NYPD stealth cell seeker

THE NYPD is one of many police departments across the country quietly using a highly secretive military-grade technology that can track the whereabouts of suspects by using their cell phone signals.

Civil-liberties and privacy groups are increasingly raising objections to the suitcase-sized devices known as StingRays or cell site simulators that can sweep up cell-phone data from an entire neighborhood by mimicking cell towers. Police can determine the location of a phone without the user even making a call or sending a text message. Some versions of the technology can even intercept texts and calls or pull information stored on the phones.

Here in New York, the tech has helped catch suspects in kidnappings, rapes, robberies, assaults and murders. It has even helped find missing people.