Florida Cops’ Secret Weapon: Warrantless Cellphone Tracking

[Disir]

Police in Florida have offered a startling excuse for having used a controversial “stingray” cellphone tracking gadget 200 times without ever telling a judge: the device’s manufacturer made them sign a non-disclosure agreement that they say prevented them from telling the courts.

The shocking revelation came during an appeal over a 2008 sexual battery case in Tallahassee in which the suspect also stole the victim’s cellphone. Using the stingray — which simulates a cellphone tower in order to trick nearby mobile devices into connecting to it and revealing their location — police were able to track him to an apartment.

During recent proceedings in the case, authorities revealed that they had used the equipment at least 200 additional times since 2010 without disclosing this to courts and obtaining a warrant.

Although the specific device and manufacturer are identified in neither the one court document available for the 2008 case, nor in a video of a court proceeding, the ACLU says in a blog post today that the device is “likely a stingray made by the Florida-based Harris Corporation.”

Harris is the leading maker of stingrays in the U.S., and the ACLU has long suspected that the company has been loaning the devices to police departments throughout the state for product testing and promotional purposes. As the court document notes in the 2008 case, “the Tallahassee Police Department is not the owner of the equipment.”

The ACLU now suspects these police departments may have all signed non-disclosure agreements with the vendor and used the agreement to avoid disclosing their use of the equipment to courts.

“The police seem to have interpreted the agreement to bar them even from revealing their use of Stingrays to judges, who we usually rely on to provide oversight of police investigations,” the ACLU writes.

Florida Cops' Secret Weapon: Warrantless Cellphone Tracking | Threat Level | Wired.com

That's crafty.

 

[Delta4Embassy]

Police in Florida have offered a startling excuse for having used a controversial “stingray” cellphone tracking gadget 200 times without ever telling a judge: the device’s manufacturer made them sign a non-disclosure agreement that they say prevented them from telling the courts.

The shocking revelation came during an appeal over a 2008 sexual battery case in Tallahassee in which the suspect also stole the victim’s cellphone. Using the stingray — which simulates a cellphone tower in order to trick nearby mobile devices into connecting to it and revealing their location — police were able to track him to an apartment.

During recent proceedings in the case, authorities revealed that they had used the equipment at least 200 additional times since 2010 without disclosing this to courts and obtaining a warrant.

Although the specific device and manufacturer are identified in neither the one court document available for the 2008 case, nor in a video of a court proceeding, the ACLU says in a blog post today that the device is “likely a stingray made by the Florida-based Harris Corporation.”

Harris is the leading maker of stingrays in the U.S., and the ACLU has long suspected that the company has been loaning the devices to police departments throughout the state for product testing and promotional purposes. As the court document notes in the 2008 case, “the Tallahassee Police Department is not the owner of the equipment.”

The ACLU now suspects these police departments may have all signed non-disclosure agreements with the vendor and used the agreement to avoid disclosing their use of the equipment to courts.

“The police seem to have interpreted the agreement to bar them even from revealing their use of Stingrays to judges, who we usually rely on to provide oversight of police investigations,” the ACLU writes.

Florida Cops' Secret Weapon: Warrantless Cellphone Tracking | Threat Level | Wired.com

That's crafty.

Anyone actually concerned about their digital privacy has understood the inherent risks of cellphones ever since they were invented. You're talking about communications whizzing through the air any receiver can intercept and listen in on. This is old news. Same with Wi-Fi, if you want privacy don't use cellphones or Wi-Fi, they're not secure.

 

[Disir]

Police in Florida have offered a startling excuse for having used a controversial “stingray” cellphone tracking gadget 200 times without ever telling a judge: the device’s manufacturer made them sign a non-disclosure agreement that they say prevented them from telling the courts.

The shocking revelation came during an appeal over a 2008 sexual battery case in Tallahassee in which the suspect also stole the victim’s cellphone. Using the stingray — which simulates a cellphone tower in order to trick nearby mobile devices into connecting to it and revealing their location — police were able to track him to an apartment.

During recent proceedings in the case, authorities revealed that they had used the equipment at least 200 additional times since 2010 without disclosing this to courts and obtaining a warrant.

Although the specific device and manufacturer are identified in neither the one court document available for the 2008 case, nor in a video of a court proceeding, the ACLU says in a blog post today that the device is “likely a stingray made by the Florida-based Harris Corporation.”

Harris is the leading maker of stingrays in the U.S., and the ACLU has long suspected that the company has been loaning the devices to police departments throughout the state for product testing and promotional purposes. As the court document notes in the 2008 case, “the Tallahassee Police Department is not the owner of the equipment.”

The ACLU now suspects these police departments may have all signed non-disclosure agreements with the vendor and used the agreement to avoid disclosing their use of the equipment to courts.

“The police seem to have interpreted the agreement to bar them even from revealing their use of Stingrays to judges, who we usually rely on to provide oversight of police investigations,” the ACLU writes.

Florida Cops' Secret Weapon: Warrantless Cellphone Tracking | Threat Level | Wired.com

That's crafty.

Anyone actually concerned about their digital privacy has understood the inherent risks of cellphones ever since they were invented. You're talking about communications whizzing through the air any receiver can intercept and listen in on. This is old news. Same with Wi-Fi, if you want privacy don't use cellphones or Wi-Fi, they're not secure.

I agree on a personal level. However, we do have this thing called the Fourth Amendment.....

 

[FA_Q2]

Florida Cops' Secret Weapon: Warrantless Cellphone Tracking | Threat Level | Wired.com

That's crafty.

Anyone actually concerned about their digital privacy has understood the inherent risks of cellphones ever since they were invented. You're talking about communications whizzing through the air any receiver can intercept and listen in on. This is old news. Same with Wi-Fi, if you want privacy don't use cellphones or Wi-Fi, they're not secure.

I agree on a personal level. However, we do have this thing called the Fourth Amendment.....

Yes we do and that makes certain actions by the government illegal without a judge.

The reasoning here is not ‘clever’ though. It is asinine. At no time does a non-disclosure agreement EVER vacate your responsibility to the law. The fact that they would even try such a fucked up line of reasoning is astounding to me.

 

[waltky]

SCOTUS expresses support for cellphone-tracking warrants...

Supreme Court justices express support for cellphone tracking privacy
Nov. 29, 2017 -- Members of the U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday appeared to back digital privacy rights in a case involving the FBI's use of cellphone tracking data without a warrant.

But in the evolving age of digital technology, they struggled with how far to allow privacy. "A cellphone can be pinged in your bedroom. It can be pinged at your doctor's office," Justice Sonia Sotomayor said during arguments. "I am not beyond the belief that someday a provider could turn on my cellphone and listen to my conversations." The high court's case concerns the government acquisition of cellphone records against Timothy Carpenter that revealed his approximate location over 127 days, placing him in the area of armed robberies. Authorities did not have a warrant to obtain those records. The American Civil Liberties Union, which is defending Carpenter, said in briefs that AT&T received 75,302 requests for cellphone location information from July 2015 to June 2016.

Conservatives justices, including Chief Justice John Roberts and the court's newest justice, Neil Gorsuch, questioned whether permitting police to get information from wireless carriers could be unconstitutional. Justice Stephen Breyer said he was concerned about "highly personal" information being obtained. Despite those concerns, consumers should realize their locations aren't private, Justice Anthony Kennedy said. "I think everybody, almost everybody, knows that," Kennedy said. "If I know it, everybody does." Several justices said Congress may decide rules on privacy instead of the courts. With advanced technology, cellphones' location information has grown more precise.

Members of the U.S. Supreme Court pose for a group photograph at the Supreme Court building on on June 1. They heard a case involving the FBI's use of cellphone tracking data without a warrant​

Facebook, Google, Apple and other companies filed a brief in support of neither party but advise the court to "forgo reliance on" outmoded rules. "The court should refine the application of certain Fourth Amendment doctrines to ensure that the law realistically engages with Internet-based technologies with people's expectations of privacy in their digital data," Seth Waxman, a lawyer for the companies, argued. Carpenter is appealing his conviction for a series of armed robberies of Ohio and Michigan Radio Shack and T-Mobile stores in 2010 and 2011. The appeal is on the basis that Carpenter thinks the FBI violated his Fourth Amendment right against unreasonable search and seizure. Specifically, Carpenter says the FBI should have needed a warrant to pull location data from his cellphone providers, MetroPCS and Sprint.

In 2014, Carpenter, 29, was sentenced in federal court to 116 years in prison for his role as a lookout in six robberies to obtain smartphones. Police used cellphone technology to link him to the robberies. The government argued the Stored Communications Act of 1986 allows location data to be searched if the government believes it will be relevant to a criminal investigation. In 2014, the high court unanimously said that a warrant was needed in most cases before searching a cellphone. In a 2012 Supreme Court ruling, attaching a GPS device to a vehicle and tracking its movements constituted a search under the Fourth Amendment. Alito wrote in a concurring judgment for that case that "society's expectation has been that law enforcement agents and others would not -- and indeed, in the main, simply could not -- secretly monitor and catalog every single movement of an individual's car for a very long period."

Supreme Court justices express support for cellphone tracking privacy

 

[SavannahMann]

Police in Florida have offered a startling excuse for having used a controversial “stingray” cellphone tracking gadget 200 times without ever telling a judge: the device’s manufacturer made them sign a non-disclosure agreement that they say prevented them from telling the courts.

The shocking revelation came during an appeal over a 2008 sexual battery case in Tallahassee in which the suspect also stole the victim’s cellphone. Using the stingray — which simulates a cellphone tower in order to trick nearby mobile devices into connecting to it and revealing their location — police were able to track him to an apartment.

During recent proceedings in the case, authorities revealed that they had used the equipment at least 200 additional times since 2010 without disclosing this to courts and obtaining a warrant.

Although the specific device and manufacturer are identified in neither the one court document available for the 2008 case, nor in a video of a court proceeding, the ACLU says in a blog post today that the device is “likely a stingray made by the Florida-based Harris Corporation.”

Harris is the leading maker of stingrays in the U.S., and the ACLU has long suspected that the company has been loaning the devices to police departments throughout the state for product testing and promotional purposes. As the court document notes in the 2008 case, “the Tallahassee Police Department is not the owner of the equipment.”

The ACLU now suspects these police departments may have all signed non-disclosure agreements with the vendor and used the agreement to avoid disclosing their use of the equipment to courts.

“The police seem to have interpreted the agreement to bar them even from revealing their use of Stingrays to judges, who we usually rely on to provide oversight of police investigations,” the ACLU writes.

Florida Cops' Secret Weapon: Warrantless Cellphone Tracking | Threat Level | Wired.com

That's crafty.

Anyone actually concerned about their digital privacy has understood the inherent risks of cellphones ever since they were invented. You're talking about communications whizzing through the air any receiver can intercept and listen in on. This is old news. Same with Wi-Fi, if you want privacy don't use cellphones or Wi-Fi, they're not secure.

If you didn’t want people peering in at your teenaged daughter getting undressed, your house wouldn’t have had windows.

 

[FA_Q2]

SCOTUS expresses support for cellphone-tracking warrants...

Supreme Court justices express support for cellphone tracking privacy
Nov. 29, 2017 -- Members of the U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday appeared to back digital privacy rights in a case involving the FBI's use of cellphone tracking data without a warrant.

But in the evolving age of digital technology, they struggled with how far to allow privacy. "A cellphone can be pinged in your bedroom. It can be pinged at your doctor's office," Justice Sonia Sotomayor said during arguments. "I am not beyond the belief that someday a provider could turn on my cellphone and listen to my conversations." The high court's case concerns the government acquisition of cellphone records against Timothy Carpenter that revealed his approximate location over 127 days, placing him in the area of armed robberies. Authorities did not have a warrant to obtain those records. The American Civil Liberties Union, which is defending Carpenter, said in briefs that AT&T received 75,302 requests for cellphone location information from July 2015 to June 2016.

Conservatives justices, including Chief Justice John Roberts and the court's newest justice, Neil Gorsuch, questioned whether permitting police to get information from wireless carriers could be unconstitutional. Justice Stephen Breyer said he was concerned about "highly personal" information being obtained. Despite those concerns, consumers should realize their locations aren't private, Justice Anthony Kennedy said. "I think everybody, almost everybody, knows that," Kennedy said. "If I know it, everybody does." Several justices said Congress may decide rules on privacy instead of the courts. With advanced technology, cellphones' location information has grown more precise.

Members of the U.S. Supreme Court pose for a group photograph at the Supreme Court building on on June 1. They heard a case involving the FBI's use of cellphone tracking data without a warrant​

Facebook, Google, Apple and other companies filed a brief in support of neither party but advise the court to "forgo reliance on" outmoded rules. "The court should refine the application of certain Fourth Amendment doctrines to ensure that the law realistically engages with Internet-based technologies with people's expectations of privacy in their digital data," Seth Waxman, a lawyer for the companies, argued. Carpenter is appealing his conviction for a series of armed robberies of Ohio and Michigan Radio Shack and T-Mobile stores in 2010 and 2011. The appeal is on the basis that Carpenter thinks the FBI violated his Fourth Amendment right against unreasonable search and seizure. Specifically, Carpenter says the FBI should have needed a warrant to pull location data from his cellphone providers, MetroPCS and Sprint.

In 2014, Carpenter, 29, was sentenced in federal court to 116 years in prison for his role as a lookout in six robberies to obtain smartphones. Police used cellphone technology to link him to the robberies. The government argued the Stored Communications Act of 1986 allows location data to be searched if the government believes it will be relevant to a criminal investigation. In 2014, the high court unanimously said that a warrant was needed in most cases before searching a cellphone. In a 2012 Supreme Court ruling, attaching a GPS device to a vehicle and tracking its movements constituted a search under the Fourth Amendment. Alito wrote in a concurring judgment for that case that "society's expectation has been that law enforcement agents and others would not -- and indeed, in the main, simply could not -- secretly monitor and catalog every single movement of an individual's car for a very long period."

Supreme Court justices express support for cellphone tracking privacy

Wow.

I don't see why a warrant would not be necessary for this.