US Marshals Spying on Phones From Planes

The Wall Street Journal has made some startling revelations regarding a new spying programme being undertaken by the US Marshals. Apparently they’ve been using special fake cell tower devices attached to aeroplanes in an attempt to track mobile phones. Those devices, called an IMSI catcher, can be used to track individual suspects, jam the signal and even access images and text stored on the phone.

The initiative, which hasn’t yet been officially revealed, is usually conducted with a court order, but as The Verge points out, it’s not yet clear whether the order specifies the elaborate and quite frankly creepy means of carrying this sort of thing out.

It’s estimated that many millions of Americans have been affected by this initiative, due to the fact following one mobile phone will almost certainly mean the IMSI catcher, or “Stingray” picks up many other mobile phones in the process.

Source: The Verge