{"id":6056,"date":"2011-09-22T07:49:37","date_gmt":"2011-09-22T07:46:08","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"-0001-11-30T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2011-09-22T07:46:08","slug":"en-US","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/?p=6056","title":{"rendered":"WSJ: “‘Stingray’ Phone Tracker Fuels Constitutional Clash”"},"content":{"rendered":"

WSJ: ‘Stingray’ Phone Tracker Fuels Constitutional Clash<\/a> by Jennifer Valentino-Devries:<\/p>\n

For more than a year, federal authorities pursued a man they called simply “the Hacker.” Only after using a little known cellphone-tracking device\u2014a stingray\u2014were they able to zero in on a California home and make the arrest.<\/p>\n

Stingrays are designed to locate a mobile phone even when it’s not being used to make a call. The Federal Bureau of Investigation considers the devices to be so critical that it has a policy of deleting the data gathered in their use, mainly to keep suspects in the dark about their capabilities, an FBI official told The Wall Street Journal in response to inquiries.<\/p>\n

A stingray’s role in nabbing the alleged “Hacker”\u2014Daniel David Rigmaiden\u2014is shaping up as a possible test of the legal standards for using these devices in investigations. The FBI says it obtains appropriate court approval to use the device.<\/p>\n

Stingrays are one of several new technologies used by law enforcement to track people’s locations, often without a search warrant. …<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Also: How \u2018Stingray\u2019 Devices Work<\/a> by the same author:<\/p>\n

Law enforcement and the military are using devices called \u201cstingrays\u201d to track cellphones, as described in a story in today\u2019s Wall Street Journal. The government considers the devices sensitive information, and not much is known publicly about how they are used. But it\u2019s possible to get a good idea of how they work based on public documents and interviews with technology experts.<\/p>\n

The systems involve an antenna, a computer with mapping software, and a special device. The device mimics a cellphone tower and gets the phone to connect to it. It can then collect hardware numbers associated with the phone and can ping the cellphone even if the owner isn\u2019t making a call. This can be done through walls \u2014 something that is useful in finding suspects as well as victims of crimes or accidents.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

b2evALnk.b2WPAutP Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"pingsdone","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6056","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6056","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6056"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6056\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6056"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6056"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6056"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}