OTI Commends Senators on Stingray Investigation Letter

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Today, twelve Senators sent a letter to Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Tom Wheeler asking for detailed information about the FCC’s role in overseeing police use of cell-site simulators (CS simulators or Stingray devices), which are high-tech surveillance devices, and urging him to investigate and address the charges raised in a recent complaint filed by New America’s Open Technology Institute, Color of Change, and Center for Media Justice against the Baltimore Police Department (BPD), one of the most avid users of CS simulators.

As explained in the complaint, CS simulators are designed to mimic cellphone towers. They generally transmit over licensed frequencies without a license and force nearby phones to connect to the simulator, allowing police departments to collect vast amounts of location and identifying data on essentially all cell phones within an area potentially encompassing multiple city blocks. By mimicking cell towers, CS simulators disrupt the cellular service of nearby phones by blocking calls and interfering with emergency services. BPD routinely used these devices in secret and disproportionately used them to target Black neighborhoods, an issue of much broader concern given the Department of Justice’s recent report on BPD’s widespread discriminatory behavior.

The Senators call on the Chairman to answer several technical and policy questions based on the complaint. Particularly, the Senators press the FCC for definitive information on CS simulators, including whether the FCC has tested these devices and what information it learned from those tests, whether the FCC knows if local police departments attempt to minimize network interference and minimize harm to communities of color, and whether the FCC maintains records on CS simulators by police department.

The following quote can be attributed to Eric Null, Policy Counsel at New America’s Open Technology Institute:

“Police use of Stingray devices has long been shrouded in secrecy, which has allowed police departments to use them in the unlawful and discriminatory ways detailed in our complaint. The Senators on today’s letter, led by Senators Franken, Leahy, and Wyden, have wisely called on the FCC Chairman to provide the public information about the functionality, use, and tracking of Stingray devices. We are pleased to see the Senators call attention to such an important issue and to seek definitive answers to questions about secretive Stingray surveillance technology.”