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Expectations of Privacy

Discussion in 'BBS Hangout: Debate & Discussion' started by Rocket River, Jul 18, 2007.

  1. jo mama

    jo mama Member

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    spoken like a true bush-supporter. very cowardly and unamerican.
     
  2. insane man

    insane man Member

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    so while right now to get a guilty conviction in criminal cases you have to be sure about the guilt 'beyond a reasonable doubt'...you want to make 'reasonable doubt' (meaning the inverse of beyond a reasonable doubt) the standard for the violating the 4th amendment?

    good thing you didn't go to law school.
     
  3. rimrocker

    rimrocker Member

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    I hate Bush. I'm blind to all the good things happening because I hate Bush so much.
     
  4. rimrocker

    rimrocker Member

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    And just a little passive, huh? For example:

    Personally (Great, just don't think the rest of Americans agree)

    i feel (What, from your gut? Most people think about this stuff)

    that sometimes ( When?)

    law enforcement is somewhat (How?)

    hindered (How?)

    at times (When?)

    and i am more than (Why not just "willing?")

    willing to help them (Do they need your help?)

    do their job more effectively, (By what measure?)

    if it indeed will (So you go through all that and then decide it may not matter at all. Way to take a stand!).
     
  5. rhester

    rhester Member

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    4th admend.
    The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

    1. This is directed to the federal government.
    2. The federal government has no business searching, seizing, securing any of my persons, houses, papers, and effects without a constitutionally issued warrant based upon court determined probable cause describing the place to be searched and the persons or things to be seized.
    3. The Patriot Act is an act of tyranny against the Constitution and said liberties of the people.
    4. The Homeland Security is an agency empowered to violate said liberties.
    5. It is too late.

    We are already in the beginning throws of a Federal Tyranny.

    If they come get you tomorrow and haul you off to a holding cell, what are you going to tell them? Call Marvin Zindler?

    I can't believe we do not understand the destructive actions of the government towards the US Constitution.

    We are blind sheep stumbling along. :eek:
     
  6. Sishir Chang

    Sishir Chang Member

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    Before everyone gets all heated about this can anyone corroborate that this is possible?

    I'm not a tech guy so I'm wondering how this would work? Does the FBI place a call and have your cell phone automatically answer without ringing? What if you try to place a call while this is going on and how does this work with the different cell phone technologies?
     
  7. Ottomaton

    Ottomaton Member
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    source

    Its right up there with Van Eck phreaking on the big brother meter.

    [rquoter]
    FBI taps cell phone mic as eavesdropping tool


    The FBI appears to have begun using a novel form of electronic surveillance in criminal investigations: remotely activating a mobile phone's microphone and using it to eavesdrop on nearby conversations.

    The technique is called a "roving bug," and was approved by top U.S. Department of Justice officials for use against members of a New York organized crime family who were wary of conventional surveillance techniques such as tailing a suspect or wiretapping him.

    Nextel cell phones owned by two alleged mobsters, John Ardito and his attorney Peter Peluso, were used by the FBI to listen in on nearby conversations. The FBI views Ardito as one of the most powerful men in the Genovese family, a major part of the national Mafia.

    The surveillance technique came to light in an opinion published this week by U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan. He ruled that the "roving bug" was legal because federal wiretapping law is broad enough to permit eavesdropping even of conversations that take place near a suspect's cell phone.

    Kaplan's opinion said that the eavesdropping technique "functioned whether the phone was powered on or off." Some handsets can't be fully powered down without removing the battery; for instance, some Nokia models will wake up when turned off if an alarm is set.

    While the Genovese crime family prosecution appears to be the first time a remote-eavesdropping mechanism has been used in a criminal case, the technique has been discussed in security circles for years.

    The U.S. Commerce Department's security office warns that "a cellular telephone can be turned into a microphone and transmitter for the purpose of listening to conversations in the vicinity of the phone." An article in the Financial Times last year said mobile providers can "remotely install a piece of software on to any handset, without the owner's knowledge, which will activate the microphone even when its owner is not making a call."

    Nextel and Samsung handsets and the Motorola Razr are especially vulnerable to software downloads that activate their microphones, said James Atkinson, a counter-surveillance consultant who has worked closely with government agencies. "They can be remotely accessed and made to transmit room audio all the time," he said. "You can do that without having physical access to the phone."

    Because modern handsets are miniature computers, downloaded software could modify the usual interface that always displays when a call is in progress. The spyware could then place a call to the FBI and activate the microphone--all without the owner knowing it happened. (The FBI declined to comment on Friday.)

    "If a phone has in fact been modified to act as a bug, the only way to counteract that is to either have a bugsweeper follow you around 24-7, which is not practical, or to peel the battery off the phone," Atkinson said. Security-conscious corporate executives routinely remove the batteries from their cell phones, he added.

    FBI's physical bugs discovered

    The FBI's Joint Organized Crime Task Force, which includes members of the New York police department, had little luck with conventional surveillance of the Genovese family. They did have a confidential source who reported the suspects met at restaurants including Brunello Trattoria in New Rochelle, N.Y., which the FBI then bugged.

    But in July 2003, Ardito and his crew discovered bugs in three restaurants, and the FBI quietly removed the rest. Conversations recounted in FBI affidavits show the men were also highly suspicious of being tailed by police and avoided conversations on cell phones whenever possible.

    That led the FBI to resort to "roving bugs," first of Ardito's Nextel handset and then of Peluso's. U.S. District Judge Barbara Jones approved them in a series of orders in 2003 and 2004, and said she expected to "be advised of the locations" of the suspects when their conversations were recorded.

    Details of how the Nextel bugs worked are sketchy. Court documents, including an affidavit (p1) and (p2) prepared by Assistant U.S. Attorney Jonathan Kolodner in September 2003, refer to them as a "listening device placed in the cellular telephone." That phrase could refer to software or hardware.

    One private investigator interviewed by CNET News.com, Skipp Porteous of Sherlock Investigations in New York, said he believed the FBI planted a physical bug somewhere in the Nextel handset and did not remotely activate the microphone.

    "They had to have physical possession of the phone to do it," Porteous said. "There are several ways that they could have gotten physical possession. Then they monitored the bug from fairly near by."

    But other experts thought microphone activation is the more likely scenario, mostly because the battery in a tiny bug would not have lasted a year and because court documents say the bug works anywhere "within the United States"--in other words, outside the range of a nearby FBI agent armed with a radio receiver.

    In addition, a paranoid Mafioso likely would be suspicious of any ploy to get him to hand over a cell phone so a bug could be planted. And Kolodner's affidavit seeking a court order lists Ardito's phone number, his 15-digit International Mobile Subscriber Identifier, and lists Nextel Communications as the service provider, all of which would be unnecessary if a physical bug were being planted.

    A BBC article from 2004 reported that intelligence agencies routinely employ the remote-activiation method. "A mobile sitting on the desk of a politician or businessman can act as a powerful, undetectable bug," the article said, "enabling them to be activated at a later date to pick up sounds even when the receiver is down."

    For its part, Nextel said through spokesman Travis Sowders: "We're not aware of this investigation, and we weren't asked to participate."

    Other mobile providers were reluctant to talk about this kind of surveillance. Verizon Wireless said only that it "works closely with law enforcement and public safety officials. When presented with legally authorized orders, we assist law enforcement in every way possible."

    A Motorola representative said that "your best source in this case would be the FBI itself." Cingular, T-Mobile, and the CTIA trade association did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

    Mobsters: The surveillance vanguard

    This isn't the first time the federal government has pushed at the limits of electronic surveillance when investigating reputed mobsters.

    In one case involving Nicodemo S. Scarfo, the alleged mastermind of a loan shark operation in New Jersey, the FBI found itself thwarted when Scarfo used Pretty Good Privacy software (PGP) to encode confidential business data.

    So with a judge's approval, FBI agents repeatedly snuck into Scarfo's business to plant a keystroke logger and monitor its output.

    Like Ardito's lawyers, Scarfo's defense attorneys argued that the then-novel technique was not legal and that the information gleaned through it could not be used. Also like Ardito, Scarfo's lawyers lost when a judge ruled in January 2002 that the evidence was admissible.

    This week, Judge Kaplan in the southern district of New York concluded that the "roving bugs" were legally permitted to capture hundreds of hours of conversations because the FBI had obtained a court order and alternatives probably wouldn't work.

    The FBI's "applications made a sufficient case for electronic surveillance," Kaplan wrote. "They indicated that alternative methods of investigation either had failed or were unlikely to produce results, in part because the subjects deliberately avoided government surveillance."

    Bill Stollhans, president of the Private Investigators Association of Virginia, said such a technique would be legally reserved for police armed with court orders, not private investigators.

    There is "no law that would allow me as a private investigator to use that type of technique," he said. "That is exclusively for law enforcement. It is not allowable or not legal in the private sector. No client of mine can ask me to overhear telephone or strictly oral conversations."

    Surreptitious activation of built-in microphones by the FBI has been done before. A 2003 lawsuit revealed that the FBI was able to surreptitiously turn on the built-in microphones in automotive systems like General Motors' OnStar to snoop on passengers' conversations.

    When FBI agents remotely activated the system and were listening in, passengers in the vehicle could not tell that their conversations were being monitored.

    Malicious hackers have followed suit. A report last year said Spanish authorities had detained a man who write a Trojan horse that secretly activated a computer's video camera and forwarded him the recordings.

    [/rquoter]
     
    #27 Ottomaton, Jul 19, 2007
    Last edited: Jul 19, 2007
  8. insane man

    insane man Member

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    <object width="425" height="350"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/O61YfvPZGJs"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/O61YfvPZGJs" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="350"></embed></object>
     
  9. Dairy Ashford

    Dairy Ashford Member

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    Correct, because the FBI doesn't keep or utilize comprimising information about non-terrorists.

    -Sincerely,
    Martin Luther King, Errol Flynn
     
  10. rockbox

    rockbox Around before clutchcity.com

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    I don´t really have a problem with this as long as they have to get a search warrant like the one they have to get into your house.

    The problems is that this admistration has made me lose all trust that the government will go through the due diligence to do this.
     
  11. Rocket River

    Rocket River Member

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    So, Without a Search Warrent what level of Privacy can you expect?
    Is it silly to expect then NOT to use the technology

    Some says it makes it easier to catch criminals etc
    my thoughts my Right to Privacy should not be taken to make it EASIER
    on government officials . . .then being lazy.
    If we allowed them to do anything hey want it would be easiest of all.

    Rocket River
     
  12. Sishir Chang

    Sishir Chang Member

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    Thanks RR for the article. Very interesting read. My own opinion on this is that this is worrisome but not a fatal blow to the 4th Ammendment or a derived Constitutional principle of privacy as long as they FBI gets a warrant for this. While a new technology this strikes me as just being an extension of bugging or wiretapping which is legal with a warrant.

    I agree though this does open up to potential abuse which is why it is very important that there be Judicial oversight over this.

    Cell phones have long been known to not be very secure and unfortunately as we get more and more communication tools there will be more and more ways of eavesdropping. Like it or not our privacy is already largely compromised as long as we use things like cell phones.
     
  13. rhester

    rhester Member

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    Another powerful intelligence tool used today is PROMIS software originally developed by Inslaw, Inc.

    It is a software that has been modified over the years by the CIA and other intelligence agencies to be able to track in real time just about every electronic transaction by anyone anywhere.

    I have studied up on this software since 9-11 and it is a powerful way to track people, their movement, their personal information, just about any information you need except their thoughts.

    Here is just an introduction link

    This software is highly intrusive and provides us with 'zero' privacy. It's hybrid forms have been installed extensively in govt., banking, medical, retail etc- almost every electronic sector of life as we know it.

    Worth studying if you want to know just some of the capabilities the govt. has to be 'Mr. Big Brother' to the tenth power. :D
     
  14. Rashmon

    Rashmon Member

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    Hey Donkeymagic, just curious, but do you own a lot of brown shirts and black boots?
     

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