Florida geared up to surveil Haitian migrants' phones from planes using Israeli 'StingRay'
Governor DeSantis's office signed a $793,000 contract for FalcoNet cell tower simulator equipment through Israeli firm Cognyte in late December.
November 11, 2024: Two days after this article reported roughly $1 million in surveillance purchases from Cognyte, Florida’s Department of Law Enforcement agreed to pay the company an additional $2.13 million for “confidential hardware and software,” on October 23, 2024.
Despite its failed attempt to acquire the highly controversial Israeli spyware company NSO Group in 2018, the surveillance division of the Israeli technology company Verint Systems has largely remained outside of the spotlight since spinning out in the form of Cognyte Software in 2021.
But the firm’s surveillance equipment and software has been purchased by the State of Florida for more than $1 million since late last year as part of an effort to disrupt and interdict “mass migration” into the state through a federal program known as Operation Vigilant Sentry (OVS).
A $793,000 purchase order in December through the office of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis was titled “2023 OVS Mass Migration - Cognyte - Mission 00372 - FDLE Aviation Technology Upgrade - SP,” referencing support for the Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE) in Operation Vigilant Sentry. The listed deliverables include “FalcoNet core system: 13 x full SDR [Software-Defined Radio] BTS [Base Transceiver Station] (2G/3G/4G/5G) $765,000.00” and an “Airborne portable Deployment Kit designed to enable ad hoc temporary deployment of FalcoNet on board manned aircraft (fixed-wing or helicopter).”
In other words, Florida State Police purchased an airborne celltower simulator — colloquially known as a ‘StingRay’ due to the popular product previously produces by Harris Corporation — to collect the unique identifiers of migrants’ phones and to intercept unencrypted communications. Such software-defined base stations are frequently used to jam normal signals to force phones to connect to their artificial station.
A press release from Governor DeSantis’s office in March — three months after the FalcoNet purchase — stated that “state agencies have security and surveillance assets in South Florida and the Keys as a part of Operation Vigilant Sentry to stop illegal immigration at sea.” The title and opening sentence asserted that the purpose was to stop “a potential influx of illegal immigrants from Haiti.”
A separate purchase order from late August of last year discloses that Florida State Police paid $355,000 for “confidential” software from Cognyte.
A public reseller catalogue for “Hazardous Incident Response Equipment” (HIRE) produced by the controversial contractor Atlantic Diving Supply for purchase by New York State explicitly lists not only Cognyte’s FalcoNet airborne base station simulator, but also several other surveillance products, including “Mobile WASP” and “Nano-SNIPER.” Other available products from Cognyte through Atlantic Diving Supply, which also frequently resells the mimicked Icom brand of radios booby-trapped by the Israeli government, include: "a “True MAC revealer,” “MAC-IMSI Correlation,” and a “Honeypot,” in reference to a phone’s Media Access Control (MAC) address and International Mobile Subscriber Identity (IMSI).
As reported by the liberal Israeli newspaper Haaretz thirteen days before DeSantis’s FalcoNet purchase, Nano-SNIPER “allows operators to collect data from mobile communications within a given area, including mapping all the devices and even jamming their connections.” Haaretz further noted that Cognyte “also sells a digital investigations suite capable of fusing together with open source data as well.”
The Florida Department of Law Enforcement and Cognyte did not respond to requests for comment.
Is there a listing of Israeli tech companies anywhere?
Awesome reporting! Happy to hear Florida is taking a stand - especially since I am a resident on one of its barrier islands.