Posts Tagged ‘eavesdropping laws’

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Bill Would Let People Record Audio of Cops

By Dawn in court cases, Debugging - Electronic Countermeasures, eavesdropping, Illinois, invasion of privacy, MSI Detective Services at January 16th, 2012 | No comments

 

St. Rep. Elaine Nekritz, D-Northbrook, IL

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Recent court case rulings in Illinois regarding the constitutionality of Illinois’ eavesdropping law have placed this topic at the agenda forefront of some Illinois legislators and the ACLU.

Illinois’ eavesdropping law is one of the strictest in the country. The law makes it illegal to audio-record police without their consent, even when they’re working in public. Illinois is one of a handful of states in which it is illegal to record audio of public conversations without the permission of everyone involved.

Breaking this law carries a harsh penalty. It is a felony punishable by up to 15 years in prison. This law has come under increased scrutiny in the last few years in courts throughout the state.

State Representative Elaine Nekritz, D-Northbrook has filed a bill that would allow people to audio-record a police officer working in public without the officer’s consent. In an interview last Thursday, Rep. Nekritz said, “I believe that the existing statute is a significant intrusion into First Amendment rights, so with the prosecutions and the court cases that have been reported about, it just seemed that this is a problem in need of a swift solution.”

Last August, a Cook County jury acquitted a woman who had recorded two Chicago police internal affairs investigators she believed were trying to dissuade her from filing a sexual harassment complaint against a patrol officer.

In another Cook County case, Chicago artist Chris Drew is facing trial for allegedly making an illegal audio recording of Chicago police during a 2009 arrest for selling art on a downtown street without a permit.

In September, a Crawford County judge ruled the law unconstitutional and dismissed eavesdropping charges against a man accused of recording police and court officials without their consent. Read the full article »

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Cellphone Spying Becoming Easier for Abusers and Stalkers

By Dawn in Cheaters, Cheating spouse, Debugging - Electronic Countermeasures, eavesdropping, gps, harassment, Infidelity, invasion of privacy, MSI Detective Services, Safety, stalking, Technology at January 9th, 2012 | No comments

 

 

 

 

 

Here is one company’s promise on its website to anyone who wants to eavesdrop on someone else’s cellphone: “You could now listen in 100% completely undetected.”

The average person now has easy access to spy technology allowing them to gather cellphone information, read private emails, and track someone’s location using GPS. Experts say that the technologies are being used by spouses and partners to track, harass and stalk. “Technology has just exploded. It’s so sophisticated now and it’s very easy to utilize these different technologies to keep tabs on a person and find out where they’re going,” said Gina Pfund, chief assistant prosecutor of the Domestic Violence Unit in Passaic County.

This is very scary stuff when this type of technology gets into the wrong hands or is abused. I know of one woman who was being stalked by her ex-boyfriend and eventually learned he was tracking her whereabouts via her cellphone.

Experts say the person watching or listening is often a family member and frequently a suspicious or controlling partner. They have scanned Facebook pages, viewed online web-browsing histories, and exam­ined cellphone records for proof. However, some take it a step further, planting spyware on smart phones and computers.

Spyware is being aggressively marketed online as a means to find out if a spouse is cheating. It can be in­stalled on computers to monitor keystrokes, emails and passwords and to take screen snapshots. Spy software can also be installed on a smart phone to allow a third party to monitor calls, view text messages and photos, and track a person’s location and movement via GPS. A built-in microphone can also be remotely activated and used as a listening device, even when a phone is turned off. Technology experts say the phone user has no idea they are being spied on. Read the full article »

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Alleged FBI Wiretapping Used to Prove Political Incumbent’s Attempt to Eliminate Opponent

By Dawn in Debugging - Electronic Countermeasures, eavesdropping, Elections, Illinois, MSI Detective Services, Politics at January 6th, 2012 | No comments

Listening Device Disguised as a Fob

 

 

 

 

 

 

It would come as no surprise that most politicians would prefer to run unopposed for election. This is a story of a political nobody who says he secretly recorded for the FBI an incumbent state senator offering him a state job and cash to drop out of the race.

The candidacy of Little Village community activist Raul Montes Jr. would seem to pose no danger to the election hopes of state Sen. Steve Landek, who also is the mayor of Bridgeview. Montes, 36, has never held political office, has raised no campaign donations and, judging by his one-man effort to circulate nominating petitions, has no network of volunteers behind him.

Yet Landek has waged a full-bore legal campaign to challenge Montes’ nominating petitions and remove him from the ballot.

Montes says that Landek followed up that effort last week by inviting him to a skybox at Toyota Park, owned by the village of Bridgeview, where he says Landek used a carrot-and-stick approach to try to back him out of the race — alternately threatening to dirty him up in the petition challenge while also offering financial inducements.

Neither tactic is considered all that unusual in the cutthroat business of petition gathering and petition challenges overseen by a small cadre of election lawyers who make it their specialty to keep candidates on or off the ballot. It’s a world where incumbents almost always have the upper hand.

However, in this case, Montes brought in the FBI to secretly record his conversation with Landek. According to Montes, he said Landek promised him a job working on his campaign and later with his Senate staff if he agreed to withdraw from the race. Landek isn’t commenting, but his lawyer, election law specialist Burt Odelson, said Landek understood his legal bounds and offered Montes nothing improper.

Montes says, that he had brought along an FBI eavesdropping device, disguised as a fob on his key ring, to record what turned out to be their 2½-hour conversation. He said he met two female FBI agents before the meeting with Landek, then followed them to a residential neighborhood near the stadium where they put the recording device on his keychain. Read the full article »

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10 Ways Satellites Have Been Used to Spy on YOU

By Dawn in Debugging - Electronic Countermeasures, eavesdropping, gps, gps tracker, hidden cameras, invasion of privacy, Technology at October 20th, 2011 | No comments

A couple of weeks ago, I posted two stories on this blog and our U-Spy blog.

1. GPS Inventor Joins EFF in Asking Supreme Court to Ban Warrantless GPS Tracking

2. How to Disable Your OnStar GPS Tracking System – GM Continues to Track After Your Subscription is Cancelled

One of our readers wrote to tell us that his company had coincidentally published a similar article and asked that we share it with our readers. Here it is:

In these post-9/11 days of the Patriot Act, there has come a sharp transformation of America’s collective psyche with regard to the interrelationship between public security and personal liberty. Whereas in times past we had been a people who placed freedom above all else, today we seem more willing to compromise that freedom in the name of national defense. So then it comes as no surprise that Uncle Sam has been keeping a watchful eye on more than just his usual suspects: terrorists, communists, and militant environmentalists. Given the fact that satellites provide a global link between other technologies, their use in intelligence gathering is extensive indeed. Here’s a list of ten ways that satellites have been used to spy on you too: Read the full article »

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