The House Oversight and Government Reofmr Committee this week released its final report on Law Enforcement Use of Cell-Site Simulation Technologies: Privacy Concerns and Recommendations (PDF). The report reviews the use of cell phone stingray tracking devices by law enforcement agencies.
From the report’s executive summary,
While law enforcement agencies should be able to utilize technology as a tool to help officers be safe and accomplish their missions, absent proper oversight and safeguards, the domestic use of cell-site simulators may well infringe upon the constitutional rights of citizens to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures, as well as the right to free association. Transparency and accountability are therefore critical to ensuring that when domestic law enforcement decide to use these devices on American citizens, the devices are used in a manner that meets the requirements and protections of the Constitution.
. . .
At the [October 21, 2015] hearing, it became evident that prior to the Committee’s investigation, the component law enforcement entities of DHS and DOJ had different policies and procedures governing their use of this technology and the agencies were not always obtaining a probable cause based warrant prior to deploying these devices. The new policies substantially changed how the agencies obtain authorization to deploy cell-site simulation technology. The new policies also introduced a measure of uniformity to how the various component agencies of each department used cell-site simulators, and importantly, required the agencies to obtain a warrant supported by probable cause in the majority of situations.