Help MuckRock crowd-FOIA Stingray usage around the country

https://www.muckrock.com/news/archives/2014/jun/16/help-foia-how-police-across-country-are-watching-u/

by morisy • 12 years ago

85 33 12 years ago

fks• 12 years ago

...huh?

morisy7• 12 years ago

If you fill out the form on the page, we'll submit a request to your local police department, asking for policies, invoices, etc. that will detail if and how they're using cell phone scanning technology (including Stingrays), and even what vendors have unsuccessfully pitched them on the technology.

leorocky• 12 years ago

Reading this post made it seem like muckrock is more of a ideologically driven site than a neutral data dump. Which is totally OK, but I was thinking maybe it be nice to just to have a place to get data regardless of the topic or how it fits in with a particular set of opinions.

So I'm all for using FOIA to make public data accessible for the greater good, but I'm not sure if what you're doing is the right approach.

dmix• 12 years ago

I was planning to donate but it requires subscribing to Beacon with monthly recurring donations and you get a CD/thumbdrive? I just wanted to throw some one-time cash their way ala kickstarter. I don't really care about subscriptions/CDs.

morisy7• 12 years ago

Thanks for the feedback!

That was the template Beacon Reader gave us and how they're set up. We're looking at building out our own donation tools to enable one-time, zero-signup donations, but not quite there yet (we do take PayPal at info@muckrock.com though).

oceanstone• 12 years ago

Nice. Making that PayPal email more prominent might result in higher donations. Also, have you considered accepting Bitcoin, through Coinbase or something similar?

latj2• 12 years ago

I'm under the impression that FOIA does not apply to records at state or local level. Am I wrong?

SandersAK• 12 years ago

Hey there, Adrian from Beacon here. We do have some non recurring options like this one: https://www.beaconreader.com/projects/the-spy-in-your-pocket...

We're working on more options for getting people involved while trying to keep the model simple.

Good to get this feedback!

AznHisoka• 12 years ago

Your name sounds an awful lot like MuckRack.

tesq• 12 years ago

Very surprised that a search for my local police department and a few terms like 'stingray' or 'cell phone tracking/privacy/tapping/gps' yielded more results than expected along with a state SC case initiated because of the actions taken by our department. Not specific to Stingray usage, but I still filed a request.

I hope this campaign successfully increases the awareness and insight into the fact that this is happening everywhere and has been for close to a decade.

morisy7• 12 years ago

Thanks tesq!

mpyne5• 12 years ago

I wish you guys the best.

But it does make the whole "USA IS A POLICE STATE!!!1" claims a bit harder to take seriously. I keep trying to imagine East German civil libertarians publically crowd-sourcing requests to the Stasi to divulge the particulars of their surveillance appartus, in ways that don't result in the murder of themselves or their families.

I don't mean this to be snide though, this kind of civil action and distrust of authority is precisely what it means to be an American, and precisely what is needed to ensure that our various police forces don't actually become a modern day Stasi, so keep it up! :)

maxerickson3• 12 years ago

What's a true police state? Something like a sobriety checkpoint, where a technical measure of blood alcohol level is used to assess guilt, at least gives wink and a nod to social control.

(I don't really mean to speak against the checkpoints, I just wonder if "police state" has a clear enough definition to provide an interesting framework for discussion of modern governments)

mpyne5• 12 years ago

I don't really mean to speak against the checkpoints, I just wonder if "police state" has a clear enough definition to provide an interesting framework for discussion of modern governments

That's a really good point, but I suspect that those for whom 'police state' has the most meaning would also have the most incentive to keep the definition from ever getting too specific. That's not counting the idea that one person's "police state" is another person's "safe spot to raise my kids".

But even non "police states" involve social control (e.g. against serial killing), there's no getting around that. Even anarchies involve social control—the members of each commune are expected to abide by the democratically-reached decisions.

If I had to start on a definition I'd probably key off the difference between "social control for the benefit of the people/society" and "social control for the sole benefit of the government in power". There are implementations of sobriety checkpoints are not too hard to classify in the former.

morisy7• 12 years ago

We're not claiming a police state, and certainly not the Stasi. I typically assume good faith on all sides, and I do genuinely believe that the program is being promoted by people with either the best intentions or simply trying to make a buck with easy federal money flowing, no sinister plot for a police state intended.

But it's now pretty well documented that the federal government is currently encouraging, sometimes by force, local agencies to violate their state laws in order to keep secret a widespread federal program that has, at least by one circuit court, been found illegal.

Given past experience, it's probably also incredibly wasteful, and without this you're giving local police that can literally barely operate a thumb drive the surveillance equivalent of a flamethrower, and just hoping nothing goes wrong.

In other words, I don't think we're trying to expose a New World Order so much as a lot of legal and practical problems just waiting to explode.

mpyne5• 12 years ago

Yes, I should have made it more clear that I was piggybacking on this story to make a more general observation.

As a member of the military myself, the increasing militarization of law enforcement in the U.S. is something that has me concerned, which is why I hope your efforts are successful in identifying (and fixing!) any of the legal and practical problems with new technologies in the hands of untrained police departments.

MichaelGG• 12 years ago

On the other hand, what better way to say it's not a police state than allow requests to go through and redact info they don't want leaking?

Sort of how people take White House petitions as meaningful in any way.

ianpenney• 12 years ago

Pretty neat, and somewhat relevant: https://github.com/SecUpwN/Android-IMSI-Catcher-Detector

maxoptical• 12 years ago

The manufacture and use of Stingray type equipment is clearly in violation of Federal law and is punishable by up to ten years in prison. Two parties conspiring to infringe on a citizens civil rights. Read for yourself.

http://www.justice.gov/crt/abo...

It is also agains FCC rules with 2 years in prison on $50,000 fine.

Section 705 of the Communications Act

Section 705 of the Communications Act adds to the Federal Wiretap Act additional restrictions on the unauthorized interception of communication "by wire or radio." Specifically, the Act provides

No person not being authorized by the sender shall intercept any radio communication and divulge or publish the existence, contents, substance, purport, effect, or meaning of such intercepted communication to any person. No person not being entitled thereto shall receive or assist in receiving any interstate or foreign communication by radio and use such communication (or any information therein contained) for his own benefit or for the benefit of another not entitled thereto. No person having received any intercepted radio communication or having become acquainted with the contents, substance, purport, effect, or meaning of such communication (or any part thereof) knowing that such communication was intercepted, shall divulge or publish the existence, contents, substance, purport, effect, or meaning of such communication (or any part thereof) or use such communication (or any information therein contained) for his own benefit or for the benefit of another not entitled thereto.Violations of Section 705 carry strict penalties, with willful violations "for purposes of direct or indirect commercial advantage or private financial gain" meriting fines of up to $50,000 and prison for up to two years for the first offense.

Help MuckRock crowd-FOIA Stingray usage around the country

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