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Hidden Microphones Part of Government Surveillance Program in the Bay Area

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Re: Hidden Microphones Part of Government Surveillance Program in the Bay Area

#231

Post by jfoutz »

rayiner wrote: post #154
jfoutz wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's also federal. https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/2511

That would only apply if the jurisdictional predicate (effect on interstate commerce) were met, which I don't think would be the case here.

I spent far more time reading about this than a sane person ought to. I was all raring to make procedural arguments about obtaining warrants, and another crazy tangent about Katz.

But really, It's easy. Put the audio online. Make it all public. Obviously, there should be some time constraint, can't expose an ongoing investigation. Maybe a year after charges are filed? Perhaps a year after trial, to avoid messing with jury pools.

I think this is a pretty great general policy. Police record whatever they want. If the police overstep and record stuff that turns out was private, the people are free to sue. Seems like a nice self balancing amount of surveillance.

Secretly stepping on peoples privacy rights is pretty much consequence free. Publicly stepping on peoples privacy makes the line very bright, and easy to avoid crossing. It also plays neatly into the "honest man has nothing to fear" trope.

Re: Hidden Microphones Part of Government Surveillance Program in the Bay Area

#232

Post by ddalex »

Supi-lee wrote: post #229
jflatow wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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/...

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.

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.

Re: Hidden Microphones Part of Government Surveillance Program in the Bay Area

#233

Post by marincounty »

Supi-lee wrote: post #229
jflatow wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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/...

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.

I'll get hammered for this, and I don't like FBI secretly recording anyone, but in this particuliar case; I'm kinda glad they were at least interested in stopping this alleged crime.

The crime? Supposedly, guys were buying up foreclosed properties. Yea, they were just doing what every get rich in realeste book/seminar suggests. They were buying up forclosed houses/apartments by the thousands. They were paying off competitors to Not bid on certain properties. They were rigging the system. They were in violation of The Sherman Anti-trust Act. Again, I think it's wrong, but have no sympathy for shinagigans concerning public auctions, and rich guys breaking laws.

(These forclosed properties usually only get a blurb in back of some newspaper. If I had money, I would be bidding on them. I went to one years ago in my county, and I was suprised how few people were there.)

Re: Hidden Microphones Part of Government Surveillance Program in the Bay Area

#234

Post by Supi-lee »

ddalex wrote: post #232
Supi-lee wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

I have seen such systems in use by medical transcription companies. The key is you need to know what you are looking for. If not someone has to actually sit and listen to all those hours of recordings. Which translates to a high operational cost.

Audio\Speech mining they call it, but it has a ways to go. Even with just one speaker in a noise less environment, there are all kinds of issues with transcription accuracy. I can imagine it being much worse in the kind of conditions the FBI needs it to work in. Ofcourse high end equipment can make things better but it all adds to the cost.

Re: Hidden Microphones Part of Government Surveillance Program in the Bay Area

#235

Post by tmptmp »

rangibaby wrote: post #202
fucking_tragedy wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Stasi and KGB couldn't dream of the technology and telecommunications networks that enable today's surveillance society.

They would have considered every citizen paying money to carry around a tracking device with attached cameras and microphones and broadcasting nearly every detail of their private life to public forums fanciful science fiction.

A small correction: The communists (Stasi and KGB) would have made it compulsory to not broadcast it but to unicast/multicast it to servers owned by the Party politburo.

Communism is horrendously corrupt and inflicts great control on all its "lesser equal" citizens. Read this report about how Chinese communists have told microblogging sites to hire “self-discipline commissioners” [1].

[1] https://rsf.org/en/news/weibo-microblog-users-be-deducted-po...

Re: Hidden Microphones Part of Government Surveillance Program in the Bay Area

#236

Post by Mendenhall »

Eupolemos wrote: post #219
Mendenhall wrote: post #141

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 a…

Bothering individual FBI-employees seems like a silly idea. Reading this thread, it seems some people think the problem is that it is legal to record stuff in the open. IMHO, that is the wrong take on it. Let's take license-plates. I don't mind that a police officer is able to see it and note where I am at a given time. But it becomes something quite different when we have surveillance-systems recording where every c…

Yes I agree its silly, it would also probably land you in jail.

I also share your thought on "license-plates".

My post was more aimed at a discussion on how easily openly available information can be misused, to which I appreciate the responses. I always enjoy the level of discussion to be had on this site.

I wonder this now. What if a person lived across from federal employee and all you did was have a security camera covering a view of their house and live streamed it. Lets also assume in the camera view other houses are viewable so you are not directly targeting them, I wonder if Feds would stop by and make you take it down.

Re: Hidden Microphones Part of Government Surveillance Program in the Bay Area

#237

Post by imaginenore »

gopalv wrote: post #130
imaginenore wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have a database of walking styles? Does anybody? They definitely have access to most people's photos - driver's licenses, passports. I personally don't care if they know where I go in public. They can just tail me if they really want to know.

> Do you have a database of walking styles? Does anybody? I nearly always walk around with a 3-d accelerometer which can indeed "phone" home. Here's the ML extraction mechanism as explained by a Samsung engineer - http://www.slideshare.net/satnam74/the-fifth-elephant-2013-t...

Yeah but if they have access to your phone, they already know where you are, no need for the overcomplicated accelerometer method.

Re: Hidden Microphones Part of Government Surveillance Program in the Bay Area

#239

Post by Sir_Cmpwn »

jflatow wrote: post #223
s_q_b wrote: post #220

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 a…

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/...

Around courthouses? That's horrific. You couldn't step outside to have a private conversation with your lawyer.

Re: Hidden Microphones Part of Government Surveillance Program in the Bay Area

#240

Post by csandreasen »

justifier wrote: post #123

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

From your link:

(c) The term “confidential communication” includes any communication carried on in circumstances as may reasonably indicate that any party to the communication desires it to be confined to the parties thereto, but excludes a communication made in a public gathering or in any legislative, judicial, executive or administrative proceeding open to the public, or in any other circumstance in which the parties to the communication may reasonably expect that the communication may be overheard or recorded.

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