In my, admittedly naive, understanding is that cel towers have signatures. For instance, using Tasker for Android, I can know when I'm near home by the tower it detects. When the Stingray overpowers that tower, can't I just have a tasker task or an app or something that would detect that and shut down my celphone?
*Note: I don't really need this, but if the law wants a tech fight, they should get one.
The existing Android solution only works for Qualcomm chipsets [1], so it must require some radio-level access to verify the presence of an IMEI device. You won't be seeing it in the iOS App Store. Maybe someone can find the relevant private APIs to make it happen.
There are a few, but they are best used on cyagenomod or even better Replicant. The problem is that we all got excited about linux on phones via android, but then google gave in and let the manufacturers and carriers insert their BS and didn't do enough to push for open phones, so we still have phones with closed firmwares, closed OS's, and cell radio's with DMA to the same space as the CPU, so even if you install Replicant on a GT04, you still have proprietary bootrom, hardware, modem, which could be backdoored for all we know.
To me this just reinforces the need for strong copyleft like GPLv3 and reveals the glaring insufficiencies of GPLv2 and BSD-esque licenses. Stallman was and is right, he was just a man ahead of his time. Those who recognize this and work towards freeing themselves and their users will be ahead of the game when the dystopian future hits.
Most people won't understand this until everyone else plugs in Apple iBrain. I won't be touching my neurons with anything but GPLv5.
Unless someone finds and confirms one in the wild.
Which would be an amusing scene; cars full of people with laptops and phones, sitting around a telephone pole, or wherever they mount the damned things.
10 years seems to be a long time. How ever i do feel that there needs to be a way to keep people that work in the public sector under checks that can affect their personal liberties. it emphasizes the check.
The specific number of years is a tunable value. Any prison sentence at all sends an important message about the importance of respecting personal liberties.
As for the length, a good argument can be made that violations done under the color of authority[1] should always be punished more severely than "regular" violations of the law. The people who have the power to enforce the law have much greater power than the average citizen. Abuse of that greater power should require a similarly larger punishment.
That said, I have no idea if 10 years is appropriate. If it isn't I'm sure a better length of time can be negotiated.
So why not make an abuse of power registry and require people that have been convicted of abusing power to disclose this fact?
It would also be necessary to have hiring institutions publicize that they are hiring a power abuser (i.e., if a police chief didn't care about the previous abuse of power he would still be required to inform the community of the situation).
Someone running for office would be required to do it to, it'd be great, tack "I was convicted of blah blah blah" on somewhere near the "I approve this message".
The above is still a much more substantial punishment than I would want to see for an average citizen that was eavesdropping on cell phone calls.
That's not the part that warrants a strong punishment. Jail time is justified for the abuse of power while acting under the color of law. The particulars about that abuse (eavesdropping on a cell phone) is less important.
> registry
While this is an interesting idea, I caution strongly against creating any kind of "registry". The current examples we have seen (e.g. "sex offenders") has shown how registries dilute important concepts like "innocent until proven guilty" when presence on the registry doesn't map 1-to-1 with "found guilty beyond a reasonable doubt".
Even more worrying is the idea that someone should be tainted for life (or "a long time") for a mistake. Branding people with a modern "scarlet letter" for their mistakes doesn't create an incentive for that person to change their behavior[1]. Once someone has "paid their debt to society", they deserve a 2nd chance that is free of past accusations.
There may be a way to make some aspects of a registry work without these problems, but I'm haven't seen it.
Another unfortunate thing about the sex offender registry is that it lumps, e.g., 18-year-olds who had a 17-year-old quasi-consensual partner (whom the law decrees can't actually consent), together with much worse criminals -- at least under some jurisdictions' laws. I suppose an abuser-of-power registry would have similar issues with minor infractors getting too much punishment because people pay more attention to "he's listed" than to what he actually did.
The thought is that a registry/disclosure rule is still a strong punishment (it presumably prevents them from using their primary skills to repeat the offense) but should cost less than a prison sentence.
I suppose I don't care if incarceration is justified, I'm more interested in whether it is necessary.
As I am typically more amenable to restitution and rehabilitation than to punishment, crimes under color of authority that infringe upon the individual right to privacy should be punished by a certain term where the offender has no reasonable expectation of privacy, anywhere or at any time.
They don't need to be in the Panopticon, just completely unable to keep the smallest aspect of themselves secret from the public. Enforced celebrity, complete with automated paparazzi, ought to do the trick. A year of that, followed by some post-trauma counseling, would probably ensure at least a little extra caution in obtaining reasonable and specific warrants.
Maybe they should not be able to be hired by the government again (directly or via a contractor) and be released from their current function right away (prison would be an option, depending on the severity of the offense).
Might be worth considering giving that 10 year prison sentence (or perhaps a per-user fine of at least $100k) to people who are offering cell phone services where surveillance is possible.
The root cause of these issues is that there is no liability for people who sell systems with security holes.
*Interesting that this seems to be an opposition party thing. I'd love to see Republicans still singing this tune if they get the Presidency back, but we'll see.
I think his point is more opposition vs. incumbent than Democrat vs. Republican. Democrats were more against military action until it was their own candidate directing it, Republicans were more for it until it was no longer theirs. If you look at the commonalities between the two parties when they've each been in the same role, it supports your point.
I wonder how much this has to do with him defending _freedom_ from the right to be spied on without a warrant vs him wanting the IRS to stop using Stingray's.
There are still exemptions in the proposed bill...granted they are in the FISA court and related to perceived danger related to 'terrorism' or 'organized crime'.
With him, its defending the Constitution. He has stated his motives clearly and often to many sources. He has a reason.tv interview that was pretty good.
Its not an opposition party thing. I have full faith this particular Congressman would introduce this bill regardless of party in the White House. Its more a libertarian leaning part of the party.
Some Republicans will still sing this tune, some won't. There is a bit of a split at the moment.
Obviously. If he were a Democrat, since this is something "good", the headline would have said "Democratic Congressman".
Same as if something bad happens the headline will say "Republican Congressman" but leave out party affiliation the other way.
Bias in journalism mostly isn't a matter of just making things up (Dan Rather aside) or injecting blatant opinions into news (though that happens sometimes too), but a matter of which stories get pushed and how they get framed.
> If he were a Democrat, since this is something "good", the headline would have said "Democratic Congressman".
Not so sure that's true; every article except this one that I can find on the Guardian with the tag "US Congress", positive or negative, and whether it involves Democrats, Republicans, or both, seems to mention the party affiliation of the members referenced.
While the Guardian is left-leaning, not mentioning Chaffetz's party seems to be an aberration for them, not part of a pattern.
And if he were a democrat, this bill would be branded as liberal anti-police bureaucracy designed to cripple the cops and put their lives in danger. I just hope Obama and other prominent democrats avoid giving the bill any praise, otherwise it'll never pass.
If he were a Democrat he probably wouldn't be in office.
Which isn't just sarcasm, the 2 party labels are less and less useful for understanding how a national candidate sees various issues and there are a lot of congressional districts where using one label or the other makes it a lot easier to get elected.
Dan Rather was likely set up. The gist of his story was true: GWB went AWOL during his "service". Then the media focused on Rather instead of the Bush's behavior. Karl Rove was a genius manipulator.
>In time of actual war, great discretionary powers are constantly given to the Executive Magistrate. Constant apprehension of War, has the same tendency to render the head too large for the body. A standing military force, with an overgrown Executive will not long be safe companions to liberty. The means of defense against foreign danger have been always the instruments of tyranny at home. Among the Romans it was a standing maxim to excite a war, whenever a revolt was apprehended. Throughout all Europe, the armies kept up under the pretext of defending, have enslaved the people.
I don't get why scenarios involving FISA are exempt. Stingray surveillance is a physically local thing - FISA is about spying on foreigners living abroad - is it not? I mean don't privacy laws apply to foreigners visiting the U.S., too?
It seems to have a few too many loopholes for my taste, but I guess it could eliminate 80% of the abusive uses of Stingrays out there.
It's covered under those more obscure and ambiguous parts of the constitution that law enforcement has always struggled to understand - you know, like the 1st and 4th amendments.
In my, admittedly naive, understanding is that cel towers have signatures. For instance, using Tasker for Android, I can know when I'm near home by the tower it detects. When the Stingray overpowers that tower, can't I just have a tasker task or an app or something that would detect that and shut down my celphone?
*Note: I don't really need this, but if the law wants a tech fight, they should get one.