Prosecutors in St. Louis, Missouri, have dropped a criminal robbery case to avoid revealing details of a controversial cellphone surveillance program (StingRay), a defense attorney claims.
The St. Louis Post-Dispatchreports that the state dropped too many charges against three defendants one day before a scheduled police deposition that would have revealed how they were able to collect the data from the defendants' cellphones.
Attorney Megan Beesley, who represented one of the defendants, told the newspaper that she was convinced the charges were dropped so that police would not be forced to reveal information about the phone tapping they carry out using secret devices, known by the trade name StingRay.
Prosecutors dispute that claim, but if true, it would add further evidence to previous charges that law enforcement agencies possessed and used the StingRay surveillance program.
StingRay devices have been a “hidden secret” of authorities for several years. The suitcase-sized devices allow authorities to impersonate a cell tower to collect geographic and other information from cell phones. The police in this case are said to have been ordered by the FBI to keep the use of the device secret, even at the expense of criminal cases.
The St Louis case, however, is one of the few cases that reveals this policy of the authorities publicly. Of course, we do not believe that this report will bring results (remember the Snowden case), but it would be good to know.
