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I’m still trying to sort out what this means. According to WCBS-TV Channel 2 in New York:
Shahzad, 30, a Pakistan-born U.S. citizen, has been in custody since shortly after midnight. He was hauled off a plane in the nick of time as it was about to fly to the Middle East. CBS 2 obtained air traffic control recording intended to stop the pilots from taking off. The controller alerts pilots to "immediately" return to the gate.
In the end, it was secret Army intelligence planes that did him in. Armed with his cell phone number, they circled the skies over the New York area, intercepting a call to Emirates Airlines reservations, before scrambling to catch him at John F. Kennedy International Airport.
There’s been some talk about good old-fashioned police work nabbing this guy, but I don’t recall the FBI ever calling in an intelligence plane to sniff a cell phone in order to locate a suspect.
This begs a number of questions:
– Is this a special operation or part of the Joint Terrorism Task Force?
– How often has this "sniffing" function been used over American soil?
– Why was this information released so publicly, disclosing methods and means?
– And if this can be done with a plane today, will law enforcement do this soon using drones?
I’m sure you have a few more questions. What are you thinking about this scenario?
UPDATE — 7:55 PM EDT —
As you’ll see in comments, the original story posted at WCBS has been, um, edited. I have a screenshot for you, though, of the story as it appeared approximately 6:25 p.m. this evening (you may need to right click on the image after opening to expand).
[photo: USAF Electronic Warfare Specialists in training (photo: MATEUS 27:24&25 via Flickr)]
168 Comments
Legally, it’s probably a lot easier this way. It’s not a data line, thereby avoiding FISA. And at that height, it’s not cell phone either. So you intercept it at a level where you’re flying above the law.
Right?
Rayne–take a look, that may well be gone from the story.
Heh, ET is right, that bit you block-quoted is no longer at the WCBS-TV post you linked.
Your quick, ninja-like news-gathering skill is a wonder to behold.
I wonder if folks in the know will now go silent on this during follow-up Q&A from the media and public?
And by ET I meant EW, of course. (Sorry about that.)
Oh, I think the alternative tack is to create a bunch of other noise.
This piece is full of noise.
Well, that’s interesting. Poof! It’s gone. Wonder if anyone else reported it.
CBS doesn’t even note that the story was edited/updated. That’s unprofessional, IMHO.
A Google search still returns the original title of the article:
“Army Intelligence Planes Led To Suspect’s Arrest – wcbstv.com”
http://www.google.com/#hl=en&source=hp&q=shahzad+army+intelligence+planes&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=&gs_rfai=&fp=a86c207b1c79523e
AOL post reproduced the text of the original article.
There are other places where the information is still being published too (via the Google search above).
Good sleuthing!
Only complaint – the multi-colored bolded text over at that AOL site seared my retinas a wee bit. Such a thing is OK for Christmas tree lighting; not so much for reading material. {/grump_with_aging_eyeballs}
Good job all of you! My stars, how quickly information can be spiked. It’s not only maddening, it’s literally frightening.
The handy thing about planes is that they can “see” hundreds and hundreds of cell towers simultaneously. That’s the real reason people can’t use cell phones in-flight, they overload the cell network by appearing in many simultaneous locations.
Isn’t it great how the “war on terror” is an excuse to engage in all kinds of illegal activity, no matter who the president is.
fast hands make for great catches and this one is a beaut.
Wow, what a story. And Scahill has more:
It will be very interesting to see if there is pushback from the military about this getting out. Will WCBS lose access?
On the PBS Newshour, Mark Hosenball said that Shahzad never got on the plane,
but it was called back to the gate to get two more people off.
Its only unprofessional if a blogger did it.
We had to burn down the village to save it.
Wow, I hadn’t even got to the Posse Comitatus angle that Scahill gets to near the end.
Jeebus.
Yeah, nice piece by Scahill, huh? Glad he mentioned Power Geyser; first time I read about it was at Wonkette of all places. Oh, and I think you of all people will appreciate that particular article.
Hence my italicized “over American soil.”
There are probably more than one classified executive order or national security directive which supports this activity. What’s problematic is that the public has no idea what the limits are to this specific authorization to conduct joint military and law enforcement activities. Is this why Quakers and vegans were spied upon by DOD?
Never mind that, I just pulled a drone out of my ass!!!
Had no idea it was up there, thought I was just getting a hemhorroid.
Will CVS take returns of Preparation H ?
Remember the Patriot Act.
It gave the Government the OK to use methods like this at their will.
Even Your cell phone calls can be monitored if they wish.
We gave them the right to do what they want, and then are shocked, I say shocked to find out they are doing these things.
Not one person in Congress lost their job because they voted for this.
Many of them that did still say they are defending the CONSTITUTION, THAT CONSTITUTION THEY JUST DISTROYED.
People are still voting for the very people who did this to us, and are proud to defend their Congress Person.
nice catch!
maybe noise for cya?
An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, doncha know.
: )
Those be my boys – The Old Crows
It struck me as weird when it was announced Shahzad was being charged with “attempting to use WMD”, considering it wasn’t chemical weapons or “dirty bombs” or anything. Just propane, gasoline and M-80s.
“WMD” is a conveniently vague term that can be applied to anything that suits the government’s purposes. And to see Scahill talk about the secret special ops programs that use “WMD” as an excuse to “sidestep” our laws brings it into focus.
Some of this stuff is public knowledge Jim, some isn’t.
Visit http://www.aoc.org
Amazing! Excellent Scahill article.
Started to type a couple of responses, decided to just bite my fingers instead. Let sleeping Mods lie.
Thanks. I always love stories about my buddy “Hardwood”.
hey razr, if you’re interested, I can provide background on this stuff.
twas my afsc in the af
David Dayen is upstairs!
Indiana, Ohio, North Carolina Primaries Thread #2
It’s amazing how fast you got to this, and Scahill added to it. Wonkette does more than snark for sure. They had more on the honduran coup than most sites.
Your link goes to an AIDS outreach website?
Rayne –
You need to clue in Glenn Greenwald and KO about this. (Don’t really think KO will do much, but at least this way he can’t say he didn’t know about it.)
Thanks for the story.
Folks need to understand that cellphones are really no more than radios, and that the ability to listen into cellphone conversations can be accomplished in much the same way that your average everyday folks listen into police scanner traffic, CB radio traffic, etc.
The technology to do that “listening in” to cellphone conversations can be put together easily from stuff at your local Radio Shack.
The fact that the Feds had the cellphone number likely via a warrant, and your average everyday folks wouldn’t, would be about the only unique aspect of this “eavesdropping”.
sorry Kelly,
I’m bad and senile. that’s the old url
try http://www.crows.org
digital cells are encrypted.
not nearly as easy as the old analog 900mhz stuff …
just sayin
Just a friendly joke, man.
Except cell calls are encrypted and only the government has the decryption codes.
I’m still not clear on why these military planes were necessary. Wouldn’t a cell phone wiretap have done the job?
Anyway… great reporting Rayne. You’re going to be internet-famous in a few hours.
they were able to intercept the uplink and pinpoint his location, probably within a couple hundred yards …
we used similar technology, except in backpacks of SF in Iraq to defeat remote IED triggering
Hmm, they wouldn’t need to get warrants if they were flying around in planes. In general.
I must say, I do love Twitter. It’s amazing how fast information spreads using that particular social media.
I suspect if KO and Glenn pick up this story, it’ll be through following Scahill on Twitter.
nope – it’s just fox hunting, wirelessly
What are backpacks of SF?
If these planes are so great we should buy some for the police rather than having the military performing domestic law enforcement.
SF – Special Forces
Backpacks – contained portable versions of the ECM/EW, Elint & Sigint gear
Incredibly bloody expensive and we’re not talking millions
From what I understand, cellphones are NOT encrypted unless you specifically buy a model that has encryption, and then it is only encrypted when you have a encryption capability at both ends.
Cellphones with encryption cost thousands of dollars, and are not your ordinary cellphones.
And as Shahzad was talking to Emirates Airlines reservations, it is unlikely that either of them were using encryption technology.
What do you know different?
They could have, and should have had a warrant.
Just because you’re flying around doesn’t mean the rules go out the window.
Good point. Whats the deal with Posse Comitatus these days, anybody? Have they ruled it unconstitutional?
You need need to know what phone you want to tap if you want to do a wiretap. If you don’t know the phone, or the guy uses a disposable cellular to make a call, a wiretap doesn’t do you any good.
thanks.
my understanding Kelly, is that anything wireless is wide open, they’re just radios.
In fact, any licensed Amateur Radio Operator has the ability to listen in, legally. Not a problem for LE.
I concur.
when the net gets squelched social networking sites may well be a casualty so enjoy it while you have it
Jiverose7′s diary is front-paged!
Violence and “Safety” Dance A Couple Miles Apart
Damn, I just realized they were scrubbing that WCBS piece as I opened it.
Literally just squeaked by.
Read Scahill’s article and you’ll see they changed the headline at 6:21 — but that’s the time on the snapshot I took, which means they would have immediately been working on “editing” the grafs next which are no longer in the piece.
Damn that was close.
I disagree:
I work in telco. So say the guy was talking on an iPhone. Your amateur radio operator couldn’t eavesdrop as the device uses packet technology over the air to get to the cell tower. So do most dual-band devices that offer some sort of data plan.
It appears the law was followed and the purported bad guy apprehended.
So, what is the problem?
Everything you copied and pasted there deals with digital data.
What we’re dealing with here is ‘wireless’ transmission, i.e. radio signals. Don’t see that mentioned.
As far as ‘Packet Radio’, Amateur Radio people invented it, AX.25
I’m interested. Google brings my mail at megafeet.
This might be the program…
“Having Passed Through Stormy Clouds, Army Intelligence Aircraft Sets New Course
Army News — By Editor on February 4, 2008 at 7:53 am
http://www.defencetalk.com/having-passed-through-stormy-clouds-army-intelligence-aircraft-sets-new-course-15031/
US Army, The project manager of an airborne intelligence aircraft program delayed due to a contract termination in 2006 has proposed a strategy to ultimately deliver on the program’s promise of providing timely and critical intelligence to ground commanders.
Col. Robert Carpenter, the project manager for Aerial Common Sensors said that strategy will deliver the aircraft’s key capabilities first, and then incorporate new sensor technologies as they mature.
“We need to rapidly prosecute the areas of interest to the guys in contact and deliver processed, usable intelligence while it’s still relevant,” said Carpenter. “That’s what ACS will do. The key to that is on-board processing in a dedicated and responsive system.”
The ACS concept of operations rests on having aircraft equipped with various sensor payloads overhead with a handful of analysts onboard. Armed with computer power and an information-sharing network, the analysts can “team” with other aircraft and unmanned aerial vehicles in order to exploit enemy information.
Providing this capability is the Army program, Distributed Common Ground Station-Army, Carpenter said. Built of software, computers and communications networks, DCGS-A provides tools that allow analysts to gather intelligence data from multiple sources and convert it into analytical products for delivery to the network of Army battle command applications….”
Pretty standard old Army battlefield SIG/INT kinda stuff but finding new uses for that old theater battlefield SIG/INT equipment. Originally designed to pick up enemy battlefield communications
Cell phone antennas are directional with little radiation in the vertical direction, to provide as much signal strength in the directions needed. Good snooping systems can read the resultant signal. Of course, reflections from surroundings can and does modify these qualities.
Good thing you got that screenshot.
And librty, thanks for the link ya Old Crow.
got it, i’ll send some stuff later
i’m an old crow, this stuff is what i did in the af
Does anyone in America any longer have an expectation of privacy while using a cell phone? I sure don’t.
I’m always amazed at people in airports who talk (loudly) about seemingly confidential business deals. I want to ask them, “Does your boss/subordinate/partner know you’re talking in an airport with lots of folks listening unwillingly to every word?”
But, let’s face it: every phone is sniffable, every conversation is listenable, every secret isn’t.
you bet Jim, Let me know if there’s anything else you need in background.
I belong to that organization and have for 35 years. tis my brotherhood
Well, yes and no. *g*
Is it ok to be curious? Or no?
MadDog, the issue, I believe, is not just having planes flying over intercepting cell phone calls, but the US military special forces operating on American soil, and even more important, the US military and domestic law enforcement working together on American soil.
Jeremy Scahill’s article lays it out really nicely.
Now I know I’ll have to be even more careful if I post again on Information Operations.
nah Jim, I let my clearance lapse a few years back. They had offered an upgrade to TS-SCI but it required a move to ‘an undisclosed location’ in the State of Virginia.
I Was tired of moving
Don’t underestimate the capabilities of some ham radio operators!
Also, librty was addressing the legalities, not necessarily the technical capabilities. You don’t even need a license to listen either.
Packet radio was invented before AX.25 by the Aloha project at the university of Hawaii. Started Dec 1958. First x.25 spec (unworkable) was published in 1976, unworkable because of a deadlock in the LPAB protocol.
Well, the problem is that if posse comitatus was violated, then it wasn’t legal. That would upset me quite a bit, since I was going on this morning about how great it was that the bomber was arrested through law enforcement action. There simply is no need to militarize this inside our borders.
No, no, you misunderstood me. No beef with you ;-). I meant I was holding back from making an angry comment about the subject of this post.
Although . . . the thought of a one-pound hemorrhoid is truly disturbing lol.
For that reason, I also do not use wireless networking on my computers.
FWIW, I”m pretty sure this isn’t illegal. Under any circumstance, even assuming this as treated as a radio signal under FISA, they could get the signals and get a warrant w/in 72 hours. Frankly, it’s a pretty great example of why there is a 72 hour window.
Does anyone in America any longer have an expectation of privacy
while using a cell phone? I sure don’t.Fixed that for you.
I’m thinking the nexus was the act had already been classed as ‘terror’. Once that determination is made, as they used to say, It’s a whole new ballgame. Joint Task Force comes into play with their Military resources.
Sure, it is fine to be curious. Did I suggest it wasn’t?
Are you curious about the legal concept of exigent circumstances?
are you reading that someplace.
Inventing has a legal definition,
it means to reduce an idea to practice. Just because someone sitting a desk describes a protocol, that individual is not the inventor unless they also reduce the idea to practice by using physical objects. Transistors, diodes, capacitors, UART chips ,etc, etc
Don’t believe this was wireless snooping for a moment. The airspace above NYC is very crowded, probably too crowded for a non-flight plan surveillance drone.
The carriers record the calling and called number for every call, and are required by law to tap calls based on a subpoena.
I worked on X.25, from the beginning. I remember the technology & the dates. CCITT specs are published every leap year.
In addition, bit stuffing USRTs were not generally available in the HAM market until after 1980.
Yes, I do get that wrt Posse Comitatus, and I don’t disagree that this part of it smells of classified Executive Orders (or secret law if you like that term better).
I was merely reflecting on our use of this technology and its inherent “surveillability” by all kinds of folks both in and out of government.
And this is from a computer tech with 25+ years in field who doesn’t and won’t own a cellphone – I like to use technology, but I refuse to allow technology to use me. *g*
Not un-C, but the Bushies got some stuff on the books that was interpreted by some experts to mean it was no longer fully operative as a limitation.
I don’t think there is much of a choice any more!
I guess it wasn’t just good ole fashioned police work that was used, then. One wonders that it might have been equally effective. Warrants would have been obtainable immediately or after the fact; the FBI has exceptional resources and they are quite good at this sort of thing. This also raises the question of who else’s data was intercepted in the effort to pull this particular needle out of a large haystack. And refresh my recollection, when was Posse Comitatus repealed?
That’s basically what I’m saying. I’ll stipulate to the legalities of a warrant, because this is definitely a case were it fits:
You have a known suspect, a probable cause based on reasonable initial evidence. That’s why I said they could have, and should have had a warrant.
No, I’m remembering my profession. That was my business then. I was a European network specialist working out of the IBM’s SSC and ISC in the UK.
It’s going to be a lot of fun tracking all of the false information back to see how far the U.S. intelligence arm reaches. Think of all the corrupted news outlets, law enforcement agencies, politicians, CEOs, etc., that have worked together in order to keep this stuff from us.
We’ve got ‘em where we want ‘em. Let’s do an audit.
we were using ax.25 in the af for digital data links, the very first ones. ground based up/down links to the first early awacs platforms interfacing to fighters in theater along with the mobile CiC platforms during the 70′s
While “listening in” was the almost subliminal message conveyed by the original WCBS article, I suspect another more important aspect was the geolocation capabilities of finding Shahzad’s cellphone that LE was really interested in.
Yes, it’s too easy with a warrant. The only high tech required is a fax machine to deliver the warrant.
Not before 1978 you weren’t, when the LAPD protocol initial specs were issued.
masaccio is upstairs!
Forty Years Ago
if this was an af op, it will be af security service. and those boys don’t report thru the funny shaped building. They have a different chain of command
if it’s army, I don’t know
Yes, a feature of cell systems.
Kelly, I’m not certain, but I do recall reading that cell phones are much more accessible post-Patriot Act. What I recall, and I’m getting old so don’t take this as gospel (although I probably read it here or on Truthout), is that all cell traffic is monitored now in significant ways. I have been operating on that assumption for several years now.
was operational in 1978. all the design and development was much earlier. Initial work was done by ITT with subcontractors
This part of Posse Comitatus over at Wiki intimates, but doesn’t explain:
Well, the problem would be that the law allows the use of technology so good that you can no longer have any “reasonable expectation of privacy,” so the Fourth Amendment is no longer what it was.
X.25 came out of the Aloha project, as did the DIX Ethernet spec.
I know exactly what you mean. Similar background, similar sentiments about cell phones. At the moment I am “cellphoneless” because I lost it. But I have been dragging my feet in getting a new one. I have found, however, that because I have kids in school, I pretty much need to have one. But most of the time I am enjoying not being tethered.
P.S. Beepers were worse, tho.
this lists all the exceptions. And there are a bunch. As this report indicates, Posse Comitatus has basically been gutted now. It’s been a slow process but the Patriot Act, as you just indicated, JSOC, did it in.
Thank you. It’s time I learned more about all this stuff. God help me.
Not so sure you’ll thank me after you get ‘briefed’ But what the heck, you can always laugh about it
:-)
Just went to the link provided earlier; the comments are not yet scrubbed.
Some rather specific references to what was the original content.
So can we deduce that there’s a lie or unknowing misstatement of fact in this Associated Press reporting highlighted at HuffingtonPost:
In that: A ‘no-fly list’ is presumably intended to prevent someone from boarding a plane, so something else seems to have triggered Shahzad’s removal from the plane other than the existence of his name on the no-fly list (if in fact his name is on that secret list).
Comparing the two accounts (AP vs. CBS-NY), it seems possible that the military surveillance planes were called in to find Shahzad after the federal agents trailing him realized they’d lost him, and panicked. If so, this came very close to being a huge failure of “old-fashioned police work,” and, even with the last-minute save of an arrest on the plane, would appear to be incompetent work on the part of some federal agents.
I was VERY disturbed a few years ago to read about some of the Bushie stuff that got on the books that sure made it look like they could suspend posse comitatus on some very ambiguous grounds. Wish I remembered enough specifics to cite for you, but I paid cloase attention at the time. You could probably find it with a good search.
Exigent circumstances.
My guess is that they didn’t really need the geolocation on the phone to locate him per se, that they had narrowed down Shahzad’s likely moves to fleeing by air, and that they already had a good idea he was on the Emirates plane because of all the other evidence. What they needed was confirmation he was on the plane and that it was taking off with him. Without this validation, Shahzad could have been hiding out around the airport.
It’s still pretty iffy because they have to have some certainty the person carrying the phone is the right person. How was it they knew that Shahzad was carrying the phone and not somebody else?
See Laura Rozen’s piece in comparison to the HuffPo piece.
There’s a lot of disinfo going on all over the place, and unfortunately, most of it looks like they’re hiding multiple failures and the use of ultimate fallbacks implemented as stop-gaps.
Ex. the no-fly list failed — but they found him with military intel cellphone sniffing.
What else didn’t work properly, and what other iffy things did they have to employ as a fix?
In some ways this is almost a proof-of-concept given the sloppy Keystone Cops nature of the wannabe-terrorist’s efforts and the system which caught him in spite of itself. But whose proof-of-concept is this — the terrorists who are looking for our weaknesses, or a dark player interested in ensuring we remain afraid, very afraid, to the benefit of their business?
Cell phones– analog unenecrypted / digital encrypted, everything is digital these days so you need a warrant and the cooperation of the wireless carrier to eavesdropped… Geolocating a phone is absurdly easy, no Guardrail-equipped RC-12s required, the carrier pings the phone number and can identify the location via triangulation or GPS chip, you don’t actually have to place a call for your phone to be trackable (Stringer Bell would have insisted on the use of disposable “burners”, but you already knew that).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stringer_Bell
Clearly someone spoke on the record when they shouldn’t, but its silly watching everybody take credit for for the success (while passing off any blame for the failures). Sometimes a little modesty is useful. The authorities should have thrown everyone off and simply thanked The Airline for their vigilance in catching the bad guy. Instead, we see in different stories NYPD, FBI, Customs and now the Intel guys all taking credit.
Here’s some info:
http://www.floppingaces.net/2010/01/13/connecting-a-few-of-those-dots-on-obamas-council-of-governors/
http://www.progressive.org/mag/wx100708.html
http://www.infowars.com/u-s-army-trains-to-take-on-tea-party/
Then here’s this from NORTHCOM itself where it specifically talks about the Posse Comitatus Act and when the military can be involved domestically:
The PCA generally prohibits U.S. military personnel from direct participation in law enforcement activities. Some of those law enforcement activities would include interdicting vehicles, vessels, and aircraft; conducting surveillance, searches, pursuit and seizures; or making arrests on behalf of civilian law enforcement authorities. Prohibiting direct military involvement in law enforcement is in keeping with long-standing U.S. law and policy limiting the military’s role in domestic affairs.
The United States Congress has enacted a number of exceptions to the PCA that allow the military, in certain situations, to assist civilian law enforcement agencies in enforcing the laws of the U.S. The most common example is counterdrug assistance (Title 10 USC, Sections 371-381). Other examples include:
* The Insurrection Act (Title 10 USC, Sections 331-335). This act allows the president to use U.S. military personnel at the request of a state legislature or governor to suppress insurrections. It also allows the president to use federal troops to enforce federal laws when rebellion against the authority of the U.S. makes it impracticable to enforce the laws of the U.S.
* Assistance in the case of crimes involving nuclear materials (Title 18 USC, Section 831). This statute permits DoD personnel to assist the Justice Department in enforcing prohibitions regarding nuclear materials, when the attorney general and the secretary of defense jointly determine that an “emergency situation” exists that poses a serious threat to U.S. interests and is beyond the capability of civilian law enforcement agencies.
* Emergency situations involving chemical or biological weapons of mass destruction (Title 10 USC, Section 382). When the attorney general and the secretary of defense jointly determine that an “emergency situation” exists that poses a serious threat to U.S. interests and is beyond the capability of civilian law enforcement agencies. DoD personnel may assist the Justice Department in enforcing prohibitions regarding biological or chemical weapons of mass destruction.
http://www.northcom.mil/about/history_education/posse.html
We are becoming more and more militarized and federalized.
The audio is also encoded, compressed, and packetized for transmission, then multiplexed using a spread-spectrum technique. Channels are spread widely across the available bandwidth and interleaved with each other, so that you can separate out any individual conversation unless you know the code used to initiate the call–or something like that. All this makes monitoring trickier. Also, if I recall correctly, digital systems operate at higher frequencies, which itself makes monitoring non-trivial. Digital cells have to be closer together, which makes handoff between cells more frequent and tracking more difficult. I’ve read that cell phones are traceable only because they support GPS for the purpose, at least in the US.
All this is probably why an unbelievably expensive, dedicated SIGINT airplane is needed to track and monitor a cell phone quickly.
I’ve thought about using an anonymous prepaid cellphone and keeping the battery disconnected unless in use. But, Madame thinks that that would be silly and maybe a little crazy, even in this day and age. I tend to listen to Madame–the cell phone she chose is feature-rich and convenient. Plus, I figure that my conversations just add to the background noise that makes monitoring for anything in particular ever more difficult–privacy through pandemonium.
For what it’s worth (like nothing) you could let Madame know that I concur with keeping a prepaid, non-powered one hanging around ‘just in case’.
btw this old crow doesn’t use cell phones
If it’s NSA DES, even triple strength, the boys that invented the standard went on to develop algorithms to back into it. I was given a white paper, I think about ’91 or ’92. They had the algorithms functional, just needed more cpu slices. (that was when 33mhz cpu’s were the norm, even with the Crays from Seymour) They’ve got the horsepower now, to do it on the fly …
I have read that, unless one physically disconnects the battery, a cellphone microphone can be remotely and surreptitiously activated. They could listen for his voice or for people using his name.
The scarey part is thus that they wouldn’t necessarily care if a phone was his or not. They could turn ALL of them on in the target area and listen for anything that might be him.
The good news is that it still required a last-minute and very expensive intervention by a SIGINT plane to do this. They are no monitoring the reservation systems and security checkpoints with all the hight-tech wondertoys that unlimited budgets can buy. But they still can’t routinely track a guy whose name they already know.
The sheer volume of data is no doubt part if not all of the reason for this. I argue that the Constitutional prohibitions against unreasonable search are not just protections for rights–they are forensic tools. By throwing them out as we have done in the last decade, we have created a classic false-positive problem. We are processing so much dragnet data that we can’t filter it efficiently enough to catch people who actually warrant investigation–the number of false positives is so high in a largely innocent population that it swamps the true positives. Probable cause–evidence solid enough to convince a judge (which is not a very high standard, in my opinion) focuses the investigation on the more likely targets and thus lowers ratio between false and true positives. The rule of law boosts the signal to noise ratio.
Well, this is exciting.
Hey, they gotta keep their priorities straight. /s
That Insurrection Act exception is the one I have a problem with, as in, would an angry street protest by millions who refused to disperse qualify? I think yes, if they want it to.
JSOC in the US:
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/agency/dod/jsoc.htm
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/23/national/nationalspecial3/23code.html?_r=2&ei=5065&en=da865789fda33413&ex=1107061200&partner=MYWAY&pagewanted=print&position=
I think they use AES now. But what you say is true for “Them”. Nonetheless, “they” are not guys with radioshack gear. DES is not all that hackable by regular folks–unless someone has recently found a flaw in the algorithms, it takes some real horsepower to do break it and probably can’t be done in realtime.
Does anyone know if cell phones are actually encrypted at all though? I just googled and found reference to special secure phones using AES, but nothing about encryption being normal.
I tend to doubt it. Encryption even with AES is time-consuming and processor-intensive. Voice communication is already very sensitive to delay. My guess is that real encryption is only used for the code used for demultiplexing the bundle of channels, if that. For defending against most casual eavesdropping–such as stopping RadioShackers–the codecs and multiplexing would be enough.
The laws are vague and it lets the President basically be judge, jury and executioner. I think we in the US have a right to know if Holder/Obama authorized the military to be involved and if so why was the authorization given. Also if such an authorization was given, does that also mean that Obama could have ordered Shahzad to be assassinated inside the US or for that matter outside the US? There are just so many questions about “armed conflict” versus “counter-terrorism operation” and what defines the location of a “battlefield” as well as how the President can unilaterally say that someone is member of group X and therefore can be assassinated even though the person targeted might be misidentified and even if they are correctly identified how they could receive the death sentence without trial.
I agree. Which is why I rely on the invaluable information available from the following webpages for all of my radiopsychiometric security needs:
http://zapatopi.net/afdb/
http://zapatopi.net/afdb/afdbdiagram.pdf
http://zapatopi.net/mindguard/
http://zapatopi.net/blog/?post=201003245726.the_modern_paranoid_home
And that might be what they refer to when they say JTTF took over from FBI/NYPD.
Yeah, I might well buy that. They’ve also said that Shahzad planted several false trails. And the Holder said that he was always confident they had him tracked.
All that is consistent with FBI losing the trail via one of the false trails Shahzad laid, but MI planes picking it back up again.
Which also means hte phone in question is not the throwaway they used to find him, but I guess that was obvious already.
Mark Hosenball over at the Declassified Blog has some interesting additional tidbits:
FBI Surveillance of Times Square Suspect ‘Broke Down’
when it comes to tracking or ID’ing a cell phone, you may not even need to demux the audio, simply being able to locate the specific phone may be all that’s needed. And the esn or imei depending on technology is placed in the control packet in a straight forward method allowing a fairly easy id. This is simply one of the methods, they are others.
If they want, once the channels are id’d, a different system can then grab the audio.
Ahem…
Relevant morsels in bold.
My job is done here.
Simply Love It !
Out from my own heart. Are you a Red Greener also?
Ask yourself how many in the mainstream media (sic) know the difference between the JTTF and a JTF answering to the Joint Staff, and — ultimately — a working group on the NSC.
Hypothetically speaking.
I was hearing back in the mid-eighties that they had a backdoor into it, apparently built into the algorithm somewhere.
(Old Crow, huh?
I used to build solid-state delay lines, some of which were more interesting than others. The oscillators for goose-collar radio transmitters were kind of fun.)
as you commented earlier, the amount or volume of information is boggling.
We had the ability to fingerprint any emission from low am kilohertz stuff up to about 100ghz (we’re in the public domain here …). The main control console required 6 months of intensive training, just to be able to feel comfortable. Then there were bunches of specialized systems and sub-systems. Lots of schooling.
yeah – we used to use them delay lines, lots of them.
Did you ever get to do much field work with those goose collars?
I understood that they could use the GPS locator in the phone, if the battery wasn’t pulled, but if the phone is actually turned off I don’t think they can do anything more than that. (If there really is a remote on/off switch, I’d expect some bright guy to have come up with a remote-control off switch and be selling through Geeks, for all those annoying loud phone conversations out there.)
No, had to stay in the building. They were going to be tracking Canada geese with them, ‘because geese can’t carry the big packages that alligators can’ and a single-frequency delay line could be a lot lighter than a crystal oscillator.
(The other fun one was the microwave-modulated laser beam. I think that one went into a Doppler-radar simulator – this was back in 1978, so you can figure out how much fun it was. We were considering killing the marketing droid who’d say yes to customers before he talked to the engineers.)
Here’s some more on who and what might have been involved:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Monmouth
http://www.defenseindustrydaily.com/up-to-462m-for-rc-12-guardrail-modernization-03756/
http://www.aviationtoday.com/av/categories/military/Intelligence-Upgrade_30732.html
I also found this interesting, though I don’t think the alleged aircraft took off from Illinois:
There is no doubt that the RC-12 aircraft will be deployed regularly while American forces are engaged in Iraq and Afghanistan. Upon return of the aircraft to domestic use, the Illinois Air National Guard will be able to use the RC-12’s ISR capabilities to further its homeland defense and disaster relief efforts. These capabilities already have been used successfully in other National Guard domestic missions.
http://durbin.senate.gov/showRelease.cfm?releaseId=304014
That was the rumor. But then when I read that white paper and it kind of convinced me that the back door was a myth, an urban legend. Wouldn’t have had the need to develop the algorithms to ‘break’ it if that door existed.
I had an interesting experience one late night, a buff was getting ready to roll out, had the des enabled com box (crypto) on board. We had a subsystem failure and I was designated to replace the culprit box. Went outside, opened the belly access panel where the offending box was. I woke up a few moments later with an M16 lifting up one of my nostrils up. I was on my back. And this really big af security cop says with a HUGE GRIN, don’t move.
He had hit me behind my ear with the butt of his rifle. I had forgotten two things. The bird was rolling off the alert pad and as such had the crypto box on board, second thing, it was in the same bay as I was accessing and I did not have authorization, and he knew it.
Major security breach. He started hollering ‘Helping Hand’ ‘Helping Hand’ which is short for This Guy (me) Really Fucked Up.
One of the biggest ass chewings I Ever had followed. They guard their crypto stuff Righteously
We used a laser (Nd YaG I think, could have been a krypton arc – we had both) with a modulated ‘Q’ switch. Ran RF across the switch both as an on/off and to modulate the power. That was late 70′s also. Can’t remember the freq of the rf for the ‘Q’ tho, don’t know if it was microwave.
What did you use the laser for?
An RC Platform for disaster relief? and I thought I’d heard every piece of disinformation possible.
Absolutely agree with all, especially the first sentence. That has been my understanding since I first read about this during the Bush years. The sheeple don’t have a clue that their freedom is already gone.
You what they say — you have to be lost before you’re found. FDL should be asking, who found him?
You bet–we’re all in this together. Keep your stick on the ice. See you at the meeting.
at least she’ll find us handy
They wanted you to move in with Dick Cheney? I don’t blame you for turning them down./s
Great catch, Rayne, and a fascinating, scary story (to me).
The whole drones over U.S. cities issue has been around for awhile. There was this story from CNET news about four years ago:
Just recently there was this story at Public Intelligence, “Drone Aircraft are Patrolling U.S. Cities”:
Note the integration with the “local fusion center”. These fusion centers are already known to mix it up with military intelligence:
This intelligence octopus is threatening all of our civil liberties. Tapping into cell phones is only one aspect of what has been happening.
Here’s this with a new explanation:
As the investigation drew law enforcement officials closer to finding Shahzad, he was placed on a federal no-fly list Monday, according to FBI Deputy Director John Pistole. The restriction helped Customs and Border Protection agents arrest him moments before Emirates Flight 202 to Dubai pushed back from the gate. (so La Migra realized he was on the plane after he got on board? This doesn’t make sense that the no-fly list stopped this guy from going to Dubai if he was allowed on the plane to begin with)
Two other passengers were removed from the plane “out of an abundance of caution” after it left the gate, a federal law enforcement source said. Those passengers were later cleared and released… (was the Obama admin engaged in racial profiling?)
Authorities were conducting surveillance of Shahzad on Monday, but they lost him before he arrived at the airport, a senior counterterrorism official said Tuesday.
An FBI official responded that surveillance operations are designed with redundancies in place, and that agents had to avoid tipping off Shahzad that he was being followed. (so why did the FBI lose him despite the redundancies in place? Did the Obama admin panic when they lost him and just did whatever they wanted regardless of whether it was legal or not? I hope there’s a big grilling on this.)
http://www.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/05/04/new.york.car.bomb/?hpt=T1
In this new age of non-enforcement ‘legality’ has become an academic term of art.
Anyway, the simple existence of big, blatant insults such as Fusion Centers, domestic drones and dark JSOC involvement and rapidly militarized police forces is enough to guarantee continuing ugly incidents.
There is always multiple teams.
The only grilling probably going on will be over the accidental intelligence exposed by the stenographer in the news room, but was caught in Rayne’s net. IMVHO
Some of the people here are speaking a very foreign, indeed alien, language. And it’s making it hard to follow for those who only speak English, French, German, Italian, Russian, Chinese, Ukranian, Japanese…you know, languages from this planet.
Good points.
One speculation offered today on one of the news networks (I can’t remember which one–CNN, Fox, etc.) as to why Shazad was allowed to board the plane, and was removed only at the last minute, was that surveillance might have been listening for any cellphone calls placed by Shazad just before takeoff, in order to gather as much intelligence on him and his potential contacts as possible–possibly a final “I’m taking off now, they haven’t stopped me” call whose destination might have been traceable. But if the authorities are admitting they simply lost track of Shazad, then it’s likely they’re presenting the actual explanation. Unless there’s some kind of disinfo thing going on there.
A lot of this stuff (hardware, procedures, etc.) are tested in war theaters before being implemented in the US. While I wouldn’t necessarily suggest that one purpose behind launching wars like those in Iraq, is to create situations in which this stuff can be developed and tested, for later use in the US and elsewhere against people other than terrorists, I WOULD suggest that it’s become standard military/government policy that much of the technology and methods developed for use in overseas conflicts, is to be made available for use in the US and elsewhere, in some joint military/civilian law enforcement operations (as is demonstrated by the items Jeff Kay @149 quotes). I’m not saying this is automatically a bad thing, but it obviously could be.
In re: spanishinquisition’s (150), let’s look more closely at this:
CBP would probably be the agency at the airport responsible for picking him up, or any other suspect, if they were trying to flee through the airport. Personally this makes sense to me.
Might not be racial profiling, but destination-related. Were these two other passengers en route to the same location in Pakistan as Shahzad? were they unfortunate enough to have booked the same flights from JFK>Dubai>Pakistan?
I’m skeptical about the so-called loss of surveillance. I’m not skeptical about the redundancies. Engaging in speculation, I’d say this is the point at which they handed off surveillance from domestic to military resources.
And as johnsawyer says at (156), it’s possible they were monitoring his calls. Let’s say they found clues at Shahzad’s house during the raid to suggest he was fleeing by plane and they knew it, hours before he bought his ticket. What if they decided to use the opportunity to listen for other co-conspirators who might have helped him in the last few hours?
And for johnsawyer at (157): yeah, they are actively using this technology in theater. That’s why I selected the photo for this post as I did.
lol. was married to an Old Crow – (he wrote proposals to sell SIGINT to govt) always felt I needed an interpreter at Trade Assoc mtgs. as to how serious they were about guarding secrets – a nice NSA man use to come by once a year to take photos of our home
I was employed by one of 3 companies selling X-25 based data comm svcs at the time – so this thread is a trip down memory lane
ok, a horrifying trip down memory lane
Go Rayne, Go ‘dogs !
“CBP would probably be the agency at the airport responsible for picking him up, or any other suspect, if they were trying to flee through the airport. Personally this makes sense to me.”
It makes sense to me that they would, just the circumstances describing it don’t – saying that CBP found him (due to the no-fly list) when he had already boarded the plane after the FBI lost him.
yep, it’s a hindrance to use a virtual address in place of a physical
Oh I don’t disagree with the order of events wrt CBP involvement.
I also don’t believe that the no-fly list was contributory.
Just think it makes sense CBP was involved.
or there may have been multiple levels of surveillance in operation, possibly even unbeknown to each other. That is not uncommon.
Thanks for the work Rayne (if you ever hear that an ‘EC’ platform is being used vs an ‘RC’, take special notice. That basically means they’ve switched from passive mode to active mode. i.e. EC’s can suppress communications – any and/or all RF communications)
I think that we’ve seen so many articles which said surveillance “lost” Shahzad sometime after 3:00 pm but before he was removed from the plane at 11:00 pm-ish says that there was no domestic surveillance during that time. Could there have been multiple levels before that time? Sure — but there seems to be a distinct effort to say domestic surveillance did not have him after 3:00 pm.
I’ll watch for info about EC vs. RC, thanks.
Amazing catch Rayne. I agree with Jeff @ 149. The intel octopus is a threat.
It would be interesting to get the story behind the edit to the report.
“No statement,” Would be as good a news story as any other possibly prepared statement.
I believe so and can remember distinctly that determination had been made and publicized via MSM.
Then the boys with the toys show up
Too funny. Yahoo has WCBS video featuring a crawl at the bottom which mentions the planes.
And Danger Room picks up Scahill’s report, but adds this little interesting filip at the bottom:
Funny how close that site is to NYC.
I would expect that Fort Monmouth also would do something like this with NY:
http://thejamesthomasgroup.com/projects-and-events/fort-monmouth-community-force-protection-council/
Also I found this on the general in charge of NORTHCOM operating in the US where he talks about how he sees NORTHCOM operating in the US:
http://www.northcom.mil/News/2010/012810.html