Amid secrecy, cellphone-snooping device gets pushback

NEW YORK — New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago and Las Vegas are among scores of police departments across the country quietly using a highly secretive technology developed for the military that can track the whereabouts of suspects by using the signals constantly emitted by their cellphones.

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 cellphone data from a 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.

Part of the problem, privacy experts say, is that the devices also can collect data from anyone within a short distance of the person being tracked. And law enforcement goes to great lengths to conceal use of the devices, in some cases offering plea deals rather than divulging details of the StingRay.

“We can’t even tell how frequently they’re being used,” said Jerome Greco, a lawyer with the Legal Aid Society, which recently succeeded in blocking evidence collected with the device in a New York City murder case.

At least 72 state and local law-enforcement departments in 24 states, plus 13 federal agencies, use the devices, but additional details are hard to come by because the departments that use them must take the unusual step of signing nondisclosure agreements overseen by the FBI.

Lawmakers in several states have introduced proposals ranging from warrant requirements to an outright ban on the technology; about a dozen states have laws requiring warrants. Federal law enforcement said last year that it would be routinely required to get a search warrant before using the technology — a first effort to create a uniform legal standard for federal authorities.