Secret US program using small planes to get citizens’ phone data

11/14/2014

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The federal government is scooping up cellphone data from Americans in a newly unveiled program by the Justice Department that uses small planes that act as cell towers to retrieve the information, a report says.

A program by the US Marshals Service — which started in 2007 as a way to acquire data on criminal suspects — has picked up info from thousands of unwitting innocent people in the process, according to The Wall Street Journal.

The operation uses Cessna planes out of at least five cities, and has a range that covers most of the US population, the paper said.

The planes are outfitted with high-tech devices that act as cell towers.

The technology was developed to track criminals, fugitives, drug cartels and people under investigation.

But many everyday citizens are having their data swept up in the process.

The technology supposedly determines which of the data belongs to nonsuspects and “lets go” of that information, the Journal said.

The chief technologist at the American Civil Liberties Union called the initiative a a “dragnet surveillance program.”

“It’s inexcusable,” Christopher Soghoian told the paper. “And it’s likely — to the extent judges are authorizing it—[that] they have no idea of the scale of it.”

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