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A comment on California Police Used Stingrays in Planes to Spy on Phones. Parent comment

Re:California Police Used Stingrays in Planes to Spy on Phones by jjwiseman on Thursday January 28, 2016 @12:46AM (#10986541)
From looking at the FAA registry[1] and googling, it looks like the Anaheim police department operates 3 aircraft: N226PD, an AS350 helicopter; N326PD, another AS350 helicopter; N508BH, a Cessna 208B.

N508BH, the Cessna, is probably the one they're using for surveillance (See the 2012 OC Register article, "$2.2 million Cessna will help fight crime"[2]).

FlightAware shows that N508BH flies to northern california a lot. You can also see what looks like a probable surveillance flight path at http://flightaware.com/live/flight/N508BH/history/20151128/2...

Three aircraft for a California city with population 350K isn't crazy--Glendale and Burbank together have about 300K people, and their police forces have gone in together to create a "joint air support division" that has 4 helicopters[3].

  [1] http://www.faa.gov/licenses_certificates/aircraft_certification/aircraft_registry/releasable_aircraft_download/
  [2] http://www.ocregister.com/articles/air-356706-police-cessna.html
  [3] http://www.mdhelicopters.com/news/pdf/2014/111914.pdf
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Re:California Police Used Stingrays in Planes to Spy on Phones by toomanybeersies on Thursday January 28, 2016 @08:42AM (#10988041)
That's phenomenal.

As a point of contrast, the New Zealand police own 1 helicopter, and contract out flying light aircraft to commercial operators.

Upon saying that, they often call upon the air force for logistical support (in particular for helicopter operations, usually for drug operations, such as airlifting cannabis for destruction, not for raids).

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Re:California Police Used Stingrays in Planes to Spy on Phones by alistairSH on Thursday January 28, 2016 @10:55AM (#10988887)
In the US, it is illegal for the military to operate in a civilian law-enforcement context. The National Guard (state militias) can be called into civilian action by the state governor, but do not normally perform civilian tasks.

Helicopter ownership by police departments is common. Airplane ownership is less common, at least at the city/county level - the state police forces frequently have small planes.

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