Chicago Cops Used Stingray To Intercept Protester’s Conversations (Video)

Cellular surveillance experts have thus far debated over the vehicle’s capabilities, with some noting not only an antenna, used alongside IMSI catchers, but two cameras, LED lighting and license plate scanners as well. Regardless, the leaked audio serves to once again shatter claims by police departments that Stingrays are only used to stop the most heinous of crimes. Just last August, documents acquired through a public records request revealed that a Washington state police department used a Stingray to hunt down a missing city laptop, not to investigate a homicide, rape or kidnapping as the department previously claimed.

Speaking with Infowars last month, Kirk Wiebe, a highly decorated 36 year NSA veteran turned whistleblower, condemned the domestic use of Stingrays by police and federal agents.

“These devices feed the mentality of the Police State, not unlike that experienced under the Nazis (Germany) and Stasi (East Germany),” Wiebe said. “Law enforcement is using this information to investigate and prosecute people without warrants – that is unconstitutional.  At the national level, the same thing is happening.” Given the fact that federal agencies have been caught teaching law enforcement groups to deceive judges in order to spy on Americans illegally, the act is likely going on much more often than the average citizen realizes. With leaked Department of Defense documents labeling First Amendment-protected protest as “low-level terrorism” in 2009,  it is hardly a surprise that the government would deploy technology originally developed for use overseas against innocent American at home.