Law Enforcement’s Possible Use of Surveillance Technology at Standing Rock

Surveillance apparatus of the modern state is intensive and deep. So imagine if they are already watching everybody as Snowden pointed out, how much more info can they dig up on much smaller groups that they are really watching.

A bunch of creepos spying on people. Oh wait, its the government, so its not weird :-)

Or more mundane stingray behavior. It tells your phone to increase transmit power to make triangulation easier.

Skeptical POV: With modern LTE phones, the farther you are from the sector you're connected to, the higher the Tx power will be. Therefore more battery draining. You can easily experience this yourself in Oregon when on the edge of t-mobile service in rural areas farther away from I-5. Transmit timeouts and retransmission will also eat up battery life.

Also, li ion batteries do not like -10C weather, so unless you keep a phone in an interior coat pocket against your chest, battery life will be greatly reduced. Physics of batteries, not malicious action.

As a side point, "not surprising," "I don't know why anybody's shocked by this" and related reactions are how apathetic people help normalize bad behavior. It's the cutting-edge of acceptance for early observers to assert that they're already jaded and besides that what's taking everybody else so long?

If you don't like it, the key is to remain surprised that it's continuing. Backbiting on those who do is the exact wrong thing to do, and essentially works to turn change agents against each other. Call it political hipsterism.