Posted on 07/13/2016 9:45:49 AM PDT by Theoria
For the first time, a federal judge has suppressed evidence obtained without a warrant by U.S. law enforcement using a stingray, a surveillance device that can trick suspects' cell phones into revealing their locations.
U.S. District Judge William Pauley in Manhattan on Tuesday ruled that defendant Raymond Lambis' rights were violated when the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration used such a device without a warrant to find his Washington Heights apartment.
The DEA had used a stingray to identify Lambis' apartment as the most likely location of a cell phone identified during a drug-trafficking probe. Pauley said doing so constituted an unreasonable search.
"Absent a search warrant, the government may not turn a citizen's cell phone into a tracking device," Pauley wrote.
The ruling marked the first time a federal judge had suppressed evidence obtained using a stingray, according to the American Civil Liberties Union, which like other privacy advocacy groups has criticized law enforcement's use of such devices.
"This opinion strongly reinforces the strength of our constitutional privacy rights in the digital age," ACLU attorney Nathan Freed Wessler said in a statement.
It was unclear whether prosecutors would seek to appeal. A spokeswoman for Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara, whose office was prosecuting the case, declined to comment.
Stingrays, also known as "cell site simulators," mimic cell phone towers in order to force cell phones in the area to transmit "pings" back to the devices, enabling law enforcement to track a suspect's phone and pinpoint its location.
Critics of the technology call it invasive and say it has been regularly used in secret to catch suspect in violation of their rights under the U.S. Constitution.
(Excerpt) Read more at reuters.com ...
What you have here is a tragic situation occurring. As you stated: The Pima County SWAT officers approached the Guerena residence and announced the service of a search warrant and sounded a siren. Unfortunately his wife not he heard that announcement or the siren. The SWAT team breached the residence, unaware that the residents didn't not hear the warnings they supplied, and saw a man pointing a weapon at them. They saw that weapon pointed at them, and responded with deadly force. Remember they are there searching for drugs, and in most cases like these there are bad people willing to fight it out with police. They do not know what becomes known until after the fact.
For you to suggest that this tragic incident is solely the fault of the SWAT team, is ludicrous.
Absolutely not. Those are examples of executing a warrant, not the mere serving of a warrant. While it is true that they have to serve the warrant to legally carry out the execution of the warrant, it is an execution of a warrant, and not the serving of a warrant.
Several of the stories cited on the Google search I did show SWAT teams SERVING warrants. Not just executing them.
BS. You can watch SWAT officers serving warrants on almost any cop reality show of your choice. The First 48, for example, seems to have them about every third episode.
Actually SWAT teams neither execute or serve warrants. Instead their function is to merely gain safe access for those serving and executing the warrants.
One more thing MeganC, that is the reporting establishments using the term serving. They are using the wrong terminology, because that is not their function.
I must correct myself. They do indeed serve warrants, however, SWAT teams are only utilized when the warrant being served is to someone know to have a violent past, or there is probable reason to believe the person(s) being served have the potential for being violent.
Just appeal it up to judge Ruth ‘Buzzy’ and this decision will be overruled.
Very good question, the answer is....
Tell it to the judge, and let him/her answer it by issuing, or not, a search warrant.
Well I respect your opinion, though I suspect if you actually were faced with a situation where every second was critical, that opinion might change. The case in the article of course does not rise to that level, and therefore they should have sought the warrant. In fact they should have known what the outcome would be, or at least have reasonably been aware that the outcome was a real possibility.
“however, SWAT teams are only utilized when the warrant being served is to someone know to have a violent past, or there is probable reason to believe the person(s) being served have the potential for being violent.”
Or when some liberal makes a false, anonymous accusation against their political enemies (hence the term “swatting”). Of course, ordinary police are using SWAT-style paramilitary tactics routinely nowadays too, so you can make all the claims you want about what “SWAT” teams don’t do, but it is the prevalence of police resorting to their signature tactics that is really what is troubling from the perspective of a citizen.
I’ve experienced it personally myself, when as a teenager we got raided by a SWAT-style “gang tactical unit” because we committed the dangerous offense of throwing a party with a live band playing and serving beer. The host’s dad was a cop, so the regular cops wouldn’t respond to noise complaints, and the neighbors made up some nonsense and got us “swatted”. Maybe if your son got stomped by a bunch of guys in paramilitary gear over a noise complaint, you might see where some of us are coming from, I don’t know...
The thing, too, is that ANYBODY who called this guy can be considered an accomplice. Even a wrong-number caller. The potential for abuse here is incredible.
Who told you that? Every podunk hick town in America has a SWAT Team now. If you have a SWAT team, you’ve gotta keep them busy and justify your budget for them somehow. They serve warrants all the time and their raids often go bad.
You said “warrant of any kind”.
Already admitted I was wrong, 2 months ago, when this discussion was taking place.
“capture the location information of everyone in a given area”
It would be best to have a warrant then to make sure extraneous info is destroyed.
Though it’s very like looking at an address on an envelope which would need no warrant under the Fourth- except for that other info gathered.
D’oh, this came up on a search and I stupidly didn’t look at dates. Jeez, talk about Johnny-Come-Lately.
LOL, I was wondering how that came out of left field so unexpectedly. No problem.
No, keep the Constitution "in business", first and foremost.
If that means that a few drug dealers get to stay in business, then so be it.
Tyrannical shortcuts should not be permitted simply because nanny-state authoritarians are willing to spit on the Bill of Rights, and also willing to discard limited government in exchange for the ever-expanding police state necessary to enforce contraband law.
Vote Trump!
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