Judge Unseals 500+ Stingray Records

An anonymous reader sends this excerpt from Ars Technica: A judge in Charlotte, North Carolina, has unsealed a set of 529 court documents in hundreds of criminal cases detailing the use of a stingray, or cell-site simulator, by local police. This move, which took place earlier this week, marks a rare example of a court opening up a vast trove of applications made by police to a judge, who authorized each use of the powerful and potentially invasive device

According to the Charlotte Observer, the records seem to suggest that judges likely did not fully understand what they were authorizing. Law enforcement agencies nationwide have taken extraordinary steps to preserve stingray secrecy. As recently as this week, prosecutors in a Baltimore robbery case dropped key evidence that stemmed from stingray use rather than fully disclose how the device was used.

Comments

Re:Consent of the Governed

[cold fjord]

The US is a Republic, not a direct democracy. The lawmakers are representatives that do some things behind closed doors out of practical necessity. Abraham Lincoln had people spying on the Confederacy, and that wasn't done in the open view of the public either. There is always going to be a tension between the need to keep the public informed and the need to keep some things secret. Trying to resolve that tension by asserting there must be no secrets in government is a losing game and it goes against practically all experience and wisdom.* One may reasonably argue about where the boundaries should be, not not about the practical necessity of the government keeping some things secret.

*Hence the popularity among some on Slashdot.

Re:Consent of the Governed

[saloomy]

...certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it ... End of story. There can be no action taken by a government on behalf of its people argued to be for its people, yet conceal that action from its people in the name of its people. It's oxymoronic.

need to keep some things secret

Need to keep things secret? Who decides what is needed to be kept secret? Patriots? Those who stand with liberty and freedom certainly don't.

NDAs

[NormalVisual]

Regarding the NDAs that have been signed with Harris and the government not to disclose information regarding the Stingray devices - I was under the impression that a civil contract could not override state or federal law, and any such clauses requiring such are non-enforceable. These judges need to be finding every single one of the officers and prosecutors in contempt when they present "but we're under an NDA" as an argument in a court of law.