Topic 'Re: What circumstances is a tower dump required' in forum '' - dslreports.com

Re: What circumstances is a tower dump required

Thu, 05 Apr 2012 10:07:43 EDT

TheHelpful1 posted :

I'm sure law enforcement will use the same argument they used with GPS tracking. "Well, we could put a person on it and tail them all day long." Ignoring the fact that technology now made it possible to do this wholesale for large numbers of people and undetected.

They can try, but the SCOTUS, when ruling against warrantless GPS tracking said that if a case comes before them on warantless cell phone tracking, they will shoot that down too. Kind of a cannonball warning shot to law enforcement to keep things legit or they will break out the newspaper and beat the police like a bad dog who crapped all over your civil rights carpet.
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Re: What circumstances is a tower dump required

Wed, 04 Apr 2012 15:53:35 EDT

Thaler posted : Um, wasn't one of the option add-ons listed in the article to also get audio of the calls?

Re: What circumstances is a tower dump required

Wed, 04 Apr 2012 15:18:28 EDT

Crookshanks posted :

said by Thaler:

Unless you were to have tower "dump" requests of all towers within a target area. (ie. if LAPD paid for access to all towers in Los Angeles, it'd be a fair means to wiretap any citizen in the area).

It's not a "wiretap" though, it's a list of the cell phones connected to a particular tower and which numbers they are calling/texting. It's more analogous to a pen register than a wiretap and quite probably necessary to investigate ongoing criminal enterprises in the era of mobile phones.

Mind you, I don't like it anymore than you do, but let's just be clear on what it is we are discussing. A law enforcement agency receiving the meta-data on calls and texts is quite different than that same agency receiving the actual content of those communicates.

Re: What circumstances is a tower dump required

Wed, 04 Apr 2012 10:54:23 EDT

Thaler posted :

said by Crookshanks:

A tower "dump" (which it isn't really; they are just monitoring which mobiles are connected to that tower) wouldn't be very effective for tracking a single user. It could prove to be very effective at gaining insight into an ongoing criminal enterprise.

Unless you were to have tower "dump" requests of all towers within a target area. (ie. if LAPD paid for access to all towers in Los Angeles, it'd be a fair means to wiretap any citizen in the area).

Granted, each cell tower would cost ~$25k a year to get these access rights...so that'd be a large amount of change to get constant surveillance on a city of any size.

Re: What circumstances is a tower dump required

Wed, 04 Apr 2012 10:12:13 EDT

Crookshanks posted :

said by MxxCon:

Police monitoring a drug house and want to hear/know about all the phone calls coming to/out of it...?

This.

A tower "dump" (which it isn't really; they are just monitoring which mobiles are connected to that tower) wouldn't be very effective for tracking a single user. It could prove to be very effective at gaining insight into an ongoing criminal enterprise.

Re: What circumstances is a tower dump required

Wed, 04 Apr 2012 09:26:41 EDT

MxxCon posted : Police monitoring a drug house and want to hear/know about all the phone calls coming to/out of it...?
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Re: What circumstances is a tower dump required

Wed, 04 Apr 2012 09:08:31 EDT

nothing00 posted : Since they've already admitted to not putting this type of surveillance in police reports all they have to do is "independently" get another source of information.

"So officer, how did you come to find the evidence in a completely unrelated location far from where you typically work?"

"Well, I was out for the day and I tripped over it. Amazing right!"

Re: What circumstances is a tower dump required

Wed, 04 Apr 2012 09:05:26 EDT

nothing00 posted : I'm sure law enforcement will use the same argument they used with GPS tracking. "Well, we could put a person on it and tail them all day long." Ignoring the fact that technology now made it possible to do this wholesale for large numbers of people and undetected.

So in this case, "Well, we could arrange officers in a 100 foot grid and observe all people using a cell phone".

Unless of course they couldn't. Or someone who expected privacy in their own home was now being monitored. Or...

Yeah, warrantless tower dumps? This one is really messed up.

Re: What circumstances is a tower dump required

Wed, 04 Apr 2012 09:00:12 EDT

Thaler posted : Question, wouldn't the legality of such wire taps be a problem in court? I'm pretty sure one can't use this in a trial without providing information as to how they acquired the data. Without a warrant, even the most damning of evidence would get thrown out:

»en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fruit_of_t···ous_tree

Re: What circumstances is a tower dump required

Wed, 04 Apr 2012 08:45:43 EDT

dib22 posted : The problem is they keep removing the oversight component.

They can already tap legally... they just don't want that 3rd party checksum there... which should make us worry that they are up to no good.

As if it's ok for them to break the law, just not the citizens they work for ;)

What circumstances is a tower dump required

Wed, 04 Apr 2012 08:30:44 EDT

cdru posted : I'm not naive enough to think that wholesale wiretaps don't occur. And while I don't agree with it I can understand the argument about three letter agencies monitoring communications in general. But under what circumstances does an hourly-rate tower dump help any law enforcement agency?

I guess maybe if they know a particular suspect is guaranteed to be in an area at a given time but they don't know what phone number he/she is using. But it would seem to be a rare occurrence to get something useful that way.