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A rare alliance of Democratic and Republican members of the The states Congress could lead to increased restrictions on how police officers can deploy so-called Stingray prison cell telephone trackers. These devices are regularly used to investigate suspected criminals, but the nature of the system means a lot of innocent Americans are caught upwards in the dragnet. This nib would strength police force to get warrants before using Stingrays.

The legislation was introduced Wednesday, and is called the Geolocation Privacy and Surveillance (GPS) Act. Congress does love its clever acronyms. The bill was sponsored past unlikely allies Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Oregon), Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), and Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich). That means substantially the same pecker exists in the Business firm and Senate, which both need to pass the legislation before it can become a law.

Stingrays are roughly the size of a suitcase, and act similar portable prison cell towers. They are special IMSI-catchers manufactured by Harris Corporation, and originally intended for military utilize. Stingrays are most commonly used for tracking mobile phones, simply they can exercise much more. When operating in active manner, they use loftier transmission power to force all nearby cell phones to connect as if the Stingray was a carrier cell tower. That gives the operator access to all the data passing between the tower and the phone. That can hateful merely monitoring a device'southward location or eavesdropping on phone calls and extracting encryption keys.

stingray

Police have long maintained that the use of Stingrays does not institute a "search," and equally such does not crave a warrant. The GPS bill seeks to strength warrants before a Stingray could be used. That wouldn't stop Stingrays from being used in the U.s., of course. However, it would vastly reduce the frequency. Civil liberties groups have pointed to the big number of Stingray deployments as an issue. In 2014, Florida police revealed they had used such devices more than 200 times in 2010 without getting warrants. Harris Corporation as well imposes strict rules about what can be disclosed past police nearly Stingray operation, which may run afoul of constitutional protections.

The GPS bill is supported by privacy and civil liberties groups similar the ACLU. The legislation would primarily target local constabulary enforcement, which is the near cavalier almost the employ of Stingrays. The FBI changed its procedures in 2015 to require agents to get a warrant before deploying Stingrays. If the pecker is passed past Congress, it'south upward to President Trump to sign information technology. If police force enforcement groups oppose information technology, he may decline to practise then.