from the turning-tide-stranding-stingrays dept.
A group of defense attorneys, including a public defender, will review over 1,900 cases in which Stingray cellphone tracking technology was used secretly. They plan to ask judges to throw out "a large number" of criminal convictions based on Stingray evidence. From USA Today:
Defense lawyers in Baltimore are examining nearly 2,000 cases in which the police secretly used powerful cellphone tracking devices, and they plan to ask judges to throw out "a large number" of criminal convictions as a result. "This is a crisis, and to me it needs to be addressed very quickly," said Baltimore's deputy public defender, Natalie Finegar, who is coordinating those challenges. "No stone is going to be left unturned at this point."
The move follows a USA TODAY investigation this week that revealed that Baltimore police have used cellphone trackers, commonly known as stingrays, to investigate crimes as minor as harassing phone calls, then concealed the surveillance from suspects and their lawyers. Maryland law generally requires that electronic surveillance be disclosed in court.
Finegar and others said they do not know how many criminal cases they ultimately will seek to reopen because of the secret phone tracking, but she expects it to be "a large number." The public defender's office is reviewing a surveillance log published by USA TODAY that lists more than 1,900 cases in which the police indicated they had used a stingray. It includes at least 200 public defender clients who were ultimately convicted of a crime.
Stingrays are suitcase-sized devices that allow the police to pinpoint a cellphone's location to within a few yards by posing as a cell tower. In the process, they also can intercept information from the phones of nearly everyone else who happens to be nearby.
[...] "This has really opened the floodgates," Baltimore defense lawyer Josh Insley said. He said he could start filing challenges to some of his clients' convictions by next week.
A spokeswoman for Baltimore's State's Attorney, Tammy Brown, said prosecutors will evaluate each challenge on its own merits. She agreed that prosecutors are required to tell defendants when the police use a stingray, but "we need to get that information first."
Overturning a criminal conviction is no small task. Before they can even ask judges to take that step, defense lawyers have to comb through the surveillance log to figure out which of their clients were targets of the phone tracking, then contact them in prison. "It's probably going to be a long process," ACLU attorney Nathan Wessler said. "But now at least you have defense lawyers who know what happened to their clients and can invoke the power of the courts to make sure that the Constitution was complied with."
Via The Register.
Original Submission
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 29 2015, @04:20PM
so instead of turning on a computer in the police HQ, logging in to the mobile-phone-operator surveillance webportal,
entering some phone number and getting a geo-location, call and receive history,
the police need to sign-out the stingray suitcase, get a police-car key, maybe fill up the tank,
stop for some donuts and then drive around guessing the location of the alleged perpetrator?
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 29 2015, @05:32PM
The former requires an administrative court order - its not a warrant, but it is paperwork intended to exert some level of accountability on the police. Using a secret tool that they think they have carte blanche on to the point of being permitted to deny that it even exists under oath, that's both a lot more convenient and it kinda feeds into the power trip that attracts way too many people to the job.
I remember when the FBI got that automatic, centralized tracing stuff of all telecoms put into federal law and how worried we all were that being able to press a button from a comfy desk would lead to all kinds of abuses. How far the bar has fallen....
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 29 2015, @05:47PM
mobile phones are meant to be tracked! they only work because of it.
somewhere / some place a computer (probably a rather big one) is tracking all the mobile phones so that signals can be routed correctly from one antenna tower (origin) to another (destination).
yes, yes the X-men professors cerrebro is a very good visual analogy!
i doubt that there is one huge monster antenna somewhere through which all mobile-signals flow : ]
-
i think we need to drag this surveillance monster into broad daylight! it will survive, maybe even become visible so we can point fingers at it and take pictures.
trying to shoehorn some privacy law onto a scientific and technical fact that is located at the other end of the spectrum is plain stupid.
it's like trying to shoehorn "un-copiability" (DRM stuff) unto a device that is meant to be a universal copy machine (computer).
-
i think this whole "privacy" debate is a false flag operation: it's like privacy to snoop! keep it in the dark. cover it with alot of legal document paperwork (which will, sooner or later, be automated).
-
i say out with the monster and the facts!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 29 2015, @06:07PM
Apparently you didn't read AC comment #229479 above.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 29 2015, @08:52PM
Bank transactions, internet traffic, and snail mail are all also designed to be tracked, for your definition of tracked. Would it be okay for complete strangers to go through all of your records? Know all of your account details down to your banking passwords?
Just because something is tracked or trackable does not make it just to do so.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 29 2015, @09:17PM
i assume this "all tracking" is happening : ]
who are you kidding?
the sad part is when people lose access to "coincidence" and incidents/happenings start to become "scripted": your life becomes non-genuine : (
people with access to this "all tracking" data are the only free people left in the world: "ueber-mensch"is watching game in the game park.
point is stop allowing the "uber-mensch" to hid and deny the facts!
if left in the dark, dark things happen.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 30 2015, @04:33AM
mobile phones are meant to be tracked! they only work because of it.
But the government doesn't need to do the tracking. Since the rest of your comment relies on this faulty reasoning (The technology requires tracking by the companies, so we should *also* allow the government to have our data.), it can safely be ignored.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 29 2015, @07:23PM
They caught drug dealers, rapists, murderers, etc with it. So what? If they need to bust down my door to get a crook out of my house while I'm taking a crap after eating at McDonalds, so be it.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 29 2015, @07:30PM
> They caught drug dealers, rapists, murderers, etc with it.
> If they need to bust down my door to get a crook out of my house
Wow, not only do you live in a shitty neighborhood, your own house is full of criminals.
How is it that you are the only innocent one living in your house? I think the police should keep close tabs on you too.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 29 2015, @08:02PM
I meant if one entered my house without permission and was tracked with stingray. My three closest neighbors are cops, if that doesn't work out, the neighbor across the street is a USPS worker.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 29 2015, @08:47PM
> I meant if one entered my house without permission and was tracked with stingray.
And since a stingray has never been used for that, in your house or any other, it seems like a really convincing justification to hang your hat on.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 29 2015, @08:57PM
You meant "take away all my rights, I'm a little bitch"
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 29 2015, @08:57PM
With hidden evidence and parallel construction, there is no trustworthy proof of any crime happening. That is the point.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 30 2015, @12:44AM
Man, that's getting to be the tired phrase here. "Oligarchy" finally got retired. Hopefully ad hominem. is on the way out (it is just like supercalifragilisticexpialidocious, when you're in an argument and you don't know what to say, tell him his argument is ad hominem and declare victory).
However, "parallel construction" is trending pretty hot now; you can't get anywhere near "police" in any context around here without someone throwing that out. It's really like that college-aged person who gets a "Word A Day" calendar and starts dropping new words everywhere in hopes that people will think him smart.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 30 2015, @01:19AM
You are a dick, but you are right.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday August 30 2015, @06:34AM
(Score: 5, Insightful) by TrumpetPower! on Saturday August 29 2015, @08:01PM
If they have nothing to hide, why won't they disclose their use of Stingray?
Considering that this is a blatant violation of the rules of evidence and criminal prosecution, I can only conclude that they're hiding some really nasty fucked-up sins by keeping their use of Stingray from us.
There are three necessary elements to a proper response.
First, all cases in which Stingray was used but the fact was not disclosed to the defense in the appropriate manner must be overturned and dismissed with prejudice and without further consideration. Yes, even for the worst-of-the-worst cases.
Second, all police who failed to inform the prosecutors of Stingray activity should be fired for gross incompetence; and all prosecutors who failed to comply with the rules of evidence should be disbarred.
Last, there should be a sweeping criminal investigation that should have a special eye towards the real reason the police have been conspiring to hide these illegal and unethical activities.
...of course, it's not like anything even remotely close to anything like this is going to happen. And people wonder why trust in the police is at an all-time low?
b&
All but God can prove this sentence true.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 29 2015, @08:33PM
Because they got them from 3-letter agencies and have an NDA.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 29 2015, @08:50PM
> If they have nothing to hide, why won't they disclose their use of Stingray?
Because they don't want to. I'm sure they have used it for evil -- but they don't think it was evil. Ergo they aren't concerned about covering it up. Like every human ever they just really like to to avoid accountability. Life is so much easier when you don't have to answer to anyone else. The fact that being public servants makes them inherently accountable doesn't stop them from being humans who would rather not to be accountable.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 29 2015, @08:58PM
Police seize drugs and sell drugs. An alternative revenue stream.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 29 2015, @09:22PM
Police seize drugs and use drugs. An alternative recreation stream?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 30 2015, @02:13AM
Let's go O's!!!!!!