Dave Emery <die@pig.die.com> writes:
There's been a thread in the scanner newsgroups lately about Radio Shack giving their sales lists to the FBI. Now, I KNOW a lot of baloney circulates through the newsgroups. This particular thread is said to have started with the Richard Jewell Atlanta bombing case when the FBI investigated electronics parts purchases at Radio Shack. And, I don't break the law with my scanner, so I don't care who knows that I have one. But let me tell a story that happened about a month ago. I got up very early one morning and turned on my scanner and heard the police that serve the warrants ("We like to pick up everyone before breakfast" is a quote from a local warrant server). The dispatcher said that the FBI had located a friend of mine who was staying in a local Motel 6 and that there was a warrant for his arrest. He was picked up (it was a mistake) and when he asked how they knew he was there, they told him that Motel 6 gives their guest list to the FBI every day. I could not belive this! I told him that there was any number of ways that they could have found him. But about a week ago, I heard one of the warrant servers say something about Motel 6 and their FBI arrangement. I am absolutely appalled that this goes on. I don't appreciate the fact that if I stay at any motel, that an FBI agent might view my name on a guest list. It's nobody's business where I sleep (or buy a battery from an ill-informed salesman). Whew........I feel better. Thanks for allowing me to rant. I posted a similar post to the thread in the newsgroup (anonymously) so escuse me if you've already read this.
A couple of related items (neither one quite crypto-relevant). I used to work with a guy (who no longer lives in the U.S. - lucky him :-) who has a company building high-end custom electronic gear. (I used to hack up the device drivers and other software for his hardware.) He used to get regular visits from the LEAs asking for the lists of people who bought certain kinds of eq from him. In particular, anyone who bought eq capable of writing magentic strips on credit cards was immediately closely scrutinized... Note that he didn't come to them - they came to him. I also used to work in the publishing industry (one good thing about consulting is that you learn a lot about different industries :-) and I have little doubt that the FBI does take a look at people who buy mail-order books from outfits like Aegean Press and Loompanics. In New York City, the police regularly collect high school yearbooks and add students' photographs to the collections they show crime victims, hoping they'll identify a suspect. This year one of the city's newspapers published a memo from the police commissioner ordering cop to collect yearbooks from each school. As the result *some* school principals are announcing that they won't turn their yearbooks over to the cops unless one of their students is a suspect in a concrete crime (and that's probably the case in almost every school, causing every other student's picture to go to NYPD; and in a few schools where there are no suspects, they'll be able to get the yearbooks from the students.) --- Dr.Dimitri Vulis KOTM Brighton Beach Boardwalk BBS, Forest Hills, N.Y.: +1-718-261-2013, 14.4Kbps