The US Is Totally Tapped

It’s no longer only powerful electronic intelligence, but also the U.S. local police that monitor American citizens using methods of which philosophers have never dreamed.

Results of an investigation carried out by the national daily newspaper USA Today are — in a certain sense — more shocking than everything we have discovered about the American Big Brother so far. At least for Americans. It turns out that the local police are using surveillance methods similar to the ones adopted globally by the National Security Agency. What is more, their cost is surprisingly low.

A tracking device called a StingRay could be bought with only $400,000. It’s the size of a suitcase and imitates a mobile phone transmitter tower. It intercepts data from all phones within a mile such as text messages and conversations. Policemen spying on a suspect or a group of suspects can — in real time — listen to and read everything that goes through their mobiles. Due to its small size, the StingRay can be hidden in a police car.

In many states policemen have easy access to data from mobile phone towers, and they can spy on suspects in a literal sense, meaning they can observe live where they are staying, going, etc. It is possible even when a phone is not being used but just kept in a pocket.

One could say that this is no discovery, because anyone can download a mobile application showing the actual physical location of a child or a sweetheart. However, those people need to first agree to it and, in general, they are aware of being tracked. The fact that we can be followed without our knowledge, even when we are not using a cell phone, may seem surprising to some.

It could also lead to protests, such as what happened in the state of New Jersey. Six years ago the police were pursuing Thomas Earls, a burglary suspect. His phone used the T-Mobile network, which sent to the police the data received from mobile phone towers, even without a warrant. It helped to locate the suspect in a motel, where he was seized along with the loot.

Earls accused the police of breaking the law — he believed that every phone user has a right to privacy. In July of this year the New Jersey Supreme Court accepted his argument and decreed that people will not make their location known to the world just because they own a mobile. Such information ought to stay within a private sphere and the police of New Jersey should have obtained a warrant.

However, the verdict relates only to the state of New Jersey. Four out of every 33 police departments examined by journalists from USA Today and local media have easy access to data from mobile phone towers. Twenty-five police departments use StingRay trackers, but in cases of need the device is lent to others.

Americans have accepted the fact that in the name of the war on terror their phone calls are recorded in some distant, gigantic database controlled by the NSA. All the more so because no one is actually doing an up-to-date analysis of the data — as long as it doesn’t arouse suspicion of terrorism.

They also readily accept email monitoring, which is not only on the conscience of the NSA, but also huge Internet providers. Why, Google “looks through” our emails, and — on the basis of their content — it displays specific ads on the screen. Obviously, private letters are not read by humans, but by automatic machines detecting only keywords.

This greatly “dehumanized” surveillance is relatively easy to accept. Yet it makes a difference when you are monitored by a policeman from a local police station that you pass every day on your way to work. Here come the questions: Where is the limit? Is it acceptable to electronically spy on every person who was in the vicinity of a sheriff’s car when someone broke one of its windows and stole a gun, just as happened in South Carolina? Or was it acceptable to use a StingRay to follow people who were going to protest against the International Trade Conference? This is what happened in Miami.

The local police often object to revealing if and in what cases they use surveillance methods, as this would make the lives of criminals easier.

“I don’t think that these devices should never be used, but at the same time, you should clearly be getting a warrant,” states Alan Butler from the Electronic Privacy Information Center.