[Scan-DC] Secret US spy program targeted Americans' cellphones

[Alan Henney]

My techie friends are telling me this is not done, not feasible, perhaps 
even impossible and likely incorrect.

Was the WSJ duped or intentionally misled by another high-dollar P.R. firm 
with an agenda?

It is troubling because so many American news outlets simply repeat what 
they read in the WSJ because it is such a trusted source.

Even the white shirt experts were on TV talking about it as fact.

What gives?


-----Original Message----- 
From: Merlin
Sent: Thursday, November 13, 2014 7:55 PM
To: scan-dc at mailman.qth.net
Subject: [Scan-DC] Secret US spy program targeted Americans' cellphones

Published November 13, 2014

The Wall Street Journal

The Justice Department is scooping up data from thousands of cellphones
through fake communications towers deployed on airplanes, a high-tech
hunt for criminal suspects that is snagging large number of innocent
Americans, according to people familiar with the operations.

The U.S. Marshals Service program, which became fully functional around
2007, operates Cessna aircraft from at least five metropolitan-area
airports, with a flying range covering most of the U.S. population,
according to people familiar with the program.

Planes are equipped with devices—some known as “dirtboxes” to
law-enforcement officials because of the initials of the Boeing Co. unit
that produces them—which mimic cell towers of large telecommunications
firms and trick cellphones into reporting their unique registration
information.

The technology in the two-foot-square device enables investigators to
scoop data from tens of thousands of cellphones in a single flight,
collecting their identifying information and general location, these
people said.

People with knowledge of the program wouldn’t discuss the frequency or
duration of such flights, but said they take place on a regular basis.

A Justice Department official would neither confirm nor deny the
existence of such a program. The official said discussion of such
matters would allow criminal suspects or foreign powers to determine
U.S. surveillance capabilities. Justice Department agencies comply with
federal law, including by seeking court approval, the official said.

The program is the latest example of the extent to which the U.S. is
training its surveillance lens inside the U.S. It is similar in approach
to the National Security Agency’s program to collect millions of
Americans phone records, in that it scoops up large volumes of data in
order to find a single person or a handful of people. The U.S.
government justified the phone-records collection by arguing it is a
minimally invasive way of searching for terrorists.