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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: 2) by Runaway1956 on Friday September 04 2015, @01:46PM
Lemme RTFA and I'll probably have something more to say . . . .
TFA looks pretty good - not great, but pretty good. The link to the actual policy statement won't load for me. I suppose that it is hosted someplace that I have blocked.
Ehh - paywalls, sites that don't load, I guess I'm not reading the actual policy today. I'm just happy that SOMEONE is finally seeing some sense.
You can be pretty sure that some of the states will address this same issue, and pass the same requirements. Some other states won't. And, eventually, someone is going to push the issue up to the Supreme Court.