Technology, privacy and government
“Cell-site simulator use inside the United States raises far-reaching issues concerning the use, extent and legality of government surveillance authority.”
— House Reform and Government Oversight Committee
Even if Big Brother isn’t watching you, he might well be tracking you. Even if you have nothing to do with what he’s looking for.
A recent congressional study addresses yet another line in the ever-shifting technology vs. privacy front — one that most Americans probably knew, and still know, little or nothing about.
It’s a device that basically functions as a portable cell phone tower, and it gives the FBI, local law enforcement agencies, federal marshals, immigration officials and even the IRS the capability of indiscriminately tracking individual cell phones in the area. According to the House report cited above, the FBI alone has almost 200 of the devices.
Americans have long had a reasonable — and legal — expectation of privacy with regard to traditional telephone communications; a warrant is required for a wiretap. When advancing technology results in more of those communications being wireless rather than wired, how does, or should, that progress change the constitutional principles involved?
There are several details that make the issue of these cell-site simulators more than vaguely troublesome. As reported this week by McClatchy Newspapers, the FBI requires other agencies that purchase this equipment to sign non-disclosure clauses that prohibit revealing its use, even as trial evidence against criminal suspects it has been used to capture.
To their credit, some agencies and jurisdictions have bristled at such a gag order. According to the McClatchy report, several states require warrants for use of the device, and Charlotte police made the decision to share with judges details about its use in criminal cases.
The technology reportedly was developed for military purposes: cell site trackers enable ground and air forces to pinpoint enemy locations. Excellent — anything that can help the good guys track down and destroy enemy combatants is something Americans should and must have.
But tens of millions of American civilians with cell phones are neither combatants nor enemies. And aside from the principles involved, there are practical problems here.
A cell site simulator connects with all cell phones in the area just as a regular cell tower would, and most of those phones are probably not related in any way to an investigation. Many of these simulators don’t have “pass-through” technology for 911 calls, so emergency communications can get dropped or jammed.
How often has this happened? We don’t know, because of the very regulations that prohibit disclosure of information about how, when and where this technology is used.
That kind of circular and self-insulating secrecy all but defines the term “Orwellian.” It evokes the familiar and insidious illogic of intrusive surveillance that says: If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear.
Free and enlightened governments are built on the premise that behind such ominous platitudes, explicit or implicit, there is everything to fear. That such “far-reaching issues” haven’t escaped the attention of Congress is encouraging to note.
This story was originally published December 22, 2016 at 2:11 PM with the headline "Technology, privacy and government."