Stingrays, suitcase-sized surveillance devices that act as portable cell phone towers to allow the user to track individual phones, are virtually unregulated. Police use these devices to monitor the cellphones of suspects, often without a warrant. Additionally, police and other users sign Non-Disclosure Agreements (NDAs) when they purchase a cell-site simulator, assuring that they will not divulge use of the device, even in a court case against a defendant that the device helped capture.
Mike Katz-Lacabe with the Center for Human Rights and Privacy called the use of the devices "the Wild West… we don't know how often they are used, what they are used for and whether we'd consider such a use acceptable." Many civil rights activists have raised concerns that stingrays can violate the rights of American citizens guaranteed to them by the First and Fourth Amendments to the Constitution.
A report in the US House of Representatives' Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, published Monday December 19, is meant to address these unregulated surveillance devices. "While law enforcement agencies should be able to utilize technology as a tool to help officers be safe and accomplish their missions, absent proper oversight and safeguards, the domestic use of cell-site simulators may well infringe upon the constitutional rights of citizens to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures, as well as the right to free association," the report reads.
The report recommends that "Congress should pass legislation to establish a clear, nationwide framework for when and how geolocation information can be accessed and used," including an end to the secretive use of these devices under the NDAs and an impetus for individual states to pass laws requiring a probable cause-based warrant before a stingray device may be used.
The report found that the US government spent nearly $100 million on cell-site simulators between 2010-2014, and owns at least 400. Due to the NDAs that purchasers must sign, accurate statistics for the use of the devices by local and state law-enforcement groups are unknown.
Perhaps more dangerous than the threat that stingrays pose to privacy and civil liberties is that of how the devices interfere with normal communications. Since cell-site simulators capture all mobile-phone signals within a certain range, uninvolved citizens may find their calls dropped or signals jammed, including emergency calls to 911. Some, but not all cell-site simulators have a 911 pass-through feature, which redirects emergency calls to legitimate cell towers.
Christopher Soghoian, a technology expert with the American Civil Liberties Union, called stingrays a "danger to the privacy of uninvolved citizens. These devices cannot be used in a way that only enters the home of the target… this is not a scalpel. It is a shotgun," he said.
