The ACLU and Electronic Frontier Foundation have filed an amicus transient in what shall be the primary case in the nation to address the constitutional implications of a so-referred to as "stingray," just a little identified gadget that can be utilized to trace a suspect's location and have interaction in different forms of surveillance. We argue that if the government needs to make use of invasive surveillance technology like this, it should clarify the expertise to the courts so they can perform their judicial oversight perform as required by the Constitution. The case is very vital for 2 reasons. First, it reveals that the federal government is utilizing new sorts of expertise-not just GPS and cell site location records-to trace location. Second, it exhibits that the federal government goes to great lengths to maintain its surveillance practices secret. The federal government is hiding information about new surveillance expertise not only from the general public, but even from the courts.

By maintaining courts at nighttime about new applied sciences, the government is actually in search of to write its own search warrants. That's not how the Constitution works. We filed an amicus brief in the case of Daniel Rigmaiden, who is being criminally prosecuted in federal court docket in Arizona for allegedly filing fraudulent tax returns. Last fall, the Wall Street Journal reported on the government's use of the stingray system in Rigmaiden's case. Stingray is the identify of a selected product bought by the Harris Corporation. The extra generic time period for the gadget is "IMSI catcher," in reference to the unique identifier, or International Mobile Subscriber Identity, ItagPro of wireless units. Several features about stingrays are vital to understand from a privateness perspective. First, they gather information in regards to the gadgets and whereabouts of third events, not just the targets of an investigation. As noted above, IMSI catchers mimic a wireless service's network equipment