DOJ aircraft, not very stealthy....

[Henning]

Noticing some weird things above Phoenix. I've seen 3-4 planes circling endlessly on the flight tracker. Someone is monitoring something, I suspect.... Planes are registered to two different companies, both out of Bristow, VA. Both are C206's, but yesterday there was a PC12 doing the same thing. Always at 9,500 or 10,500. Currently, one of them is flying a perfect circle endlessly over Maricopa. (Appears to be GPS-coupled, autopilot flown). This plane is registered to "PSL Surveys", but I'm not sure too many surveys are done at night......

And the plot thickens... there are a highly unusual number of C206's and 182Ts registered to a variety of three letter companies, all in Bristow... http://planedb.net/city/bristow-va.htm I don't think it's a conspiracy or anything, but I wonder what the explanation is?

OK, so there are about 55 of these C206's or 182T's, mostly 2010 models, registered to PO boxes in Bristow, VA. Some are registered to the same PO box as a Department of Justice aircraft. If this was something nefarious, I would think they'd cover it up better. Whatever they are doing, they are not very sneaky....

At the recent FFZ open house, I told the Mesa PD guys "hey - you know I can see on my 1090 Mhz receiver everytime you fire up the chopper and go out on patrol - aren't you concerned the bad guys know where you are". His response - "yeah, the bad guys aren't all that smart." I wonder what you _could_ get away with if you _were_ a smart bad guy.... hmmm....

A bit more info here, at least the aircraft I'm watching now is not broadcasting it's position via ADS-B, however the flightradar24 website is getting it's position via MLAT, and it's using Mode S, so the aircraft's ID and position is publicly available via triangulation. Not smart.

You could control the Federal Reserve.

 

[ChemGuy]

no need to use an aircraft to pull cellphone data. Much easier to just get a court order and get it all straight from the cell companies.

That would only work if you had real evidence before what you learned from using the cell tower simulator.

And getting real evidence is hard work.

 

[flyingron]

Might not be cellphones, could be spying on wifi or such.

 

[bflynn]

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/201...-it-could-belong-to-fbi-surveillance-program/

Is this the same thing?

 

[bnt83]

More proof that the government doesn't care about it's own impact on their crisis of climate change?

 

[Rigged4Flight]

That would only work if you had real evidence before what you learned from using the cell tower simulator.

And getting real evidence is hard work.

Assuming this was before the expiration of the patriot act, they could get all that data without real evidence without ever leaving the comfort of an air conditioned office.

 

[denverpilot]

Assuming this was before the expiration of the patriot act, they could get all that data without real evidence without ever leaving the comfort of an air conditioned office.

LOL. You think they tore out the fiber taps because a law expired. Aren't you cute?

All they did was move the storage costs off the government books and onto your phone bill. Data centers in Utah are expensive. Might as well mandate the carriers build them instead and save the hard to hide buildings and expense. Plenty of fiber along the railroad tracks leading to Utah.

 

[Rigged4Flight]

LOL. You think they tore out the fiber taps because a law expired. Aren't you cute?

All they did was move the storage costs off the government books and onto your phone bill. Data centers in Utah are expensive. Might as well mandate the carriers build them instead and save the hard to hide buildings and expense. Plenty of fiber along the railroad tracks leading to Utah.

I'm not stupid, and I have zero expectation that the government has stopped any of their spying on us or the rest of the world. They were doing it before 9/11 and they are surely doing it now - and it's being paid for exactly the same as it's always been: your tax dollars at work.

The difference between now and before the patriot act expired is how/whether they can use the data against you in court, which is what I was pointing out. Assuming it was before the patriot act expired, they wouldn't need to leave their office or even need any evidence of wrongdoing - they could just tell the Telco's that they want the data and it's done. No extra work required, and certainly no need for any flying cell tower shenanigans.

 

[wsuffa]

no need to use an aircraft to pull cellphone data. Much easier to just get a court order and get it all straight from the cell companies.

Takes longer, much longer, to do that. And you can get more data by sucking it off the air. Radio transmissions aren't confidential, anyone with the right equipment can get the handshake data, and sometimes more. Using aircraft permits immediate application of the data to tracking objects using FLIR or other equipment.

What.... and follow the law.......

The law may well permit this. And we don't know whether or not a warrant was obtained (they can be pretty broad). What's your point?

Yeah, that'd be completely silly and far too much to ask!

9/11 changed everything and we lost...forever.

Despite statements by certain politicians, I concur with you last statement with respect to some of our privacy and freedoms.

Might not be cellphones, could be spying on wifi or such.

Could be, but more likely using a Stingray or similar device, possibly along with FLIR.

 

[Henning]

LOL. You think they tore out the fiber taps because a law expired. Aren't you cute?

All they did was move the storage costs off the government books and onto your phone bill. Data centers in Utah are expensive. Might as well mandate the carriers build them instead and save the hard to hide buildings and expense. Plenty of fiber along the railroad tracks leading to Utah.

Yep, I was working for Sperry Rail Service when the Southern Pacific (SPRINT parent) was putting it in.

I noticed some interesting planes the other night camping in central Virgina and couldn't figure out what they were. They were a loosely formed flight of 4 in a diamond pattern with unique wing lighting strobes, all identical and appeared to be flying between 5 & 10k feet, going pretty fast too, over 200, but they were dead quiet. There was just a minor, low-mid pitch, rushing wind sound after they had passed so I assume they were turbine. I had never before had a flight of planes pass over me that low and quietly before. I wish it had been light out so I could have had a better sighting of them.

 

[Anthony]

I certainly wouldn't mess with them, but the waste of all these hyper equipped planes flying over both domestic, and foreign soil is ridiculous. DEA partners with Mexico, and South American countries so we have a bunch of planes including King Airs equipped with major electronic surveillance for the "war on drugs".

 

[Jimmy cooper]

This has been going on for years! Both with the dea and the FBI. I knew 2 of the pilots both in baltimore and in buffalo n.y. All four flew in 182s, smart, college educated, good pilots, and did quite well in catching offenders they tracked in the air. The ones in baltimore had a ford pickup with a camper they had confiscated that they used as a paddy wagon. When one considers the billions wasted on the F35, this is chicken feed.

 

[denverpilot]

The difference between now and before the patriot act expired is how/whether they can use the data against you in court, which is what I was pointing out.

They took care of that, also. No need for a Court for an enemy combatant in the War That Never Ends.

 

[Rigged4Flight]

I certainly wouldn't mess with them, but the waste of all these hyper equipped planes flying over both domestic, and foreign soil is ridiculous. DEA partners with Mexico, and South American countries so we have a bunch of planes including King Airs equipped with major electronic surveillance for the "war on drugs".

Because that is the only thing the government is looking for...