Philip Vadakara

English 1102
Hughes
21 April 2016
Cellphone Tracking
After 9/11 the government put in a lot of emphasis to use surveillance systems to monitor a
persons daily activities to make sure nothing as disastrous as that ever happens again. It is a matter of
belief in whether a government should continue to spy on criminals to make sure they do not plan
anything that could harm the country or one another. After, the NSA was leaked to have been watching
every single american citizen it became a question of where the line should be drawn. In this case the
issue comes from the fact of cellphone tracking where numerous agencies have been able to track
another persons movements by using stingrays that use cell phone towers to mark a persons
approximate location. It is an issue of whether we should allow the government to continue such
exploits or make them illegal. It is also the fact that it is very easy for the police and other law
enforcement agencies to gain permission to use such devices. Though I recommend that the country
should allow more limitations in using these devices.
The government for many years has been using numerous methods to spy and take down
criminals with some uses such as spying on the American people. It has been mentioned on many
occasions that the government has been spying on its citizens using cellphones. In recent cases, they
have started to use objects such as stingrays. It has been mentioned that there are laws in place to
prevent invasion of privacy. As one reporter had mentioned, Nine states have passed laws requiring
police to obtain a warrant before using a stingray to track a phone. It is unclear, however, whether
citizens will know when the authorities use such devices. The Harris Corporation, a Florida-based
company that manufactures the snooping tools, requires police departments to sign a non-disclosure
agreement that explicitly warns them not to mention stingrays (Pagels). The government has plans to
follow through on such beliefs as it has been mentioned on numerous occasions that they will keep the

information from releasing into the public. As stated by the New York Times, the New York Police
were also using stingrays to catch criminals by tracking their cellphones and also made the same nondisclosure agreement. According to the New York Times, The New York Police Department signed
one such non-disclosure agreement with Harris Corporation in January 2011, which was turned over to
the New York Civil Liberties Union (Goldstein). There are numerous benefits to having these devices
since they are known to have caught many criminals since they first began to be used by the police.
There are still questions on whether the government has ever follow through on maintaining a
limited use of the stingrays to track cellphones across the country. As it has been mentioned the
government started to admit to the use of tracking cellphones back in 2011 but Marika Hirose a civil
rights lawyer expressed, The NYPD have been using stingrays since 2008, and yet this is the first that
the public is learning of the information, (Goldstein). It further questions the validity of the
government and the numerous other agencies on how long they have been using such information
without any type of negligence for themselves. It can also be mentioned that the NYPD commissioner
has also stated the fact that it is required that they have warrants to use such devices. Though there
seems to be a lot of room for use as he mentions, State law only requires us to demonstrate reasonable
suspicion, which is a lower standard, as a matter of standard practice, we hold ourselves to probable
cause (Rayman). It shows that there are still plenty of loopholes for the police and other agencies to use
to get there chance to spy on people since they can suspect probable cause even if they are innocent.
Though the government is still held accountable for there use of stingrays for the years they did
not inform the people it does not deny the fact it has helped numerous people in the process. As can be
mentioned from one periodical as an infamous criminal was able to evade the police for quite sometime
until they were able to track him using the stingrays as it was mentioned in the Information Today, It
was at the center of the criminal case of Quartavious Davis, who was convicted of seven armed
robberies in southern Florida over a 2-month period in 2010. By associating the locations of the towers
with the timing and location of Davis' calls and the timing and location of the robberies, the

government was able to show that Davis was in the vicinity of six of the seven robberies (Pike). It
could be said that by using this information they were able to catch a notorious criminal and predict his
movements before he even considered making them. There were even cases in New York where they
had started to use the stingrays such as one officer saying, The NYPD used the device on Feb. 4 to
track the location of a suicidal woman in Harlem. By repeatedly searching for her phone, a detective
was able to trace, and cops got to her fast enough to save her life (Rayman). They use this information
to save a persons life before they did anything brash even though there are loopholes in the use of these
stingrays they offer a lot of benefits.
There are still many questions on how far the government is willing to limit the use of these
devices. In many cases the country is allowed many types of free reign in using these devices such as
simply getting a warrant. A warrant can easily be signed off by a judge and the police have free reign to
access a persons location at all time. It is more important in whether these agencies can control
themselves and limit the use of these devices. It has been proven on many occasions that the
government can limit these devices.
The real question comes from the idea that other people that are not law enforcement can get
there hands on such a device. There have already been numerous cases where a group of hackers have
used stingrays to get a persons location and information. A system used to catch terrorist and other
criminals can be used to spy on random people for monetary gains. There have already been many
people around the country that have been victims of such horrendous crimes.
The real issue comes from the fact that since these systems are still new to the people it should
be a question of what laws the government have placed since the discovery of stingrays. The laws that
are currently being placed are ones that come from the 1990s and 2000s. They do not have any type of
law that can help limit theses types of situations since they themselves do not know how to limit such
objects. It also matters on what types of punishment there are for things such as this and what
authorities would be in charge of such things.

Even though there are still issues with the law the current law has helped to maintain a proper
status for maintaining order within the government. After the discovery of stingrays the government
has put a lot of restrictions and the companies that created these stingrays have made the agencies sign
disclosure forms to help maintain order and keep power in check between the two groups. These
situations are what keep the government in power and not letting criminals get away with such
situations.