Free Republic

For the first time, the U.S. government has publicly acknowledged the existence in Washington of what appear to be rogue devices that foreign spies and criminals could be using to track individual cellphones and intercept calls and messages. The use of what are known as cellphone-site simulators by foreign powers has long been a concern, but American intelligence and law enforcement agencies -- which use such eavesdropping equipment themselves -- have been silent on the issue until now. In a March 26 letter to Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) acknowledged that last year it identified...

Officials with the Department of Homeland Security detected potential surveillance activity near “sensitive facilities” in Washington, including the White House, according to a study conducted last year.Officials disclosed the activity, associated with devices commonly known as “Stingrays,” in a letter to Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), which was first reported by The Washington Post this week. The revelation boosts long-held suspicions that foreign actors are using the technology to conduct spying in the nation’s capital. Christopher Krebs, the acting head of the National Protection and Programs Directorate (NPPD), Homeland Security’s cybersecurity unit, explained in the May 22 letter that the department...

A federal study found signs that surveillance devices for intercepting cellphone calls and texts were operating near the White House and other sensitive locations in the Washington area last year. A Department of Homeland Security program discovered evidence of the surveillance devices, called IMSI catchers, as part of federal testing last year, according to a letter from DHS to Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Oregon, on May 22. The letter didn’t specify what entity operated the devices and left open the possibility that there could be alternative explanations for the suspicious cellular signals collected by the federal testing program last year. The...