The FBI used a similar device to track former hacker Kevin Mitnick in 1994, though the version used in that case was much more primitive and passive.Ī 1996 Wired story about the Mitnick case called the device a Triggerfish and described it as "a technician's device normally used for testing cell phones." According to the story, the Triggerfish was "a rectangular box of electronics about a half a meter high controlled by a PowerBook" that was essentially "a five-channel receiver, able to monitor both sides of a conversation simultaneously." The crude technology was hauled around in a station wagon and van. In a 2009 Utah case, an FBI agent described using a cell site emulator more than 300 times over a decade and indicated that they were used on a daily basis by U.S, Marshals, the Secret Service and other federal agencies. Use of the spy technology goes back at least 20 years. When devices connect, stingrays can see and record their unique ID numbers and traffic data, as well as information that points to the device’s location.īy moving the stingray around and gathering the wireless device’s signal strength from various locations in a neighborhood, authorities can pinpoint where the device is being used with much more precision than they can get through data obtained from a mobile network provider’s fixed tower location. The secretive technology, generically known as a stingray or IMSI catcher, allows law enforcement agents to spoof a legitimate cell tower in order to trick nearby mobile phones and other wireless communication devices like air cards into connecting to the stingray instead of a phone carrier’s legitimate tower. This is reconfiguring and changing the characteristics of the property, without informing the judge what’s going on."
"This is more than just give us some records that you have sitting on your server. "It shows you just how crazy the technology is, and all the more the need to explain to the court what they are doing," says EFF Staff Attorney Hanni Fakhoury. The Electronic Frontier Foundation and the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California, who have filed an amicus brief in support of Rigmaiden's motion, maintain that the order does not qualify as a warrant and that the government withheld crucial information from the magistrate - such as identifying that the tracking device they planned to use was a stingray and that its use involved intrusive measures - thus preventing the court from properly fulfilling its oversight function. The government has conceded, however, that it needed a warrant in his case alone - because the stingray reached into his apartment remotely to locate the air card - and that the activities performed by Verizon and the FBI to locate Rigmaiden were all authorized by a court order signed by a magistrate.
The government has long asserted that it doesn't need to obtain a probable-cause warrant to use the devices because they don't collect the content of phone calls and text messages and operate like pen-registers and trap-and-traces, collecting the equivalent of header information.
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