Prosecutors in our area and
around the country have dropped evidence and cut deals to avoid revealing
details regarding police use of NSA-style secret technology to track cell
phones. WUSA
WASHINGTON (WUSA9) -- New
controversy has arisen over police use of NSA-style secret technology being
used to track cell phones.
Prosecutors in our area and
around the country have dropped evidence and cut deals to avoid revealing
details of the surveillance equipment.
The suitcase size devices
usually called Stingrays scarf up cell phone data, and local police are
spending as much as 400-thousand dollars in federal terrorism grants to
purchase them.
Stingrays are like fake cell
phone towers, phones register with them and as they drive around, police can
triangulate a phone's precise location in real time.
Fairfax County, Montgomery
County and D.C. Police have all spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on them,
but decline to talk about it and will not say if they're going to ask a judge
to get a warrant to use them
Alan Butler of the Electronic
Privacy Information Center in the District says the purpose of a warrant is to
have a judge, an independent neutral third party, review the police request.
In Baltimore, the Baltimore Sun
says a judge threatened to hold a detective in contempt of court for refusing
to say how police pinpointed a suspect.
In Florida, The Washington Post
reports, prosecutors pleaded out what looked like a slam dunk case against a
small time pot dealer rather than detail police use of a Stingray. Federal
officials have sworn police departments to secrecy, but judges have been
pushing back.
Law professor Paul Rothstein of
the Georgetown University Law Center says the Supreme Court has been very
skeptical about this kind of surveillance.
The Stingray grabs data not
just from the target's phone, but from the phones of everyone in the area.
Critics say it needs to be very
clear that police agencies have to throw out information on hundreds or
potentially thousands of innocent people who are swept up by the surveillance.
"It shows where you are.
It shows who you're talking to, it's shows where you're going," explained
Butler.
The Justice Department, The
Metropolitan, Arlington, Fairfax, Montgomery County Police all declined to
comment on this cell phone surveillance technology.
Prince George's and Loudoun
County authorities told WUSA9 that they do not have this technology.
Police suggest just talking
about this technology will make it less effective, but critics say we have to
discuss how it's being used to protect the privacy of innocent Americans.
