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back to article Baltimore lawyers vow to review 2,000 FBI Stingray snoop cases

Defense attorneys in Baltimore, US, are planning to reexamine 2,000 police arrests made with the assistance of Stingray – the cellphone surveillance equipment that identifies and logs mobile device owners within range. A group of lawyers including the city's public defender want to get a closer look at whether they can …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Oh Shit

    Title says it all really. I love the NDA's. "What a tangled web we weave when we first practice to deceive." Probably misquoted. The joys of parallel construction vis-a-vis constitutional rights.

    7 0 Reply
  2. elDog

    "Why yes, we do bill by the hour... why do you ask?"

    A rather facile comment. Most of the people that work on these cases are doing it because they believe in their avocation and this point-of-view.

    While I am one of the first to jump on the pecuniary aspect of any effort, I do think that these advocates are doing it for the purpose of the common good. Of course, presenting a good argument is a great portfolio booster. Kudos.

    11 4 Reply
    1. Anonymous Coward
      Reply Icon
      Pint

      Re: "Why yes, we do bill by the hour... why do you ask?"

      Yes, and all done over and above a caseload from Hell at least for the PD. Might be useful to see if this effort does donations. Stingray without warrants is definitely unconstitutional in that funny document I swore to protect and defend. Wish a pint in their direction.

      8 4 Reply
      1. John Smith 19 Gold badge
        Reply Icon
        Unhappy

        "funny document I swore to protect and defend. "

        You mean that "Piece of paper that all those suckers signed" ?

        4 0 Reply

        1. This post has been deleted by its author

    2. DropBear
      Reply Icon
      Childcatcher

      Re: "Why yes, we do bill by the hour... why do you ask?"

      Unfortunately, they'll be digging in no further than 10% into those crates of paper by the time the use of Stingrays by law enforcement will be made perfectly legal (retroactively, natch). Someone needs to stop all that vile paedoterror after all!

      5 0 Reply
  3. Henry Wertz 1 Gold badge

    Maybe not

    "Unfortunately, they'll be digging in no further than 10% into those crates of paper by the time the use of Stingrays by law enforcement will be made perfectly legal (retroactively, natch). "

    Maybe not. After all, the judges so far seem pretty unsympathetic and troubled that the use of this technology was concealed from the court.

    9 0 Reply
    1. Brad Ackerman
      Reply Icon
      Mushroom

      Re: Maybe not

      Judges do tend to get upset (and inclined to impose sanctions) when they're frakked with. Can't imagine why.

      5 0 Reply
      1. John Smith 19 Gold badge
        Reply Icon

        "Can't imagine why."

        A sitting judge in a country whose constitution supports it (like the US) makes "case law."

        IOW in a sitting court "I am the law" is literally true.

        2 0 Reply
  4. 404

    Well, on the bright side...

    ... if we suddenly get good cell coverage here on The Mountain... we'll know immediately - cuz Verizon just didn't put up a new tower out of the goodness of their little evil black hearts...

    3 0 Reply
  5. Alan Brown Silver badge

    Be aware....

    Contrary to the official line that IMEI catches only exist for 2G, 3G and 4G units are openly on sale on Alibaba

    1 0 Reply
  6. JeffyPoooh
    Pint

    Story about 'Stingray'...

    At the bottom of page we see this:

    "More from The Register...

    R.I.P. Steve Irwin - Crocodile Hunter dies in freak stingray incident...

    Flying stingray stabs Florida man - One-foot barb in chest after boat attack...

    Steve Irwin fans turn on stingrays - 'Revenge attacks' suspected in 10 ray deaths..."

    And some people think that A.I. is ready to start driving around the 'Magic Roundabout' in Swindon.

    9 0 Reply
  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I'm sorry Dave

    but you can't do this.

    4 0 Reply
  8. oneeye

    Android Stingray detector apps!

    Here is a new open source app. https://stingraymappingproject.org/

    Github has code,and f-droid has non crowd source version. Available in playstore as well as other apps,mostly for rooted phones though. The one above is for non-rooted Androids.

    1 0 Reply
  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    biggest shock about StingRay

    is that some US police forces have paid over $100K for the imsi-catcher, whilst in a lab we were able to get a repurposed eBay USB-TV RTL-SDR receiver ($10) running FLOS to do a quite similar job.

    remember that USA is switching OFF 2G in Washington area soon. . . that's a reasonable security response to the ease & low cost for 2G intercept nowadays, and a hint to the ongoing threats

    of course, this endemic security threat to GSM only exists in North America?

    3 0 Reply

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