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Cato Podcast

Police Conduct Warrantless Surveillance with Stingrays and Fudge Facts When Confronted

Cato Podcast

Cato Institute

Immigration, News, News Commentary, Peace, 424708, Markets, Government, Libertarian, Policy, Politics, Cato, Defense

4.5979 Ratings

🗓️ 8 February 2022

⏱️ 25 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Police use "cell site simulators" to gather cellphone data and it's rarely done under the authority of a warrant. Nondisclosure agreements local police sign at the behest of the federal government mean cops are regularly less than truthful when confronted in court. Nathan Freed Wessler of the ACLU discusses his work to try to learn what exactly is going on.

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Transcript

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0:00.0

This is the Katori Daily Podcast for Tuesday, February 8th, 2022.

0:07.0

I'm Caleb Brown.

0:08.0

It can't be said enough. Police are way ahead of courts when it comes to understanding

0:12.0

technology that can implicate your rights.

0:14.9

The case of cell site simulators, so-called stingrays, is a perfect example.

0:19.8

Nate Wesley is deputy director of the ACLU Speech, Privacy and Technology Project.

0:25.0

Through FOIA and lawsuits, he's in the process of learning more about just how police are using this secretive technology to evade the constraints of constitutional government.

0:35.6

When police agencies want to spy on someone and gather information for an investigation? What is the constitutionally approved

0:46.4

process that police agencies ought to use in order to do that?

0:50.3

So you know there are a number of ways technologically that police can try to intercept people's communications or track our

0:56.8

locations over time or locate us, going through a request of the phone company,

1:02.1

trying to use malware installed on a phone. going through a request to the phone company,

1:02.8

trying to use malware installed on a phone,

1:05.2

or using their own device,

1:07.7

often called a cell site simulator

1:09.6

that mimics the cell phone tower

1:10.8

and tries to locate the phone.

1:13.2

You know, all of those are highly invasive and we think there are some differences in how the

1:17.5

Fourth Amendment applies depending on the type of technology, but at a minimum

1:21.6

there needs to be a search warrant based on probable cause

1:24.8

issued by a neutral judge that provides individualized suspicion and court oversight.

1:30.8

So when you say individual suspicion, particularized suspicion, you're talking about a person who is suspected of having committed a crime.

...

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