Docs Show FBI Pressures Cops to Keep Phone Surveillance Secrets

Multiple variants of the device are known to exist and some are capable of launching attacks more sophisticated and invasive than others. Certain models used by the federal government are known to come with software capable of intercepting communications; a mode in which the device executes a man-in-the-middle attack on an individual phone rather than be used to identify crowds of them. Contract language obtained by the ACLU shows police are required to use any “reasonably available” means to restrict the device from doing anything more than “recording or decoding electronic or other impulse to the dialing, routing, addressing and signaling information utilized in the processing and transmitting of wire or electronic communications.” Other records show cell-site simulators are listed as defense articles on the United States Munitions List, meaning trade in the technology is ultimately regulated by the State Department. Since 2018's US v. Carpenter decision, in which the Supreme Court held that cellular data containing location data is shielded by the Fourth Amendment, the Department of Justice has required federal agencies to obtain warrants before activating cell-site simulators. It does this by conflating cell-site simulators with decades-old police technologies like the “trap and trace” and “pen registers,” names for devices and programs capable of identifying incoming and outgoing calls, respectively, but which do not gather location data.