Abstract
Law enforcement officials have begun to use the connection of cell phones as a major tool in their investigations and subsequent apprehension of criminal suspects. One such tool officials are using is a cell-site simulator, otherwise known as a “Stingray.” This device is currently being used by law enforcement to identify and track cell phones of criminal suspects in criminal investigations. These devices, posing as cell towers, capture information relayed from a suspect’s cell phone and can be used by law enforcement to track and locate the cell phone being used by the suspect. As cell phones have become such a central part of citizens’ lives, most individuals consistently carry and use them during most hours of the day. From this constant connection between citizen and cell phone, law enforcement’s ability to track the cell phone essentially allows law enforcement to track the person attached to that cell phone.
Stingrays have raised multiple Fourth Amendment concerns about law enforcement’s improper intrusion into citizens’ privacy, but the courts and Congress have not yet definitively responded. As cell phones continue to improve and connect to more private information in citizens’ lives, it becomes necessary to create a uniform legal standard which, in the words of Justice Lewis Powell, will allow “a workable accommodation between the needs of law enforcement and the interests protected by the Fourth Amendment.” This note sets out to propose such an accommodation through the creation of a statutory standard which will govern the use of Stingrays through search warrants and exclusionary rules.
Recommended Citation
Cody Benway,
You Can Run, But You Can’t Hide: Law Enforcement’s Use of “Stingray” Cell Phone Trackers and the Fourth Amendment,
42
S. Ill. U. L.J.
261
(2018).
Available at:
https://opensiuc.lib.siu.edu/siulj/vol42/iss2/4