Saturday, October 29, 2011

Security theater... of the absurd!

Apparently, the United States of America has quietly stopped policing its borders.  Amazing.

"Orders have been sent out from Border Patrol headquarters in Washington, D.C., to Border Patrol sectors nationwide that checks of transportation hubs and systems located away from the southwest border of the United States will only be conducted if there is intelligence indicating a threat," the release says.

Those who have received the orders said agents may still go to train and bus stations and airports if they have specific "actionable intelligence" that there is an illegal immigrant there who recently entered the country. An agent in Washington state said it's not clear how agents are supposed to glean such intelligence, and even if they did, under the new directive they still require clearance from Washington, D.C., headquarters before they can respond.

 What are they doing instead?

The situation is similar in upstate New York, where an agent told the AP - also on the condition of anonymity - that a senior manager relayed the new directive during a morning roll call last month. Since then, instead of checking buses or trains, agents have spent shifts sitting in their vehicles gazing out at Lake Erie and Lake Ontario, where few illegal immigrants cross.

"They're already bored," the agent said. "You grab the paper every day and you go do the crossword."

Why does this crossword need done  so urgently by so many agents?

Current and former Border Patrol agents said field offices around the country began receiving the order last month - soon after the Obama administration announced that to ease an overburdened immigration system, it would allow many illegal immigrants to remain in the country while it focuses on deporting those who have committed crimes.

In English, that means the Border Patrol has been ordered not to arrest illegals so the INS doesn't have to process them, and so that Barry can get more of that much needed illegal Mexican vote.

All in all, a great time to be a drug mule.

The Phantom

Wednesday, October 26, 2011

Sometimes... one is at a loss for words.

Coming to you from Small Dead Animals, a link to a person so fundamentally mental... I'm unable to really grasp what his malfunction is.

The Conservative government's bill to scrap the requirement to register long-guns comes with a surprising clause: it requires the Commissioner of Firearms destroy all records of registered long-guns.
<snippage>
But, personally, I find the destruction of any kind of government data utterly abhorent and contrary to the concept of open government.

In response, I'm posting publicly a copy of the gun registry database I received via the Access to Information Act in 2007.

We used this data in an Ottawa Citizen series called "Rapid Fire" that explored issues involved in gun ownership in Canada.

So here we have a guy, Glen McGregor, who views government records of private citizen's personal property as being so holy, so important, that he's going to post HIS OWN REGISTRY. To, you know, save it. Or something.
Here's what he says about himself, right off the mast head of his web page:

Ottawa Citizen reporter covering government, politics and anything else that interests me. Specializing in data journalism and Twitter evangelism. This is just a place to dump Hill droppings and other found items that are too long for Twitter. Follow me there at @glen_mcgregor or email me at sushiboy21@gmail.com.


Ottawa Citizen reporter. Uh HUH. Nice three day beard dude. You look mahvelous.

And we all wondered -why- the media never ever EVER gives us the straight unvarnished goods in a gun related story. Its because DICKHEADS run it.

My comment on Little Glenny's blog was this:

So Glen, is it ok if I dig up your address and post it on my blog? How about a Google map and a StreetView of your house too? And maybe a list of your major appliances and more expensive possessions, you know, just in case anybody's interested?

Love to hear your opinion on that little undertaking, dude.

Currently awaiting moderation, as of 10:22 pm. So we'll see what Little Glenny has to say. I'm not expecting anything too coherent, I must say.

The Phantom

Barry gathers his troops.

Barry must be having a cow.  He's in Hollywood assembling the First Propaganda Division of Barry's Army.

Among the small group of industry insiders who were invited to attended the early-morning meeting with the president at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel were: Weinstein Co. studio head Harvey Weinstein, CAA managing partner and music head Rob Light, ICM president Chris Silbermann, Modern Family creator Steve Levitan, Atlantic Records chairman Craig Kallman, producer/songwriter Bruce Roberts, talent manger and producer Jason Weinberg, UTA music agent Rob Prinz, talent manager and producer Eric Ortner, Island Def Jam senior vice president Karen Kwak, Warner Bros. Records president Livia Tortella, talent manager Greg Mertz, ID PR publicists Kelly Bush and Mara Buxbaum, talent managers Bruce Flohr, Michael Green, Steve Moir and Bill Silva, Universial Music Publishing Group executive vice president and head of creative Tom Sturges, entertainment attorney Chuck Ortner and actor/activist Kal Penn.

The event was not a fundraiser, and attendees were not asked to donate to the Obama reelection campaign. But those invited have been ardent supporters of the president and were identified as "influencers" with the ability to help Obama shape the national political conversation heading into a tough race in 2012.

Their donations will be more in kind than in money, no doubt. I do believe we will be treated to a big bunch of socialist propaganda movies over the next year.  Huzzah.  And as previously noted, people wonder why media company stocks are circling the bowl...

The Phantom

Tuesday, October 25, 2011

Duh alert... Media company execs are MORONS.

This just kills me.  Check it out:

The rapid adoption of tablet computers like iPad has not reversed the slide in paying customers for news, as many media company executives had hoped the devices would.

Are you kidding me? There are actually executive corner office types who were doofus enough to think that the -shape- of the computer people surf on would change their willingness to pay for something they can get for free?

"When it was launched, many observers believed that the tablet might help change the experience of news consumers and the economic ground rules of digital news consumption," writes the authors of the Pew Research Center report. "That belief was based on the sense that people would consume information on tablets largely through special applications or apps that provide content from a favorite news organization like the New York Times or one's local newspaper." The survey showed more than 70 percent still use the web browser or a combination of the web and apps to get their news. Just a fifth of tablet users use apps as their primary source for news.

Truly, there are some guys out there living in Fantasy Land. The reason nobody is willing to pay for the "news" is that it ain't NEWS.  Its propaganda for the American DemocRat party and obviously so. The whole blogosphere basically exists as a fact check on the "news". Furthermore nobody wants to live in the walled garden of the Apple Ap-store when the whole web is sitting there free to surf.

Sell that media stock my friends.  Those companies are dead ducks walking.

The Phantom.

Saturday, October 22, 2011

Self Inflicted Wounds.

Apparently the people who live around Zuccotti Park are getting tired of the smelly hippies. Poor babies.

New Yorkers who live near the park where anti-Wall Street protesters have been camping out for more than a month are complaining that their quality of life has declined.

At a two-hour meeting Thursday night, some neighbors said protesters urinated in the streets and beat drums in the middle of the night.

"They're defecating on our doorsteps," said Catherine Hughes, a member of the area's community board, a representative panel that helps funnel local concerns to city officials.

That's what you get when you vote the way they always do. You asked for it, you got it. Toyota.

Lets be clear whose doorstep is getting crapped on here.  You live near Zuccotti Park, you've got some -serious- dough to blow on housing.  We're talking millions of bucks for a two bedroom condo.  That would be "million-S" in the plural.
So, what does a big huge bank account get you in NYC?

Some neighbors who attended the packed meeting called for the protesters to vacate Zuccotti Park, the plaza where protesters have set up their base camp.

But the board voted unanimously for a resolution that recognized the protesters' First Amendment rights while calling for a crackdown on noise and public urination and defecation.

Three local elected officials praised the resolution in a statement Thursday.

It gets you nuttin', is what.  Because the "three local elected officials" are  DEMOCRATS, one of whom is Gerold "The Mouth" Nadler. This doorstep-crapping, stairwell-pissing astroturf freak show is -their- personal clown circus, bought, paid for and put on by DemocRats, for the benefit of DemocRats, and screw everybody else.

My questions for today: how stupid are the hyper-rich of New Yawk?  Will they continue to vote for the guys who are happily throwing them under the bus just to get a cheap propaganda show on the TV? Do they realize that this mob could decide to BURN DOWN their apartment buildings pretty much any time?  Do they comprehend that their "local elected officials" are the sole reason that these Occupy Somebody Else's Private Property imbeciles are taking a dump on their twenty million dollar real estate?

Or is it more a matter of going along with the gag so the gravy train your zillions are coming from doesn't come off the rails?  Because zillionairs aren't primarily known for stupidity.

Just wondering.

The Phantom

Monday, October 17, 2011

Wag the dog 2011-style.

Reposted from Small Dead Animals, -proof- of the connection between Big Media, Barry's 2012 campaign, and the collection of pinheads known to the media as "Occupy Wall Street".  99% bullshit, 1% useful idiots.  We've got the email archive, which a mole helpfully posted to the web. Big Journalism's post on the subject is here, and really worth a look.

So just in case you've been wondering why the media is paying so much attention to some smelly hippies leaving raw sewage on private property they don't own in NYC, while they utterly ignored about a third of the country turning out for the Tea Parties, wonder no more.  Its a put up job.  Otherwise known as, the main stream media of the USA (and Canada!!!) is bought and paid for.  And we just proved it.  Again.

The Phantom

Friday, October 14, 2011

What is THE difference between the USA and Canada?

In Canada, this would be legal:

On September 22, 2011, H.R. 3011 was introduced in the House. It is entitled the "Transportation Security Administration Authorization Act of 2011" and it contains some curious language.
...

The language states that it would be illegal to "convey the impression" that you are representing the TSA, but this interpretation would likely be left to federal prosecutors.

In the past, satire was protected under the First Amendment, but it may soon be illegal to poke fun at the TSA or use its logo or even utter its name. Notice there is no exception in the above language for parody.

Political satire is as old as the Greeks and the Bible. But it may now become a punishable crime if this legislation is enacted.

Yes, my fellow Canadians, let's not fool ourselves.  In Canada the Parliament really can pass a law making it illegal to lampoon, parody, or otherwise mock government agencies and/or employees.  In fact, its been done already.  Right now our Supreme Court is grappling with the weighty issue of whether or not to ALLOW us to say mean things about members of certain protected groups.  Not to be mean to them mind you, just to say things about them.

In the United States, this law can't survive its first day in court.  Well, unless Barry and friends find a way to pack the court, of course.  Then all bets are off. 

Kind of like they are here in Canada, our courts got packed in the 1970's.  Frankly, its been pretty much down hill ever since Pierre Trudeau declared war on freedom in this country.

The Phantom

Tuesday, October 11, 2011

Ass-Backward into the Future!

One of the things I rage on about here constantly is that we have too much government.  This is best seen in the small things, like this:

A tree house is causing controversy in one Falls Church neighborhood after a father built it for his two young boys. Fairfax County officials are considering tearing it down because the tree house violates county rules because it was built in the front yard. He needed a permit first to build the tree house.

One of the other things I rage on about is our too-much-government looking the other way and allowing outrages to be perpetrated.  This is best seen in the large things, like this:

Occupy Wall Street is on the move ... uptown.

Why uptown? Because that's where the rich folks live!

Organizers are planning a march on Tuesday that will visit the homes of JP Morgan Chase (JPM, Fortune 500) CEO Jamie Dimon, billionaire David Koch, hedge fund honcho John Paulson, Howard Milstein, and News Corp (NWSA, Fortune 500) CEO Rupert Murdoch.

The millionaires and billionaires are being targeted for what event organizers called a "willingness to hoard wealth at the expense of the 99%."

Just so we are clear here: you CAN mob the house of people you don't like if you are part of a rent-a-mob for the DemocRat Party, but you CAN'T build a tree house for the kids without a permit.  And likely a bribe for the building inspector.

The Phantom

Saturday, October 08, 2011

Andrew Coyne has been reading my mind.

It takes a little while to get to the good part, but this column by Andrew Coyne has goodness in it.

The Ontario Conservatives have lost three elections in a row with this same nicely-nicely, Clever Dick approach; the Manitoba Conservatives, four. At some point, you'd think it would occur to them: this isn't working. But it never seems to.

So let me spell it out for them. Conservatives: unless you give voters a reason to vote for you, they will not. Until you trust in yourselves, they will never trust you. They can smell fear, and they can tell when people aren't being straight with them. Don't want to be accused of hidden agendas? Have an agenda. Don't think you can sell that vision? Find another line of work. You're in the persuasion business.

That's what I'm talking about.  You want to be a Conservative?  BE ONE THEN.  You don't think Conservatism can win? Join the Liberals!!!

The Phantom

Thursday, October 06, 2011

Liberals win Ontario election.

We are -so- fracked...

The Phantom

Tuesday, October 04, 2011

BUSTED!

Eric Holder knew about Fast&Furious in July 2010

New documents obtained by CBS News show Attorney General Eric Holder was sent briefings on the controversial Fast and Furious operation as far back as July 2010. That directly contradicts his statement to Congress.

On May 3, 2011, Holder told a Judiciary Committee hearing, "I'm not sure of the exact date, but I probably heard about Fast and Furious for the first time over the last few weeks."

Yet internal Justice Department documents show that at least ten months before that hearing, Holder began receiving frequent memos discussing Fast and Furious.

He lied to Congress. Like a Persian carpet.

How unexpected!

The Phantom

Friday, September 30, 2011

Russel Smith: dude, who cares what you think?

Here's an article by Russel Smith in the Blob and Snail that I read while sitting in the doctor's office yesterday.  Happily, I didn't have to buy the paper, because it generated a very strong wave of "WHAT! EVER!" through my neural network.  To wit:

We old farts did that tiring reporting/interviewing stuff for years before we were allowed to write our opinions on things. I still don't even aspire to this ideal of not being edited; not being edited doesn't seem like a benefit to me. I still have a deep-rooted (and unjustified) instinct telling me that something published has value only if it has been commissioned by someone else.

I am biased in this debate: I don't care so much about the young people's careers, I care about mine, and if they don't play along in the work-for-pay convention, then all of our incomes are undercut. This is why other trades have unions. But creators are not very good at solidarity.

Now, speaking as an Old Fart who writes for free, and purely for the purpose of expressing my opinion before the top of my freakin' head blows off, I have only this to say:

Dear Russel, if it wasn't for the likes of you infesting the Canadian publishing establishment for the last 50+ years, making the whole thing into nothing more than a machine for cranking out Liberal Party of Canada propaganda, maybe your career wouldn't be circling the bowl along with every other print media worker in this country.  You and yours have made Canadian newspapers, magazines, television and radio into a monolithic boulder on the Left side of the political spectrum.  Anybody who wants to do something that hasn't been given official approval by the LPC re-election committee is doing it on the Internet, and there's nobody to blame but YOURSELVES.  I bet almost as many people will read this little rant of mine as read your blather in the Blob, too.

Its probably not too late to change your career to welding.  Better hit the gym, steel is heavy.

The Exploding Phantom

Iggy speaks!

Here's an article in the National Post by none other than our dear ex-Liberal Party leader. Count Iggula.

It shows me two things.  One, the guys who ran this man's election campaign were utter morons.

Evil is a moral problem for everyone, difficult to acknowledge in ourselves, hard to understand in others, and difficult to defeat without committing lesser evils. Liberals - I count myself as one - have a special problem with evil, connected to our particular form of selfregard. Liberals like to believe we are tolerant, but evil, by definition, cannot be tolerated. We believe that politics ought to be deliberative, but we can't deliberate with evil. We think compromise can be honorable, but there are no honorable compromises with evil. We think politics ought to be governed by reason, but evildoers, while they may reason, are not reasonable.

If Iggy had showed up to the election with some of the uncompromising morality of that paragraph, he would have done very well indeed.

Two, thank God the guys who ran this man's election campaign were utter morons because this man can't walk his talk, even inside his own brain.

It is when Wolfe moves on from these general sentiments, which seem both admirable and true, to detailed examples of "fighting politics with politics," that the questions about his approach begin to arise. What would Wolfe do differently? No to the war in Iraq certainly, no to the torture memos. That much is obvious, but on other issues, his skeptical liberal realism is less clear as a guide to action than he supposes. Is Wolfe saying no to intervention in Libya, on the grounds that Qaddafi, while a thug, posed no strategic threat, and his crimes, while vicious, did not rise to a level that had to be stopped?

Its possible I've misunderstood The Iggster's intent here, but that reads to me like the Iraq War was a bad thing while the current Libyan Unpleasantness is a good thing.  Which is preposterous. And also is 180 degrees opposed to his previous views on the matter.

So, I'm content that Iggy is safely contained at Massey College, indoctrinating another generation of Torontonians  in the fine art of Liberalism, sucking and blowing both at the same time.  I'd prefer he be selling apples on a street corner in New York, but you can't always get what you want.

The Phantom

Wednesday, September 28, 2011

More home invasion fun in Philly.

Hits just keep on coming.

A critically wounded 2-year-old girl was among four people shot Tuesday night in South Philadelphia when a mob of girls charged a house and gunfire erupted in a dispute stemming from a high school fight, police said.

Turns out the high school girls were balked in their home invasion attempt called for backup.

Police spokesman Lt. Raymond Evers said a fight among girls at South Philadelphia High School led to another altercation and, ultimately, the shooting.

Some of the girls from the high school fight showed up at the house of another girl on Bucknell, Evers said. "The girls were pushing into the house," Evers said.

Some neighbors got involved, and one girl called an unidentified man, Evers said. A group of men arrived at the scene and the fighting escalated. Two men pulled out guns and one of them began firing.

So, what does the police chief have to say about this?

Police Commissioner Charles H. Ramsey also responded to scene and denounced a culture of violence among young people.

Uh huh. No help there, then.

My question is, at what point do the people in Philly sandbag the whole front of the house and start stealing road plates to armor the baby's bedroom?

The Phantom

You just can't escape the insanity.

As I've said many times, I never, ever buy the newspaper, I do not have cable TV nor rabbit ears broadcast TV, I do not listen to commercial radio.  And yet still I can't completely escape this sort of thing:

Outsourcing Christmas: Why the new Toronto disgusts me

Michael Babad's article (mbabad@globeandmail.com) is in the Blob and Snail today, and the headline was on my Report On Business news feed. I had to click on that, since Toronto disgusts me also.  Turns out for a different reason.

I know this is an obvious attack point for a bleeding heart, and I also know that governments at every level are scrambling to cut in the post-recession era. But still, getting rid of an agency that pulls together Christmas toys for underprivileged kids?

That's what Toronto's politicians decided yesterday with the Christmas Bureau, one of several measures to save about $28-million, The Globe and Mail's Elizabeth Church and Patrick White report. That's less than what had been proposed, and many things survived Mayor Rob Ford's quest to cut down the gravy.

Toronto is Canada's financial showcase, home to its banks and its premiere stock exchange, drawing business visitors from around the world. With a jobless rate of 8.1 per cent, is this really what we want to show the world?

City of Toronto has a nine billion dollar annual budget. That's $9,000,000,000 samoleans, kids. Rob Ford tried to cut some fat out of it, but every attempted program cut had its little base of support, its own little constituency of outraged simpletons up in arms. 
Examples from the article of things that were not cut are:

Last week, the executive committee removed several contentious cost-cutting proposals, including the closing of library branches and the elimination of 2,000 subsidized daycare spaces funded by the city alone.

An additional $600,000 in cuts were removed Tuesday. Services that were saved include:

– community environment days

– city staff support for the Toronto Youth Cabinet and the Seniors Forum

– the Public Realm's Neighbourhood Improvement Program

As well, a recommendation to sell the Toronto Parking Authority was removed.

Community environment days were too important to Toronto's survival to cut?
But, give them credit, the city council did manage to find sufficient spine to cut $28,000,000, that's TWENTY EIGHT MILLION BUCKS, among which was The Christmas Bureau. The cutting of which "disgusts" Mr. Babad.  He's disgusted the city won't be paying union workers for doing something churches already do faster/better/cheaper. This kind of thing is why we have churches.

And this guy is a business writer?  Are you kidding me?

The comments echo my discontent with Babad's apparent lack of fiscal common sense.

However the best part of this is the Mop & Pail didn't get a penny of income from my wasted ten seconds of reading this dreck.

The Phantom

Another good reason to disable cookies.

Turns out Facebook has been observing your internet browsing even when you are logged out.

Most would assume that Facebook stops monitoring them after they leave its site, but technology bloggers discovered this was not the case.

In fact, data has been regularly sent back to the social network's servers – data that could be worth billions when creating 'targeted' advertising based on the sites users visit.

The website's practices were exposed by Australian technology blogger Nik Cubrilovic and have provoked a furious response across the internet.

I used to think I was paranoid for disabling cookies, popups, Flash, Java and Active X crap.  Turns out no, I wasn't. It's not just that they know your name and where you live, they know every damn website you've ever visited.
Seems to me there's a real market out there for software to secure your browser against people like Facebook and Google.
Imagine what the -government- must be doing.

The Unfortunately Not Paranoid Enough Phantom

Tuesday, September 27, 2011

Gun control working as intended.

ABOUT 11 P.M. on Sept. 9, dozens of youths with bats and pipes descended on a tidy residential area of Port Richmond looking for white teens who allegedly had attacked an African-American kid at Stokely Playground a couple of hours earlier.

Two fearful white teens [yeah, try little kids] spotted Mark LaVelle on Indiana Avenue near Belgrade Street and asked for help. Suddenly, the mob appeared. LaVelle, who said that he didn't know the two kids, who looked to be 13 or 14, ran with them into his nearby house.

Then it got ugly.

They were standing on his steps. One shouted, " 'Something's going to happen now!' " LaVelle recalled in an interview Friday at his house. LaVelle got nervous and went back inside, locking his door with a deadbolt.

But the attackers pounded on his front windows and kicked his wooden door so hard, it flew open and some of them entered his house.

"The first guy hits me with a pipe. The second guy knocks me in the face. All I'm hearing is my wife and kids screaming," said LaVelle, who feared that the next time they saw him, he would be in a casket.

He said that he was able to push the attackers out the door, but then a third man - who had a gun - tried to extend his arm. LaVelle grabbed onto the gunman's lower arm and shoulder so he couldn't raise the weapon. Then, police sirens screamed in the neighborhood, and the mob turned and ran.

I don't know what to say about this.  The same type of thing happened to me at age 19, and it scarred me for life even though I WON the engagement and left the other asshole bleeding on the floor.  First thing I did was go take up martial arts and become a fearsome looking son of a bitch.  Works great at scaring punks, sucks in a job interview, the nightmares don't go away.

This is a failure of not just social policy, this is a failure of basic civilization.  Roving bands of armed teenaged punks confident enough to attack a grown man in his own home, over nothing?  That's serious shit my friends.

When we hear about mobs of Muslims hauling a Hindu family out of their house in New Delhi and beating them to death in the street, we say "tsk" and wonder how a nation could allow such things. 

WELL NOW WE KNOW, DON'T WE.

The Completely and Utterly Disgusted Phantom

Sunday, September 25, 2011

A hopeful sign: Hippie Punching back in vogue.

This picture is dedicated to Kathy, who'd have punched the hippie bitch herself had she been there.


Wall Street, 80 arrested, some pepper sprayed.

Police said 80 protesters were arrested or ticketed at multiple locations for disorderly conduct, blocking traffic and failure to obey a lawful order but the number could rise.

Officials said protesters did not have a permit for the march and one demonstrator was charged with assaulting a police officer, causing a shoulder injury. The NYPD was investigating the use of pepper spray.

That's the total content of the article that deals with what actually happened. The rest of it is a tale of woe, poor little innocent protesters unjustly attacked by the Blue Meanies.

Hippie punching is never a bad idea, you ask me. Frigging little weenies want to play flash mob, push people around and screw up traffic, they should feel some pain.

A fine won't make much of an impression, but pepper spray in the eye is a memory that will last a lifetime. The stupid chick in the picture above won't be quite so quick to lip off to the cops next time, no doubt about it.

The Phantom Meanie

Update: Welcome Five Feet of Fury fans. Kathy Shaidle should have her own program on Sun TV. Or at least Ezra should shut up and let her talk when she's a guest. ~:D

Saturday, September 24, 2011

Big Brother wants your medical records.

The latest shoe to drop from the Obamacare nightmare: Health and Human Services will have access to your medical records. Yes, for real.

In a proposed rule from Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), the federal government is demanding insurance companies submit detailed health care information about their patients.

Yes friends, the federal government WILL have complete access to every shot you've had (or skipped) since you were born, your meds, your vision tests, any psych info you may have confided to your doctor, hospital visits, medical tests like colonoscopies, blood tests or CAT scans, the WORKS. Pictures too.

Just imagine what a well-meaning bureaucrat could do with that. Ever had a depressive episode? No guns for you! Ever had a heart murmur? You get the Special Diet and a fine if you're seen at McDonalds! Over weight? EXERCISE PROGRAM! In front of the TV that watches you! We even have that already, its called a web cam. Funny how 1984 keeps cropping up all the time.
And just imagine the sheer cost of doing it. The database alone will probably cost more than a squadron of B2 bombers, government computer systems always do. Then there's the staff, the policy wonks, the oversight committees, the scamming...

Two words my friends. Tea. Party.

The "I can seeeee you!" Phantom

Thursday, September 22, 2011

Stingray is watching you.

Very informative article about how the cops track cell phones that are not even in use.

Stingrays are designed to locate a mobile phone even when it's not being used to make a call. The Federal Bureau of Investigation considers the devices to be so critical that it has a policy of deleting the data gathered in their use, mainly to keep suspects in the dark about their capabilities, an FBI official told The Wall Street Journal in response to inquiries.

A stingray's role in nabbing the alleged "Hacker"—Daniel David Rigmaiden—is shaping up as a possible test of the legal standards for using these devices in investigations. The FBI says it obtains appropriate court approval to use the device.

Cops are behind the times with their Stingray.  Check it: right here on the Phantom Soapbox, the semi-autonomous flying WiFi and phone sniffer. Geeks built it for a giggle.  Its better than FBI kit.

Sometimes it is a burden to be so right, about so many things.  ~:D

The Phantom