Harris Corp.’s Stingray surveillance device has been one of the most closely guarded secrets in law enforcement for more than 15 years. The company and its police clients across the US have fought to keep information about the mobile phone-monitoring boxes from the public against which they are used.
The Intercept has obtained several Harris instruction manuals spanning and meticulously detailing how to create a cellular surveillance dragnet. Harris has fought to keep its surveillance equipment, which carries price tags in the low six figures, hidden from both privacy activists and the general public, arguing that information about the gear could help criminals.
Read moreThe Justice Department is scooping up data from thousands of mobile phones through devices deployed on airplanes that mimic cellphone towers, a high-tech hunt for criminal suspects that is snagging a large number of innocent Americans, according to people familiar with the operations.
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. 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.
Read moreU.S. secret services developed a spy program, capable of recording 100% of each and every phone call across entire nations. The Washington Post shares another bit of classified information referring to secret documents supplied by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden.
Previously reported surveillance system could track phone numbers, times and duration of calls. Now, MYSTIC is used to intercept phone conversations in one specific country, storing audio data for 30 days.
This NSA program dates to 2009, when by 2011 its RETRO tool, short for “retrospective retrieval”, was ready to be rolled-out at full capacity. Program's senior managers compared MYSTIC to a time machine, meaning voices from any call can be replayed without requiring the NSA to identify a person for surveillance in advance.
Read moreThe National Security Agency has built a surveillance system capable of recording “100 percent” of a foreign country’s telephone calls, enabling the agency to rewind and review conversations as long as a month after they take place, according to people with direct knowledge of the effort and documents supplied by former contractor Edward Snowden.
A senior manager for the program compares it to a time machine — one that can replay the voices from any call without requiring that a person be identified in advance for surveillance. On Jan. 17, President Obama called for significant changes to the way the NSA collects and uses telephone records of U.S. citizens.
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