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According to the Washington Post all federal law enforcement agencies will need to get a warrant before using a Stingray. (Actual Policy Statement).
The Justice Department unveiled a policy Thursday that will require its law enforcement agencies to obtain a warrant to deploy cellphone-tracking devices in criminal investigations and inform judges when they plan to use them.
The department's new policy, announced by Deputy Attorney General Sally Quillian Yates, should increase transparency around the use of the controversial technology by the FBI and other Justice Department agencies.
... The new policy waives the warrant requirement for exigent circumstances. These include the need to protect human life "or avert serious injury," prevent the imminent destruction of evidence, the hot pursuit of a fleeing felon, or the prevention of escape by a convicted fugitive from justice.
The FBI had imposed their own internal warrant requirement back in April.
But the policy does not apply to State, and Local agencies that have been given Stingrays with instructions to keep them secret, even to the extent of dismissing charges rather than admit some evidence was gathered by questionable legal means.
So will ill gotten information now flow in reverse, from local to federal authorities? Will the Feds start practicing "Parallel Construction" using, but hiding, the information supplied by local police?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 04 2015, @12:49PM
You can violate people's constitutional rights in "exigent circumstances", apparently.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by takyon on Friday September 04 2015, @12:56PM
It's practically a kindness for them to self-limit surveillance to "exigent circumstances" now.
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 04 2015, @01:00PM
Being slightly less evil than before isn't really kindness. And it's only for the federal scumbags.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by hemocyanin on Friday September 04 2015, @04:19PM
True. Remember that the Federal Government defines "imminent" to mean "maybe, sometime in the unforeseeable future" so the entire question here is: what do the Feds mean when they use any common word? To trust the Feds to use language to mean what it means, is to be supremely gullible.
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/feb/05/obama-kill-list-doj-memo [theguardian.com]
Certainly local cops will take a page from that lesson and simply redefine imminent to mean its opposite.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 04 2015, @04:39PM
I don't care what they mean. My constitutional rights are non-negotiable.
(Score: 2) by TheGratefulNet on Friday September 04 2015, @04:42PM
I don't care what they mean. My constitutional rights are non-negotiable.
you are correct; but not in the way you think. or want.
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
(Score: 3, Insightful) by davester666 on Friday September 04 2015, @08:10PM
The 'exigent circumstances' thing has been around for a long time, but it certainly seems to be used a lot more recently.
Just after 9/11, the constitution was completely ignored for weeks? months?
After the Boston bombing, they locked down the ENTIRE city looking for a single known-injured man. And they weren't using search warrants when searching house to house, unless some judge signed a 'any house within 50 miles of downtown Boston' warrant.
Stingray use for truly trivial crimes.