Posted on 05/25/2014 12:29:55 PM PDT by BenLurkin
Erie County sheriff says he's done making public comments about a cellphone surveillance device used by his police agency to gather information on persons of interest.
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Howard told Erie County legislators last week that the stingray surveillance device his office has owned since 2008 is used only for tracking a person's movements, not for gathering content of cellphone communications.
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He told the lawmakers that the courts should determine how he can use the equipment, not them.
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The county used a $283,000 terrorism prevention grant from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to pay for the device.
(Excerpt) Read more at myfoxny.com ...
I think he knows what he's doing. The courts are no longer America's friends as they were long ago. He'll find a judge to agree with him in the takedown of more of our civil liberties.
They will panic when things start to crumble, do even more stupid things as they fall behind the curve, and when this Dem is standing under a front end loader bucket with a noose around his neck, he will look back on this as the reason why...
I wonder if his family will share his fate? Very few tyrants live to see a quiet old age. I'm sure Mussolini didn't foresee a gas station...
A couple glaring problems with this. One is buying a $300k piece of equipment without knowing the legal restrictions on using it. That thing should never be fielded without a legal opinion from their legal counsel on its use. The second is that any reasonable law enforcement manager should know, based on the current court rulings on GPS trackers that this thing is going to need a warrant. Using such a device without a warrant is asking for a court case that will cost his jurisdiction a ton of money in court costs. Way more than the $300k.
Probably, this is not a “Constitutional Sheriff”.
Not likely an Oath Keeper member either.
In a few years it will be standard procedure. The stasi/kgb will be able to call up your movements, your calls, their content, your postings, and your purchases all on one screen.
A guy this ignorant of the law has no business pretending to enforce it.
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