Looks like that bomb scare/lawyer advertising rumor turned out to be true, although it turns out that the the "advertising" was a bit more nefarious than our tipster originally reported. From LV Now:The evacuation of the Regional Justice Center last week may have been the result of a misguided advertising campaign.
Court marshals and Las Vegas police cleared the downtown courthouse for several hours last Tuesday to investigate a suspicious package found across the street. The package was a car battery with jumper cables used to power an electronic transmitter.
The device, according to knowledgeable sources, was being used to track email IP addresses from nearby cell phones.
The man who claims he planted it told investigators he needed the information to send email advertisements for a local traffic law firm. But sources say the man would not reveal the name of the attorney who hired him.
LV Now also has the police incident report, here.
One of the comments on the story is a bit scary:
Hiding transmitters have been going on for awhile. They just carried out this time very amateurish. What were they thinking that no one would see this package sitting on the ground, or just ignore it. Usually the people hiding the transmitter, pose as air conditioner personnel and hide the device on the roof, they get better range, and out of sight out of mind. Then they go back later and take their device down and down load the information and start making their calls for wiping out the traffic tickets for a small fee. Anything to make a buck. This practice isn't new, just stupid if it isn't done right.
Great, so people have just been leaving these devices on rooftops and gathering private data. Seems like the FCC should be looking into this.
Okay, we just know that one of our wonderful commenters knows what firm was attempting to steal cell phone numbers for advertising purposes. If you know which firm is pulling this crap, PLEASE out them in the comments - 100 WWL points* to the first Anon to identify the offending firm.
*Remember - 10,000 WWL points gets you a genuine (read, "plastic") WWL collector's spoon ... possibly used by Elle to eat her yogurt.
(LV Now; Thanks, Tipster!)
