Police across the country are upgrading their “stingray” tracking capabilities

MassPrivateI

Documents released last week by the City of Oakland reveal that it is one of a handful of American jurisdictions attempting to upgrade an existing cellular surveillance system, commonly known as a stingray.

The Oakland Police Department, the nearby Fremont Police Department, and the Alameda County District Attorney jointly applied for a DHS grant to “obtain a state-of-the-art cell phone tracking system,” the records show.      

Stingray is a trademark of its manufacturer, publicly traded defense contractor Harris Corporation, but “stingray” has also come to be used as a generic term for similar devices.

The cellular surveillance system’s upgrade, known as Hailstorm, is necessary. Existing stingray devices will no longer work in a few years as older phone networks get turned off.

According to Harris’ annual report, which was filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission last week, the company profited over $534 million in its latest fiscal year, the most since 2011.

“We do not comment on solutions we may or may not proivde to classified Department of Defense or law enforcement agencies,” Jim Burke, a spokesman for Harris.

Other locales known to be in the process of related federally-funded upgrades include Tacoma, Wash.; Baltimore, Md.; Chesterfield, Va.; Sunrise, Fla.; and Oakland County, Mich. There are likely many more, but such purchases are often shrouded in secrecy.

Cops have lied to courts about the use of such technology. Not only can stingrays be used to determine a phone’s location, but they can also intercept calls and text messages.

Robert Shipway, of the Alameda County Public Defender’s Office, said he was not aware of their described use during the process of criminal discovery in county prosecutions in recent years. That could mean that local law enforcement and prosecutors are concealing or obscuring their use.

“The upgrade has not been fulfilled,” Michael O’Connor, an assistant district attorney in Alameda County, told Ars. “It has not been approved and it has not been purchased.”

He also noted that the county had applied for a similar grant to conduct an upgrade in 2012, but that application was denied, and he did not know why.

O’Connor also said that his office was currently in the process of gathering more relevant documents and would publicly release them in September. According to the newly released documents, the entire upgrade will cost $460,000—including $205,000 in total Homeland Security grant money, and $50,000 from the Oakland Police Department (OPD). Neither the OPD nor the mayor’s office immediately responded to requests for comment.

One of the primary ways that stingrays operate is by taking advantage of a design feature in any phone available today. When 3G or 4G networks are unavailable, the handset will drop down to the older 2G network. While normally that works as a nice last-resort backup to provide service, 2G networks are notoriously insecure. Handsets operating on 2G will readily accept communication from another device purporting to be a valid cell tower, like a stingray. So the stingray takes advantage of this feature by jamming the 3G and 4G signals, forcing the phone to use a 2G signal.

Christopher Soghoian, a technologist with the American Civil Liberties Union said, little is known about the upgrades Hailstorm offers.

“The only difference that we know about is the 4G,” he said, citing a purchase order from the Drug Enforcement Agency first unearthed by The News Tribune in Tacoma. That March 2014 document states: “Stingray II to Hailstrom Upgrade, etc. The Hailstorm Upgrade is necessary for the Stingray system to track 4G LTE Phones”

He explained that the new upgrade will continue to provide existing surveillance capability even after major cellular providers turn off support for the legacy 2G network, which is expected to occur in upcoming years. In 2012, AT&T announced that it would be shutting down its 2G network in 2017.

Without the forced downgrade to 2G, a 4G phone targeted by a stingray would not be susceptible to the same types of interception at present, but it likely would still be susceptible to location tracking.
“Presumably, at some point after, new phones sold by AT&T will no longer support 2G,” Soghoian added. “Once new phones stop working with 2G, Stingrays won’t work any more. At that point, the Hailstorm will be the only way.”

Thomas Pica, a Verizon spokesman, said the company’s network would be operational “through the end of the decade.” T-Mobile nor Sprint did not comment.

“These things aren’t cheap,” Soghoian added. “My guess is that there are law enforcement agencies around the country who are frantically trying to find the money because at some point in the future, in the next two to five years, their existing stingrays are going to stop working and my guess is that they’re really worried about that.”

Other firms that make related devices include Martone Radio Technology, located 25 miles from Oakland, in San Ramon, Calif. Martone also did not respond to Ars’ request for comment. Martoneadvertises 4G LTE interception on its site.

For now, 4G LTE stingray-like devices appear relatively rare.

“We haven’t seen any 4G LTE IMSI catchers from any of the brochures from companies that we’ve picked up yet, so this will be the first,” Eric King, the deputy director of Privacy International, told Ars, using another name for stingrays.

His London-based organization, in conjunction with WikiLeaks and other groups, released the Spy Files in 2011, which includes many corporate documents illustrating telecom interception and surveillance.
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/09/cities-scramble-to-upgrade-stingray-tracking-as-end-of-2g-network-looms/

Appeals court’s comments prove its in bed with the NSA: Court is skeptical of government phone surveillance

A federal appeals court panel in New York expressed skepticism Tuesday about the government’s continued monitoring of Americans’ phone records to guard against terrorism.

In a case that could be headed to the Supreme Court, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit voiced concern about the reach of the National Security Agency’s phone surveillance program, which gathers information about phone calls made and received but does not eavesdrop on their content.

At the same time, the judges appeared dubious of their authority to strike down a program authorized by Congress and approved at regular intervals by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which operates in secret. They also seemed inclined to stay any verdict against the government to let other courts weigh in.

If appeals courts in New York and the District of Columbia reach opposite conclusions, as district courts have done, “It would have to be the Supreme Court that would deal with it in that case,” said Alex Abdo of the American Civil Liberties Union.

The phone surveillance program, which was among those disclosed by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden last year, already is on life support. President Obama has asked Congress for changes that would leave the data in the hands of private phone companies, not the government. But lawmakers are not expected to act this year.

U.S. District Court Judge Richard Leon granted a preliminary injunction against the program in December, ruling that it may be unconstitutional. But less than two weeks later, District Judge William Pauley ruled that the program was legal.

Tuesday’s oral argument, televised live on C-SPAN, dealt with the ACLU’s appeal of Pauley’s ruling. The government’s appeal of the earlier ruling has yet to be heard in Washington.

During the nearly two-hour session, the appeals court judges expressed dismay at the extent of the government’s surveillance, which they said could be extended to other private data such as bank records.

“You can collect everything there is to know about everybody,” Judge Gerard Lynch said, “and have it all in one big government cloud.”
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2014/09/02/appeals-court-government-phone-surveillance-aclu/14973301/

http://massprivatei.blogspot.com/2014/09/police-across-country-are-upgrading.html