So Why Does This Thing Still Exist?

Ah, the old Stingray….

It’s no secret that local law enforcement offices around the US are using a tool called Stingray to track cellphone locations without the approval of a judge. In response to a Freedom of Information Act request from MuckRock’s Alex Richardson, the FBI released thousands of pages of heavily-redacted documents, emails and more concerning the project, including one titled “Cellphone Tracking for Dummies.” The super secret Stingray device is provided to local authorities by the FBI, creating fake cell towers that force nearby handsets to connect to it — even those belonging to folks other than a suspect. And as you might expect, in addition to tracking, it also reveals the identity of the phone’s owner.

Yes, and there’s this little legality problem too — you see, use of a transmitter by other than the licensee or his designee on band space that is licensed out is unlawful.

The police (and FBI) are neither the licensees (the cell companies) or their designees (the customers of same.) Therefore any operation of these devices are, it would appear, blatant criminal violations of the law.

But no, we can’t talk about that, can we….naw…let’s just focus here instead:

What’s more, the use of the cellphone-tracking tech without a warrant was already ruled unconstitutional in a few states.

Well there is that.

Along with the case here in Florida where a Sheriff’s Office placed a GPS transmitter on a suspect’s vehicle without a warrant and in addition they trespassed to place it and replace its batteries. The judge, when he found out about it (and they went to considerable length to conceal their means of discovery of the drug cache that was seized) tossed the entire case.

What we ought to be talking about is not just the obvious 4th Amendment issues that such devices raise but also why it is that the agents using such devices are not exposed to immediate prosecution for intentionally emitting RF on a licensed frequency that does cause undesirable operation (“interference”) to licensed and lawful users of that spectrum.

Delivered by The Daily Sheeple

Contributed by Karl Denninger of Market Ticker.

Karl Denninger is the author of Leverage: How Cheap Money Will Destroy the World. You can follow his daily commentary on capital markets at The Market Ticker and his weekly Ticker Guy Blog Talk Radio broadcasts.