What is a StingRay or DRT box device?

Albuquerque Police Department records show it has at least one each StingRay and DRT box cellular phone surveillance device. The devices basically work like this:

The devices mimic a cellphone tower, drawing to them all cellphone use within a certain distance of their locations. They can be attached to a building, vehicle, drone or airplane to scan an area near targets of investigations. Such devices can then track all phones used in the vicinity — not just the target phone — and some devices can listen to conversations and track texts underway on the phones. Some may have additional technological features.

The devices can also seek and find cellphones, recognizing the strength of a phone signal and the direction it is coming from, even if the phone isn’t making a call or connected to a data network.

Warrant or not?

It is not clear whether the Albuquerque Police Department has for the last six years considered the technology subject to warrant requirements. Police spokesman Gilbert Gallegos said the department does secure warrants before using the technology, and City Attorney Esteban Aguilar Jr. said Friday that APD follows, as it has for years, the Department of Justice’s guidelines for police agencies using this technology. That guideline says police must obtain a warrant except in emergency situations and “exceptional circumstances.”

The guideline also says the devices are authorized by “law and policy.” But the department’s draft policy, written in August 2017 (five years after acquiring a device), says that “if a court order is needed,” one should be obtained, otherwise a police supervisor must approve using the device.

State law doesn’t explicitly require a warrant to collect the data gathered by StingRay and DRT box devices. A bill passed by the Legislature in 2017 would have required a court order for a StingRay action, along with other searches of electronics, but Gov. Susana Martinez, a former prosecutor, vetoed the bill.

The American Civil Liberties Union of New Mexico says it wants a warrant process put into the APD policy. Aguilar said the city welcomes the ACLU’s input.