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5/18/14

Privacy Laws: StingRay: US cops use portable surveillance device to capture cellphone data - by Brett Clarkson

Could a high-tech surveillance device now being used by some local authorities also be tricking your cellphone into giving up its secrets? Maybe even from the unmarked car on the road next to you?

The StingRay, a portable, boxy device that looks like a piece of '70s stereo equipment, is designed to fool cellphones so that cops can collect a suspect's location information — and maybe more.

Police in Florida deploy the tool to track down violent offenders and rescue victims of abduction. It intercepts a targeted cellphone's signal and then reveals to the user that phone's location, which then gives investigators a much greater chance of locating the suspect.

It's been around for more than a decade, but it's still shrouded in secrecy. How it works and the full scope of its capabilities are not being made public by its maker and the local law enforcement agencies that use it.

And nobody wants to talk about it.

Mark Tunick, a professor of political science and associate dean at Wilkes Honors College, at the Jupiter campus of Florida Atlantic University. said: "The concern is that if they use the technology without a search warrant, that's very problematic ".

Read more: StingRay: Cops use portable surveillance device to capture cellphone data - Sun Sentinel

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