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.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(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.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 04 2015, @12:51PM
If they need a warrant how can the local po-po listen in on their GF's phone calls OR eavesdrop on the mayor[or for the mayor] for some blackmail intel?
This would legitimize the stingray's usage and we can't have that.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Friday September 04 2015, @08:01PM
If they need a warrant how can the local po-po listen in on their GF's phone calls OR eavesdrop on the mayor[or for the mayor] for some blackmail intel?
This would legitimize the stingray's usage and we can't have that.
According to TFA, Stingrays can not access phone audio:
The devices are boxes about the size of a small suitcase that can help investigators locate suspects by identifying signals coming from their cellphones. But the machines, which simulate cell towers, also sweep up data from innocent bystanders in the suspect’s vicinity.
The data captured by the devices are serial numbers from cellphones, not GPS coordinates. The technology used by federal authorities does not capture e-mails, texts, contact lists, images or any other data from the phone, officials said.
However, this information is in disagreement with the Wiki Article on Stingrays [wikipedia.org], which clearly states that full audio can be recorded, as well as any data sent via the phone.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(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.
(Score: 2) by GlennC on Friday September 04 2015, @01:46PM
So will ill gotten information now flow in reverse, from local to federal authorities?
Of course it will, because NATIONAL SECURITY.
Will the Feds start practicing "Parallel Construction" using, but hiding, the information supplied by local police?
See answer above.
Sorry folks...the world is bigger and more varied than you want it to be. Deal with it.
(Score: 0, Troll) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Friday September 04 2015, @02:56PM
If the fuzz can find a fleeing felon by tracking his cell he deserves to be caught.
tl:dr; It's bad for even experienced mental health professionals to be left alone in the same room with a psychiatric inpatient, M'Kay?
About four hours after I hypnotized a psych nurse, the hospital's gift shop figured out that I must have escaped their nuthouse because I asked them to use their scissors to cut my special day-glo yellow wristband off. Most patients of San Mateo General Hospital have white wristbands but us SPECIAL PATIENTS had day-glo yellow.
Roughly fifteen minutes after they declined my request then I cheerfully said I would just tear it off with my teeth, three huge, burly security guards damn near trampled me to death as they bolted across the lobby towards the PICU. I am dead certain my panicked leap out of their path was clearly visible on the security camera videos.
Growing concerned that I might be readmitted, I ambled aimiably off in the general direction of El Camino Real Boulevard - "The King's Road Boulevard". I actually runs all the way from San Diego to San Francisco although in Atascadero it is a wilderness area so you have to walk across a railroad bridge to continue along it from Paso Robles.
As I walked south on El Camino a patrol car drove past. Again concerned the cop was locking for me, I pulled the battery from my cell phone then tossed both of them into some bushes.
My bad: I should have transcribed my address book. Beth Shreve, please drop me a dime at (503) 688-8345.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 1, Offtopic) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Friday September 04 2015, @03:03PM
At Alta Bates in Oakland, the dead body of the insightful psychiatrist who made that fatal mistake was found fully an hour after she disappeared.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 04 2015, @04:14PM
> So will ill gotten information now flow in reverse, from local to federal authorities?
That is what fusion centers [publicintegrity.org] are for.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 04 2015, @05:09PM
(Score: 3, Touché) by etherscythe on Friday September 04 2015, @05:37PM
Forget to log in? I've gotten 5 a day for some time now.
"Fake News: anything reported outside of my own personally chosen echo chamber"
(Score: 2) by mendax on Friday September 04 2015, @07:14PM
It's really quite a simple choice: Life, Death, or Los Angeles.