Even if you’ve done nothing wrong, the government may be tricking your cellphone into divulging your movements, while seeing who you’ve texted and called.
Since 1995, local and state governments, as well as federal agencies, have been using “cell site simulators,” commonly known by the genericized brand name “stingrays.” These portable devices collect data from the cellphones of anyone who happens to walk into range of its signals.
Stingrays work by mimicking cellphone towers, sending signals to trick phones in a targeted area into transmitting the locations and identifying information from bystanders. Stingrays represent one of the largest bulk data collection programs in the United States, operating at all levels of government.
we hear after an event like what happened in san bernardino is suspect. we heard originally, oh, he was normal guy he met the woman and wife radicalized him. that now not seems to be case. people talk about how did we miss this? more most likely we miss i had it because we can t always find it. it s, that is not saying, if there are, if there were red flags harris: during the time of all the metadata. that is exactly right. you could argue maybe the bulk data collection maybe it was hard to find the needle in the haystack. harris: maybe. i don t know that. if there were red flags we should have known about, maybe there were, yeah we got to ask why they weren t follow up on and why can t we do better. the simple truth we can t stop every nutjob who wants to kill people. it is ugly truth but it is the truth. sandra: the question, catherine, was there enough there, was there enough there where authorities should have caught this?
joining me now is former deputy director and air force colonel cedrick lateen. also is former director of national cyber security center. when you look at this, you want to be very clear here. what we know is that this program changed four days before this attack and now what is legally allowed is two years of bulk data collection, not five. it s also critical because the wife just came to the united states two years ago. does that make a critical difference in what investigators can gather here, the two versus five years? usually most of the things that you see are going to be that immediate period before a a terrorist attack. it you re conducting a law enforcement investigation, you are going to go back from the time of that incident and you will go into their past as much as you can.
investigation? i don t think bulk data collection was an enormous factor because generally that deals with overseas calls to the united states. but what bulk data collection did was make the process more efficient so there were no silver bullets there but when you do have really tapped out resources to cover so many investigations it can help you move through and discard some faster. so in that regard it may have played not a major role but some supportive role. michael leiter, pete williams, thank you both. in what may be a preview of what the president will say tonight, president obama did address the investigation and terrorism in his weekly address this, of course, aired yesterday. it s entirely possible that these two attackers were radicalized to commit this act of terror and it would underscore a threat we ve been focused on for years, the danger of people succumbing to violent extremist ideologies. we know isil and other terrorist groups are encouraging people around th
these are inspired attacks, small, isolated groups where they are, where they live that understand the culture and understand in part how to terrorize those communities. so what would you need resource wise? if you had every is there enough resources you can have, the fbi could have, that could stop syed farook and his wife from doing this? this is a multifaceted plan and you don t have enough resources. off huge american population, a small, small, small subset that is radicalized and an even smaller subset that takes action and you can t cover everyone who has some contact with someone bad. you need is offense oversea, defense at home with intelligence and law enforcement and really deep engagement with these communities. even if they had the resources there are legal limits here. the fbi can t listen to everybody it wants to. there has to be a predicate that allows them legally to start monitoring. we just changed the bulk data collection of the nsa. how much would that