Army Spy Plane may have picked up NYC Bomber’s phone call to airline
When someone tells you Big Brother might be listening to you over your Bluetooth or your gaming console, it just might be true…
Times Square attempted bombing suspect Faisal Shahzad was picked up at JFK International Airport very soon after his SUV filled explosives was found. How did authorities scramble so quickly to find him?
Rumor has it that a secret Army intelligence plane found him and listened in as he placed calls with his anonymous, prepaid cell phone.
WCBS’ website reported: “In the end, it was secret Army intelligence planes that did him in. Armed with his cell phone number, they circled the skies over the New York area, intercepting a call to Emirates Airlines reservations, before scrambling to catch him at John F. Kennedy International Airport.”
This paragraph was deleted very soon after it was published online.
According to WIRED’s Danger Room, Jeremy Scahill, relying on a source in U.S. Special Operations, says those planes were likely RC-12s, equipped with a Guardrail Signals Intelligence (SIGINT) system. The planes are designed to pluck all kinds of communications from the air. “It sucks up everything. We’ve got these things in Jalalabad [Afghanistan]. We routinely fly these things over Khandahar. When I say everything, I mean BlueTooth would be effected, even the wave length that PlayStation controllers are on. They suck up everything. That’s the point,” Scahill’s source tells him.
Northrup Grumman contracted in 2007 for up to $462 million to upgrade the spy planes, which are serviced less than a hundred miles from New York.
Since you’re here …
… We’d like to tell you about our mission and how you can help us fulfill it. SiliconANGLE Media Inc.’s business model is based on the intrinsic value of the content, not advertising. Unlike many online publications, we don’t have a paywall or run banner advertising, because we want to keep our journalism open, without influence or the need to chase traffic.The journalism, reporting and commentary on SiliconANGLE — along with live, unscripted video from our Silicon Valley studio and globe-trotting video teams at theCUBE — take a lot of hard work, time and money. Keeping the quality high requires the support of sponsors who are aligned with our vision of ad-free journalism content.
If you like the reporting, video interviews and other ad-free content here, please take a moment to check out a sample of the video content supported by our sponsors, tweet your support, and keep coming back to SiliconANGLE.
