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A New York state judge has concluded that a powerful police surveillance tool known as a stingray, a device that spoofs legitimate mobile phone towers, performs a "search" and therefore requires a warrant under most circumstances.
As a New York State Supreme Court judge in Brooklyn ruled earlier this month in an attempted murder case, New York Police Department officers should have sought a standard, probable cause-driven warrant before using the invasive device.
The Empire State court joins others nationwide in reaching this conclusion. In September, the District of Columbia Court of Appeals also found that stingrays normally require a warrant, as did a federal judge in Oakland, California, back in August.
According to The New York Times, which first reported the case on Wednesday, People v. Gordon is believed to be the first stingray-related case connected to the country's largest city police force.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 20 2017, @02:35PM (7 children)
LEO's need to start doing their fucking job, part of that is acquiring warrants. If you can't do that, you're incompetent and should not be in that job; if you don't want to do that, you should find another job; if you won't do that, you're a criminal and rights abuser.
Warrants exist for a reason and that reason is indeed partially to make the life of LEOs harder; that is by design and is there for a bloody good reason! Failure to understand that puts you in the section of "authoritarian bastards who should not be allowed anywhere near any position of authority".
(Score: 2) by takyon on Monday November 20 2017, @02:39PM (6 children)
I want LEOs to spend their time acquiring useless warrants [engadget.com] that yield them no evidence due to encryption/etc.
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(Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Monday November 20 2017, @02:51PM (5 children)
You don't think they can get a warrant specifying allowing the use of a Stingray on a particular person, specifically to capture data from person X and discarding all other data collected immediately after capture?
And you don't think that if the data stream itself is encrypted you get no more data of what was accessed with a stingray than would be otherwise capturable by other means?
This sig for rent.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by takyon on Monday November 20 2017, @03:16PM (4 children)
Written-in limits and court rulings shouldn't be trusted. We've already seen warrantless use of Stingrays and even if local cops have to get warrants, the CIA and others can probably do without warrants for the purpose of fighting terrorism. There is no legal solution, only technical (or the non-technical solution of not carrying a phone to avoid any location tracking).
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(Score: 2) by bob_super on Monday November 20 2017, @06:20PM (3 children)
The legal solution is the have the lawyers and judge talk about throwing away most of the evidence because a warrant wasn't issued.
It's costly and time-consuming, but it hurts the prosecution's ego, so they won't let it happen too many times. Judges don't like to have to repeat themselves, either.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 20 2017, @07:29PM (2 children)
right and financially, the only solution for a clown like me is to not carry a phone. because I cant afford to tie them up in courts with my sense of moral superiority knowing that the law and justice is on my side. it won't happen; only the rich are afforded that opportunity.
the rest of us are tracked with our digital barcoded collars that transmit automatically. they even can medicate you now, for your mental illness, and report that you took the pill via the said tracking device.
wargames was right in that the winning move is not to play... don't get a modern phone that allows for these things and you can at least text and make calls.
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Monday November 20 2017, @09:09PM (1 child)
Why can't we have a mod +1 Conspiracy Theory?
Great comment, really enjoyed reading it. I can't tell if you've taken your meds or not, but not because of anything your phone tells me.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Tuesday November 21 2017, @02:09AM
Keep up with the times, bro:
FDA Approves "Digital" Pill [soylentnews.org]
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