Cell-Site Simulator Case Possibly First in US Where Evidence Suppressed, Says EFF, ACLU
The Electronic Frontier Foundation, the American Civil Liberties Union and the ACLU of Maryland want the Maryland Court of Special Appeals to uphold a lower court decision that suppressed evidence that police obtained using a cell-site simulator without getting a…
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warrant. Both EFF and ACLU wrote blog posts Tuesday about the case, which they said is possibly the first in the nation where a judge threw out evidence obtained through these devices. Commonly known as Stingrays, the simulators mimic cellphone towers and trick all nearby phones to connect to them, and the signals can be used to locate individuals (see 1510210060). The three groups filed an amicus brief in support of Baltimore City Circuit Court Judge Kendra Ausby, who ruled Aug. 20 that the Baltimore Police Department's use of a Hailstorm cellphone surveillance device violated the defendant's Fourth Amendment rights, and ordered information generated from the device be suppressed. The government appealed. ACLU Staff Attorney Nathan Freed Wessler wrote that there's "extreme secrecy" about Stingray use, largely due to the FBI imposing a nondisclosure agreement on local police. "The ruling is important because it is the latest example of judges taking their role seriously, and pushing back against law enforcement’s wanton disregard for constitutional limits on their surveillance activities and their duty of candor to the courts," he wrote. EFF Senior Staff Attorney Jennifer Lynch wrote that it's vital that police not only get a warrant based on probable cause in using such a device, "but also commit to minimization procedures, including immediately deleting information about all phones not covered by the warrant and limiting the time period during which the device is used."