Texas State Police Gear Up for Massive Expansion of Surveillance Tech

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https://www.texasobserver.org/texas-dps-surveillance-tangle-cobwebs/

In June, the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) signed an acquisition plan for a 5-year, nearly $5.3 million contract for a controversial surveillance tool called Tangles from tech firm PenLink, according to records obtained by the Texas Observer through a public information request. The deal is nearly twice as large as the company’s $2.7 million two-year contract with the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). 

Tangles is an artificial intelligence-powered web platform that scrapes information from the open, deep, and dark web. Tangles’ premier add-on feature, WebLoc, is controversial among digital privacy advocates. Any client who purchases access to WebLoc can track different mobile devices’ movements in a specific, virtual area selected by the user, through a capability called “geofencing.” Users of software like Tangles can do this without a search warrant or subpoena. (In a high-profile ruling, the Fifth Circuit recently held that police cannot compel companies like Google to hand over data obtained through geofencing.) Device-tracking services rely on location pings and other personal data pulled from smartphones, usually via in-app advertisers. Surveillance tech companies then buy this information from data brokers and sell access to it as part of their products.

WebLoc can even be used to access a device’s mobile ad ID, a string of numbers and letters that acts as a unique identifier for mobile devices in the ad marketing ecosystem, according to a US Office of Naval Intelligence procurement notice.

DPS’ Intelligence and Counterterrorism division has used Tangles since 2021, as first reported by The Intercept. The agency first purchased the software as part of Governor Greg Abbott’s multi-billion dollar Operation Lone Star border crackdown, doling out an initial $200,000 contract as an “emergency award” with no public solicitation. Each year since, DPS has expanded the contract: In 2022, it paid $300,000, and in 2023, more than $400,000, according to contracting records on DPS’ website. The agency’s new plan for a 5-year Tangles license, from 2024 through 2029, will cost about $1 million per year.

In its acquisition plan, DPS states that Intelligence and Counterterrorism division personnel need the tool to “identify and disrupt potential domestic terrorism and other mass casualty threats.” The plan references two Texas mass shootings. In August 2019, a racist white man from Allen killed 23 at a Walmart in El Paso. A few weeks later, a different perpetrator went on a deadly shooting in Midland and Odessa. The plan does not mention the 2022 Uvalde school shooting, when 91 DPS officers formed part of a massive botched law enforcement response. 

“Following the attacks in El Paso and Midland-Odessa Governor Abbott issued several executive orders designed to prevent similar events,” the acquisition plan obtained by the Observer states. “In response to these orders, DPS [Intelligence and Counterterrorism division] dedicated staff to identify potential mass attackers and terrorist threats.”

It is unclear how DPS has used Tangles or whether the software has helped stop any potential mass shootings. DPS did not respond to written questions or an interview request for this story.

tl/dr: DPS has entered into a $5.3 million contract to a private firm which collects your location data from your cell phone. So how did the firm get the data? You've agreed to provide to the data to certain apps and the maker of those apps sold it to them. That firm took that data and created its own geo-fencing data which DPS wants. No warrant required.  

[crash_davis 23,113]

This is why I laugh when Apple and other companies market how secure their customer's data is. It's the apps, stupid. Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, etc all collect location and other data from customers' phones. Websites use cookies to track visitors' usage long after they leave the sites. Those apps and cookies are always running in the background collecting data. Those apps and websites sell that data to anyone who wants it because revenue.

Texas, being the bastion of freedom, seems to be a interested buyer of the data, obviously to "identify and disrupt potential domestic terrorism and other mass casualty threats." LOL.

 

Edited August 27 by crash_davis

[BurntEyes 5,992]

Good to see DPS getting in the NSA game.

I'm sure it's for the children and not related to the WOD. 

[General Specific 3,261]

So we are going to rely on AI for pre-crime? What happened to the three people in the pool with super powers?

All that will happen, is DPS will know when I’m on the way to/from Colorado, and pre stage along 287, waiting to hand out speeding tickets to pay for this shit!

[General Specific 3,261]

DP

[RPM 26,321]

19 minutes ago, General Specific said:

All that will happen, is DPS will know when I’m on the way to/from Colorado, and pre stage along 287, waiting to hand out felony drug trafficking to pay for this shit!

fify

They also have the license plate reader network to fill in the blanks.