Sign snatchers beware, that campaign poster might have an AirTag
Political candidates have a new campaign expense: Apple AirTags. The button-size geotracking device has become a popular tool in the rough-and-tumble world of local elections, where lawn signs often end up stolen, vandalized or run over. Candidates who have grown tired of dirty tricks are hiding AirTags in their signs, leading to digital dragnets when they go missing.
Tracking the device’s pings has led to the doorsteps of alleged sign snatchers and, in some cases, candidates’ opponents. The stings have left snatchers dumbfounded. Some have faced charges of theft, criminal mischief and receiving stolen property.
“I just wanted it to stop," John Dittmore said of why he got an AirTag after several of his campaign signs vanished over three days in May. Dittmore, who is running in a Republican primary for a seat on the Brevard County Commission in Florida, said he believed he was being targeted and decided to put up a replacement sign with the tracking device at an intersection where others had disappeared. After setting the trap, Dittmore spent three hours one night staking out the intersection in hopes of spotting the would-be thieves.
Eventually, he gave up and went home to bed. His wife woke him up when her iPhone showed the sign on the move. Dittmore called the police after tracking the AirTag to a pickup truck parked in the driveway of a home about 8 miles from the intersection.
Officers questioned two teens. When they learned about the tracking device, “the kids’ eyes bugged out," Dittmore said. The teens were charged with criminal mischief and grand theft for taking nine of his signs, which, with their stands, had a total value of more than $1,100.
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