Secret military device lets Oakland (Michigan) deputies track cellphones

[Octafish]

The richest county in Michigan is now a Test Bed of Freedom™ in the fight against, uh, Saddam, uh, Al Qaeda, uh Putin...



Secret military device lets Oakland deputies track cellphones

Military device sweeps activity in wide area

Joel Kurth and Lauren Abdel-Razzaq
Detroit News, April 5, 2014

Pontiac— Oakland County commissioners asked no questions last March before unanimously approving a cellphone tracking device so powerful it was used by the military to fight terrorists.

Now, though, some privacy advocates question why one of the safest counties in Michigan needs the super-secretive Hailstorm device that is believed to be able to collect large amounts of cellphone data, including the locations of users, by masquerading as a cell tower.

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The Oakland County Sheriff’s Office is one of about two dozen forces nationwide — and the only one in Michigan — with the $170,000 machine. So little is known about Hailstorm that even national experts will only speculate about its capabilities. The technology from Florida-based defense contractor Harris Corp. is believed to be an upgrade of Stingray, a suitcase-sized contraption that is installed in cars and used to trick nearby phones into connecting with it and providing data to police.

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Christopher Soghoian, a senior policy analyst and principal technologist for the American Civil Liberties Union, said he began noticing police agencies nationwide purchase Hailstorm about the same time as Oakland County. The county received a $258,370 federal grant that paid for all but $105,000 of the device, training and about $56,000 to purchase a vehicle to contain it, records show.

Butler said the machines were developed for military and spy agencies and information about them is on “bureaucratic lockdown” because the manufacturer, Harris, claims specifications are “a trade secret and proprietary.”

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http://www.detroitnews.com/article/20140404/SPECIAL/304040043

For those who "own and operate" this and the rest of the super secret spy technology on behalf of "We the People," the enemy isn't the Other. It's "Us," as in "We the People."