In Court: Uncovering Stingrays A Troubling New Location Tracking Device

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The ACLU and Electronic Frontier Foundation have filed an amicus brief in what will likely be the primary case within the nation to address the constitutional implications of a so-referred to as "stingray," a little known machine that can be utilized to trace a suspect’s location and interact in other sorts of surveillance. We argue that if the federal government desires to use invasive surveillance expertise like this, it should explain the know-how to the courts so they can carry out their judicial oversight function as required by the Constitution. The case is highly significant for two reasons. First, it shows that the federal government is utilizing new kinds of know-how-not simply GPS and cell site location information-to trace location. Second, it reveals that the government goes to nice lengths to keep its surveillance practices secret. The government is hiding information about new surveillance technology not solely from the general public, but even from the courts. By conserving courts in the dead of night about new technologies, the government is basically looking for to jot down its own search warrants.



That’s not how the Constitution works. We filed an amicus transient in the case of Daniel Rigmaiden, iTagPro website who is being criminally prosecuted in federal court in Arizona for allegedly filing fraudulent tax returns. Last fall, the Wall Street Journal reported on the government’s use of the stingray device in Rigmaiden’s case. Stingray is the name of a particular product sold by the Harris Corporation. The more generic time period for the system is "IMSI catcher," in reference to the unique identifier, or ItagPro International Mobile Subscriber Identity, of wireless devices. Several points about stingrays are vital to know from a privacy perspective. First, they acquire data about the gadgets and whereabouts of third parties, not just the targets of an investigation. As noted above, IMSI catchers mimic a wireless carrier’s community gear; in doing so, they send and obtain alerts to and from all cellular devices in the vicinity on the identical community. Second, the devices can pinpoint a target with extraordinary precision.



Some have an accuracy of two meters. Because of this individuals can be tracked even when they're inside their houses. Third, though the federal government says the machine utilized in Rigmaiden’s case was not capable of capturing the content material of communications, many IMSI catchers supplied for sale by surveillance distributors offer this characteristic. IMSI catchers can thus be used for anti-loss gadget eavesdropping, not just location tracking. The federal government in Rigmaiden’s case acknowledges that using the stingray was a "search" throughout the which means of the Fourth Amendment. To this point so good. But then it claims that it acquired a "warrant" to authorize the search. The problem, however, is that the papers the federal government submitted to get the so-known as "warrant" never told the judge that the government wanted to use a stingray (or IMSI catcher, or portable tracking tag cell site emulator), what the device is, or how it really works. In different phrases, the federal government hid from the judge the info that stingrays collect details about third events, that they will pinpoint targets even inside their homes, and that some models capture content, ItagPro not just location. It was essential for the decide to have all of this information in an effort to make a significant, anti-loss gadget informed resolution about whether the search the federal government sought to undertake was constitutional, and in that case, whether the court ought to have imposed limitations on the scope of the search. Because stingrays are indiscriminate, itagpro tracker highly intrusive units that receive info from all nearby third events on the identical cellular community, and not just the target of an investigation, anti-loss gadget there is a critical question whether they will ever be used in keeping with the Fourth Amendment. But at a minimum, the Fourth Amendment means that the government can’t disguise new surveillance technologies from the courts. Some judges are pushing back towards this observe and denying broad surveillance requests when the federal government fails to explain the expertise. Judges aren't rubber stamps-they're constitutional safeguards of our privacy.



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