[HN Gopher] Police Invested Millions in Shadowy Phone-Tracking S...
___________________________________________________________________
Police Invested Millions in Shadowy Phone-Tracking Software Won't
Say How Used
Author : nobody9999
Score : 103 points
Date : 2026-01-18 21:05 UTC (1 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.texasobserver.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.texasobserver.org)
| nobody9999 wrote:
| Title too long for submission. Original title:
|
| Texas Police Invested Millions in a Shadowy Phone-Tracking
| Software. They Won't Say How They've Used It.
| BarryMilo wrote:
| Truly a "why say many words" title!
| ronsor wrote:
| "Texas Police Won't Say How Used Shadowy Phone-Tracking
| Software Millions Spent On"?
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| I hate the concept. But this is not the right case to test the
| tool against.
| nobody9999 wrote:
| >I hate the concept. But this is not the right case to test the
| tool against.
|
| To which case are you referring? TFA doesn't appear to refer to
| any ongoing litigation associated with the "Tangles" software.
|
| Or are you referring to warrantless geo-fence tracking as a
| poor _use case_ for the software?
| nilamo wrote:
| Tracking the population without cause is never the right use
| case for anything.
| nobody9999 wrote:
| >Tracking the population without cause is never the right
| use case for anything.
|
| Agreed. Which is why I submitted this in the first place.
| But AFAICT, it's orthogonal to GP's comment. Or not. Which
| is why I asked for clarification.
| asdff wrote:
| Transit and traffic planners would be foaming at the mouth
| for real commute data like this instead of just fixed point
| count data.
| bethekidyouwant wrote:
| Google has it
| gruez wrote:
| AFAIK they're moving their stuff to be on device
|
| https://www.reddit.com/r/GoogleMaps/comments/1diivt3/mega
| thr...
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _which case are you referring?_
|
| The example given at the top of the article. We want Tangle
| or whatever used idiotically to strike down its use in
| federal court.
| 1a527dd5 wrote:
| Sounds a lot like 'parallel construction'.
| plagiarist wrote:
| It turns out it's actually fine if your data is on offer to the
| government from a third party.
|
| The Constitution was meant to be permanently fixed and
| extremely literal about only the technology available from
| centuries ago, it was not meant to describe general concepts
| nor intended to be updated to ensure those same rights are
| retained along with changes in society.
| gruez wrote:
| >The Constitution was meant to be permanently fixed and
| extremely literal about only the technology available from
| centuries ago, it was not meant to describe general concepts
| nor intended to be updated to ensure those same rights are
| retained along with changes in society.
|
| /s?
|
| I can't tell because people unironically use the same
| reasoning to make the "2nd amendment only apply to muskets"
| argument.
| collingreen wrote:
| That isn't the muskets version of that argument I have
| heard.
|
| The version I've heard is that the firearm technology when
| the second amendment was ratified was very different than
| today and that makes it worth evaluating if we want to
| amend it again.
|
| Similarly the military landscape looks very different as
| well such that there's a very different risk of foreign
| armies taking ground and citizens everywhere needing to be
| ready to hold ground until the more official military
| forces can arrive.
|
| If we want to get really pedantic about 2A where are the
| well regulated militias?
|
| Even if someone really is saying the thing you're claiming,
| 2A doesn't mention muskets at all or any other specific
| technology so that would be a really dumb thing for those
| people to say.
| HNisCIS wrote:
| Yeah seems like that's quite explicitly the goal. The question
| is, what means or method are they trying to hide and is it
| hyper illegal or just something they don't want to be pubic
| knowledge?
| jadenpeterson wrote:
| Why are they comfortable saying this?
|
| > Generally, Boyd said his office uses the software to find
| "avenues for obtaining probable cause" or "to verify reasonable
| suspicion that you already have"--not as a basis by itself to
| make arrests.
|
| As if that's not a massive violation of our rights in and of
| itself. This is my fundamental problem with the internet. As much
| as stories like these gain traction, as many millions of
| redditors protest these increasingly common stories (for example,
| the suspicious nature of Luigi Mangione being 'reported' in that
| McDonalds), nothing will change.
|
| Perhaps this is the part of the criminal justice system I am most
| suspect of. Is this what happens in a country with less
| regulation?
| titanomachy wrote:
| Was that suspicious? I thought his face was plastered all over
| the news.
| therobots927 wrote:
| We're all just characters in a sim game played by the rich and
| powerful. Now it's 24 / 7 surveillance. Eventually it will be 24
| / 7 control.
| HNisCIS wrote:
| The race is between the rich trying to achieve a level of
| surveillance based omnipotence such that
| rebellion/revolution/dissent/protest/etc are fundamentally
| impossible...and the US populace gaining class consciousness. I
| don't have high hopes for the second one winning.
|
| I want people to think about that for a second though. Imagine
| in a decade cops have such a technological edge in both
| surveillance and force that you cannot even begin to protest
| billionaires enslaving you let alone stage a political
| revolution.
| cluckindan wrote:
| You remember those cookie notices that you clicked on? Whatever
| you "chose" to click, this kinda thing is where your data ended
| up getting "processed", irrespective of your "privacy choices".
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2026-01-18 23:00 UTC)