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FBI says search warrants not needed to use “stingrays” in public places
- jgrowl 12y ago"(3) cases in which the technology is used in public places or other locations at which the FBI deems there is no reasonable expectation of privacy." How could they ensure people not in public places would not be targeted? Or do they just mean that as long as the system is deployed in a public place they can do whatever they want. So if they make something that can see through walls into every room of your house, it is OK as long as it is deployed somewhere public like a utility pole...
- zaroth 12y agoThere's strong Supreme Court precedence that establishes, just because a technology is installed in a public location, doesn't mean everything that it can see is therefore public. I believe there were cases both for thermal imaging, as well as surveillance cameras pointed at the front door of a house. Typically the defining factor is the duration and scope of the surveillance. E.g. It's OK to look at someone's front door on your way by, it's not OK to aim a camera at it and record 24/7 for a week. What we see in practice is, they don't get a warrant, and if the defense is sophisticated enough to determine if a Stingray was used, and they ask the right questions, the prosecution withdraws any direct evidence from the Stringray, but tries to keep all the subsequently discovered evidence. The interesting case of the fly-over-Stringray is it approximates the fly-over-thermal scanning which is commonplace today, but the analogy shouldn't hold when you cross over from capturing passive emissions to active communication spoofing, e.g. activities which would be illegal under CFAA.