IRS Possessed Stingray Cellphone Surveillance Gear, Documents Reveal

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The Internal Revenue Service is the latest in a growing list of US federal agencies known to have possessed the sophisticated cellphone dragnet equipment known as Stingray, according to documents obtained by the Guardian.

Invoices obtained following a request under the Freedom of Information Act show purchases made in 2009 and 2012 by the federal tax agency with Harris Corporation, one of a number of companies that manufacture the devices. Privacy advocates said the revelation “shows the wide proliferation of this very invasive surveillance technology”.

The 2009 IRS/Harris Corp invoice is mostly redacted under section B(4) of the Freedom of Information Act, which is intended to protect trade secrets and privileged information. However, an invoice from 2012, which is also partially redacted, reports that the agency spent $65,652 on upgrading a Stingray II to a HailStorm, a more powerful version of the same device, as well as $6,000 on training from Harris Corporation.

Stingrays are the best-known example of a type of device called an IMSI-catcher, also known as “cell-site simulators”. About the size of a briefcase, they work by pretending to be cellphone towers in order to strip metadata and in some cases even content from phones which connect to them . . .

Immense secrecy has so far surrounded these devices, but a picture is slowly emerging which shows widespread use. Various revelations by the American Civil Liberties Union and news outlets including the Guardian had shown that at least 12 federal agencies are already known to have these devices, including the National Security Agency and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The IRS makes 13. (Read more from “IRS Possessed Stingray Cellphone Surveillance Gear, Documents Reveal” HERE)

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This Is the Disgusting Thing Your Vegetarian Hot Dog May Contain

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Think you’re making the healthy choice by picking a vegetarian hot dog? Check the brand you’re buying: A new report found that 10 percent of the vegetarian hot dogs tested contained meat, including chicken in a vegetarian breakfast sausage and pork in a vegetarian hot dog.

But that’s not all. Clear Food, a company that genetically tests food products, looked at 345 hot dog samples from 75 brands, including meat-based and meat-free franks. Of those 345 hot dogs, 14.4 percent had some sort of issue, be it a labeling inaccuracy or hygiene problem . . .

Even grosser: 2 percent of all samples were found to have traces of human DNA in them. Veggie dogs were the worst off, accounting for 67 percent of the hygiene issues and two-thirds of the human DNA found.

The good news: As bad as some brands were found to be, there are some trustworthy options out there. The report lists the soy chorizo and meatless corn dogs at Trader Joe’s as safe picks for vegetarians, and Taveritte’s, Whole Foods’ 365 brand, Aidell’s, Hebrew National, Ball Park, Oscar Mayer, and Johnsonville for meat eaters. (Read more from “This Is the Disgusting Thing Your Vegetarian Hot Dog May Contain” HERE)

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ISIS Beware: Game Changer ‘Insect’ Drone Will Spy on ISIS – for 90 Days Straight

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The Zephyr UAV will eventually stay airborne for 90 days.

It has been described as a potential “game changer” in the battle against extremists in Iraq and Syria.

Makers of The Zephyr, Airbus, claim it “endures like a satellite, focuses like an aircraft and is cheaper than both of them”.

A model was on show at the Defence and Security Equipment International show at ExCel in London and members of the Royal Corps of Signals have put it through its paces.

An early version has already stayed airborne for a record 14 days. (Read more from “ISIS Beware: Game Changer ‘Insect’ Drone Allows MoD to Spy on ISIS – for 90 Days Straight” HERE)

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Where Is the Left’s Outrage? Obama Kills Bill to Save Battle Hero Dogs

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Seven award-winning service, police, and military dogs descended upon Capitol Hill to lobby Congress in support of the National Defense Authorization Act this week.

The dogs, who had all recently been honored at the American Humane Association’s (AHA) Hero Dog Awards, appeared before an overflow crowd that included congressmen from both parties at the Cannon House office building. Their owners and handlers spoke on their behalf, advocating for a number of issues including adoption of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). The act, which includes a provision ensuring military dogs are returned to the United States at the end of their service, was vetoed by President Obama over funding concerns.

The bill was passed with large bipartisan majorities in both houses of Congress. The vote was 270-156 in the House of Representatives and 70-27 in the Senate. If those numbers hold, the Senate would be able to override the veto, but the numbers in the House would require representatives to switch their vote.

AHA said they were targeting 12 congressmen in particular.

“We’re down to 12 members in the House to override the veto threat that President Obama has made,” AHA president Robin Ganzert said. “So if we can get to those 12 members and make sure they support the NDAA with the possible veto threat then our military dog legislation we have been fighting for more than a year will become reality.” (Read more from “Where Is the Left’s Outrage? Obama Kills Bill to Save Battle Hero Dogs” HERE)

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A New Material Promises NSA-Proof Wallpaper

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Your next tinfoil hat will won’t be made of tinfoil. A small company called Conductive Composites out of Utah has developed a flexible material — thin and tough enough for wallpaper or woven fabric — that can keep electronic emissions in and electromagnetic pulses out.

There are a few ways to snoop on electronic communications. You can hack into a network or you can sniff out radio emissions. If you want to defend against the latter, you can enclose your electronic device or devices within a structure of electrically conductive, (probably metallic) material. The result is something like a force field. The conductive material distributes the electromagnetic energy away from the target in every direction — think of the *splat* you get when you hurl a tomato at a wall. These enclosures are sometimes called Faraday cages after the 18th-century British scientist who discovered electrolysis.

Today, Faraday cages are all over the place. In 2013, as the College of Cardinals convened to elect a new Pope, the Vatican’s Sistine Chapel was converted into a Faraday cage so that news of the election couldn’t leak out, no matter how hard the paparazzi tried, and how eager the cardinals were to tweet the proceedings. The military also uses Faraday cages for secure communications: Sensitive Compartmented Information Facilities or SCIFs are Faraday cages. You’ll need to be in one to access the Joint Worldwide Intelligence Communication System, or JWICS, the Defense Department’s top-secret internet . . .

The material also holds promise for a scalable defense against an electromagnetic pulse weapon. EMPs are a rising concern for the national security community, but not a new one. Soviet research into electromagnetic pulse weapons goes back to 1949, and active experimentation back to the 1970s. EMPs entered the public eye via the 2005 James Bond movie GoldenEye, in which an EMP caused massive blackouts and widespread fried electronics. Two years later, Army Lt. Gen. Robert Schweitzer testified before the House Joint Economic Committee that such weapons might help fulfill Sun Tzu’s dictum to conquer an enemy without fighting. “If you can take out the civilian economic infrastructure of a nation, then that nation, in addition to not being able to function internally, cannot deploy its military by air or sea, or supply them with any real effectiveness,” he said. Translation: EMPs offer all the victory at a fraction of the cost. (Read more from “A New Material Promises NSA-Proof Wallpaper” HERE)

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Photo of Woman Scattering Beloved Dog’s Ashes Reveals a Haunting Image

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Losing a pet is never easy. And although you may think Fido is gone for good, chances are your furry friend may still be right by your side. At least, that’s what Ashley Lang discovered after she scattered the ashes of her beloved golden retriever, Wagner.

The dynamic duo had spent 12 action-packed years together before he passed away. As Lang tossed the ashes onto the green grass at Wagner’s favorite park, one of her friends took a picture of her farewell.

After taking a look at it, Lang noticed something strange lingering nearby in the photo. An eerie white figure hovering beside her appeared to be in the shape of Wagner himself, leaping high into the sky, bidding adieu to his loving human. (Read more from “Photo of Woman Scattering Beloved Dog’s Ashes Reveals a Haunting Image” HERE)

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These Halloween Costumes Are Considered ‘Racist’ to This Raunchy Television Station [+video]

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MTV released a video (below) on Oct. 21 telling people not to dress their children in certain Halloween costumes that the cable channel deemed “racist,” and, in the same video, mocked white people.

In the video, adults note the historical inaccuracies of the inexpensive “racist” costumes: “Little Amigo,” “China Boy” (which was manufactured in China), “Arabian Sultan,” “Little Geisha,” “Indian Brave,” “Indian Girl,” “Toddler Jade Harem,” “Gypsy Fortune Teller,” “Kid’s Mac Daddy Pimp,” and “Child Rasta.”

When the “Confederate Officer” costume comes up, one woman states, “Finally, a costume where white people are dressing like their own race, and somehow it’s more offensive.” (Read more from “These Halloween Costumes Are Considered ‘Racist’ to This Raunchy Television Station” HERE)

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Einstein Wouldn’t Like It: New Test Proves the Universe Is…

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The universe really is weird, which is bad news both for Albert Einstein and for would-be hackers hoping to break into quantum encryption systems.

Eighty years after the physicist dismissed as “spooky” the idea that simply observing one particle could instantly change another far-away object, Dutch scientists said on Wednesday they had proved decisively that the effect was real.

Writing in the journal Nature, researchers detailed an experiment showing how two electrons at separate locations 1.3 km (0.8 mile) apart on the Delft University of Technology campus demonstrated a clear, invisible and instantaneous connection.

Importantly, the new study closed loopholes in earlier tests that had left some doubt as to whether the eerie connection predicted by quantum theory was real or not.

Einstein famously insisted in a 1935 scientific paper that what he called “spooky action at a distance” had to be wrong and there must be undiscovered properties of particles to explain such counter-intuitive behavior. (Read more from “Einstein Wouldn’t Like It: New Test Proves the Universe Is…” HERE)

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Secret Service Allowed to Use Warrantless Cellphone Tracking

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A new policy allows the Secret Service to use intrusive cellphone-tracking technology without a warrant if there’s believed to be a nonspecific threat to the president or another protected person.

Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Seth M. Stodder described to a House subcommittee Wednesday the department’s policy on the use of cell-site simulators.

Civil libertarians and privacy advocates have long expressed concern about the suitcase-size devices, known as Stingrays, which mimic cell-towers to scoop up electronic data that can be used to locate nearby phones and identify their owners. The devices don’t listen in to phone calls or capture text messages, Stodder said.

The policy the department unveiled this week is similar to the one announced in September by the Justice Department, which includes the FBI.

Federal law enforcement officers are required to get a warrant signed by a judge before using Stingrays, except under emergency “exigent circumstances” meeting the constitutional standard for probable cause under the Fourth Amendment, but when there is no time to get a warrant. (Read more from “Secret Service Allowed to Use Warrantless Cellphone Tracking” HERE)

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Earth Was One of the Universe’s First Habitable Planets, and We’re Likely to Miss Chance to Meet Future Alien Civilizations, Study Claims

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Earth was one of the first habitable planets in the universe, according to a new study.

We were among the first 8 per cent of worlds that could potentially support life when we came into being 4.6 billion years ago, according the astronomers behind the study. Many of the other Earth-supporting planets won’t turn be around for some time — and are likely to come about after our own sun burns out in six billion years.

Astronomers looked at data from the Hubble and Kepler space telescopes to come to the conclusion. The latter was built in part to look for the kind of earth-supporting planets that could be sustaining life elsewhere in the universe.

Lead researcher Dr Peter Behroozi, from the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore, US, said: “Our main motivation was understanding the Earth’s place in the context of the rest of the universe. Compared to all the planets that will ever form in the universe, the Earth is actually quite early” . . .

But that same understanding might be off-limits to future civilisations. Because the universe is expanding so fast, any observable evidence of its beginnings is likely to be erased — leaving people in the future with no clue about how the universe got to where they are. (Read more from “Earth Was One of the Universe’s First Habitable Planets, and We’re Likely to Miss Chance to Meet Future Alien Civilizations, Study Claims” HERE)

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