US Justice Department spying on cellphones of innocent Americans: Report
Amid revelations of secret US spying program, a new report indicates that the US Justice Department has been spying on a large number of innocent Americans through their cellphones. ● The program run by the US Marshals Service began operations in 2007 by using fake communications towers on airplanes, according to the Wall Street Journal. The program uses Cessna aircraft from at least five metropolitan-area airports from a range that covers most of the Americans. The service gathered information from thousands of mobile phones through devices deployed on airplanes which mimic signals from cellphone towers. The report said on Thursday that the devices made by Boeing Co. mimic the cellphone towers and trick mobile phones into revealing their unique registration data. Planes, equipped with the devices known as “dirtboxes," can collect information from tens of thousands of cellphones in a single flight, which occur on a regular basis.
RT.com: Dragnet: Justice Dept gets airborne to spy on thousands of American cellphone users
Antiwar.com: Planes Cover 'Most of the US Population'
Sputnik News: US Spy Program Monitors American Mobiles From the Sky: Wall Street Journal
Wall Street Journal: Americans’ Cellphones Targeted in Secret U.S. Spy Program (subscription)