Earlier this month, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) submitted a joint amicus brief (.pdf; 569KB) in United States v. Rigmaiden, a case revolving around individuals’ Fourth Amendment rights in their homes and on their mobile phones.
The case focuses on the use of an International Mobile Subscriber Identity (IMSI) locator. These devices — about which virtually nothing is known — allow large geographic areas to be searched for specific mobile phone signals without first obtaining a warrant. In the process, data associated with thousands of nontargeted individuals is also collected.
One of the most common IMSI locators is Stingray, which works by disguising itself as a legitimate mobile phone tower. In the US, mobile phones transmit signals to mobile phone towers every 10 seconds or so regardless of whether or not a call is active. Stingray fools mobile phones into connecting to it and when they do, collects precise location information and, in some cases, entire conversations.
The government has argued in court proceedings that it should be allowed to keep secret how the technology works and how it uses the technology. The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) has filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for information about the technology, but the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has so far failed to respond to the request.
Hanni Fakhoury, writing for the EFF, reports that in the United States v. Rigmaiden case, the federal government asked a federal judge to order Verizon to aid in locating a tax fraud suspect. The government stretched the judge’s order and claimed authorization to use Stingray. The government subsequently claimed that its use of Stingray was a search and was covered by a warrant. As the EFF and the ACLU argue in their amicus brief, “the order directs Verizon to provide the government with information and assistance, but nowhere authorizes the government to search or seize anything.” The EFF and the ACLU go on to claim that the government failed to disclose its intended use of Stingray in its application for the order.
“Beyond the government’s conduct in this specific case, there is an even broader danger in law enforcement using these devices to locate suspects regardless of whether they explain the technology to judges,” writes Fakhoury. “These devices allow the government to conduct broad searches amounting to ‘general warrants,’ the exact type of search the Fourth Amendment was written to prevent.” Fakhoury further argues that Stingray is the digital equivalent of “the pre-Revolutionary war practice of British soldiers going door-to-door, searching Americans’ homes without rationale or suspicion, let alone judicial approval.”
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EFF and ACLU submit amicus brief on Stingray was originally published by ARTS & FARCES internet on Tuesday, 30 October 2012 at 9:00 AM CDT. Copyright © ARTS & FARCES LLC. All rights reserved. | ISSN: 1535-8119 | OCLC: 48219498 | Digital fingerprint: 974a89ee1284e6e92dd256bbfbef3751 (64.237.45.114)