吃瓜大本营

Anaheim Police have spent almost a decade secretly building an inventory of powerful cell phone surveillance devices and making them available to neighboring cities in Orange County, .

This cell phone spying program鈥攚hich potentially affects the privacy of everyone from Orange County鈥檚 residents to the people who visit Disneyland every year鈥攕hows the dangers of allowing law enforcement to secretly acquire surveillance technology. The devices include the suitcase-sized equipment, another hand-held and easy-to-hide cell phone spy tool, and鈥攎ost surprisingly鈥攁 military-grade piece of equipment known as a 鈥渄irtbox鈥� that until now was only thought to be used by the federal government and two major cities.

If a city of only a few hundred thousand people like Anaheim has purchased this wide array of devices, it raises the question of how widespread these tools really are.

Additionally, Anaheim in its secretive funding requests that 鈥渆very city in Orange County has benefited鈥� from its cellular surveillance equipment, raising further concerns about transparency, democracy, and accountability. It鈥檚 bad enough that Anaheim鈥檚 secretive acquisition of this surveillance technology deprived the city鈥檚 residents of the opportunity to participate in critical decisions affecting their own community. But by loaning out this technology well outside Anaheim鈥檚 borders, the police department has subjected people all over Orange County to surveillance decisions made by unelected leaders from other communities.

A cell site simulator, often referred to as 鈥淪tingray,鈥� mimics a cell tower and tricks nearby cell phones into communicating with it. In order to function, these devices interact with all cell phones in radio range, which means they potentially retain data about the communications and locations of innocent people.

Although federal, state and local governments widely use cell cite simulators, governments have gone to great lengths to information about how those simulators work and are used. Anaheim鈥檚 secrecy here is not an accident. The city and its departments bought these devices in secret and initially refused the ACLU鈥檚 request for public records. Only after and engaged in extensive discussions did Anaheim produce any documents, which were heavily redacted鈥攁n on-going point of contention in our lawsuit.

What the documents show

Anaheim has possessed at least three different forms of cell phone surveillance technology since at least 2009, the documents show. The police department that year to purchase a dirtbox from a Maryland-based company named Digital Receiver Technology, Inc., or DRT. A dirtbox can collect information about thousands of phones at once, and a predecessor version of Anaheim鈥檚 device is capable of intercepting and recording digital voice data, according to to the media. Other dirtbox models are capable of breaking the encryption of cellphone communications, . One of the unique features of a dirtbox , and as a consequence scoop up information from not just a few hundred phones in its vicinity, but . Until now, the only reported domestic use of these powerful devices was by and the cities of Los Angeles and Chicago.

In 2011, two years after buying the dirtbox, from Florida-based Harris Corp using a combination of federal grant dollars and local funds. And in 2013, to the department鈥檚 Stingray the ACLU believes enabled it to monitor modern LTE cellular networks.

Finally, in late 2013 a controversial manufactured by a company called KEYW and marketed as a tool for covertly locating phones and LTE signals in hard-to-reach places, including the interiors of buildings. The , when compared with publicly available , strongly suggest that Anaheim bought a device called a . With a lightweight Jugular in hand, individual officers can easily conduct cell phone surveillance around and inside of buildings, including private homes, without alerting bystanders.

Potential warrantless use

The documents obtained in the public records suit do not confirm whether Anaheim police investigators obtain a warrant before using these devices. The records state that Anaheim obtains a 鈥渃ourt order鈥� or 鈥渃ourt approval鈥� for use of the , , and devices, but a court order is not necessarily based on probable cause, as is required for a warrant. This is important because devices like the KEYW Jugular can be used to find devices in hard-to-access spaces, such as the interiors of homes where people have the right to be secure from unreasonable searches under the Fourth Amendment.

The ACLU documents predate , the new California law requiring a warrant for these devices. We do not know what legal process Anaheim seeks for cell phone surveillance today.

The ever-expanding use of these devices appears to go beyond Anaheim鈥檚 city limits. Anaheim that it makes its cell surveillance arsenal available to other police departments in Orange County and had for sharing the dirtbox. The secretive use of this equipment outside of Anaheim means the police department not only deprived its own residents of the opportunity to debate or choose whether to be subjected to cell phone surveillance, it also did the same for the residents and elected leaders in neighboring jurisdictions, undermining the democratic process in those places as well.

It鈥檚 time for reform

Law enforcement entities should never acquire surveillance technology without telling the public, let alone multiple generations of devices capable of spying on private communications, as these has happened there.

Anaheim鈥檚 slide towards more and more surveillance illustrates the risks of secret surveillance outside of the democratic process. But communities are fighting back. As federal and policymakers pass new restrictions on cell surveillance devices, local communities are moving forward with surveillance reforms that range for Stingrays to to an transparency, accountability, and oversight for all surveillance technologies.

The ACLU is hopeful these reforms will take hold in places like Anaheim too so that when police seek the next generation of surveillance technologies, it won鈥檛 take the public seven years and a lawsuit to find out about it.

.

This is a condensed version of a post originally by the ACLU of Northern California.