NC – The Mecklenburg County District Attorney’s office will review hundreds of criminal cases after a judge unsealed related records that allowed police to secretly track cellphones in their investigations.
The records give the fullest account to date about cellphone surveillance conducted by the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department. They also provide one of the most extensive disclosures about a U.S. police department’s use of a powerful technology, commonly known as a StingRay, which law enforcement agencies and the federal government have fought to conceal from the public.
CMPD sought permission to use cellphone surveillance more than 500 times since 2010, or about twice a week, according to court records revealed Thursday.
Click here & here to read the unsealed Court orders.
Documents and interviews suggest judges rarely, if ever, denied authorization requested by CMPD to use equipment that can intercept cellphone information from criminal suspects and innocent people alike.
Charlotte City Manager Ron Carlee has strongly defended CMPD’s surveillance of cellphones and other wireless devices, saying officers do not eavesdrop on conversations or store data from innocent people
“It is my conclusion that procedures in place by CMPD are designed to protect constitutional rights and that to deny CMPD the use of this modern investigatory tool would not be in the best interest of public safety for the Charlotte-Mecklenburg community,” Carlee has said.
The files contain no records showing CMPD received court permission to use a StingRay from when it first purchased the device in 2006 until 2010. That means there is no way to readily determine how often police used the device, if they were justified or if they had judicial oversight during that time span.
Senior Deputy City Attorney Judith Emken said during that period, police applied for court orders giving them permission to deploy the device, generically called a cell-site simulator.
Court officials, however, did not file the records in the clerk’s office. Instead, police detectives kept copies in investigative files, which are not open to public inspection.
The arrangement violated the fundamental principle that American courts should be open and transparent, said Linda Lye, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union.
“The government was effectively making surveillance law secret,” Lye said. “The government should not be able to get around open records law because of chaotic record keeping.”
It’s been very difficult for attorneys and the public alike to fully understand when, where, and how law enforcement has been asking judges to sign off on Stingrays. Previously, Brian Owsley, one federal magistrate judge who served in Texas for eight years and is now a law professor at Indiana Tech, had his efforts thwarted to unseal similar orders.
http://thehill.com/policy/cybersecurity/225074-judge-unseals-secret-cell-spying-details
http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2014/11/20/5330929/mecklenburg-county-district-attorneys.html
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http://massprivatei.blogspot.ca/2014/11/revealed-one-of-most-extensive.html
Not only is that gadget giving you brain cancer, but it’s providing a treasure-trove of data for spying operations and legal harassment.
Just the knowledge of who called whom reveals “associates” who will also be targeted for harassment simply for knowing the wrong people.