US Marshals Seize FL Cops’ Surveillance Records to Deny Them to ACLU

Hours
before a scheduled meeting to surrender records to the American
Civil Liberties Union about the use of controversial “stingray”
cellphone tracking devices, Sarasota, Florida, police canceled the
meeting, saying the U.S. Marshals had seized the records and they
were no longer in police possession. Calling the move “blatant
violations of open government laws,” in the words of staff
attorney Nathan Freed Wessler, the ACLU
promptly sued, protesting the handoff of sensitive documents to
the feds and seeking their return.

Also known as “IMSIcatchers,” stingray devices simulate
cellphone towers and trick cellphones into connecting, revealing
their location. They are frequently used by federal and local
officials under old-fashioned “trap
and trace” warrants which conceal the intrusive nature of the
modern technology.

Law enforcement officials are often
cagey about the technology, both in terms of its capabilities,
and also the loose legal standards under which it is used.
Old-fashioned warrant applications appropriate to the physical
wiretapping era often conceals the actual nature of the
surveillance
even from judges. In 2011, FBI agents were ordered to be more
forthcoming in warrant applications when using stingray
devices.

So, how could a federal agency seize surveillance records local
officials are required to maintain?
According to the ACLU “a few hours before that appointment, an
assistant city attorney sent an email cancelling the meeting on the
basis that the U.S. Marshals Service was claiming the records as
their own and instructing the local cops not to release them. Their
explanation: the Marshals Service had deputized the local officer,
and therefore the records were actually the property of the federal
government.”

The feds then physically removed the records to an unknown
location.

ACLU officials soon found that the records were also no longer
in the possession of the county court which had authorized use of
the technology, nor are there any docket entries acknowledging
their existence, even though the law requires that such information
be kept.

The feds apparently made a clean sweep of the information sought
by the civil liberties group.

The ACLU lawsuit, if successful, would prevent the Sarasota
Police Department from turning over any more records to the U.S.
Marshals, and force it to recover the original records for public
disclosure.

Separately, a Florida judge agreed with the ACLU that
Tallahassee police should surrender information regarding the use
of stingray devices. In that case, the technology was allegedly
used to track a phone to a suspect’s apartment in the absence of a
warrant.