CALIFORNIA WATCH - FBI investigators used a court order authorizing access to cellphone customer data to quietly deploy a powerful surveillance technology known as “stingrays,” privacy groups contend in a new court filing that claims the devices are overly invasive.
Your cellphone can be singled out by its international mobile subscriber identity, or IMSI, which then makes it possible to secretly determine your whereabouts using stingray devices, also known as IMSI catchers. The law enforcement tool troubles security experts and civil libertarians alike because it mimics cellphone towers. Stingrays track the locations of mobile devices, including those that are not targeted but are nearby....
An expert in 2010 showed spectators at a technology conference in Las Vegas that IMSI catchers could be built at home for as little as $1,500, exposing a potential weakness in cellphone security....
The government’s pursuit of an alleged tax fraudster that began in Northern California and is now playing out in an Arizona courtroom has become the first major constitutional challenge to stingrays. Law enforcement agencies using the technology have held it close to the chest, and the public has little knowledge of it....
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