad apples by
| an order of magnitude. I think 1-5% bad apples is not
| only more likely, but I think you perhaps underestimate
| the effect that this smaller percentage can have if
| allowed to operate in a permissive environment.
| supportlocal4h wrote:
| I would guess that 95% of the people I know exceed the
| speed limit 80+% of the time they drive. In fact, just
| suggesting that it is ok to drive the speed limit in the
| left lane of a U.S. freeway would draw near universal
| condemnation.
|
| Imagine an individual who actually obeys the speed limit
| 99% of the time, exceeding it only by mistake. Imagine
| they are late to a once in a lifetime event. I think it
| almost impossible for the average do-gooder to
| contemplate the mental struggle of whether it is ok to--
| just this once--go 3 or 4 mph over the speed limit.
| Normal people wouldn't even hesitate.
|
| Now imagine you are a concientious LEO driving a marked
| vehicle. There is practically no speed at which you will
| be punished. Every normal person is doing 5-10 over the
| limit. Some tap their brakes when they see you. But you
| can do 20 over the limit and never tap your brakes even
| when you see another police car. In fact, you
| rationalize, you all by yourself will impede traffic if
| you don't drive at least 10 over.
|
| How do you not develop a sense of exceptionalism? Even if
| you are a good person? And, of course, how do you presume
| to pull another cop over and give them a ticket?
|
| Now extend that beyond speed limits into every aspect of
| law enforcement. Is it reasonable to expect 80%
| compliance of the very best officers? No? So why should
| it surprise anybody to get <50% compliance from 15% of
| officers? Especially when you get <50% compliance from
| 80+% of non-officers.
|
| The by-the-book officer is great for a comic movie. We
| all cheer for them in the theater. But on the street in
| real life they are intolerable to 99.9% of the public.
| Happily we all cut each other some slack. I think 1-5%
| percent is naive, or doesn't include the 10-20% grace we
| automatcally ignore by necessity in life.
| ROTMetro wrote:
| Constitutional protections are VASTLY different from
| motor vehicle violations.
| KennyBlanken wrote:
| If you have 100 LEO and 15 are "bad apples" and the other
| 85 provide a permission environment (as another commenter
| put it), then you don't have 15 bad apples, you have 100
| bad apples.
|
| At some point it became acceptable for the "good apples"
| to just stand by and do nothing watching the "bad apples"
| do things like beat the shit out of people, plant
| evidence, lie in their reports, and "testi-lie".
|
| If the majority of cops are good:
|
| * why are the good cops not fighting to get rid of the
| bad cops?
|
| * why are the good cops fighting things like federal
| standards and databases that track bad cops to keep them
| from getting re-hired? After all, the good cops wouldn't
| want to work with the bad cops, right?
|
| * why are bad cops finding it easy to get re-hired? The
| good cops wouldn't want the bad cops to continue being
| cops, right?
|
| * why are the good cops engaging in work slowdowns in the
| wake of protests over the killings of unarmed black men,
| and calls for shifting non-violent incidents to other
| people who are less confrontational and better trained to
| handle things like mental health emergencies? After all,
| if it was just the bad cops, they wouldn't have any
| problem with the protests, and not having to handle
| situations they're poorly trained for, right?
|
| It goes back to the parent comment about A Few Good Men.
| "YOU NEED ME ON THAT WALL!"
|
| The interesting thing about the work slowdowns is that
| it's showing us that we really don't actually need cops
| nearly as much as we seem to think we do.
| kkielhofner wrote:
| Generally agree but I think it's important to make a
| distinction between federal law enforcement and local.
|
| Local police departments have wildly different training
| and qualification requirements. Most famously generally
| not requiring a college education, having the right to
| pass on hires/fires because they score too high in IQ
| tests, etc.
|
| At the federal level college is often a requirement up to
| including law degrees and PHDs[0]. One thing to look for
| at that link - the starting salaries and requirements are
| wild. The relatively low pay and high requirements likely
| either select for people with a strong sense of service
| or power crazed maniacs.
|
| Most federal agencies other than the FBI have a single,
| consolidated training program at FLETC[1] (the FBI has
| their own in Quantico). Additionally, they generally have
| higher standards and regulations for everything from
| behavior to investigations and overall professionalism.
| This story includes multiple call-outs from agencies
| tasked with overseeing federal law enforcement (however
| effective they are). At the local level in many cases the
| only "oversight" is some citizen review board with
| practically no power or a useless internal affairs
| department.
|
| In short, to be a "local cop" you can generally decide to
| be one (for whatever reasons), go to the police academy a
| short drive from where you live, and be walking around
| with a gun in a few months. It's very easy and low-
| effort.
|
| That's not the case at the federal level. At the federal
| level you also don't have the whole "get fired or resign
| from one department, keep your certification, and get a
| job in the next town over" situation - which is
| ridiculous and basically serves as a funnel and retention
| system for bad cops.
|
| LE is people too and you have the normal distribution of
| humanity (more or less). However, the job tends to
| attract people with a longing for power and that's
| problematic too. There's also the issue with LE
| generally, but especially local police, where they have a
| tendency to get extremely cynical and jaded.
|
| I don't see myself as some "bootlicker" or whatever the
| current derogatory term is but I have been on a few ride
| alongs and spending hour after hour dealing with people
| at their worst can really wear on you - and I have
| roughly 24 hours of cumulative life experience observing
| this. As one cop said "for starters, everyone lies to you
| constantly". Frankly I can't imagine doing it day in and
| day out.
|
| At the risk of going way off topic here, I can sympathize
| with how jumpy these local cops can get. Being by
| yourself, on some random dark street, pulling someone
| over, and walking up to the car cold is surprisingly
| scary. It's the little things - I was in the passenger
| seat and I was told I could walk up to the car with them
| but only if I walked around the back of the police car
| and came up to the drivers side behind them. You know,
| just in case the driver decides to put the car in reverse
| and pin me between the cars. There were a few situations
| that were dicy enough for me to realize "I'm the only one
| without a gun or body armor".
|
| Most local police departments have ride along programs
| and I encourage everyone to do at least one. It's easily
| one of the most eye opening experiences I've ever had.
|
| [0] - https://www.secretservice.gov/careers/special-
| agent/qualific...
|
| [1] - https://www.fletc.gov/
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > the overwhelming majority still want to do the right
| thing.
|
| If a small city has 100 LEO and 15 are "bad apples", and
| that situation persists, it persists _because_ a
| substantial (especially as weighted by influence)
| majority of the other 85 view protecting the 15 as more
| important than "doing the right thing", from keeping
| quiet, to supporting union rules and institutions which
| insulate the bad actors, to...
| brnaftr361 wrote:
| I don't know that it's fair to characterize it as
| "protecting" so much as a good faith argument in
| someone's favor. I think most people would extend that
| favor to their peers, not *just* police.
|
| I've had plenty of debates with opponents that talk about
| rape stats: they're pretty high, and assumed to be
| undercounted, and predominately it seems like it's men
| perpetrators and female victims. Now I'm not a rapist,
| and *to the best of my knowledge* nobody I know is a
| rapist, or a perpetrator of domestic violence, etc... But
| these are also things that can and do happen behind
| closed doors and are secreted away and swept under rugs
| -- fair point. So when someone makes broad-strokes
| accusatory statements about men as a whole, acting under
| that assumption, I defend myself and my peers because me,
| my friends, my family are all being called to task over
| something I have *faith* we were no party to. And I've
| heard ballpark figures from some of these interlocutors
| that indicate as many as one-half of all men are
| perpetrators of the aforementioned crimes or their
| kindred malefactions.
|
| And I think this kind of extension of trust is
| fundamental to society and civilization. I think it is
| also a considerable hazard as a population grows.
| Bystander effect but at scales inconceivable to any
| individual.
| moremetadata wrote:
| > Unfortunately 15 is still a very big problem.
|
| Especially when they are in charge of the hierarchy.
| l33t233372 wrote:
| Can you elaborate? What do you think most law enforcement
| officers want to do, and what do you think being federal
| changes about it?
| zmgsabst wrote:
| "A few rotten apples spoil the bunch" as the saying goes.
|
| Due to never facing consequences for illegal actions, a
| culture of flouting the law and abusing rights has been
| normalized -- for both federal and other agencies.
|
| The few "bad apples" rotted their organizations.
| miguelazo wrote:
| >What do you think most law enforcement officers want to
| do
|
| Get paid large salaries and good benefits without having
| to go to college, in a country that doesn't respect the
| trades enough. And plenty of them like the power,
| especially the "bad apples."
| KennyBlanken wrote:
| Remember, we have a supreme court that recently decided
| sniffer dogs are acceptable grounds for searches, despite
| them being worse than a coin flip.
|
| Our court system doesn't care about "fair." It cares about
| punishing.
| 8note wrote:
| It's likely that there's no law saying that the tools for
| "acceptable grounds for search" have to on average increase
| the probability of finding something
|
| The courts are doing they're job wrt the law
| claytongulick wrote:
| [flagged]
| nsajko wrote:
| I'm guessing users flagged your comment, not mods. The
| redress is for other users to "vouch" for your comment,
| as I have done right now.
|
| For contacting Dang, see the "Contact" link at the bottom
| of the front page.
| vasco wrote:
| [flagged]
| surge wrote:
| Some people are on TikTok so everyone forfeited their
| privacy?
| moremetadata wrote:
| > They believe they are the law, not that they're subservient
| to it.
|
| The public would be shocked at the level of criminality within
| the state, not satisfied with making up the law as they go
| along to suit their needs, they even go and break it.
| BurningFrog wrote:
| That's not what that character believes.
|
| It's more that a nation of law and order is very desirable, but
| to maintain that society, those who threaten it must be fought
| by any means necessary.
|
| I don't know how true that is, but I can't rule out that that
| is how the world really works.
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| > law and order is very desirable, but to maintain that
| society, those who threaten it must be fought by any means
| necessary
|
| Thats is one and the same thing.
|
| When people who 'protect' the law don't follow the law
| themselves, you no longer have rule of law.
| BurningFrog wrote:
| Sure. But that's a word definition argument, not a
| practical one.
| user3939382 wrote:
| If it's a definition argument it's a pretty significant
| one, that underpins the functioning of our society. Is
| the law something the public has, through its
| representatives, consented to? Or is it something the
| administrators and enforcers of the law have decided
| unilaterally without that consent?
| thephyber wrote:
| You seem to be making an argument that law enforcement
| should do anything to keep order, no matter the legality.
|
| I would argue that as soon as a "good guy" cuts legal
| corners, they set a bad example for those next to them.
| Those little corruptions have outsized consequences over
| time, like compound interest. I was in Los Angeles when
| LAPD brass were trying to figure out what to do after the
| Rampart District had been revealed for a perfect example
| of this corruption.
| BurningFrog wrote:
| I'm not at all making that argument.
|
| I share your ideals and agree with what you're saying.
|
| But I also know the world doesn't 100% work that way, and
| am open to the idea that this is because it _can 't_.
|
| Maybe you and I actually can't "handle the truth", as the
| Nicholson line goes, so some essential things to preserve
| our civilized polite life has to be done is secret for
| the bigger good.
|
| I don't claim it is that way, only that I can't be sure
| it isn't. And neither can you.
| upofadown wrote:
| Back in the day you could do off the books phone tapping with a
| set of alligator clips, a capacitor and a memo recorder. If you
| didn't want to do it yourself you could just get someone else
| to do it, preferably someone who works in a large central
| office (with or without phone company knowledge). The result
| was not usable in court, but it would save you immense amounts
| of time sitting around figuring out what criminals were doing.
|
| Things like Stingrays preserve the capability of off the books
| phone tapping. This sort of capability is very important for
| things like drug trafficking where none of the people involved
| are very likely to file a police report. So I suspect that the
| attitude of the law enforcement people involved is that they
| have been asked to do a job that is practically impossible
| without this capability.
| ROTMetro wrote:
| Then use the legal process laid out to get rid of the Fourth
| Amendment.
| badrabbit wrote:
| You give them too much credit. Thinking you are the law means
| you give a shit about justice. These people have quotas to meet
| and promotions to get and bosses to please. Violating your
| rights is just one mean to an end.
|
| A law that isn't enforced is cheaper than the paper it is
| written on.
| ryandrake wrote:
| I think for a lot of them, especially the LE agents that come
| from a military background, the _A Few Good Men_ reference
| actually applies. They really think we are in this endless
| war, and that they are patriotically defending their country
| from hand-wavey "enemies." If that's true, the ends justify
| any means, up to and including breaking the law. The law
| written by non-warrior civilians--what do they know about
| these dangers lurking around every corner?
|
| This perpetual-warrior mindset is evidently pervasive
| throughout law enforcement and other branches of government.
| badrabbit wrote:
| You are right about them using the "perpetual warrior"
| thing, I think that to most of them it is just a mask they
| wear to not feel or look like the bad guys as opposed to
| that being their motivation.
| WarOnPrivacy wrote:
| For my entire life, I've judged the competency of news orgs by
| whether they prioritize citizens' need for Gov accountability
| over baked-in deference to the NatSec state.
|
| This article serves us first and that feels a lot like relief.
| hgsgm wrote:
| You are confusing competency with bias.
| WarOnPrivacy wrote:
| > You are confusing competency with bias.
|
| If you mean the conservative derogatory version, I am not.
| Deference to NatSec has long cut a deep gash across both
| major political ideologies. Neither serve us when they fail
| to be an fact-based adversary to Gov/Corp/LEO.
|
| If you mean the stock vanilla version where everyone prefers
| one thing to another, that seems too generic a term to be
| useful in this context.
| ape4 wrote:
| In that article ICE != Internal Combustion Engine and CSS !=
| Cascading Style Sheets. What a time to be alive.
| dboreham wrote:
| Also != Interactive Connectivity Establishment
| transpute wrote:
| Two questions on technical counter-measures:
|
| 1. Could OpenWRT + LTE modem be configured to lock onto a
| whitelist of known-good provider cell tower IDs?
|
| 2. If the physical location of a known-good tower is available,
| could a directional LTE antenna be used to ensure that tower's
| signal is the "strongest"?
| zekica wrote:
| I'm not sure, but you can write a script to warn you if you are
| locked to an unknown cell id.
| px43 wrote:
| Fake towers have always been super easy to detect. There are
| ways to be sneaky about it, but law enforcement doesn't care
| because it's not like they're going to have to face any
| consequences.
| transpute wrote:
| If they are easy to detect, could OpenWRT and GrapheneOS
| block them, or be driven by a crowd-sourced blocklist?
| __MatrixMan__ wrote:
| If you can crowd source a blocklist and effectively keep
| the cops from interfering with your efforts, then you've
| solved a hard problem.
|
| If you have that level of coordination, you might be able
| to find something more impactful than interfering with
| surveillance to use it on.
| transpute wrote:
| IMSI catchers are not limited to law enforcement,
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18469118
|
| _> With $20 of Gear from Amazon, Nearly Anyone Can Make
| This IMSI-Catcher in 30 Minutes. Surveillance takes on
| different character when it trickles down to more
| ordinary, everyday users. The significance and threat
| from IMSI-catchers is multiplied when a lot more people
| can deploy one using cheap tech from Amazon and free code
| from Github._
|
| Looks like U of Washington has a 2017 paper on city-scale
| tower anomaly detection,
| https://seaglass.cs.washington.edu/ & https://seaglass-
| web.s3.amazonaws.com/SeaGlass___PETS_2017.p...
| dfc wrote:
| That $20 quote is for 2g.
| LinuxBender wrote:
| For a while maybe. When such lists/apps become common
| enough then Siemens and others would just sell a addon _for
| a fee_ that does a better job of spoofing the legit towers
| some of which they make. Then the block-lists would just
| become a placebo.
| transpute wrote:
| Sounds like cell towers have weaker identification than
| the average web/SSH server.
| rsync wrote:
| This list:
|
| https://opensource.srlabs.de/projects/mobile-network-assessm...
|
| ... continues to be the best checklist of suspicious or
| incorrect behavior that would indicate the base station to
| which you were connected was not a real base station.
|
| Scroll down to the "IMSI catcher detection" table and see
| behaviors like:
|
| - Cell is not advertising any neighbor cells
|
| - The LAC of a base station changes
|
| - Your phone sends at the highest possible power
|
| Many of these behaviors to test are GSM specific however the
| attacker can perform a downgrade attack and force your 4G phone
| to collapse down to 2G service, thus exposing you to these.
| credit_guy wrote:
| The title is much stronger than the content.
|
| You'd think that in an article about someone "breaking the law"
| you'd learn about a court of law determining that fact.
| Otherwise, at least in this country, "innocent until proven
| guilty". It's part of the journalistic unwritten rules to add
| "allegedly" in such a title.
|
| What we learn instead is that an internal audit found that the
| Secret Service and ICE broke some internal DHS policy and
| generally internal policies are stricter than laws (otherwise
| they wouldn't be needed).
|
| The actual law appears to be complex, as the article itself
| states later: Legislators recently have tried to
| make CSS usage clearer. In 2021, US Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) and
| a bipartisan group of other lawmakers introduced a bill, the
| Cell-Site Simulator Warrant Act, requiring the government to
| obtain a warrant to deploy a CSS device. "Current federal,
| state, and local policies regulating Stingrays are confusing and
| inconsistent, opening the door to abuse and unconstrained,
| invasive surveillance by law enforcement," the Project on
| Government Oversight (POGO) said in support of the bill.
| The bill never made it out of committee.
| moremetadata wrote:
| The security services here in the UK do what they like, you
| only have to look at some of the stuff coming out of the
| troubles in Northern Island for example, or things like the
| Hillsborough disaster.
|
| The UK is terrible for this abuse of human rights and following
| their own interpretation of law, and it starts in childhood,
| usually under the pretence of teaching people/kids a law whilst
| they get abused.
|
| The British culture is toxic, it needed to be in order to force
| itself on the rest of the world as a criminal empire.
| ROTMetro wrote:
| The Fourth Amendment is pretty friggin clear. Are you claiming
| their internal policies are stricter than the Fourth Amendment
| or are stricter than some lower statute that is superseded by
| the Fourth Amendment?
| LegionMammal978 wrote:
| As I understand it, the allegation here is that only by
| following the internal policies would their activities be
| allowed under the Fourth Amendment, and by breaching these
| policies their actions are illegal under the Fourth Amendment,
| not under any more specific law. Of course, as you say, this
| all depends on the nature of how the internal policies were
| breached, so it's far from a given.
| starkd wrote:
| >> Guariglia argues the OIG should release the statistical data
| so that the public can better understand how often CSS devices
| play a role in investigations.
|
| While the innocence until proven guilty policy does indeed
| apply to individuals, it is not applicable to government
| agencies as a whole. Until they release statistical data or
| provide some level of transparency, citizens have a right to
| assume their rights are being violated.
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