Posted on 04/09/2015 1:47:57 PM PDT by QT3.14
he Baltimore Police Department has used an invasive and controversial cellphone tracking device thousands of times in recent years while following instructions from the FBI to withhold information about it from prosecutors and judges, a detective revealed in court testimony Wednesday..
The testimony shows for the first time how frequently city police are using a cell site simulator, more commonly known as a "stingray," a technology that authorities have gone to great lengths to avoid disclosing.
The device mimics a cellphone tower to force phones within its range to connect. Police use it to track down stolen phones or find people.
(Excerpt) Read more at baltimoresun.com ...
The increasing use of the devices has largely been kept secret from the court system and the public. In 2014, police in Florida revealed they had used such devices at least 200 additional times since 2010 without disclosing it to the courts or obtaining a warrant.[1] The American Civil Liberties Union has filed multiple requests for the public records of Florida law enforcement agencies about their use of the cell phone tracking devices.[35]
Local law enforcement and the federal government have resisted judicial requests for information about the use of stingrays, refusing to turn over information or heavily censoring it.[36] In June 2014, the American Civil Liberties Union published information from court regarding the extensive use of these devices by local Florida police.[37] After this publication, United States Marshals Service then seized the local police's surveillance records in a bid to keep them from coming out in court.[38]
In some cases, police have refused to disclose information to the courts citing non-disclosure agreements signed with Harris Corporation.[36][39][40] The FBI defended these agreements, saying that information about the technology could allow adversaries to circumvent it.[39] The ACLU has said "potentially unconstitutional government surveillance on this scale should not remain hidden from the public just because a private corporation desires secrecy. And it certainly should not be concealed from judges."[1]
Gong!
Yep, we can count on cops to side with the people they serve rather than the feds...
ACLU is against it.
That’s a pretty good indicator it is a beneficial technology to fight crime.
Do you work for Hollywood marketing?
JEH rolling in grave.
Not a big fan of the Fourth Amendment?
So you’re for it?
No, but my mind connects a lot of current stories to the plots of various movies.
Or HBO “The Wire”.
cops to side with the people they serve??
Where did you get that crazy idea? The USSC ruled many years ago that “Police” have No Legal Duty to protect the Citizenry, their only “Legal” Obligation is to the political entity that employs them.
Kinda like Hitler and the Gestapo
Now they need to come out with another season of “The Wire” based on this.
every once in a while they get it right.
/johnny
The problem is that the FBI is now violating defendants to a fair trial by trying to hide the technology through this questionable “nondisclosure agreements” which are supposed to trump any criminal judge. There was a story down in Florida not too long ago in which the FBI and local law enforcement colluded to manufacture “parallel evidence” to hide the technology, thereby corrupting the chain and rendering convictions based on lies.
I read about that and see massive potential for it’s misuse. especially now that everything is recorded and archived forever. My point about the aclu was that for once they were on the right side of the fight, whereas I disagree with just about everything else they do.
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