I think the only thing that can prevent the US from spiraling into a dictatorship is a successful Netflix show about US spiraling into a dictatorship. Maybe it is too late for that too.
Cellphone Spy Tools Have Flooded Local Police Departments
71–80 of 98 posts
Re: Cellphone Spy Tools Have Flooded Local Police Departments
#72Earlier quoted context omitted.
> It's also worth mentioning that our population is only 792K. Most of the homeland security money funding surveillance is likely tied to DFW being along a major drug distribution corridor coming up from Mexico, and has nothing to do with the local population.
Thank god for the Wall!!!
IMO you underestimate cartels.
It's been back and forth since the start of the drug war.
Sure, people walk it over occasionally. They have submersibles, tunnels dug waiting to be completed North Korean style, functional tunnels, etc. I'd bet they have drones, or are R&Ding drone smuggling.
Cars and trucks coming through the border, decoy cars and trucks meant to be discovered so that something bigger gets through. Trap doors in sedans, faked shipments in trucks, shipping containers in ports with falsified information hidden among the masses of imports.
These guys are not going to pack up shop and sell bars of soap because of a wall. Where there is a will, there is a way.
If you were joking, I'm sorry for assuming otherwise. Poe's Law, I suppose.
My point is that the demand is incredibly high. Drugs that are worth very little along that corridor are worth much, much more on the streets of the US.
People will continue to risk life and limb, as well as take life and limb, as long as the War on Drugs continues. The potential profit is too great.
Re: Cellphone Spy Tools Have Flooded Local Police Departments
#73Earlier quoted context omitted.
Casual ad hoc surveillance can be very useful for law enforcement. It can save a tremendous amount of time and money keeping track of where people are and where they are planning to be. The fact that the information gained is not admissible in court is not important. From the article: >“You guys picking up any information? Where they're going, possibly?" Law enforcement has become somewhat dependent on this sort of a…
> Law enforcement has become somewhat dependent on this sort of access and would not be able to do their job as effectively without it. I've seen this claim repeated, but never with any evidence.
It doesn't matter if the claim is objectively true just as long as law enforcement people continue to believe it. ... and it is obvious from comments coming out of that community that they do.
What has to happen now is that law enforcement has to come clean and there has to be a public discussion about this stuff. Otherwise the private and public hand wringing will continue indefinitely and things will continue to get worse. The general public is ultimately responsible here as they are effectively the boss of the law enforcement people. We need to take the time to understand why our employees are acting the way they are.
Re: Cellphone Spy Tools Have Flooded Local Police Departments
#74Holy passive voice, Batman. Surely a better title would have been "Local Police Departments Buying Loads of Cellphone Spy Tools", since it's not like the damn things are mysteriously appearing unbidden...
Re: Cellphone Spy Tools Have Flooded Local Police Departments
#75Earlier quoted context omitted.
>However, Texans do have a tendency to blindly support anything the Military and Police want to do, while at the same time complaining about big government. I did observe that. Why is that so? Historically was the police or sheriffs independent from the government?
It's strange, isn't it? I wouldn't discount the possibility of people simply failing to think it through and tribally repeating statements ("get your government hands off my medicare"). But historically there's been a faction that very preferred local law enforcement to Federal law enforcement, because of a particular set of interventions made about 50 years ago by the Feds in response to popular protests in the Sout…
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Re: Cellphone Spy Tools Have Flooded Local Police Departments
#76I've lived in Fort Worth, TX for about a year. I was already aware of the existence of these devices. I had no clue that my local PD was spending such an insane amount of money on surveillance. It's also worth mentioning that our population is only 792K. I've lived in Texas most of life and in general I think the people here are great. However, Texans do have a tendency to blindly support anything the Military and Po…
>However, Texans do have a tendency to blindly support anything the Military and Police want to do, while at the same time complaining about big government. I did observe that. Why is that so? Historically was the police or sheriffs independent from the government?
It was never very uniform, but parts of Texas were quite violent in the post-Civil War period. Parts of the culture kind of got stuck there. The documentary about Todd Willingham goes into it at some depth.
So far as the Federal government goes, Texas has an active secession movement. They don't seem very dangerous.
Re: Cellphone Spy Tools Have Flooded Local Police Departments
#77Earlier quoted context omitted.
Thank god for the Wall!!!
IMO you underestimate cartels. It's been back and forth since the start of the drug war. Sure, people walk it over occasionally. They have submersibles, tunnels dug waiting to be completed North Korean style, functional tunnels, etc. I'd bet they have drones, or are R&Ding drone smuggling. Cars and trucks coming through the border, decoy cars and trucks meant to be discovered so that something bigger gets through. Tr…
I'd bet a dollar he was being sarcastic.
Re: Cellphone Spy Tools Have Flooded Local Police Departments
#78Earlier quoted context omitted.
Isn't WhatsApp more popular? I understood it to be more popular and accessible while still using the Signal protocol.
More popular, but also closed source and owned by Facebook (make of that what you will)
who has publicly stated that they're mining the metadata, and does not by default notify you when one end's keys change (say if the phone were compromised).
Re: Cellphone Spy Tools Have Flooded Local Police Departments
#79hackingteam breach has shown that law enforcement are among the biggest customers of HackingTeam. They supply not just the tools but also a subscription (to the constantly changing) payloads to breach a target. Kind of a poor man's TAO for the "neighborhood" police-unit. These tools make planting evidence just as easy so it is a massive change in the amount of trust put into individuals working in LE. This is even more scary when you think of how little the average cop knows about the tech they use from some questionable outside private vendor.
https://media.ccc.de/v/30C3_-_5439_-_en_-_saal_1_-_201312292...
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/543991/the-growth-industr...
Re: Cellphone Spy Tools Have Flooded Local Police Departments
#80Earlier quoted context omitted.
>However, Texans do have a tendency to blindly support anything the Military and Police want to do, while at the same time complaining about big government. I did observe that. Why is that so? Historically was the police or sheriffs independent from the government?
I never understand why America spends an obscene amount of money to make technology to kill other people. Education is suffering, public transportation and healthcare is ridiculously behind western nations but military still gets an insane budget. I would like Google and Apple to really up their game on security.
It's been the world hegemony since World War II. US protects the oil supply, particular factions of Islam, and Europe and sells outdated versions of our weapons to foreign countries. A peek at American military base locations will give a clue.