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IPFS News Link • Communications

Who Is Running Phony Cell Phone Towers Around The United States?

• http://www.popsci.com

On August 29, Popular Science published a map of interceptor towers -- surveillance devices that masquerade as cell phone towers to intercept voice and data transmissions from every cell user in an area. 19 of the interceptors were found in the United States in August, and two more popped up on September 5: one in Garden City, NY, and another in downtown Las Vegas. They were spotted by owners of the CryptoPhone 500 device, a roughly $3,500 ultra-high-end phone that allows ordinary, if well-heeled, citizens to see surveillance invisible to standard phones.

Though the F.B.I. has been using a basic mobile phone interceptor that tracks phone location, known colloquially by the brand name of "Stingray" since at least 2008, federal, state, and local officials have tried to say as little as possible about use of the technology, even in court proceedings. This angers civil libertarians such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), who view the use of interceptors without a warrant as an unlawful search. The government's silence has helped generate an information vacuum filled by conspiracy theory: one fringe news site recently claimed that the interceptors are a source of "smart grid mind control" made possible by "voice to skull technology."


www.universityofreason.com/a/29887/KWADzukm