Mission creep has arrived for mass surveillance.
An investigation by USA Today found that dozens of police departments have used phone trackers, known as stingrays, to solve low-level property crimes.
The use has expanded from the rare to the routine.
On top of it all, police departments have kept the use hidden from the general public, suspects, lawyers, and judges.
After 9/11, the government defended increased security measures and civil-liberties violations as necessary to protect the country and catch terrorists. Legislation such as the Patriot Act drastically increased the surveillance of American citizens.
Now, practices once kept to the National Security Agency, FBI, and CIA have extended to police departments.
The USA Today investigation found more than 35 police departments using the technology in 2013 and 2014, and the American Civil Liberties Union identified another 18 departments.
According to USA Today:
Maryland law requires the police to disclose any use of electronic surveillance, but defense attorneys were left in the dark.
The ACLU investigation, through press reports and public records, has counted 21 states and the District of Columbia where 53 agencies use stingrays. More states and agencies might use the technology, but the information is obscured.
In defending federal use of stingrays, FBI Director James Comey parroted the standard justification: safety.
“It’s how we find killers … It’s how we find kidnappers. It’s how we find drug dealers. It’s how we find missing children. It’s how we find pedophiles,” he said.
Comey might be telling the truth. Yet the secrecy of the program, the possible violations of the law, and the invasion of privacy that is unavoidable with stingrays raises grave concern. Without public oversight, legal restrictions, and an informed debate over the proper use of surveillance technology, the environment is prime for abuse.
