By Adam Ferrise
cleveland.com
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CLEVELAND, Ohio — A federal magistrate judge has shot down an attempt by investigators to use a cell tower simulator to get cellphone data from a suspect in an investigation.
The devices trick all cellphones in a wide area into thinking they’re connecting to a regular cell tower. It then extracts data from all phones in the area, including serial numbers and other unique identifiers.
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U.S. District Magistrate Judge Carmen Henderson’s ruling earlier this week marked a rare public rebuke of tactics and tools law enforcement use in investigating crimes.
Henderson found that investigators’ request was overly broad and would have resulted in the capture of thousands of innocent people’s cellphone data in heavily populated areas in Akron.
“Thus, the proposed [cell site simulator] would allow the government to obtain the [cellphone information] of thousands of uninvolved, unsuspecting individuals,” Henderson wrote. “In turn, law enforcement would gain unbridled discretion to examine the movements of private citizens at all times for thirty days.”
U.S. attorney’s office spokeswoman Jessica Salas Novak declined comment.
The search warrant remained sealed and does not detail what type of investigation the investigators are pursuing. Henderson’s ruling only says it was an investigation centered around someone in Akron .
Law enforcement has used cell site simulators for decades, but they generally require a judge to sign off after officers or agents present probable cause that they would find evidence of a crime.
They’re largely used for two purposes: for law enforcement to find someone’s location by finding their cellphone and, when they know a suspect’s identity, to find information on that person’s cellphone. The warrant was for the latter.
Investigators sought the warrant on June 15 to use the device for up to 30 days, saying that the investigators believe a specific person was using one or more cellphones in criminal activity and that uncovering the identity of the phone would help uncover more evidence, Henderson wrote.
The warrant sought permission to use the device in five different locations if the officers had reason to believe the target of the investigation was in the area, Henderson wrote.
Those locations included the person’s home, where they spent the night, their daytime location and two other densely populated locations that the person frequented, according to Henderson’s ruling. Though the filing doesn’t explicitly list the locations, Henderson wrote that they were near a university, a hospital and numerous shops and restaurants.
Henderson wrote that the warrant failed to detail the coverage area that would be affected, the geographic parameters of the search, the number of affected cellphone users or the amount of GPS data that would be captured.
She wrote that the Fourth Amendment, which bars unreasonable government searches, “bars this sort of ‘rummaging’ through the proverbial home.”
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