One thing I'm noticing in these comments, and in a lot of comments threads is the "well yeah, duh. Everyone already knew that" and while I'm definitely in that camp and have done that myself, I am starting to wonder if there is danger there.

Like, this is a significant breach of privacy and trust and the kind of thing that we should be up in arms about. But we already assume the government is doing the worst movie villain shit imaginable, so when we have evidence of it we shrug it off as just another Tuesday.

Yeah, waters wet. We should still be alarmed when we see a puddle of it somewhere it shouldn't be. (I don't know if that analogy actually tracks but I'm sticking with it).

You're not wrong, but these days the number of members of the public that truly cares (to point of taking action) about privacy is an extreme minority.
Puddle has been wet for a while, infact, it's practically almost an inland ocean, why do you think we're funding drone wars? Ai computing? Quantum computers? tactical robotics? Surveilence companies like Pegasus, Blackrock, Palantir, Even our our domestic surveilence is getting a larger check than defense. It's a very deliberate "funding" of institutions that ultimately give the police an upperhand, not saying that the police are directly funding these institutions, but rather the state, although not much when it comes to anything outside the defense budget.
There's a reason why privacy advocates are for alternative tech, and that's because since 9/11, corporations have become "lobbied" for lack of a better word, to include backdoors and implement certain tech to aid a surveilence state, such as the removal of headphone jacks, the endorsement of useless and extremely vulnerable tech that's more energy wasting, blutooth products (yeah i have a problem with it, everyone should), fingerprint sensors, front and back facing cameras, artificial intelligence (yes even the older models.), and even going as far as to add metadata to photos that give your exact geolocation data.
Don't even get me started on the invasive software that comes with the tech, like auto generated albums, or auto editing photos, the such, it pisses me off that we let these things happen. Alternative tech makes it much harder to intercept such vulnerable information, ofcourse, it won't completely stop it, but it mitigates how much they can swipe under your nose.
Not only that, but check upon the "Blue Shield Act," it explains the motive for corruption within the american institutions of police, hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil. It's the common trope for the kinds of psychopaths that would be okay with doing the job in the first place. If there's one thing that makes their job easier, it's definitely going to be you in cuffs staying silent, so why try to steer away from cutting corners? We're the law, what we say is final. Until it isn't ofcourse..
But that's the problem, as you state in your comment above, this abuse of power is shrugged off, almost as if a normal behaviour, expected. It's digusting to see it even when i grew up around the same mentality. But hey, at least their method clearly seems to be working, we're practically silent seeing as they still have the confidence to fuck with our lives.
Just remember, it's final until it isn't.
Blue Shield/Blue Wall/Blue Code https.//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_wall_of_silence
I think you can just assume at this point the US government does not care about the constitution or it's people and will use any means necessary to collect data on those who wish to counter its growing authoritarian nature.
If you go to a protest, only take a burner phone or no phone at all. If you must take your phone, turn it off and Faraday cage it.
The US has become a failed state. Leave if you can. Things will only get worse before it completely implodes.
Like in a water cooled PC

and they criticize china for this bruh

Reminds me of:
Samsung: "Apple Bad! They removed headphone jack and the charging brick."
Also Samsung one year later: "sAvE tHe eNvIrOnMeNt 🤡"
Remember, they were really just admiring them 🫠
Just a friendly reminder that China is still much worse than any flawed democracy when it comes to freedom
- Just a friendly reminder that less evil, even if true, is still fucking evil.
- Have you ever been to China? (I have, family is from there and lives there, Hong Kong, and Saigon). Because their crime rate is a hell of a lot lower than ours. Even Hong Kong, had like 5 homicides late year… (China is trying to take over the island). They have cameras EVERY. WHERE. Therefore, you can’t get away with crimes. Sucks it has to be that way… but don’t do a crime and don’t have to worry, common sense.
  America is horrid right now, tear gassing peaceful protesters, hitting them with rubber bullets which some victims have been lost eye site because they were hit in the face, no affordable healthcare options, MASSIVE FALSE information, govt approving bills that only help the rich, etc. The thing that is the worse is that if we cannot use tear gas in WAR why the FUCK are we using it as a weapon for our own people… the policing force and govt is now being the citizens enemy!
  Yes, China is horrid for workers but like the previous comment “evil is still EVIL!” Is it that much better in America when we have people living paycheck to paycheck, homeless, can’t afford anything, etc. most of us still can’t afford damn healthcare… so China vs America… BOTH ARE FUCKING EVIL in their own ways! Our country is a laughing stock, people are flooding out and NO ONE is visiting or wants to come here anymore. We are the ONLY country with a DECLINE in tourists… not even China had a decline… that’s embarrassing!
  Basically, evil is still evil not matter the degree!

Even though most of the comments here point out the obvious that phones are a risk, this kind of journalism is still important for spreading awareness and documentation of illegal surveillance for the record

Yeah lemmy is mostly a left echo chamber, which is generally a net positive. But someone like my cousin who still gets their news from Facebook but might want to protest now they are thinking about their views would benefit from this journalism
- Eh, it's a center-left chamber at best. As evidenced by the extreme reaction to the far-left echo chambers.

once again.

do not take your phone to a protest

And if you must, leave it off, ideally in a faraday cage/bag.
- : takes off face and puts it in faraday cage:
- And if you have to make a call or text, use something encrypted.
  Also voice over data sounds better anyway. Traditional phone calls sound like shit. Treat yo self.
And cover your damn face.
Cory Doctorow wrote a pretty entertaining book on the subject of tech vs politics.
https://craphound.com/attacksurface/
Also it's well researched
https://pavelanni.github.io/attack-surface-tech/attack-surface-tech.html

I mean...is that not assumed to be the default? Cell phone surveillance is pretty much just business as usual in this country is it not?

This is illegal without a warrant. And judges have been denying broad sweeping warrants that would cover such situations.
- We are in different times. This administration doesn't care about warrants.
- pardon me, sir, but this is illegal withou-
  click
  hey! Uncuff me! This is illegal!
  car door shuts
  Hey! Let me out of this car!
  vroooooom
  Where are we going!? You can't take me to jail!
  arrives at jail
  Dear family, they call this place prison, it looks like prison, and I've been issued what they're calling a "lawyer", but impossible as that may be considering they didn't have a warrant, I can only deduce that I've been kidnapped by a vigilante to a remote location pretending to be a prison!
- Relying on the rule of law is reactive.
  Ditching the phone is proactive.
  Be Proactive.
- Pretty sure this kind of thing has been illegal since before Edward Snowden became a whistleblower, tbh. The US Government hasn't cared about people's privacy and the laws surrounding it for decades.
- The US Government only gives a shit when they are caught. You'd have a damn hard time trying to prove mass surveillance to a court even though we all know they do it.
- It’s endearing that you think that even matters anymore
- You’re assuming the ICErs give a shit about warrants, and they often do not.

If you attend a protest, you need to read this and follow it:

https://ssd.eff.org/module/attending-protest

If you're in Washington as in this article, and need a lawyer after being arrested at a protest, the phone number is 206-OK-TRY-ME
Good read!
- A lot of great info, but "If you choose to answer questions, be sure to tell the truth” is a mistake. Remember, anything you say "can and will be used against you." Key word, against. Nothing you tell them will be used to help you. Remain silent.
Also: https://sls.eff.org/

Exclusive BREAKING NEWS: After careful consideration by the World's top scientists from 1000+ top Universities, it turns out that WATER, H2O, the Wet Wet is, in fact, wet.

No fucking way! I'm gonna need about 100 articles about that, all explaining the exact same thing, but slightly too dumbed down to the point that it doesn't actually tell me anything.
- Then I'm just going to do my own Facebook research and come to my own conclusion.
Where is the “water isn’t really wet” guy!?
Your comment is 8 hours old. He should be here by now!

So basically, one could go to ICE protest and troll with fake conversations about attack points and watch them scatter to control nonexistent issues.

"Free Donuts, corner of 12th & Main. Tell no one."
better be VERY coded language that a jury would agree is innocent in nature and intent.
- Brave to think this will go before a jury.
Yes, but they would probably arrest you instead.
- They'll arrest you for looking at them.
- Put pictures up of the team America characters and type, “derka derka, allah jihad. 103 blah St.”
  When they get there, they’re confronted with nothing and the joke is obviously a joke.
  Not that it would save you.
might be better to have a bunch of gibberish with a few named places.
They might think it's code and deploy there, and you're not actually making a legitimate threat they could come after you for somehow.
You could then troll them even harder by giving them a real threat to scatter over.
- Very bold…atlas.

Please dont take your fucking phone to a protest. Buy a burner if you must.

You will be tracked. And spied on. And facial recognitioned. Etc.

I honestly thought this was common knowledge but obviously I was wrong. I get the need to video and document but damn. Don’t use your daily driver folks.
- Hot take: Let the press document things, and leave the burner-phone stuff to security professionals. The press more or less requires attribution, so let them front that risk. Meanwhile digital anonymity starts at point-of-sale and is not easy for just anyone to pull off. The overwhelming majority of people are just better off just showing up "naked".
In some countries, like Greece, you can't use an unregistered phone number.
Since phone numbers are tied to people's identities, does it really matter whether you use a burner or your main?
- Then don't take a phone. If you're an organizer who needs to communicate, get a wifi/bt only tablet, look up mesh networks that use bluetooth and wifi, learn encryption and learn code words.
  It's trivial to jam any wireless network. All jamming is it to flood the rf range with loud static. But you can still take measures to keep from being spied on.
  Edit: also look into if MAC address spoofing. Not entirely sure which models of phones support that, officially or otherwise though.
Amen!
Digital camera + SD card (about $100) and save the little plastic container that came with the SD card in case you have to swallow it.

I mean who doesn't know this cmon

I am once again recommending idcaboutprivacy

Can you fix the markdown of the second bullet point?
- Done. Good lookin out.

IMSI catchers. It's known at least for 10 years now, that they get used on protests in US.

Could AI be used to create a bunch of useless chatter in the airways that they would have to sift through and waste their time? Maybe use AI for actual good.

IMSI spoofing is a product of wireless telephony being an ancient (way-pre-internet) technology, and we're long in an era where law enforcement (or in this case law-enforcement coded) investigators don't have to obey laws, such as assuring due process, and unreasonable searches disqualifying evidence. Instead they're hunting political enemies, and every prisoner of the United States is now a political prisoner.
It also means we don't have to obey the law, and can start using all-frequency jammers in and around protests and ICE actions to level the playing field. (It will also interfere with regular infrastructure, but it's not like ICE or the current regime gives half a fuck about that.
All-frequency jammers are older tech and easier to build than IMSI spoofers, and are highly illegal since so much of our commerce and communications depend on radio. But the current [FCC] has also been captured and is failing to do its job.
Any Amateur Radio enthusiast will know how to make a jammer. And current battery technology would assure you could make a handful that are portable and powerful enough to shut down blocks and blocks of municipal communication. This is playing pretty hardball, but then ICE isn't playing by the rules.
- From an RF enthusiast,
  Wideband jamming will get a lot of attention very quickly and is extremely easy to triangulate with handheld hardware and a couple of hours of training. I'd recommended against doing that.
- It also means we don't have to obey the law
  Not true. Even pre ICE. Law enforcement is allowed to lie to you, but you cannot lie to them. The playing field is not level.
Yes/no.
The data processing capabilities they have will far FAR outweigh anything you can effectively achieve with AI spam at your scale.
Even if you got thousands to participate, it wouldn't really be all that much.
Remember, these are agencies already doing data processing on social media, meaning they're already setup to analyze billions of messages a day.
Texting is so low volume it's almost comical, and people that are trying to poison the well stand out and become easy to filter.

Saw a job posting yesterday to assist a contractor with installing a system used by police to monitor school camera feeds directly "to support law enforcement". jesus fuck man

You probably wouldn't want to bring a phone to some types of events, but as the number of these events increase, the odds of you just happening to be close to such an event during the course of a normal day might increase. Maybe it's best if we turn off 2g reception on our phones. No reason to be swept up in warrantless sweeps if not necessary.

Faraday bags make great stocking stuffers.
- The perfect gift. Just remember to look at reviews before you buy and test the ones you have. They do vary a lot in how well they actually work (to the point that some are so useless it would almost have to be intentional)

I wonder if it would be possible to extend the capabilities of the software to triangulate the location of a a Stingray or other false tower with a few more of those devices working in concert in the same area.

if you've ever used a radar detector you know, people drive like they are always being watched. not often in my experience. doubt these dolts are real sophisticated. fear is their main weapon.

I don't understand the entire first half of your comment. The only explanation I have for how well received it was would have to be the last two sentences which resonated with people.

Remember to leave your phones at home or turned off completely if you go to a protest

Turned off completely isn't off. You'd need to put it in a Faraday bag
- Better yet, give it to a friend who isn't attending the protest, and have them drive around with the phone. Pull it out and check some sites with it every few minutes, maybe send a few messages.
- This is one reason why I liked when you could physically remove the battery on phones.

Would a burner phone be susceptible to this kind of attack?

Yes, but then you get rid of it immediately. Also, don't activate it or have it on at home or any other place that can be associated with you. Only do so after paying with cash and at the location where you're going to use it then dispose of it.
- You will be recorded while paying for the phone. This won't bring you any anonymity.
Sure but no phone also works.

How does one build a scanner to detect anomalies consistent with IMSI catchers?

https://github.com/EFForg/rayhunter

I'm surprised it was finally acknowledged. The anamoliess were discovered in March and tested out at several smaller protests before the big ones.

Burner phone, but the power of photography is necessary. Don't get faces, which isn't usually too hard as everyone faces a single direction.

I know this sounds crazy in 2025, but you can still buy standalone digital cameras. You can even get discreet devices that record constantly.
- I think the idea behind a phone with a camera is that your can immediately upload what you've got in case some thug with a badge takes your device and smashes it
- I probably should have specified that

Ummm, no shit!?

Kinda unexpected to see Straight Arrow News doing original reporting.

yeah pretty much never trust a public wifi without vpn. bring your own router. cell data is pwned. technics aren't in their curriculums.