Archive for the 'Police State' Category
The CIA Helped Develop Planes that Scrape Cell Phone Data
March 10th, 2015Via: The Verge: The US may be using cellphone-sniffing planes to find suspects across the world, according to a new report from The Wall Street Journal. In November, the Journal revealed the US Marshal’s secret program to locate specific fugitive through airplane equipped to mimic cell towers. Flying over an urban area, the planes can […]
The Disappeared: Chicago Police Detain Americans at Abuse-Laden ‘Black Site’
February 25th, 2015Via: Guardian: The Chicago police department operates an off-the-books interrogation compound, rendering Americans unable to be found by family or attorneys while locked inside what lawyers say is the domestic equivalent of a CIA black site. The facility, a nondescript warehouse on Chicago’s west side known as Homan Square, has long been the scene of […]
Plea Deals Rather Than Talking About StingRay
February 23rd, 2015Via: Washington Post: McKenzie’s case is emblematic of the growing, but hidden, use by local law enforcement of a sophisticated surveillance technology borrowed from the national security world. It shows how a gag order imposed by the FBI — on grounds that discussing the device’s operation would compromise its effectiveness — has left judges, the […]
Prisoner in South Carolina Sentenced to 37 Years in Isolation for Using Facebook
February 18th, 2015Via: EFF: In the South Carolina prison system, accessing Facebook is an offense on par with murder, rape, rioting, escape and hostage-taking. Back in 2012, the South Carolina Department of Corrections (SCDC) made “Creating and/or Assisting With A Social Networking Site” a Level 1 offense [PDF], a category reserved for the most violent violations of […]
New Police Radars Can ‘See’ Inside Homes
January 19th, 2015Via: USA Today: At least 50 U.S. law enforcement agencies have secretly equipped their officers with radar devices that allow them to effectively peer through the walls of houses to see whether anyone is inside, a practice raising new concerns about the extent of government surveillance. Those agencies, including the FBI and the U.S. Marshals […]
Holder Limits Seized-Asset Sharing Process that Split Billions with Local, State Police
January 18th, 2015I’d like to believe that, sometimes, good news is just good news and not some setup for more body cavity searches and surveillance. This is Cryptogon, though, so if there is another shoe to drop, someone will post it pretty quick. My guess is that the states will just make up ways to keep the […]
The U.S. Has More Jails Than Colleges
January 13th, 2015Via: Washington Post: There were 2.3 million prisoners in the U.S. as of the 2010 Census. It’s often been remarked that our national incarceration rate of 707 adults per every 100,000 residents is the highest in the world, by a huge margin. We tend to focus less on where we’re putting all those people. But […]
Leaked Palantir Doc Reveals Uses, Specific Functions and Key Clients
January 12th, 2015Via: TechCrunch: Palantir’s data analysis solution targets three industries: government, the finance sector and legal research. Each of these industries must wrestle with massive sets of data. To do this, Palantir’s toolsets are aimed at massive data caches, allowing litigators and the police to make connections otherwise invisible. For example, a firm hired by the […]
Judge Orders NYPD to Release Records on X-ray Vans
January 11th, 2015Via: ProPublica: The NYPD has a secretive program that uses unmarked vans with X-ray machines designed to detect bombs. ProPublica tried to find out more about it, but the NYPD refused to answer for three years.
FBI Says Search Warrants Not Needed to Use “Stingrays” in Public Places
January 6th, 2015Via: Ars Technica: The Federal Bureau of Investigation is taking the position that court warrants are not required when deploying cell-site simulators in public places. Nicknamed “stingrays,” the devices are decoy cell towers that capture locations and identities of mobile phone users and can intercept calls and texts. The FBI made its position known during […]
