14 ms·

Hidden Microphones Part of Government Surveillance Program in the Bay Area

573 points by randomname2 10y ago

maxxxxx 10y ago
If that's true we are moving into a scary world pretty much like 1984 where everything you do is monitored all the time. Add voice, face recognition, surveillance drones, cheap data storage and AI to the mix it seems pretty soon everything you do in a public place will be recorded and analyzed. And all this can be done fully automated. I hope people will recognize that some laws need to change. Surveillance makes sense in some cases but it should be hard and expensive to do.
- CamperBob2 10y ago
  If that's true we are moving into a scary world pretty much like 1984 where everything you do is monitored all the time. Well, not everything. Plant a GPS tracker on a police car or a bug in the restroom at FBI headquarters and you'll soon discover some troubling asymmetries in the modern post-privacy paradigm.
  - jfoutz 10y ago
    I was thinking the same thing. If no warrant is required then anybody can record whatever they want, right? edit I can't figure out how this could possibly be legal. It seems to me the rule for recording conversations is 1 party consent. [1] There is no way the FBI is participating in those conversations it's recording. I have no problem with law enforcement having special powers, but, isn't that special power a warrant? [1] http://www.dmlp.org/legal-guide/recording-phone-calls-and-conversations http://www.dmlp.org/legal-guide/recording-phone-calls-and-co...
    - rayiner 10y ago
      Whether a warrant is required is a federal Constitutional question. Requiring consent to record a conversation is a statutory creation (and state law at that). State law doesn't define what does or does not violate the Constitution.
      - dragonwriter 10y ago
        State law can be a factor in determining whether there is a reasonable expectation of privacy, which is a key factor in whether a warrant is required.
      - caf 10y ago
        Presumably State law still applies to the activities of FBI employees in that state, unless the Federal government has passed a law specifically exempting them.
        rdtsc 10y ago
        Interesting point. In regards to wiretaps https://www.privacyrights.org/content/wiretapping-and-eavesdropping-telephone-calls https://www.privacyrights.org/content/wiretapping-and-eavesd... seems to imply that no, Federal Agents when investigating are not bound by State law but by federal law: --- Courts have held that the California law does not apply to wiretaps by federal agents authorized by a valid federal warrant. For example, federal agents may go to federal court and obtain a warrant to place a wiretap in California, even though state officials may be barred by state law from obtaining a wiretap under similar circumstances. --- In general I suspect they cannot be prevented by local state laws from doing their jobs.
        caf 10y ago
        That example is not precisely on point though, because it involves a federal warrant - there's no doubting that the US Government can pass laws overriding relevant State laws where it has jurisdiction, and Federal warrants are ultimately authorised by a Federal law.
        rdtsc 10y ago
        Yeah this is not an exact case, the quote mentions the warrant part as well (that is why I pasted that part in), but thought it was similar because it is still Federal agents, in their line of duty, and court declared they get to disregard state laws. The other interesting aspect is this is looked what Federal agents can do, not "How can we protect the privacy of our citizens? Let's see what we can do for them. Maybe they are entitled to more privacy because they live in California". This mirrors the attitude of the "expert" in the story, they just see the Constitution as an inconveniance you need to bypass in order to get your job done.
    - niccaluim 10y ago
      In California it's two-party consent.
  - Spooky23 10y ago
    You don't even need to go that far. Try to find the salary scales or FOIA the salary data of police. In most places, they cook up some reason why it's protected information. In many states, every aspect of public employee compensation is publicly available. As it should be. Public safety folks are usually exempt.
    - mschuster91 10y ago
      In Germany, these are (relatively) public; on the shoulder flaps of any regular police officer (except the riot police <insert deserved swear word here>) you have the rank insignia which allows one to approximate the salary level.
      - MacsHeadroom 10y ago
        Police officer personal income varies wildly from $30k to $400k per year, quite unpredictably, in the US. Overtime pay, bonuses, double-dipping by being "on call" for Fire Services while actively writting traffic tickets, etc. There is much variability and many factors.
    - jflatow 10y ago
      Secrecy is one of the government's greatest powers. Unchecked, they try to classify anything and everything.
  - Aelinsaar 10y ago
    If there aren't already intelligent criminals using the police's own tech and tactics against them, I would be very surprised.
    - arca_vorago 10y ago
      Which is why the corruption is even worse. When before, the dirty tricks bag was mostly limited to domestic threeletters, largely due to tech limitations, now that both technical and legal barriers are lowered, every public figure of power is now more vulnerable than ever before. Its closely related to the issue of gov mandated backdoors, in which the gov erroneously claims only they can do it, but in reality a backdoor is a backdoor for anyone. Now, as for me, where did I put my camera detector/focused emp burst gun?
    - dragonwriter 10y ago
      There are, even if there aren't any who don't also work for the police department. Working in law enforcement doesn't mean you aren't a criminal.
      - Aelinsaar 10y ago
        A good, depressing angle I didn't intend or really consider when I made my comment, but of course you're right to think of that first.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - avs733 10y ago
    Theres no need to plant a GPS tracker, the radio protocol almost all police/fire/EMS use is called P-25[0]. Even when both parties remember to enable encryption, the protocol still has a long list of security of security vulnerabilities including the ability to jam it (both broad range and single user jamming) with the radio embedded in a childrens' toy because of poor implementation [1,2]. The protocol is so bad in fact that it could easily be used as active location tracking silently. Here is a talk about the complete list of fail [3] [0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_25 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_25 [1] https://hackaday.com/2010/10/09/pulling-data-from-the-im-me-spectrum-analyzer/ https://hackaday.com/2010/10/09/pulling-data-from-the-im-me-... [2] http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/p25sec08102011.pdf http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/p25sec08102... [3]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7or-_gT8TWU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7or-_gT8TWU
    - bigiain 10y ago
      Subversive art project idea: A RaspberryPi(or similar) with a $12 TV tuner software defined radio, and a small database of the various frequencies and bands particular flavours of your local LEO and/or federal TLA use. I know our local highway patrol, for example, use at least: P25, police issued cell phones, iPads with cellular data, HF radio (at least on rural/country cars), and whatever they use for the data connection for their in-car computers. Most/all of that would be encrypted, but hey - metadata's a free-for-all according to them, right? I bet if you knew what to look for, you could quite reasonable detect the presence of a highway patrol car when you saw some digital P25, a cellular connection on the bands used by the contracted cellular provider, and I'd bet good money that patterns of encrypted data that things like ALPR systems send would be quite distinctive... That's all staying pretty solidly at the whitehat end of the wide grey space of "what's allowed". If you were much closer to the blackhat end of that spectrum, I'd also bet pretty good money that sophisticated criminals are already exploiting GSM and 3/4G weaknesses to individually identify cellular radios by cracking the encryption to see the IMSI data. And that'd all be passive and undetectable, if you were firmly in the blackhat camp, active attacks against their P25 radios can (as pointed out) be done for effectively zero dollars.
      - 10y ago
- awqrre 10y ago
  We are moving in a scary world... technology is nice but it makes monitoring too easy. As I see it, updated laws is the only thing that can save us... One of so many examples would be to get rid of car license plates.
  - post_break 10y ago
    That will make insurance rates skyrocket.
    - awqrre 10y ago
      why?
      - dragonwriter 10y ago
        Because it will make hit and runs easier to get away with. It won't make liability insurance worse, but it will make coverage that pays for damages in those cases much more expensive.
        awqrre 10y ago
        and let me guess, it will make terrorists harder to catch. most newer cars already broadcast their locations to the car manufacturer (http://www.businessinsider.com/ford-exec-gps-2014-1 http://www.businessinsider.com/ford-exec-gps-2014-1)
        srtjstjsj 10y ago
        The article does not corroborate your claims at all. > Rather, Ford cars have several on-board services such as "Sync Services Directions" (a navigation device that works with drivers' phones) and 911 Assist, which users have to switch on and opt into. And employers can use a service called "Crew Chief" to monitor their corporate car fleet.
        ams6110 10y ago
- imaginenore 10y ago
  You can't have an expectation of privacy in public places. Facial recognition can be beat by a hat + sunglasses (which is the hugest plot hole in Person of Interest, the characters never even attempt to disguise themselves).
  - maxxxxx 10y ago
    I don't want to live in a world where I have to wear a hat + sunglasses.
    - imaginenore 10y ago
      You don't have to. But throwing a tantrum isn't going to change reality. We have the laws allowing anybody to film anything visible from public places, with a few security exceptions. That's more important than you getting upset that you are not invisible.
      - alayne 10y ago
        We're talking about limiting the actions of government here. It's hardly a "tantrum".
    - marincounty 10y ago
      I think it's a good idea to get used to wearing sunglasses. This next paragraph is a bit offtopic, but I think we will look back with regret at how free we were with our picture being taken. Right now--I don't think it's acceptable behavior to be clicking away. It used to be cute, now it's just teenage behavior. To the Shutterbug who can't go anywhere without taking your pictures--at at least don't automatically post? Or, maybe put the camera/phone in your pocket? Enjoy the moment? Or, at least let the people around you enjoy the moment? If anyone cares the microphone in the courthouse light was for these realeste investors whom were rigging foreclosures in Alameda, San Mateo, etc. They were paying other buyers to not bid on foreclosures. I always felt not enough people show up at these auctions. Just don't violate The Sherman Anti-trust Act. https://www.fbi.gov/sanfrancisco/press-releases/2015/two-northern-california-real-estate-investors-plead-guilty-to-bid-rigging-and-fraud-at-public-foreclosure-auctions https://www.fbi.gov/sanfrancisco/press-releases/2015/two-nor...
- darpa_escapee 10y ago
  Total surveillance is sold under guise of preventing terrorism, but the main effect is simple: it allows the status quo to become entrenched and permanent. You are rendered economically exploitable and politically neutered. There is a reason the state and intelligencies, from the Pinkertons to the FBI, have had a historical obsession with extensive spying on political movements and economic assembly. Both have real potential to change society. Would the civil or labor rights movements be possible under these conditions? Both threatened the bottom lines of powerful people. The FBI tried to persuade MLK to commit suicide by digging up dirt from his love life. He was considered a national security threat[0]. [0] http://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/11/16/magazine/what-an-uncensored-letter-to-mlk-reveals.html http://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/11/16/magazine/what-an-uncens...
  - jflatow 10y ago
    Yes. We are told these measures are taken to protect our national security, but in reality they are meant to protect the government. Take the ongoing incident with Hillary Clinton's email server, for example. Clinton was quick to support scrapping 4th amendment rights (Patriot Act) in the name of security, but when it came to state secrets, she played it fast and loose (at best). It took 15 years and a scandal before the Secretary of State's emails were finally secured. We started a mass surveillance program practically the day after 9/11. We are starting to forget we are supposed to have things like civil liberties, and that the exceptions made for wartime only work if war is not permanent. The war on terror has no end. Before terror, it was drugs and communism. The government will never stop coming up with reasons it needs more power.
    - yuhong 10y ago
      The war where government agencies compete for more resources probably don't help either.
  - pjlegato 10y ago
    "Entrenched and permanent" is a bit exaggerated, as the governments of pervasive-surveillance East Germany and the Soviet Union discovered.
- jsprogrammer 10y ago
  Surveillance gets easier and cheaper over time, that is progress, to know more than you did before. Every person will have a (or multiple) device that can capture and broadcast multiple audio, video, and other sensor data streams to the entire world.
- optforfon 10y ago
  Google has vastly more information on everyone in America. Orders of magnitude. (and by extension maybe foreign intelligence agencies) The government is just playing catch-up! I rather our slightly dysfunctional government have more information about me than an ad company that's the play toy of tech-utopian billionaires
  - partiallypro 10y ago
    I don't use Google, and prefer they not keep tabs on me all the time...but I think governments have a much...much worse track record on suppressing people than corporations. Google can be wiped from the earth by merely a new invention or a shift in the market to a better product...or financial fraud. Pretty hard to up root an entire legal structure and apparatus that grows every single year and has the ability to jail you or kill you. What I find terrifying is corporations like Google that have all of this data working hand in hand with the government. This creates two problems, a) the government now has tons more data they shouldn't have giving them more authoritarian abilities and b) that company now has immense lobbying power and can stifle competition for its mere deep relationship with the government. Basically, fascism.
    - optforfon 10y ago
      I don't use google either! But I've gotta say, every year it gets more and more frustrating as people ask me to use their google spreadsheets and chat with them on google hangouts etc. etc. Google might not have an account of mine, but I'm 100% sure they know who I am, what I'm interested in and what I'd be interested in in the future! Thanks to cookies, their ads and snippets of JavaScript on every webpage, my friends uploading contacts lists with my name in them etc. etc. they must have a profile built for me. With the current state of things it actually doesn't really bother me (other than it's monopolistic market distorting effects, but whatever), but you brought up the possibility of them falling part! A very interesting scenario. Google is playing nice and placating people while they make boatloads of cash. When Firefox and IE natively implement adblock or some technounicorn clobbers them they'll get a lot less nice! And we checked enough End User Agreements to let them With the government we have some recourse
    - 10y ago
- djsumdog 10y ago
  In this article, they seemed to be targeting one person. They fucked up because they didn't get a warrant. They shouldn't need one. It is a public place. I don't want to get into the situation where regular citizens are not allowed to take pictures of people in public places. Still, I can see their lawyer's argument for expectation of privacy. What about the homeless? Do they have no expectation of privacy? Unless they are in their tent? (If they even have a tent).
  - woodman 10y ago
    > In this article, they seemed to be targeting one person. That is an interesting interpretation, because the same article left me with the impression that they recorded everybody within earshot of the bugs for 10 months.
- benevol 10y ago
  > If that's true we are moving into a scary world pretty much like 1984 This became obvious since the proof delivered by Snowden. And we don't need more proof. What we need now is a way to roll the surveillance state back.
  - ethbro 10y ago
    Encypt, baby, encypt.
    - __s 10y ago
      Encrypt your public discourse
- BurningFrog 10y ago
  We are moving into a world where everything you do is monitored all the time. This is driven by technology, and legislation can't do much to change it. It's possible other technology can, but until then, assume you are monitored.
- rms_returns 10y ago
  Yeah, with that kind of advancement in technology, the "Captain America vs Iron Man" debate is going to be sprung soon. In other words, the debate between Individual Freedom vs Individual Safety.
  - mattnewton 10y ago
    To quote Franklin - "Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
mike_hock 10y ago
> If you're going to conduct criminal activity, do it in the privacy of your own home. > That was the original intention of the 4th amendment. Wat. The intention of the 4th amendment was to enable criminal activity, but confine it to private property? Not to protect citizens' privacy from government snooping without probable cause? The intent was to prevent the executive branch from indiscriminately "searching" (and hidden microphones are a form of search) innocent people without any cross-check from the judicial branch. The fact that you can "conduct criminal activity in the privacy of your own home" is a side effect, not a design goal, of the principle that a free society is worth the risk of letting a few criminals slip through the cracks.
- pessimizer 10y ago
  And why pretend that the privacy of your home is so special? The only thing keeping laser microphones from being aimed at all of our windows is a 5-4 decision in Kylio v. US, and Scalia is dead, and Clinton is going to be appointing the next Supreme Court justice. Clinton (DLC) Democrats love surveillance even more than Bushes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laser_microphone https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laser_microphone https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyllo_v._United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyllo_v._United_States edit: If you downvote, I'd appreciate you telling me why what I said is incorrect, instead of possibly reflexively reacting to the fact that Scalia is being mentioned in a positive way and Clinton in a negative way.
  - StanislavPetrov 10y ago
    >Clinton (DLC) Democrats love surveillance even more than Bushes. I'd disagree. The complete and absolute infatuation with surveillance by both the Bush's and the Clinton's is the same.
    - NotSammyHagar 10y ago
      Pessimizer, I think you are wrong, I agree with Stanislav. Republicans don't believe in the right to privacy, they use that as the reason why Texas should be able to restrict dildo sales (among many other things :-)), for instance, and conservatives use their disbelief in privacy to argue they should be able to legislate against consensual sex practices they don't like. Dems generally do support a right to privacy in your home.
bitL 10y ago
Now I am finally convinced that Internet of Things is going to be the next big thing - Internet of Real-time Microphones...
yunesj 10y ago
KPIX5's Jackie Ward said it's legal, so the defense can withdraw the motion.
Zigurd 10y ago
He is supposedly the manager of Autodesk's "Global threat management program." Do their "global threats" amount to more than watching over the cars in the parking lot at night?
- Ilijlmnuvw 10y ago
  Long ago I worked at Autodesk, and they would regularly publish threat reports on their intranet, mainly covering news from their competitors, identifying emerging or disruptive technologies, and economic threats. No doubt threat management also included morale, stagnation, theft and subterfuge, external attacks on IT infrastructure, legal and intellectual property issues, etc.
nxzero 10y ago
When will people say enough is enough?
- partisan 10y ago
  When it is too late? We're still at the phase where people say, "This doesn't impact me", or "I have nothing to hide".
  - dredmorbius 10y ago
    Or David Brin's view that transparency solves everything.
    - eye2sky 10y ago
      That is not David Brin's point[1]. Brin's point is more that the government will inevitably surveil citizens, and since citizens cannot reasonably prevent it, the best option is to try to level the playing field so that citizens can surveil the government back. In other words, reciprocal transparency is the least bad option. [1] Transparent Society, by David Brin
      - dredmorbius 10y ago
        I discuss this pretty regularly with Brin (on G+). We disagree strongly. His point is that souveillance is the solution. I disagree for the reasons expressed by Bruce Schneier (in his famous exchange with Brin) and Yonatan Zunger (in a comment included on my G+ profile page links). Surveillance amplifies power imbalances. Power and People have different mixes of power and vulnerability. Each exploits its strengths and fears its weaknesses. Transparency doesn't of itself balance those differences though. If anything, it amplifies them. That said, I'm for transparency punching up. Less so punching down absent clear justification -- much as the US founding fathers established in the Bill of Rights.
        eye2sky 10y ago
cornchips 10y ago
Anyone have a copy of the video working? Whoever made this site should have their contract dumped off the bridge in the background.. Edit: Working with all adblock and flashblock completely disabled. Edit: Clarify what should be dumped.
- jamesdwilson 10y ago
  > Whoever made this site should be dumped off the bridge in the background.. What exactly did you mean by that? CBSLOCAL.com editor? should be murdered? why?
  - cornchips 10y ago
    Hahaha. Can't take a joke? You PC, bro? I was referring to abuse of popup ads and the enormity of the data; over 4000 requests spreading across over 30 mb after a 1:49 video is finished... Obviously, nobody would dump anyone off a bridge for such a thing; but their duties should be... :-)
    - bigiain 10y ago
      How do you reckon "Can't take a joke, bro?" is going to play out in court, when the FBI can selectively produce voice-printed recordings of your "conspiracy to commit murder" comments (and claim the rest of the conversation was "unavailable due to technical errors")? And if you don't think the FBI is likely to pull shit like that, how's this sound: "The Justice Department and FBI have formally acknowledged that nearly every examiner in an elite FBI forensic unit gave flawed testimony in almost all trials in which they offered evidence against criminal defendants over more than a two-decade period before 2000." and: "the cases include those of 32 defendants sentenced to death." http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/jurisprudence/2015/04/fbi_s_flawed_forensics_expert_testimony_hair_analysis_bite_marks_fingerprints.html http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/jurisprudenc...
      - cornchips 10y ago
        LOL... What voice prints? What conspiracy to commit murder? Was there any planning or intention? You do know that conspiracy must follow intent to commit the offense? To shorten things up: "Although a person may simply contemplate committing a crime without violating the law, the contemplation becomes unlawful if the same criminal thought is incorporated in an agreement." [1] 1 http://scholarship.law.wm.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1636&context=facpubs http://scholarship.law.wm.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=16...
swayvil 10y ago
How much do you suppose these microphones are worth? Also, what's an easy way to locate them?
ccarter84 10y ago
My phone keeps getting unavoidable pop-ups, I'm sure it's a great story though.
godgod 10y ago
Have we not had enough yet? I hate how this is acceptable. We are either free people or we are not. What's it gonna take for our criminal government to stop seeing us as the enemy?
bobhaigler 10y ago
It's not the best reporting, but from what I can tell, the FBI is collecting evidence against auction bidders who allegedly conspire to pay less for foreclosed real-estate. The auctions take place on the courthouse steps, and the bidders have been accused of working together to keep prices low by intimidating some bidders and conspiring with others. I'd love to see the auctions moved to a website marketplace. Maybe a good startup idea?
- x5n1 10y ago
  You mean like http://www.auction.com http://www.auction.com Real Estate Auction for Homes and Commercial Real Estate? Yes they definitely should do that... ;)
alva 10y ago
The frequency response of most microphones (before DSP filtering) does not perfectly cut-off above 20 khz. I suppose if you were really paranoid you could walk around blasting exceptionally loud noise around and above this freq for privacy ;). Although your local dogs might not be too happy
- bigiain 10y ago
  Heh! Finally a profitable pivot idea for uBeam! Get their ultrasound transmitters mounted in hats or sunglasses, instant "privacy shield"! ;-) (Bug report #0000001: "I charged my iPhone up by carefully holding it within 8 inches of my uBean transducer all night then when I went to make a call in the morning with my uBeam Privacy Sunglasses(tm) on, the other party couldn't hear anything I said." Response: "Closed WONTFIX. You're holding it wrong.")
- napoleond 10y ago
  I realize I'm being a stereotypical message board nerd about what was presumably a joke, but: I don't understand what you're proposing. Surely the extraneous frequencies could just be filtered out at playback? Or ignored entirely, since--as you imply--human ears filter that out anyway.
  - simcop2387 10y ago
    If they've got any kind of dynamic gain going on so that they can capture the quietest stuff when nothing's going on but not clip everything when it's louder then they might not be able to do that. Once it's recorded only the information they sampled will be there. So if you play something really loud that's not hearable by a human but is by the recorder and it changes the gain so that it can record it properly then it can miss anything quieter than the noise. White noise above 20kHz would be perfect for this since it would also alias down to lower frequencies with a badly designed setup.
tempodox 10y ago
> ...if you’re going to conduct criminal activity... The actual scandal here is not the potential danger to criminal enterprises but that we're all being made suspects beforehand 24/7.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
dredmorbius 10y ago
Correlated story: Google's Parsey McParseface.
sdrinf 10y ago
Do we have secondary sources confirming this, specifically, lawyers in the case confirming this being brought up as evidence? If so, where is the public record of that? What are CBSLocal's incentives? Can they push fearmongering without repercussions? If this story is not true, where should we put the "flag" threshold? What are operational voting with money against stories like this ever, ever making HN frontpage again, and for the "news" industry to structurally reduce unfounded fearmongering?
- ipsin 10y ago
  See the linked PDFs on this story: http://www.abajournal.com/news/article/lawyers_say_feds_bugged_grounds_of_3_california_courthouses_without_warrant/ http://www.abajournal.com/news/article/lawyers_say_feds_bugg...
- TheSpiceIsLife 10y ago
  Is this[1,2,3] the case the article refers to? I had a bit of a click around, I'm not sure how to find record of the evidence etc. I'm not familiar with the US courts websites. 1. https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/two-northern-california-real-estate-investors-agree-plead-guilty-bid-rigging-public-real https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/two-northern-california-real-... 2. https://www.justice.gov/atr/case/us-v-florence-fung https://www.justice.gov/atr/case/us-v-florence-fung 3. https://www.justice.gov/atr/case/us-v-michael-navone https://www.justice.gov/atr/case/us-v-michael-navone
enlightenedfool 10y ago
So, can they just associate a voice to a person legally with those random recordings?
jondubois 10y ago
Ok, so these facts are true: #1. The government is monitoring us. #2. Facebook, Google, Amazon, Apple and many other huge corporations are also monitoring us... And they are sharing our personal data with each other. Why are so many news articles about issue #1 and so few are about issue #2. The government is a negligible threat compared to corporations. It seems like tech companies are manipulating the media to turn people against the government and divert attention away from themselves.
- awqrre 10y ago
  #3. Other countries are spying on us and are sharing the data with our government...
  - jondubois 10y ago
    Yes, but my point is that this is done in the interest of national/international security (there is no financial incentive for the government). Corporations do their monitoring purely for their own financial gain. The government is like a parent watching a child to make sure that the child doesn't get hurt - The interests of the parent are aligned with those of the child. A corporation is more like a pedophile - The interests do not align.
    - jflatow 10y ago
      The government is not your parent. The government lies to the public constantly, and has an agenda that is largely determined by financial interests.
    - throwaway_exer 10y ago
      > The government is like a parent watching a child I think it's great that you've lived in a bubble all your life. But you should make a conscious decision whether to remain in that bubble, or find out the truth about the world around you. Because the truth is an ugly thing these days.
- newjersey 10y ago
awqrre 10y ago
godgod, your comments are being hidden and I am not able to upvote or reply to it ...
- DanBC 10y ago
  Click the timestamp of the comment. Click [vouch]. I think you only do that if the comment deserves to be unhidden. I'm not sure whether you're supposed to look through that person's post history.
matthudson 10y ago
Call to action: Machine learners, you'd better start tuning your sarcasm classifiers.
peterwwillis 10y ago
This sort of public spying has been documented since at least 1959. This _particular_ public spying was reported at least since 2012. http://post45.research.yale.edu/2016/02/eavesdropping-in-the-age-of-the-eavesdroppers-or-the-bug-in-the-martini-olive/ http://post45.research.yale.edu/2016/02/eavesdropping-in-the... "In July 1956, the Pennsylvania Bar Association Endowment (PBAE) commissioned a comprehensive study of "wiretapping practices, laws, devices, and techniques" in the United States. [..] The man appointed to direct the study was Samuel Dash, a prominent Philadelphia prosecutor [..] The result of Dash's efforts was The Eavesdroppers, a 483-page report [..] The book uncovered a wide range of privacy infringements on the part of state authorities and private citizens [..] While law enforcement agencies were tapping lines in flagrant violation of state and federal statutes, phone companies were deliberately underreporting wiretap statistics to maintain public confidence in their services. While American businesses were stockpiling equipment to spy on employees and gather competitive intelligence, private investigators were using frightening new tools to listen in on wayward lovers and loose-lipped politicians." http://www.infowars.com/spy-grid-can-now-record-your-conversations-in-real-time/ http://www.infowars.com/spy-grid-can-now-record-your-convers... (2013) "The Washington Post recently published a feature length article on gunshot detectors, known as ShotSpotter, which detailed how in Washington DC there are now, “at least 300 acoustic sensors across 20 square miles of the city,” microphones wrapped in a weather-proof shell that can detect the location of a sound down to a few yards and analyze the audio using a computer program. 𝐖𝐡𝐢𝐥𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐬𝐲𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐦𝐬 𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐭𝐨𝐮𝐭𝐞𝐝 𝐚𝐬 “𝐠𝐮𝐧𝐬𝐡𝐨𝐭 𝐝𝐞𝐭𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐬,” 𝐚𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐍𝐞𝐰 𝐘𝐨𝐫𝐤 𝐓𝐢𝐦𝐞𝐬 𝐫𝐞𝐩𝐨𝐫𝐭𝐞𝐝 𝐢𝐧 𝐌𝐚𝐲 𝟐𝟎𝟏𝟐, 𝐬𝐢𝐦𝐢𝐥𝐚𝐫 𝐭𝐞𝐜𝐡𝐧𝐨𝐥𝐨𝐠𝐲 𝐢𝐬 𝐚𝐥𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐲 𝐢𝐧𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐞𝐝 𝐢𝐧 𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐫 𝟕𝟎 𝐜𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐞𝐬 𝐚𝐫𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭𝐫𝐲, 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐢𝐧 𝐬𝐨𝐦𝐞 𝐜𝐚𝐬𝐞𝐬 𝐢𝐭 𝐢𝐬 𝐛𝐞𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐮𝐬𝐞𝐝 𝐭𝐨 𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐧 𝐭𝐨 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬. " -- This quote from the 1959 report sums up everything nicely: "As Dash told members of Congress on the eve of the book's release, the American public's longstanding disregard for threats to communications privacy had only served to exacerbate these developments. [..] 'Each generation seems to forget the problems of the past and considers this their own unique problem.' - Samuel Dash"
bunkydoo 10y ago
If I really gave a damn, had 1000 bucks to blow, and had no life I could go plant hidden microphones, pinhole video cameras, and more in just about every conceivable public place too. If anyone argued or brought me to court - I could demonstrate how this is absolutely no different than everyone "secondhand recording" me in their little snap stories and instagrams which do go online forever. My point is, this is some small potatoes 1980's style shit that is nothing compared to NSA Echelon (which I find to be actually a fascinating technology if it weren't so malleable to abuse by human nature) If Echelon were an independently operating AI system that had algorithms that identified criminal activity, then used soft paternalism in the form coercing unaware law enforcement personnel into making "chance" encounters with would-be criminals (random traffic stop, or passing them by on the street), the psychology of the criminal would be to stop doing whatever their doing because they feel more watched when they are doing said crime; although the law enforcement agent may never be directly aware of the criminals communications or conduct. I can deal with surveillance all day, no sweat. Totalitarian censorship is my problem, and that doesn't appear to be happening stateside.
- morganvachon 10y ago
  > If Echelon were an independently operating AI system that had algorithms that identified criminal activity, then used soft paternalism in the form coercing unaware law enforcement personnel into making "chance" encounters with would-be criminals (random traffic stop, or passing them by on the street), the psychology of the criminal would be to stop doing whatever their doing because they feel more watched when they are doing said crime; although the law enforcement agent may never be directly aware of the criminals communications or conduct. You just described the main antagonist ("Samaritan") in the show Person of Interest. It is a rogue AI that records everything, determines threat level, then "nudges" police and even private citizens to take action against what it sees as a threat (in this show, the protagonists trying to stop the evil organization using the neutral Samaritan for evil deeds). Samaritan itself isn't evil, but in the hands of tyrannical masters, it is a deadly weapon and nearly a god (omnipresent, omniscient and almost omnipotent). This show has been riding the cutting edge of real life espionage and rogue government programs since it debuted.
- optforfon 10y ago
em3rgent0rdr 10y ago
Even if judges prohibit such evidence on the grounds of it being illegally obtained, you will still find that prosecutors will use that evidence to find other evidence and for constructing a case that doesn't use that illegally obtained evidence. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_construction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_construction
justifier 10y ago
huh? but ca and sf is two party consent? http://codes.findlaw.com/ca/penal-code/pen-sect-632.html http://codes.findlaw.com/ca/penal-code/pen-sect-632.html
- aidenn0 10y ago
  In many cases federal law trumps state law. State law is likely to not be allowed to hinder a federal investigation. Typically the FBI isn't allowed to record conversations it isn't a party to without a warrant if you have a reasonable expectation of privacy. They are likely going to argue that there is no such expectation of privacy at a public bus stop.
  - justifier 10y ago
    > As the California Supreme Court made clear, federal law (which permits monitoring with the consent of one party) does not preempt more restrictive state eavesdropping laws, even when the monitored communications are interstate. Accordingly, companies that monitor interstate calls for quality control purposes must consult the applicable provisions of state, as well as federal, law. (o) i feel another commenter, em3rgent0rdr, may have indirectly answered my confusion by stating: > Even if judges prohibit such evidence on the grounds of it being illegally obtained, you will still find that prosecutors will use that evidence to find other evidence and for constructing a case that doesn't use that illegally obtained evidence. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_construction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_construction (i) (o) http://www.mofo.com/resources/publications/2006/07/california-two_party-consent-law-applies-to-reco__ http://www.mofo.com/resources/publications/2006/07/californi... (i) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11699146 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11699146 .. completely offtopic, but how unfortunate is that lawfirm's domain?
    - aidenn0 10y ago
      > > As the California Supreme Court made clear, federal law (which permits monitoring with the consent of one party) does not preempt more restrictive state eavesdropping laws, even when the monitored communications are interstate. Accordingly, companies that monitor interstate calls for quality control purposes must consult the applicable provisions of state, as well as federal, law. (o) This clearly applies to private citizens, but it is less clear that that precedent applies to the FBI.
Mendenhall 10y ago
Hmm I wonder how this would work considering its all things openly available to be recorded. Follow a federal agent home from work and film them and their house. Film their children going to school and post pictures locations and times online, also taking photos of other relatives, friends etc and where they live and their phone numbers and post it all online. Have your friends join in and keep posting every detail and picture you can get of federal agents and their families etc and compile it into a website. Then let me know how that works out. Edit: Does anyone know of any USA law that stands against such activity?
- rayiner 10y ago
  I don't see how that's relevant. The whole point of the government is for it to have a monopoly on law enforcement. They're supposed to be able to do stuff you and I can't do.
  - srtjstjsj 10y ago
    That's not the whole point of government, that is a radical statist perspective. See, for example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peelian_principles https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peelian_principles > the police are the public and that the public are the police, the police being only members of the public who are paid to give full-time attention to duties which are incumbent on every citizen in the interests of community welfare and existence.
    - rayiner 10y ago
      It's a statist perspective, but hardly radically-so. From your link: > The Home Office has explained this approach as "the power of the police coming from the common consent of the public, as opposed to the power of the state. It does not mean the consent of an individual. No individual can choose to withdraw his or her consent from the police, or from a law." That's the difference between the police and private citizens. Interactions between private citizens must be consensual. Policing, at some level, must necessarily be coercive.
solutron 10y ago
This is a more informative article around the topic IMO: http://www.eastbayexpress.com/SevenDays/archives/2016/05/11/fbi-hid-surveillance-devices-around-alameda-county-courthouse http://www.eastbayexpress.com/SevenDays/archives/2016/05/11/...
Gratsby 10y ago
Haven't you guys ever seen The Wire? Is this seriously a surprise to anyone?
- srtjstjsj 10y ago
  Cops in The Wire made an extreme point of getting warrants for limited targeted surveillance
  - Gratsby 10y ago
    You forget when Herc went and grabbed the portable mic from the spy store and stuck it in a tennis ball. Or when they stuck the video camera in the park and got it stolen. It's pretty much the same thing that happened here. They knew the discussions were happening, they knew where the discussions were happening, and since it was in a public space they didn't need a warrant. It's not like they are running around town putting microphones in all the bus stops hoping to catch anybody saying something. They were looking for a specific type of criminal activity and they placed the mics accordingly.
srtjstjsj 10y ago
Previously covered on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10582392 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10582392 Defense Claims Courthouse Was Illegally Bugged (therecorder.com) 171 points by morninj 179 days ago | 100 comments
srtjstjsj 10y ago
The quotes from the former FBI agent, showing complete disregard for the 4th Amendment, send a clear message about how deep illegal behavior runs in the FBI.
xufi 10y ago
As this seems to come up more and more. I can't fathom why most people can't get what's being fed to them by our media sources. http://craigbhulet.com/10%20Mega-Corporations.jpg http://craigbhulet.com/10%20Mega-Corporations.jpg This chart albeit a bit big of a image demonstrates which media entities are owned/connected to whom. Pretty interesting
- yahelc 10y ago
  Perhaps I've been reading the wrong newspapers, but I can't recall Kraft, Coca Cola, Nestle, P&G, Coca Cola, et al ever being considered media companies.
- drawnwren 10y ago
  It's a pretty picture, but it doesn't really seem to mean much. Not one of those companies is in the 50 largest by revenue [1]. This seems to be a picture of what food and health brands are related to each other? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_companies_by_revenue https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_companies_by_r...
pteredactyl 10y ago
I really did not need to read this right now...
dude3 10y ago
And what are WE going to do to stop it...? They aren't going to be listening to the comment sections of websites.
simoncion 10y ago
> You're reading "unlimited rule" into my comment. To be fair, you did say that the "whole point" of government was to run the police. That is to say "The sole purpose of government is to run the police". Perhaps you can see where the misunderstanding lies? Given your comment history, it wouldn't be entirely surprising to see you emit that reformulation of your statement, but that's neither here nor there.
- dang 10y ago
  That crosses the line into personal attack, which is not allowed here regardless of how wrong someone's views may be. We detached this comment from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11699424 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11699424 and marked it off-topic.
  - simoncion 10y ago
    Oh. I thought I was making a factual observation. Terribly, genuinely sorry for the additional moderator workload. :( Did you view my first 'graph or my second to be a personal attack?
    - simoncion 10y ago
      Oh, wow. The downvote-comment priv has been removed from my account. Hnnh.
      - dang 10y ago
        Nothing was removed from your account. Users aren't allowed to downvote direct replies; that's probably what you were seeing.
s_q_b 10y ago
Whoa, whoa, whoa. This is a very misleading headline. The article contains no evidence of a government-operated network of listening microphones in the Bay area. It deals with one incident using a specific piece of surveillance gear. What we actually know is this: An FBI agent was attempting to bust two individuals suspected of a bid-fixing scheme. This FBI agent then placed two recording devices in a light fixture and another at the bus stop nearest the courthouse. After the surveillance recorded enough incriminating evidence, the FBI/DOJ sought to introduce the recordings at trial. All else was rank speculation by a former FBI employee named Jeff Harp. He also stated, "If you’re going to conduct criminal activity, do it in the privacy of your own home... that was the original intention of the Fourth Amendment," which makes me question his grasp of the constitution, and thus his reliability as an expert.
- jflatow 10y ago
  No, it's far more than two devices, and it went on for 10 months. They placed surveillance all around the 2 courthouses: light fixtures, a bus stop, bushes, poles, the steps, and inside several vehicles. And there's another similar case from last year with >200 hours of recordings in San Mateo. http://www.eastbayexpress.com/SevenDays/archives/2016/05/11/fbi-hid-surveillance-devices-around-alameda-county-courthouse http://www.eastbayexpress.com/SevenDays/archives/2016/05/11/...
  - Supi-lee 10y ago
    Wonder what the RoI on all this is, and how they allocate resources to each ongoing investigation. Seems like it would cost a heck of a lot. I mean, you would need trained people sitting around listening to all those recordings.
    - ddalex 10y ago
      Or maybe you just need to feed it into a voice to text engine, and then grep through the output for interesting bits. I'm quite sure that the NSA capabilities in this regard are quite beyond what is publicly available.
jiang101 10y ago
Being "the good guys" has become part of the national American identity since WWII. Not all of that reputation is undeserved. America has done a lot of good in the world. But the American government has also done a lot of shady stuff (including some seriously no-grey-area bad stuff) that they have kept hidden from their citizens. Unfortunately, even though some of that is now out in the open, there are some Americans who won't acknowledge it is true (or try to defend it as necessary) because it is difficult to reconcile that information with the good guy image they've had all their lives. It is important to do so, though. If there's one good thing that can come from the wrong that has been done, it is to learn never to repeat it.
joantune 10y ago
it might come a time in the future where we think that wearing a tin foil hat might be the reasonable thing to do :D
neat159 10y ago
can't believe it
kabdib 10y ago
I'd love to find a sample -- how do they communicate? Wirelessly? Betcha they can be fingerprinted
FollowSteph3 10y ago
If this were true then how do you explain all the crime that still happens. Even high profile cases. It would be a lot easier to manager bigger crimes. But since we still see them struggling with even big profile cases, where not having an arrest is embarrassing, it's extremely hard to imagine this being true.
cs2818 10y ago
To me this goes back to the issue of having a reasonable expectation of privacy. As others have pointed out, if I am in a public place and someone snaps a photo of me or a surveillance camera records my actions, I generally can't argue this was an unreasonable invasion. I'm certain legal scholars are well-versed in the technicalities of expectations of privacy, but I do wonder if we will face new challenges in this area as the number of pervasively connected and recording devices increases.
daveheq 10y ago
This clickbait article is going to cause people to think the government was just spying on everyone everywhere for no other reason than just to spy on you. Another "distrust the damn government" article that further divides people against others.
- __s 10y ago
  Clickbait title wouldn't specify it as only being in the Bay area. The title makes no claims not held up by the article
peter303 10y ago
Snowden suggests that the microphones and cameras on your cell, landline, desktop can be remotely activated any time by the government or hackers.
MaSk3d 10y ago
Just support each other. ;)
fosco 10y ago
So what is going to be done about it? with each revelation that has no riot it looks more and more like the average person is silenced into submission to just 'deal with it' rather then correct it.
carapace 10y ago
"Total Surveillance is the Perfection of Democracy" (This is an old blog post I wrote that seems relevant to this. Please forgive me for reposting it whole here but I really REALLY want to hear what HN readers think. (And no one sees it on my blog. heh heh)) For once I disagree with RMS, re: https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/surveillance-vs-democracy.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/surveillance-vs-democracy.htm... I believe that it is fundamentally not possible to "roll back" the degree of surveillance in our [global] society in an effective way. Our technology is already converging to a near-total degree of surveillance all on its own. The article itself gives many examples. The end limit will be Vinge's "locator dust" or perhaps something even more ubiquitous and ephemeral. RMS advocates several "band-aid" fixes but seems to miss the logical structure of the paradox of inescapable total surveillance. Let me attempt to illustrate this paradox. Take this quote from the article: "If whistleblowers don't dare reveal crimes and lies, we lose the last shred of effective control over our government and institutions." (First of all we should reject the underlying premise that "our government and institutions" are only held in check by the fear of the discovery of their "crimes and lies". We can, and should, and must, hold ourselves and our government to a standard of not committing crimes, not telling lies. It is this Procrustean bed of good character that our technology is binding us to, not some dystopian nightmare.) Certainly the criminally-minded who have inveigled their way into the halls of power should not be permitted to sleep peacefully at night, without concern for discovery. But why assume that ubiquitous surveillance would not touch them? Why would the sensor/processor nets and deep analysis not be useful, and used, for detecting and combating treachery? What "crimes and lies" would be revealed by a whistleblower that would not show up on the intel-feeds? Or this quote: "Everyone must be free to post photos and video recordings occasionally, but the systematic accumulation of such data on the Internet must be limited." How will this limiting be done? What authority will decide who gets to post what and when? And (like any profanity filter) won't this authority need to see the content to be able to decide whether it gets posted publicly? In effect, doesn't this idea imply some sort of ubiquitous surveillance system to ensure that people are obeying the rules for preventing a ubiquitous surveillance system? Let's say we set up some rules like the ones RMS is advocating, how do we determine that everyone is following those rules? After all, there is a very good incentive for trying to get a privileged position vis-a-vis these rules. Whoever has the inside edge, whether official spooks, enemy agents, or just criminals, gains an enormous competitive advantage over everyone else. Someone is going to have that edge, because it's a technological thing, you can't make it go away simply because you don't like it. If the "good guys" tie their own hands (by handicapping their surveillance networks) then we are just handing control to the people who are willing to do what it takes to take it. You can't unilaterally declare that we (all humanity) will use the kid-friendly "lite" version of the surveillance network because we cannot be sure that everyone is playing by those rules unless we have a "full" version of the surveillance network to check up on everybody! We can't (I believe) prevent total surveillance but we can certainly control how the data are used, and we can certainly set up systems that allow the data to be used without being abused. The system must be recursive. Whatever form the system takes, it shall necessarily have to be able to detect and correct its own self-abuses. Total surveillance is the perfection of democracy, not its antithesis. The true horror of technological omniscience is that it shall force us for once to live according to our own rules. For the first time in history we shall have to do without hypocrisy and privilege. The new equilibrium will not involve tilting at the windmills of ubiquitous sensors and processing power but rather learning what explicit rules we can actually live by, finding, in effect, the real shape of human society.
bogomipz 10y ago
You don't even need to be clandestine about it though. Why hasn't this story hasn't gotten more traction? Where's the outcry? http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2016/04/big-brother-is-listening-on-nj-transit.html http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2016/04/big-brother-is-...
dSnapApjw 10y ago
Many of us, in the Bay area Veterans community so agree with the topics and in one brand new book just released at www.barryeisler.com; civil liberties; rule of law, my community my neighbors, Please permit me to suggest his latest, just release book; "A God's Eye View." I for one like the one sentence in Chapter 47, "When you collect it all ;when you monitor everyone, you understand nothing." And a suggestion for the President's Blue Ribbon Panel for a position titled: " public interest advocate" is making more sense daily. http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/12/civillibertarians-need-to-infiltrate-the-nsa/383932/ http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/12/civillib... I like the review Chelsea Manning gave of Barry, "Creepy. This story is much more plausible than I expected or care to admit." Salutes all too you for keeping me educated. As we said in my old army unit; "heart-faith-skill, the only way to win in a battle advocacy" (we borrowed it from Sean Connery as Ramirez in The Highlander Movie) peace..j.

573 points by randomname2 10y ago

If that's true we are moving into a scary world pretty much like 1984 where everything you do is monitored all the time. Add voice, face recognition, surveillance drones, cheap data storage and AI to the mix it seems pretty soon everything you do in a public place will be recorded and analyzed. And all this can be done fully automated. I hope people will recognize that some laws need to change. Surveillance makes sense in some cases but it should be hard and expensive to do.

CamperBob2 10y ago
If that's true we are moving into a scary world pretty much like 1984 where everything you do is monitored all the time. Well, not everything. Plant a GPS tracker on a police car or a bug in the restroom at FBI headquarters and you'll soon discover some troubling asymmetries in the modern post-privacy paradigm.
- jfoutz 10y ago
  I was thinking the same thing. If no warrant is required then anybody can record whatever they want, right? edit I can't figure out how this could possibly be legal. It seems to me the rule for recording conversations is 1 party consent. [1] There is no way the FBI is participating in those conversations it's recording. I have no problem with law enforcement having special powers, but, isn't that special power a warrant? [1] http://www.dmlp.org/legal-guide/recording-phone-calls-and-conversations http://www.dmlp.org/legal-guide/recording-phone-calls-and-co...
  - rayiner 10y ago
    Whether a warrant is required is a federal Constitutional question. Requiring consent to record a conversation is a statutory creation (and state law at that). State law doesn't define what does or does not violate the Constitution.
    - dragonwriter 10y ago
      State law can be a factor in determining whether there is a reasonable expectation of privacy, which is a key factor in whether a warrant is required.
    - caf 10y ago
      Presumably State law still applies to the activities of FBI employees in that state, unless the Federal government has passed a law specifically exempting them.
      - rdtsc 10y ago
        Interesting point. In regards to wiretaps https://www.privacyrights.org/content/wiretapping-and-eavesdropping-telephone-calls https://www.privacyrights.org/content/wiretapping-and-eavesd... seems to imply that no, Federal Agents when investigating are not bound by State law but by federal law: --- Courts have held that the California law does not apply to wiretaps by federal agents authorized by a valid federal warrant. For example, federal agents may go to federal court and obtain a warrant to place a wiretap in California, even though state officials may be barred by state law from obtaining a wiretap under similar circumstances. --- In general I suspect they cannot be prevented by local state laws from doing their jobs.
        caf 10y ago
        That example is not precisely on point though, because it involves a federal warrant - there's no doubting that the US Government can pass laws overriding relevant State laws where it has jurisdiction, and Federal warrants are ultimately authorised by a Federal law.
        rdtsc 10y ago
        Yeah this is not an exact case, the quote mentions the warrant part as well (that is why I pasted that part in), but thought it was similar because it is still Federal agents, in their line of duty, and court declared they get to disregard state laws. The other interesting aspect is this is looked what Federal agents can do, not "How can we protect the privacy of our citizens? Let's see what we can do for them. Maybe they are entitled to more privacy because they live in California". This mirrors the attitude of the "expert" in the story, they just see the Constitution as an inconveniance you need to bypass in order to get your job done.
  - niccaluim 10y ago
    In California it's two-party consent.
- Spooky23 10y ago
  You don't even need to go that far. Try to find the salary scales or FOIA the salary data of police. In most places, they cook up some reason why it's protected information. In many states, every aspect of public employee compensation is publicly available. As it should be. Public safety folks are usually exempt.
  - mschuster91 10y ago
    In Germany, these are (relatively) public; on the shoulder flaps of any regular police officer (except the riot police <insert deserved swear word here>) you have the rank insignia which allows one to approximate the salary level.
    - MacsHeadroom 10y ago
      Police officer personal income varies wildly from $30k to $400k per year, quite unpredictably, in the US. Overtime pay, bonuses, double-dipping by being "on call" for Fire Services while actively writting traffic tickets, etc. There is much variability and many factors.
  - jflatow 10y ago
    Secrecy is one of the government's greatest powers. Unchecked, they try to classify anything and everything.
- Aelinsaar 10y ago
  If there aren't already intelligent criminals using the police's own tech and tactics against them, I would be very surprised.
  - arca_vorago 10y ago
    Which is why the corruption is even worse. When before, the dirty tricks bag was mostly limited to domestic threeletters, largely due to tech limitations, now that both technical and legal barriers are lowered, every public figure of power is now more vulnerable than ever before. Its closely related to the issue of gov mandated backdoors, in which the gov erroneously claims only they can do it, but in reality a backdoor is a backdoor for anyone. Now, as for me, where did I put my camera detector/focused emp burst gun?
  - dragonwriter 10y ago
    There are, even if there aren't any who don't also work for the police department. Working in law enforcement doesn't mean you aren't a criminal.
    - Aelinsaar 10y ago
      A good, depressing angle I didn't intend or really consider when I made my comment, but of course you're right to think of that first.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- avs733 10y ago
  Theres no need to plant a GPS tracker, the radio protocol almost all police/fire/EMS use is called P-25[0]. Even when both parties remember to enable encryption, the protocol still has a long list of security of security vulnerabilities including the ability to jam it (both broad range and single user jamming) with the radio embedded in a childrens' toy because of poor implementation [1,2]. The protocol is so bad in fact that it could easily be used as active location tracking silently. Here is a talk about the complete list of fail [3] [0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_25 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_25 [1] https://hackaday.com/2010/10/09/pulling-data-from-the-im-me-spectrum-analyzer/ https://hackaday.com/2010/10/09/pulling-data-from-the-im-me-... [2] http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/p25sec08102011.pdf http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/p25sec08102... [3]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7or-_gT8TWU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7or-_gT8TWU
  - bigiain 10y ago
    Subversive art project idea: A RaspberryPi(or similar) with a $12 TV tuner software defined radio, and a small database of the various frequencies and bands particular flavours of your local LEO and/or federal TLA use. I know our local highway patrol, for example, use at least: P25, police issued cell phones, iPads with cellular data, HF radio (at least on rural/country cars), and whatever they use for the data connection for their in-car computers. Most/all of that would be encrypted, but hey - metadata's a free-for-all according to them, right? I bet if you knew what to look for, you could quite reasonable detect the presence of a highway patrol car when you saw some digital P25, a cellular connection on the bands used by the contracted cellular provider, and I'd bet good money that patterns of encrypted data that things like ALPR systems send would be quite distinctive... That's all staying pretty solidly at the whitehat end of the wide grey space of "what's allowed". If you were much closer to the blackhat end of that spectrum, I'd also bet pretty good money that sophisticated criminals are already exploiting GSM and 3/4G weaknesses to individually identify cellular radios by cracking the encryption to see the IMSI data. And that'd all be passive and undetectable, if you were firmly in the blackhat camp, active attacks against their P25 radios can (as pointed out) be done for effectively zero dollars.
    - 10y ago
awqrre 10y ago
We are moving in a scary world... technology is nice but it makes monitoring too easy. As I see it, updated laws is the only thing that can save us... One of so many examples would be to get rid of car license plates.
- post_break 10y ago
  That will make insurance rates skyrocket.
  - awqrre 10y ago
    why?
    - dragonwriter 10y ago
      Because it will make hit and runs easier to get away with. It won't make liability insurance worse, but it will make coverage that pays for damages in those cases much more expensive.
      - awqrre 10y ago
        and let me guess, it will make terrorists harder to catch. most newer cars already broadcast their locations to the car manufacturer (http://www.businessinsider.com/ford-exec-gps-2014-1 http://www.businessinsider.com/ford-exec-gps-2014-1)
        srtjstjsj 10y ago
        The article does not corroborate your claims at all. > Rather, Ford cars have several on-board services such as "Sync Services Directions" (a navigation device that works with drivers' phones) and 911 Assist, which users have to switch on and opt into. And employers can use a service called "Crew Chief" to monitor their corporate car fleet.
      - ams6110 10y ago
imaginenore 10y ago
You can't have an expectation of privacy in public places. Facial recognition can be beat by a hat + sunglasses (which is the hugest plot hole in Person of Interest, the characters never even attempt to disguise themselves).
- maxxxxx 10y ago
  I don't want to live in a world where I have to wear a hat + sunglasses.
  - imaginenore 10y ago
    You don't have to. But throwing a tantrum isn't going to change reality. We have the laws allowing anybody to film anything visible from public places, with a few security exceptions. That's more important than you getting upset that you are not invisible.
    - alayne 10y ago
      We're talking about limiting the actions of government here. It's hardly a "tantrum".
  - marincounty 10y ago
    I think it's a good idea to get used to wearing sunglasses. This next paragraph is a bit offtopic, but I think we will look back with regret at how free we were with our picture being taken. Right now--I don't think it's acceptable behavior to be clicking away. It used to be cute, now it's just teenage behavior. To the Shutterbug who can't go anywhere without taking your pictures--at at least don't automatically post? Or, maybe put the camera/phone in your pocket? Enjoy the moment? Or, at least let the people around you enjoy the moment? If anyone cares the microphone in the courthouse light was for these realeste investors whom were rigging foreclosures in Alameda, San Mateo, etc. They were paying other buyers to not bid on foreclosures. I always felt not enough people show up at these auctions. Just don't violate The Sherman Anti-trust Act. https://www.fbi.gov/sanfrancisco/press-releases/2015/two-northern-california-real-estate-investors-plead-guilty-to-bid-rigging-and-fraud-at-public-foreclosure-auctions https://www.fbi.gov/sanfrancisco/press-releases/2015/two-nor...
darpa_escapee 10y ago
Total surveillance is sold under guise of preventing terrorism, but the main effect is simple: it allows the status quo to become entrenched and permanent. You are rendered economically exploitable and politically neutered. There is a reason the state and intelligencies, from the Pinkertons to the FBI, have had a historical obsession with extensive spying on political movements and economic assembly. Both have real potential to change society. Would the civil or labor rights movements be possible under these conditions? Both threatened the bottom lines of powerful people. The FBI tried to persuade MLK to commit suicide by digging up dirt from his love life. He was considered a national security threat[0]. [0] http://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/11/16/magazine/what-an-uncensored-letter-to-mlk-reveals.html http://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/11/16/magazine/what-an-uncens...
- jflatow 10y ago
  Yes. We are told these measures are taken to protect our national security, but in reality they are meant to protect the government. Take the ongoing incident with Hillary Clinton's email server, for example. Clinton was quick to support scrapping 4th amendment rights (Patriot Act) in the name of security, but when it came to state secrets, she played it fast and loose (at best). It took 15 years and a scandal before the Secretary of State's emails were finally secured. We started a mass surveillance program practically the day after 9/11. We are starting to forget we are supposed to have things like civil liberties, and that the exceptions made for wartime only work if war is not permanent. The war on terror has no end. Before terror, it was drugs and communism. The government will never stop coming up with reasons it needs more power.
  - yuhong 10y ago
    The war where government agencies compete for more resources probably don't help either.
- pjlegato 10y ago
  "Entrenched and permanent" is a bit exaggerated, as the governments of pervasive-surveillance East Germany and the Soviet Union discovered.
jsprogrammer 10y ago
Surveillance gets easier and cheaper over time, that is progress, to know more than you did before. Every person will have a (or multiple) device that can capture and broadcast multiple audio, video, and other sensor data streams to the entire world.
optforfon 10y ago
Google has vastly more information on everyone in America. Orders of magnitude. (and by extension maybe foreign intelligence agencies) The government is just playing catch-up! I rather our slightly dysfunctional government have more information about me than an ad company that's the play toy of tech-utopian billionaires
- partiallypro 10y ago
  I don't use Google, and prefer they not keep tabs on me all the time...but I think governments have a much...much worse track record on suppressing people than corporations. Google can be wiped from the earth by merely a new invention or a shift in the market to a better product...or financial fraud. Pretty hard to up root an entire legal structure and apparatus that grows every single year and has the ability to jail you or kill you. What I find terrifying is corporations like Google that have all of this data working hand in hand with the government. This creates two problems, a) the government now has tons more data they shouldn't have giving them more authoritarian abilities and b) that company now has immense lobbying power and can stifle competition for its mere deep relationship with the government. Basically, fascism.
  - optforfon 10y ago
    I don't use google either! But I've gotta say, every year it gets more and more frustrating as people ask me to use their google spreadsheets and chat with them on google hangouts etc. etc. Google might not have an account of mine, but I'm 100% sure they know who I am, what I'm interested in and what I'd be interested in in the future! Thanks to cookies, their ads and snippets of JavaScript on every webpage, my friends uploading contacts lists with my name in them etc. etc. they must have a profile built for me. With the current state of things it actually doesn't really bother me (other than it's monopolistic market distorting effects, but whatever), but you brought up the possibility of them falling part! A very interesting scenario. Google is playing nice and placating people while they make boatloads of cash. When Firefox and IE natively implement adblock or some technounicorn clobbers them they'll get a lot less nice! And we checked enough End User Agreements to let them With the government we have some recourse
  - 10y ago
djsumdog 10y ago
In this article, they seemed to be targeting one person. They fucked up because they didn't get a warrant. They shouldn't need one. It is a public place. I don't want to get into the situation where regular citizens are not allowed to take pictures of people in public places. Still, I can see their lawyer's argument for expectation of privacy. What about the homeless? Do they have no expectation of privacy? Unless they are in their tent? (If they even have a tent).
- woodman 10y ago
  > In this article, they seemed to be targeting one person. That is an interesting interpretation, because the same article left me with the impression that they recorded everybody within earshot of the bugs for 10 months.
benevol 10y ago
> If that's true we are moving into a scary world pretty much like 1984 This became obvious since the proof delivered by Snowden. And we don't need more proof. What we need now is a way to roll the surveillance state back.
- ethbro 10y ago
  Encypt, baby, encypt.
  - __s 10y ago
    Encrypt your public discourse
BurningFrog 10y ago
We are moving into a world where everything you do is monitored all the time. This is driven by technology, and legislation can't do much to change it. It's possible other technology can, but until then, assume you are monitored.
rms_returns 10y ago
Yeah, with that kind of advancement in technology, the "Captain America vs Iron Man" debate is going to be sprung soon. In other words, the debate between Individual Freedom vs Individual Safety.
- mattnewton 10y ago
  To quote Franklin - "Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."

mike_hock 10y ago

> If you're going to conduct criminal activity, do it in the privacy of your own home. > That was the original intention of the 4th amendment. Wat. The intention of the 4th amendment was to enable criminal activity, but confine it to private property? Not to protect citizens' privacy from government snooping without probable cause? The intent was to prevent the executive branch from indiscriminately "searching" (and hidden microphones are a form of search) innocent people without any cross-check from the judicial branch. The fact that you can "conduct criminal activity in the privacy of your own home" is a side effect, not a design goal, of the principle that a free society is worth the risk of letting a few criminals slip through the cracks.

pessimizer 10y ago
And why pretend that the privacy of your home is so special? The only thing keeping laser microphones from being aimed at all of our windows is a 5-4 decision in Kylio v. US, and Scalia is dead, and Clinton is going to be appointing the next Supreme Court justice. Clinton (DLC) Democrats love surveillance even more than Bushes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laser_microphone https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laser_microphone https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyllo_v._United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyllo_v._United_States edit: If you downvote, I'd appreciate you telling me why what I said is incorrect, instead of possibly reflexively reacting to the fact that Scalia is being mentioned in a positive way and Clinton in a negative way.
- StanislavPetrov 10y ago
  >Clinton (DLC) Democrats love surveillance even more than Bushes. I'd disagree. The complete and absolute infatuation with surveillance by both the Bush's and the Clinton's is the same.
  - NotSammyHagar 10y ago
    Pessimizer, I think you are wrong, I agree with Stanislav. Republicans don't believe in the right to privacy, they use that as the reason why Texas should be able to restrict dildo sales (among many other things :-)), for instance, and conservatives use their disbelief in privacy to argue they should be able to legislate against consensual sex practices they don't like. Dems generally do support a right to privacy in your home.

bitL 10y ago

Now I am finally convinced that Internet of Things is going to be the next big thing - Internet of Real-time Microphones...

yunesj 10y ago

KPIX5's Jackie Ward said it's legal, so the defense can withdraw the motion.

Zigurd 10y ago

He is supposedly the manager of Autodesk's "Global threat management program." Do their "global threats" amount to more than watching over the cars in the parking lot at night?

Ilijlmnuvw 10y ago
Long ago I worked at Autodesk, and they would regularly publish threat reports on their intranet, mainly covering news from their competitors, identifying emerging or disruptive technologies, and economic threats. No doubt threat management also included morale, stagnation, theft and subterfuge, external attacks on IT infrastructure, legal and intellectual property issues, etc.

nxzero 10y ago

When will people say enough is enough?

partisan 10y ago
When it is too late? We're still at the phase where people say, "This doesn't impact me", or "I have nothing to hide".
- dredmorbius 10y ago
  Or David Brin's view that transparency solves everything.
  - eye2sky 10y ago
    That is not David Brin's point[1]. Brin's point is more that the government will inevitably surveil citizens, and since citizens cannot reasonably prevent it, the best option is to try to level the playing field so that citizens can surveil the government back. In other words, reciprocal transparency is the least bad option. [1] Transparent Society, by David Brin
    - dredmorbius 10y ago
      I discuss this pretty regularly with Brin (on G+). We disagree strongly. His point is that souveillance is the solution. I disagree for the reasons expressed by Bruce Schneier (in his famous exchange with Brin) and Yonatan Zunger (in a comment included on my G+ profile page links). Surveillance amplifies power imbalances. Power and People have different mixes of power and vulnerability. Each exploits its strengths and fears its weaknesses. Transparency doesn't of itself balance those differences though. If anything, it amplifies them. That said, I'm for transparency punching up. Less so punching down absent clear justification -- much as the US founding fathers established in the Bill of Rights.
      - eye2sky 10y ago

cornchips 10y ago

Anyone have a copy of the video working? Whoever made this site should have their contract dumped off the bridge in the background.. Edit: Working with all adblock and flashblock completely disabled. Edit: Clarify what should be dumped.

jamesdwilson 10y ago
> Whoever made this site should be dumped off the bridge in the background.. What exactly did you mean by that? CBSLOCAL.com editor? should be murdered? why?
- cornchips 10y ago
  Hahaha. Can't take a joke? You PC, bro? I was referring to abuse of popup ads and the enormity of the data; over 4000 requests spreading across over 30 mb after a 1:49 video is finished... Obviously, nobody would dump anyone off a bridge for such a thing; but their duties should be... :-)
  - bigiain 10y ago
    How do you reckon "Can't take a joke, bro?" is going to play out in court, when the FBI can selectively produce voice-printed recordings of your "conspiracy to commit murder" comments (and claim the rest of the conversation was "unavailable due to technical errors")? And if you don't think the FBI is likely to pull shit like that, how's this sound: "The Justice Department and FBI have formally acknowledged that nearly every examiner in an elite FBI forensic unit gave flawed testimony in almost all trials in which they offered evidence against criminal defendants over more than a two-decade period before 2000." and: "the cases include those of 32 defendants sentenced to death." http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/jurisprudence/2015/04/fbi_s_flawed_forensics_expert_testimony_hair_analysis_bite_marks_fingerprints.html http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/jurisprudenc...
    - cornchips 10y ago
      LOL... What voice prints? What conspiracy to commit murder? Was there any planning or intention? You do know that conspiracy must follow intent to commit the offense? To shorten things up: "Although a person may simply contemplate committing a crime without violating the law, the contemplation becomes unlawful if the same criminal thought is incorporated in an agreement." [1] 1 http://scholarship.law.wm.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1636&context=facpubs http://scholarship.law.wm.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=16...

swayvil 10y ago

How much do you suppose these microphones are worth? Also, what's an easy way to locate them?

ccarter84 10y ago

My phone keeps getting unavoidable pop-ups, I'm sure it's a great story though.

godgod 10y ago

Have we not had enough yet? I hate how this is acceptable. We are either free people or we are not. What's it gonna take for our criminal government to stop seeing us as the enemy?

bobhaigler 10y ago

It's not the best reporting, but from what I can tell, the FBI is collecting evidence against auction bidders who allegedly conspire to pay less for foreclosed real-estate. The auctions take place on the courthouse steps, and the bidders have been accused of working together to keep prices low by intimidating some bidders and conspiring with others. I'd love to see the auctions moved to a website marketplace. Maybe a good startup idea?

x5n1 10y ago
You mean like http://www.auction.com http://www.auction.com Real Estate Auction for Homes and Commercial Real Estate? Yes they definitely should do that... ;)

alva 10y ago

The frequency response of most microphones (before DSP filtering) does not perfectly cut-off above 20 khz. I suppose if you were really paranoid you could walk around blasting exceptionally loud noise around and above this freq for privacy ;). Although your local dogs might not be too happy

bigiain 10y ago
Heh! Finally a profitable pivot idea for uBeam! Get their ultrasound transmitters mounted in hats or sunglasses, instant "privacy shield"! ;-) (Bug report #0000001: "I charged my iPhone up by carefully holding it within 8 inches of my uBean transducer all night then when I went to make a call in the morning with my uBeam Privacy Sunglasses(tm) on, the other party couldn't hear anything I said." Response: "Closed WONTFIX. You're holding it wrong.")
napoleond 10y ago
I realize I'm being a stereotypical message board nerd about what was presumably a joke, but: I don't understand what you're proposing. Surely the extraneous frequencies could just be filtered out at playback? Or ignored entirely, since--as you imply--human ears filter that out anyway.
- simcop2387 10y ago
  If they've got any kind of dynamic gain going on so that they can capture the quietest stuff when nothing's going on but not clip everything when it's louder then they might not be able to do that. Once it's recorded only the information they sampled will be there. So if you play something really loud that's not hearable by a human but is by the recorder and it changes the gain so that it can record it properly then it can miss anything quieter than the noise. White noise above 20kHz would be perfect for this since it would also alias down to lower frequencies with a badly designed setup.

tempodox 10y ago

> ...if you’re going to conduct criminal activity... The actual scandal here is not the potential danger to criminal enterprises but that we're all being made suspects beforehand 24/7.

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]

dredmorbius 10y ago

Correlated story: Google's Parsey McParseface.

sdrinf 10y ago

Do we have secondary sources confirming this, specifically, lawyers in the case confirming this being brought up as evidence? If so, where is the public record of that? What are CBSLocal's incentives? Can they push fearmongering without repercussions? If this story is not true, where should we put the "flag" threshold? What are operational voting with money against stories like this ever, ever making HN frontpage again, and for the "news" industry to structurally reduce unfounded fearmongering?

ipsin 10y ago
See the linked PDFs on this story: http://www.abajournal.com/news/article/lawyers_say_feds_bugged_grounds_of_3_california_courthouses_without_warrant/ http://www.abajournal.com/news/article/lawyers_say_feds_bugg...
TheSpiceIsLife 10y ago
Is this[1,2,3] the case the article refers to? I had a bit of a click around, I'm not sure how to find record of the evidence etc. I'm not familiar with the US courts websites. 1. https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/two-northern-california-real-estate-investors-agree-plead-guilty-bid-rigging-public-real https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/two-northern-california-real-... 2. https://www.justice.gov/atr/case/us-v-florence-fung https://www.justice.gov/atr/case/us-v-florence-fung 3. https://www.justice.gov/atr/case/us-v-michael-navone https://www.justice.gov/atr/case/us-v-michael-navone

enlightenedfool 10y ago

So, can they just associate a voice to a person legally with those random recordings?

jondubois 10y ago

Ok, so these facts are true: #1. The government is monitoring us. #2. Facebook, Google, Amazon, Apple and many other huge corporations are also monitoring us... And they are sharing our personal data with each other. Why are so many news articles about issue #1 and so few are about issue #2. The government is a negligible threat compared to corporations. It seems like tech companies are manipulating the media to turn people against the government and divert attention away from themselves.

awqrre 10y ago
#3. Other countries are spying on us and are sharing the data with our government...
- jondubois 10y ago
  Yes, but my point is that this is done in the interest of national/international security (there is no financial incentive for the government). Corporations do their monitoring purely for their own financial gain. The government is like a parent watching a child to make sure that the child doesn't get hurt - The interests of the parent are aligned with those of the child. A corporation is more like a pedophile - The interests do not align.
  - jflatow 10y ago
    The government is not your parent. The government lies to the public constantly, and has an agenda that is largely determined by financial interests.
  - throwaway_exer 10y ago
    > The government is like a parent watching a child I think it's great that you've lived in a bubble all your life. But you should make a conscious decision whether to remain in that bubble, or find out the truth about the world around you. Because the truth is an ugly thing these days.
newjersey 10y ago

awqrre 10y ago

godgod, your comments are being hidden and I am not able to upvote or reply to it ...

DanBC 10y ago
Click the timestamp of the comment. Click [vouch]. I think you only do that if the comment deserves to be unhidden. I'm not sure whether you're supposed to look through that person's post history.

matthudson 10y ago

Call to action: Machine learners, you'd better start tuning your sarcasm classifiers.

peterwwillis 10y ago

This sort of public spying has been documented since at least 1959. This _particular_ public spying was reported at least since 2012. http://post45.research.yale.edu/2016/02/eavesdropping-in-the-age-of-the-eavesdroppers-or-the-bug-in-the-martini-olive/ http://post45.research.yale.edu/2016/02/eavesdropping-in-the... "In July 1956, the Pennsylvania Bar Association Endowment (PBAE) commissioned a comprehensive study of "wiretapping practices, laws, devices, and techniques" in the United States. [..] The man appointed to direct the study was Samuel Dash, a prominent Philadelphia prosecutor [..] The result of Dash's efforts was The Eavesdroppers, a 483-page report [..] The book uncovered a wide range of privacy infringements on the part of state authorities and private citizens [..] While law enforcement agencies were tapping lines in flagrant violation of state and federal statutes, phone companies were deliberately underreporting wiretap statistics to maintain public confidence in their services. While American businesses were stockpiling equipment to spy on employees and gather competitive intelligence, private investigators were using frightening new tools to listen in on wayward lovers and loose-lipped politicians." http://www.infowars.com/spy-grid-can-now-record-your-conversations-in-real-time/ http://www.infowars.com/spy-grid-can-now-record-your-convers... (2013) "The Washington Post recently published a feature length article on gunshot detectors, known as ShotSpotter, which detailed how in Washington DC there are now, “at least 300 acoustic sensors across 20 square miles of the city,” microphones wrapped in a weather-proof shell that can detect the location of a sound down to a few yards and analyze the audio using a computer program. 𝐖𝐡𝐢𝐥𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐬𝐲𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐦𝐬 𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐭𝐨𝐮𝐭𝐞𝐝 𝐚𝐬 “𝐠𝐮𝐧𝐬𝐡𝐨𝐭 𝐝𝐞𝐭𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐬,” 𝐚𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐍𝐞𝐰 𝐘𝐨𝐫𝐤 𝐓𝐢𝐦𝐞𝐬 𝐫𝐞𝐩𝐨𝐫𝐭𝐞𝐝 𝐢𝐧 𝐌𝐚𝐲 𝟐𝟎𝟏𝟐, 𝐬𝐢𝐦𝐢𝐥𝐚𝐫 𝐭𝐞𝐜𝐡𝐧𝐨𝐥𝐨𝐠𝐲 𝐢𝐬 𝐚𝐥𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐲 𝐢𝐧𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐞𝐝 𝐢𝐧 𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐫 𝟕𝟎 𝐜𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐞𝐬 𝐚𝐫𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭𝐫𝐲, 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐢𝐧 𝐬𝐨𝐦𝐞 𝐜𝐚𝐬𝐞𝐬 𝐢𝐭 𝐢𝐬 𝐛𝐞𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐮𝐬𝐞𝐝 𝐭𝐨 𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐧 𝐭𝐨 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬. " -- This quote from the 1959 report sums up everything nicely: "As Dash told members of Congress on the eve of the book's release, the American public's longstanding disregard for threats to communications privacy had only served to exacerbate these developments. [..] 'Each generation seems to forget the problems of the past and considers this their own unique problem.' - Samuel Dash"

bunkydoo 10y ago

If I really gave a damn, had 1000 bucks to blow, and had no life I could go plant hidden microphones, pinhole video cameras, and more in just about every conceivable public place too. If anyone argued or brought me to court - I could demonstrate how this is absolutely no different than everyone "secondhand recording" me in their little snap stories and instagrams which do go online forever. My point is, this is some small potatoes 1980's style shit that is nothing compared to NSA Echelon (which I find to be actually a fascinating technology if it weren't so malleable to abuse by human nature) If Echelon were an independently operating AI system that had algorithms that identified criminal activity, then used soft paternalism in the form coercing unaware law enforcement personnel into making "chance" encounters with would-be criminals (random traffic stop, or passing them by on the street), the psychology of the criminal would be to stop doing whatever their doing because they feel more watched when they are doing said crime; although the law enforcement agent may never be directly aware of the criminals communications or conduct. I can deal with surveillance all day, no sweat. Totalitarian censorship is my problem, and that doesn't appear to be happening stateside.

morganvachon 10y ago
> If Echelon were an independently operating AI system that had algorithms that identified criminal activity, then used soft paternalism in the form coercing unaware law enforcement personnel into making "chance" encounters with would-be criminals (random traffic stop, or passing them by on the street), the psychology of the criminal would be to stop doing whatever their doing because they feel more watched when they are doing said crime; although the law enforcement agent may never be directly aware of the criminals communications or conduct. You just described the main antagonist ("Samaritan") in the show Person of Interest. It is a rogue AI that records everything, determines threat level, then "nudges" police and even private citizens to take action against what it sees as a threat (in this show, the protagonists trying to stop the evil organization using the neutral Samaritan for evil deeds). Samaritan itself isn't evil, but in the hands of tyrannical masters, it is a deadly weapon and nearly a god (omnipresent, omniscient and almost omnipotent). This show has been riding the cutting edge of real life espionage and rogue government programs since it debuted.
optforfon 10y ago

em3rgent0rdr 10y ago

Even if judges prohibit such evidence on the grounds of it being illegally obtained, you will still find that prosecutors will use that evidence to find other evidence and for constructing a case that doesn't use that illegally obtained evidence. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_construction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_construction

justifier 10y ago

huh? but ca and sf is two party consent? http://codes.findlaw.com/ca/penal-code/pen-sect-632.html http://codes.findlaw.com/ca/penal-code/pen-sect-632.html

aidenn0 10y ago
In many cases federal law trumps state law. State law is likely to not be allowed to hinder a federal investigation. Typically the FBI isn't allowed to record conversations it isn't a party to without a warrant if you have a reasonable expectation of privacy. They are likely going to argue that there is no such expectation of privacy at a public bus stop.
- justifier 10y ago
  > As the California Supreme Court made clear, federal law (which permits monitoring with the consent of one party) does not preempt more restrictive state eavesdropping laws, even when the monitored communications are interstate. Accordingly, companies that monitor interstate calls for quality control purposes must consult the applicable provisions of state, as well as federal, law. (o) i feel another commenter, em3rgent0rdr, may have indirectly answered my confusion by stating: > Even if judges prohibit such evidence on the grounds of it being illegally obtained, you will still find that prosecutors will use that evidence to find other evidence and for constructing a case that doesn't use that illegally obtained evidence. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_construction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_construction (i) (o) http://www.mofo.com/resources/publications/2006/07/california-two_party-consent-law-applies-to-reco__ http://www.mofo.com/resources/publications/2006/07/californi... (i) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11699146 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11699146 .. completely offtopic, but how unfortunate is that lawfirm's domain?
  - aidenn0 10y ago
    > > As the California Supreme Court made clear, federal law (which permits monitoring with the consent of one party) does not preempt more restrictive state eavesdropping laws, even when the monitored communications are interstate. Accordingly, companies that monitor interstate calls for quality control purposes must consult the applicable provisions of state, as well as federal, law. (o) This clearly applies to private citizens, but it is less clear that that precedent applies to the FBI.

Mendenhall 10y ago

Hmm I wonder how this would work considering its all things openly available to be recorded. Follow a federal agent home from work and film them and their house. Film their children going to school and post pictures locations and times online, also taking photos of other relatives, friends etc and where they live and their phone numbers and post it all online. Have your friends join in and keep posting every detail and picture you can get of federal agents and their families etc and compile it into a website. Then let me know how that works out. Edit: Does anyone know of any USA law that stands against such activity?

rayiner 10y ago
I don't see how that's relevant. The whole point of the government is for it to have a monopoly on law enforcement. They're supposed to be able to do stuff you and I can't do.
- srtjstjsj 10y ago
  That's not the whole point of government, that is a radical statist perspective. See, for example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peelian_principles https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peelian_principles > the police are the public and that the public are the police, the police being only members of the public who are paid to give full-time attention to duties which are incumbent on every citizen in the interests of community welfare and existence.
  - rayiner 10y ago
    It's a statist perspective, but hardly radically-so. From your link: > The Home Office has explained this approach as "the power of the police coming from the common consent of the public, as opposed to the power of the state. It does not mean the consent of an individual. No individual can choose to withdraw his or her consent from the police, or from a law." That's the difference between the police and private citizens. Interactions between private citizens must be consensual. Policing, at some level, must necessarily be coercive.

solutron 10y ago

This is a more informative article around the topic IMO: http://www.eastbayexpress.com/SevenDays/archives/2016/05/11/fbi-hid-surveillance-devices-around-alameda-county-courthouse http://www.eastbayexpress.com/SevenDays/archives/2016/05/11/...

Gratsby 10y ago

Haven't you guys ever seen The Wire? Is this seriously a surprise to anyone?

srtjstjsj 10y ago
Cops in The Wire made an extreme point of getting warrants for limited targeted surveillance
- Gratsby 10y ago
  You forget when Herc went and grabbed the portable mic from the spy store and stuck it in a tennis ball. Or when they stuck the video camera in the park and got it stolen. It's pretty much the same thing that happened here. They knew the discussions were happening, they knew where the discussions were happening, and since it was in a public space they didn't need a warrant. It's not like they are running around town putting microphones in all the bus stops hoping to catch anybody saying something. They were looking for a specific type of criminal activity and they placed the mics accordingly.

srtjstjsj 10y ago

Previously covered on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10582392 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10582392 Defense Claims Courthouse Was Illegally Bugged (therecorder.com) 171 points by morninj 179 days ago | 100 comments

srtjstjsj 10y ago

The quotes from the former FBI agent, showing complete disregard for the 4th Amendment, send a clear message about how deep illegal behavior runs in the FBI.

xufi 10y ago

As this seems to come up more and more. I can't fathom why most people can't get what's being fed to them by our media sources. http://craigbhulet.com/10%20Mega-Corporations.jpg http://craigbhulet.com/10%20Mega-Corporations.jpg This chart albeit a bit big of a image demonstrates which media entities are owned/connected to whom. Pretty interesting

yahelc 10y ago
Perhaps I've been reading the wrong newspapers, but I can't recall Kraft, Coca Cola, Nestle, P&G, Coca Cola, et al ever being considered media companies.
drawnwren 10y ago
It's a pretty picture, but it doesn't really seem to mean much. Not one of those companies is in the 50 largest by revenue [1]. This seems to be a picture of what food and health brands are related to each other? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_companies_by_revenue https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_companies_by_r...

pteredactyl 10y ago

I really did not need to read this right now...

dude3 10y ago

And what are WE going to do to stop it...? They aren't going to be listening to the comment sections of websites.

simoncion 10y ago

> You're reading "unlimited rule" into my comment. To be fair, you did say that the "whole point" of government was to run the police. That is to say "The sole purpose of government is to run the police". Perhaps you can see where the misunderstanding lies? Given your comment history, it wouldn't be entirely surprising to see you emit that reformulation of your statement, but that's neither here nor there.

dang 10y ago
That crosses the line into personal attack, which is not allowed here regardless of how wrong someone's views may be. We detached this comment from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11699424 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11699424 and marked it off-topic.
- simoncion 10y ago
  Oh. I thought I was making a factual observation. Terribly, genuinely sorry for the additional moderator workload. :( Did you view my first 'graph or my second to be a personal attack?
  - simoncion 10y ago
    Oh, wow. The downvote-comment priv has been removed from my account. Hnnh.
    - dang 10y ago
      Nothing was removed from your account. Users aren't allowed to downvote direct replies; that's probably what you were seeing.

s_q_b 10y ago

Whoa, whoa, whoa. This is a very misleading headline. The article contains no evidence of a government-operated network of listening microphones in the Bay area. It deals with one incident using a specific piece of surveillance gear. What we actually know is this: An FBI agent was attempting to bust two individuals suspected of a bid-fixing scheme. This FBI agent then placed two recording devices in a light fixture and another at the bus stop nearest the courthouse. After the surveillance recorded enough incriminating evidence, the FBI/DOJ sought to introduce the recordings at trial. All else was rank speculation by a former FBI employee named Jeff Harp. He also stated, "If you’re going to conduct criminal activity, do it in the privacy of your own home... that was the original intention of the Fourth Amendment," which makes me question his grasp of the constitution, and thus his reliability as an expert.

jflatow 10y ago
No, it's far more than two devices, and it went on for 10 months. They placed surveillance all around the 2 courthouses: light fixtures, a bus stop, bushes, poles, the steps, and inside several vehicles. And there's another similar case from last year with >200 hours of recordings in San Mateo. http://www.eastbayexpress.com/SevenDays/archives/2016/05/11/fbi-hid-surveillance-devices-around-alameda-county-courthouse http://www.eastbayexpress.com/SevenDays/archives/2016/05/11/...
- Supi-lee 10y ago
  Wonder what the RoI on all this is, and how they allocate resources to each ongoing investigation. Seems like it would cost a heck of a lot. I mean, you would need trained people sitting around listening to all those recordings.
  - ddalex 10y ago
    Or maybe you just need to feed it into a voice to text engine, and then grep through the output for interesting bits. I'm quite sure that the NSA capabilities in this regard are quite beyond what is publicly available.

jiang101 10y ago

Being "the good guys" has become part of the national American identity since WWII. Not all of that reputation is undeserved. America has done a lot of good in the world. But the American government has also done a lot of shady stuff (including some seriously no-grey-area bad stuff) that they have kept hidden from their citizens. Unfortunately, even though some of that is now out in the open, there are some Americans who won't acknowledge it is true (or try to defend it as necessary) because it is difficult to reconcile that information with the good guy image they've had all their lives. It is important to do so, though. If there's one good thing that can come from the wrong that has been done, it is to learn never to repeat it.

joantune 10y ago

it might come a time in the future where we think that wearing a tin foil hat might be the reasonable thing to do :D

neat159 10y ago

can't believe it

kabdib 10y ago

I'd love to find a sample -- how do they communicate? Wirelessly? Betcha they can be fingerprinted

FollowSteph3 10y ago

If this were true then how do you explain all the crime that still happens. Even high profile cases. It would be a lot easier to manager bigger crimes. But since we still see them struggling with even big profile cases, where not having an arrest is embarrassing, it's extremely hard to imagine this being true.

cs2818 10y ago

To me this goes back to the issue of having a reasonable expectation of privacy. As others have pointed out, if I am in a public place and someone snaps a photo of me or a surveillance camera records my actions, I generally can't argue this was an unreasonable invasion. I'm certain legal scholars are well-versed in the technicalities of expectations of privacy, but I do wonder if we will face new challenges in this area as the number of pervasively connected and recording devices increases.

daveheq 10y ago

This clickbait article is going to cause people to think the government was just spying on everyone everywhere for no other reason than just to spy on you. Another "distrust the damn government" article that further divides people against others.

__s 10y ago
Clickbait title wouldn't specify it as only being in the Bay area. The title makes no claims not held up by the article

peter303 10y ago

Snowden suggests that the microphones and cameras on your cell, landline, desktop can be remotely activated any time by the government or hackers.

MaSk3d 10y ago

Just support each other. ;)

fosco 10y ago

So what is going to be done about it? with each revelation that has no riot it looks more and more like the average person is silenced into submission to just 'deal with it' rather then correct it.

carapace 10y ago

"Total Surveillance is the Perfection of Democracy" (This is an old blog post I wrote that seems relevant to this. Please forgive me for reposting it whole here but I really REALLY want to hear what HN readers think. (And no one sees it on my blog. heh heh)) For once I disagree with RMS, re: https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/surveillance-vs-democracy.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/surveillance-vs-democracy.htm... I believe that it is fundamentally not possible to "roll back" the degree of surveillance in our [global] society in an effective way. Our technology is already converging to a near-total degree of surveillance all on its own. The article itself gives many examples. The end limit will be Vinge's "locator dust" or perhaps something even more ubiquitous and ephemeral. RMS advocates several "band-aid" fixes but seems to miss the logical structure of the paradox of inescapable total surveillance. Let me attempt to illustrate this paradox. Take this quote from the article: "If whistleblowers don't dare reveal crimes and lies, we lose the last shred of effective control over our government and institutions." (First of all we should reject the underlying premise that "our government and institutions" are only held in check by the fear of the discovery of their "crimes and lies". We can, and should, and must, hold ourselves and our government to a standard of not committing crimes, not telling lies. It is this Procrustean bed of good character that our technology is binding us to, not some dystopian nightmare.) Certainly the criminally-minded who have inveigled their way into the halls of power should not be permitted to sleep peacefully at night, without concern for discovery. But why assume that ubiquitous surveillance would not touch them? Why would the sensor/processor nets and deep analysis not be useful, and used, for detecting and combating treachery? What "crimes and lies" would be revealed by a whistleblower that would not show up on the intel-feeds? Or this quote: "Everyone must be free to post photos and video recordings occasionally, but the systematic accumulation of such data on the Internet must be limited." How will this limiting be done? What authority will decide who gets to post what and when? And (like any profanity filter) won't this authority need to see the content to be able to decide whether it gets posted publicly? In effect, doesn't this idea imply some sort of ubiquitous surveillance system to ensure that people are obeying the rules for preventing a ubiquitous surveillance system? Let's say we set up some rules like the ones RMS is advocating, how do we determine that everyone is following those rules? After all, there is a very good incentive for trying to get a privileged position vis-a-vis these rules. Whoever has the inside edge, whether official spooks, enemy agents, or just criminals, gains an enormous competitive advantage over everyone else. Someone is going to have that edge, because it's a technological thing, you can't make it go away simply because you don't like it. If the "good guys" tie their own hands (by handicapping their surveillance networks) then we are just handing control to the people who are willing to do what it takes to take it. You can't unilaterally declare that we (all humanity) will use the kid-friendly "lite" version of the surveillance network because we cannot be sure that everyone is playing by those rules unless we have a "full" version of the surveillance network to check up on everybody! We can't (I believe) prevent total surveillance but we can certainly control how the data are used, and we can certainly set up systems that allow the data to be used without being abused. The system must be recursive. Whatever form the system takes, it shall necessarily have to be able to detect and correct its own self-abuses. Total surveillance is the perfection of democracy, not its antithesis. The true horror of technological omniscience is that it shall force us for once to live according to our own rules. For the first time in history we shall have to do without hypocrisy and privilege. The new equilibrium will not involve tilting at the windmills of ubiquitous sensors and processing power but rather learning what explicit rules we can actually live by, finding, in effect, the real shape of human society.

bogomipz 10y ago

You don't even need to be clandestine about it though. Why hasn't this story hasn't gotten more traction? Where's the outcry? http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2016/04/big-brother-is-listening-on-nj-transit.html http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2016/04/big-brother-is-...

dSnapApjw 10y ago

Many of us, in the Bay area Veterans community so agree with the topics and in one brand new book just released at www.barryeisler.com; civil liberties; rule of law, my community my neighbors, Please permit me to suggest his latest, just release book; "A God's Eye View." I for one like the one sentence in Chapter 47, "When you collect it all ;when you monitor everyone, you understand nothing." And a suggestion for the President's Blue Ribbon Panel for a position titled: " public interest advocate" is making more sense daily. http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/12/civillibertarians-need-to-infiltrate-the-nsa/383932/ http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/12/civillib... I like the review Chelsea Manning gave of Barry, "Creepy. This story is much more plausible than I expected or care to admit." Salutes all too you for keeping me educated. As we said in my old army unit; "heart-faith-skill, the only way to win in a battle advocacy" (we borrowed it from Sean Connery as Ramirez in The Highlander Movie) peace..j.