FBI Tells Local Police To Keep Quiet About ‘Stingray’ Cellphone Trackers

[Suzanimal]

Police departments throughout the U.S. have been instructed by the FBI to keep quiet about their use of “stingray” cellphone trackers, but a recently uncovered letter from the agency to Minnesota police reveals the FBI is helping them circumvent Freedom of Information Act requests as well.

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In a letter from June 2012 recently obtained by the Minneapolis Star Tribune and cited in an Ars Technica report, the FBI instructed the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension to report any Freedom of Information Act requests related to stingrays to the agency, which would then take steps “to prevent disclosure.”

“In the event that the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension receives a request pursuant to the Freedom of Information Act (5 USC 552) or an equivalent state or local law, the civil or criminal discovery process, or other judicial, legislative, or administrative process, to disclose information concerning the Harris Corporation [REDACTED] the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension will immediately notify the FBI of any such request telephonically and in writing in order to allow sufficient time for the FBI to seek to prevent disclosure through appropriate channels,” the letter written in conjunction with Harris reads.

The letter is similar to one disclosed via a FOIA request last year between the FBI and police is Tacoma, Wash., which ordered the department to complete a non-disclosure agreement for acquiring the tech — a mandate required by the FCC.

“It is surprising in the sense that it seems like just a completely inappropriate and over-broad use of federal authority,” American Civil Liberties Union attorney Nathan Wessler said in the Ars report.

“What is most egregious about this is that, in order for local police to use and purchase stingrays, they have to get approval from the FBI, then the FBI knows that dozens of police departments are using them around the country. And yet when members of the press or the public seek basic information about how people in local communities are being surveilled, the FBI invokes these very serious national security concerns to try to keep that information private.”

http://dailycaller.com/2015/02/10/fbi-tells-local-police-to-keep-quiet-about-stingray-cellphone-trackers/

[Suzanimal]

Secrecy around police surveillance equipment proves a case’s undoing


TALLAHASSEE — The case against Tadrae McKenzie looked like an easy win for prosecutors. He and two buddies robbed a small-time pot dealer of $130 worth of weed using BB guns. Under Florida law, that was robbery with a deadly weapon, with a sentence of at least four years in prison.

But before trial, his defense team detected investigators’ use of a secret surveillance tool, one that raises significant privacy concerns. In an unprecedented move, a state judge ordered the police to show the device — a cell-tower simulator sometimes called a StingRay — to the attorneys.

Rather than show the equipment, the state offered McKenzie a plea bargain.

Today, 20-year-old McKenzie is serving six months’ probation *after pleading guilty to a second-degree misdemeanor. He got, as one civil liberties advocate said, the deal of the century. (The other two defendants also pleaded guilty and were sentenced to two years’ probation.)

McKenzie’s case is emblematic of the growing, but hidden, use by local law enforcement of a sophisticated surveillance technology borrowed from the national security world. It shows how a gag order imposed by the FBI — on grounds that discussing the device’s operation would compromise its effectiveness — has left judges, the public and criminal defendants in the dark on how the tool works.

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The police found some marijuana and zip-top bags in the car. They detained McKenzie and took him to the police station. He confessed, giving police the names of his two friends and showing investigators where they lived. All three were charged with robbery with a deadly weapon.

Tracing a phone’s location
Months passed. The case dragged along.

In November 2013, after McKenzie’s original lawyer dropped out, his case was assigned to a public defender, Carrie McMullen. Around that time, the attorney for one of the co-defendants began to wonder: How did the police figure out that McKenzie was at 3197 Springhill Rd. that morning?

McMullen’s office hired a lawyer with technology expertise. John Sawicki, the expert, produced a map on which he plotted all the locations provided by Verizon, and they clumped in three different areas of town.

Cell-tower data can show general geographical areas where a phone was used, but “they will not tell you he’s in House X,” Sawicki said. “That’s how imprecise it is.”

In March, the defense team deposed police investigator Robert Newberry. The lawyers tried to get Newberry to explain how the police zeroed in on 3197 Springhill Rd. He mentioned the cell-tower records and then, under probing, acknowledged that they had not been sufficient on their own to locate the suspect.

He said a “Sergeant Corbitt” in the department’s technical operations unit had identified the phone’s location. “He would have to tell you how he got to that,” Newberry said, referring to Christopher Corbitt, who handles electronic surveillance operations.

There were other questions about whether the police had reasonable suspicion to pull McKenzie over. The descriptions Williams gave of the suspects were vague, and in fact, none closely matched McKenzie’s appearance.

The descriptions fit “two-thirds of the young black males living on the south side of town,” Sawicki said.

Newberry could not fully explain how Corbitt determined the phone’s location. “I can’t address it because I don’t know the magic behind it,” he said.

In April, the defense team deposed Corbitt. He told the attorneys that he turned up the address on Springhill Road by running phone numbers that the suspect’s phone had dialed through a subscription database, called Accurint, that helps law enforcement agencies locate individuals through data such as phone numbers, property records and court records.

But how did he know that the phone was in the house at 6 in the morning? The phone was a “burner” — one not registered under McKenzie’s name.

“We do have specific equipment that allows us to . . . direction-find on the handset, if necessary,” Corbitt said.

“What is that, and how does that work?” McMullen asked.

“I can’t go into that,” he said. “Due to [a] nondisclosure agreement with the FBI, we’re not able to get into the details of how the equipment operates.”

He acknowledged that the device was a cell-tower simulator.

He also acknowledged that the device, whose model name he could not give, was used to “assist in locating or determining the person in possession” of the cellphone, and that it could elicit signals from a target’s phone even when the phone was not in use.

“It is not nearly as invasive or as sinister as it is sometimes characterized to be,” he said.

“I so wish that I could tell you how this equipment operates, because I think I could put so many people at ease,” Corbitt said. “Unfortunately, I am not able to do that.”

He said that if the defense wanted more specific information, then he had “a specific protocol” to follow requiring him to notify the FBI and the Justice Department.

The Tallahassee police declined to comment for this article.

‘100 percent’ reliable
In June, in response to a motion for public access by the ACLU, the state released a transcript from a closed court hearing in 2010 relating to a Tallahassee rape case in which Corbitt testified that he had used a cell-site simulator to identify a suspect in an apartment complex. “In essence, we emulate a cellphone tower,” he said. “We force that handset to register with us. We identify that we have the correct handset and then we’re able to — by just merely direction-finding on the signal emanating from that handset — we’re able to determine a location.”

He noted that the equipment “is evaluating all the handsets in the area.”

“Using portable equipment,” he said, “we were able to actually basically stand at every door and every window in that complex and determine, with relative certainty . . . the particular area of the apartment that that handset was emanating from.”

He said the Tallahassee police began using the device in the spring of 2007. From that point until August 2010, he said, the police had used it “200 or more times” to locate a cellphone.

How reliable was it? “Truthfully,” he said, “100 percent.”

In September, McMullen drew up a motion to suppress the evidence obtained against McKenzie prior to his arrest, alleging that his Fourth Amendment rights were violated by the use of the StingRay. She argued that the police had not obtained a warrant based on probable cause to use the device.

“By scooping up all manner of information from a target cellphone, as well as nearly all cellphones in the general area, a StingRay device engages in exploratory rummaging,” she wrote.

McMullen also argued that the order the police did obtain not only failed to meet the requirements of a warrant but was also obtained without telling the judge that it would be used to operate a StingRay.

Then, in October, McMullen sought a subpoena to compel Corbitt to show the device in court. In November, Florida Circuit Court Judge Frank Sheffield held a hearing on the issue.

The state’s attorney, Courtney Frazier, argued that details of the equipment’s operation were protected from disclosure under a law enforcement exception to the state open-records law.

Sheffield broke in. “What right does law enforcement have to hide behind the rules and to listen in and take people’s information like the NSA?” he said.

Frazier protested that the information about the device was sensitive and that disclosure could inhibit the police’s ability to catch criminals.

“Inhibiting law enforcement’s rights are second to protecting mine!” Sheffield thundered, gesturing with both hands and fixing his gaze on the prosecutor.

On Dec. 2, Sheffield signed the subpoena forcing Tallahassee police to show the device they used.

Two days before Corbitt was due to show up with the device, McMullen received notice of the plea deal from the prosecutor. She had never gotten such a sweet deal on a case.

The defense attorneys were disappointed that they would not see the device, but they couldn’t refuse the plea bargain.

“How do you not take it?” Sawicki said. “How do you take these kids’ future away?”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/secrecy-around-police-surveillance-equipment-proves-a-cases-undoing/2015/02/22/ce72308a-b7ac-11e4-aa05-1ce812b3fdd2_story.html?tid=sm_fb

[devil21]

^^^^^^^
Good to see even circuit judges getting pissed off at the secrecy of stingray use. At what point did a NDA supplant the BoR as supreme law of the land?

Stingray use brings up a lot of other questions about what is buried in cell phone code and hardware that they'd rather not be asked about.

[DamianTV]

Related:

In Florida, Secrecy Around Stingray Leads To Plea Bargain For a Robber
http://yro.slashdot.org/story/15/02/23/0611254/in-florida-secrecy-around-stingray-leads-to-plea-bargain-for-a-robber


The case against Tadrae McKenzie looked like an easy win for prosecutors. He and two buddies robbed a small-time pot dealer of $130 worth of weed using BB guns. Under Florida law, that was robbery with a deadly weapon, with a sentence of at least four years in prison. But before trial, his defense team detected investigators' use of a secret surveillance tool, one that raises significant privacy concerns. In an unprecedented move, a state judge ordered the police to show the device — a cell-tower simulator sometimes called a StingRay — to the attorneys. Rather than show the equipment, the state offered McKenzie a plea bargain. Today, 20-year-old McKenzie is serving six months' probation after pleading guilty to a second-degree misdemeanor. He got, as one civil liberties advocate said, the deal of the century.

Secrets are more important than anything else. Making sure they have a Monopoly on Secrets. You have no secrets to them while everything they do is kept secret to you.

[devil21]

More stingray coverage. Cops are claiming that if they explained how it works that people could work around it.

https://www.yahoo.com/tech/s/police-using-secret-gadget-track-134710141.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/16/business/a-police-gadget-tracks-phones-shhh-its-secret.html

The most detailed info available, via wapo:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/secrecy-around-police-surveillance-equipment-proves-a-cases-undoing/2015/02/22/ce72308a-b7ac-11e4-aa05-1ce812b3fdd2_story.html