This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Wednesday, March 25, 2015.

I'm Caleb Brown.

The stingray is a device used secretly by law enforcement to snag your cell phone location, data, even the people you're

communicating with. Problem is, it's warrantless surveillance at the local level

and you might not even know if it's been gathering your data. Adam Bates, a policy analyst at the Cato Institute, offers his thoughts.

Many police agencies are using what are known as stingrays or cell site

simulators, which essentially trick your phone into thinking that it's connecting with a cell tower when it in fact is not.

Where are these being used and on what authority?

Well, it's an interesting question where these are being used.

It's been a pursuit for several years now of civil liberties

organizations like the ACLU to find out exactly where and to what extent this technology is being

employed by law enforcement. According to the ACLU 21 states across the

country from California to Florida to New York have been confirmed to

possess this technology. The other 29 states it's not definitive that they don't

have this technology we just don't know that they

have it yet. It's also become clear that law enforcement agencies that do have

this technology are very liberal about sharing it with other law

enforcement agencies.

So it's an endless endeavor to discover which police departments,

which law enforcement agencies have this technology.

Under what circumstances they're using it, as you said, under what authority they're

using this technology, it's a severe deprivation of transparency and local law enforcement.

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