Though the Obama Administration is making much of its “need” to be able to use vehicle tracking devices without the need for evidence or warrants, the FBI seems to have simply ignored the problem and switched to cellphones.
The Justice Department admits that the FBI “routinely” uses the Stingray tracking program to track Americans’ locations by using their cellphones, and listens in on their conversations.
The Justice Department officials say that they can do all of this with orders and that they don’t require actual warrants, but insisted that the data collected is relatively limited in most cases.
That’s not satisfying the ACLU, which points out that the devices are capturing a large number of phone users’ data, and not simply the target, and that there seems to be little to no oversight, with courts not requiring probable cause as with a search warrant.
