March 31, 2015
By Justin Glawe
It took the curiosity of a skinny, fidgeting 27-year-old (click here) to force the Chicago Police Department to admit they purchased controversial surveillance technology. The department, legally boxed into a corner over its use of a device known as the StingRay, finally admitted to acquiring the cell-phone tracking product last summer, six years after actually buying the thing. The watchdog work came not from a newspaper or any other media outlet in the city, but Freddy Martinez, an information technology worker who oversees websites for a private company from a downtown office building.
Martinez is now in the midst of his second lawsuit against the Chicago police over their refusal to disclose how they actually use the StingRay. These types of devices can capture, track, and monitor cell phone data, even without judicial oversight. Over a burger and whiskey-ginger at a bar in Chicago's Loop district, Martinez described the relatively benign circumstances that led him to become a plaintiff against the Chicago police, in the process costing city taxpayers a bit more than $120,000 in fees to defend the law enforcement agency....
By Justin Glawe
It took the curiosity of a skinny, fidgeting 27-year-old (click here) to force the Chicago Police Department to admit they purchased controversial surveillance technology. The department, legally boxed into a corner over its use of a device known as the StingRay, finally admitted to acquiring the cell-phone tracking product last summer, six years after actually buying the thing. The watchdog work came not from a newspaper or any other media outlet in the city, but Freddy Martinez, an information technology worker who oversees websites for a private company from a downtown office building.
Martinez is now in the midst of his second lawsuit against the Chicago police over their refusal to disclose how they actually use the StingRay. These types of devices can capture, track, and monitor cell phone data, even without judicial oversight. Over a burger and whiskey-ginger at a bar in Chicago's Loop district, Martinez described the relatively benign circumstances that led him to become a plaintiff against the Chicago police, in the process costing city taxpayers a bit more than $120,000 in fees to defend the law enforcement agency....
These 'boxes' of information can be made at home. Police are using them without a judges order. It takes all the electronic data from any personal devise someone is carrying them or otherwise.
There is a conference on surveillance and race on C-Span2 (click here).
What defenders of law enforcement will say it that the bad guy have this so why should law enforcement be hampered? Really? Law enforcement has resources the bad guys don't, like prison.
What defenders of law enforcement will say it that the bad guy have this so why should law enforcement be hampered? Really? Law enforcement has resources the bad guys don't, like prison.
