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Bipartisan Bill Seeks Warrants For Police Use of 'Stingray' Cell Trackers (usatoday.com)
Tulsa_Time quotes a report from USA Today: A bipartisan group of House and Senate lawmakers introduced legislation Wednesday requiring police agencies to get a search warrant before they can deploy powerful cellphone surveillance technology known as "stingrays" that sweep up information about the movements of innocent Americans while tracking suspected criminals. "Owning a smartphone or fitness tracker shouldn't give the government a blank check to track your movements," said Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee who introduced the bill with Reps. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, and John Conyers, D-Mich. "Law enforcement should be able to use GPS data, but they need to get a warrant. This bill sets out clear rules to make sure our laws keep up with the times." The legislation introduced Wednesday, called the Geolocation Privacy and Surveillance (GPS) Act, would require a warrant for all domestic law enforcement agencies to track the location and movements of individual Americans through GPS technology without their knowledge. It also aims to combat high-tech stalking by creating criminal penalties for secretly using an electronic device to track someone's movements.
Glad to hear we're implementing that new-fangled 4th amendment I keep hearing about.
If only. It isn't possible to use a Stingray constitutionally, period. Here's the 4th Amendment, in its entirety:
Amendment IV
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
A Stingray sucks up data for hundreds, thousands, even tens of thousands of people if run in a metro area, and there is no warrant for that. A warrant must "particularly [describe] the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized" and every court in the land has ruled time and time again that "I want to seize something from 100 people" is not in any way "particular" enough, let alone "I want to seize something from 10,000 people".
The proposed law is unconstitutional, attempting to provide legal cover for unconstitutional activities. The only constitutional warrant names an individual or individual device or a very small group thereof and is issued to the phone company. The government does not get to pretend to be the phone company, and Hoover up the data for thousands of people at a time.[1]
I would question whether or not the current Supreme Court would uphold the Constitution and strike down this law if it passes, but it won't come before this court. The legal gyrations to prevent a challenge of the Stingrays with standing will continue indefinitely. We know this because the same stonewalling is already happening with respect to NSA spying on the Internet. Add to that the length of time required to run through the appeals process and actually reach the Supreme Court, and I doubt either Kennedy or Ginsberg will still be alive if and when that case finally gets to the Court.
Unless we are exceedingly fortunate, and this unconstitutional bill becomes law and suckers some prosecuting attorney into letting a Stingray-based case that is being challenged go forward, we're probably in for a decades of unconstitutional activity.
Not that it will be the first time...
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[1] No apologies for the pun. It was too appropriate.