A new report claims U.S. intelligence and federal law enforcement agencies collaborated on a secret program to grab cell phone data allegedly needed in criminal investigations that resulted in tens of thousands of U.S. citizens' information, including geographic location, being collected using a unique technology tool.
According to the Wall Street Journal, the U.S. Marshals Service and the CIA developed a technology in 2004 involving airplanes outfitted with cell tower simulators that can track cellphone use and data, and have been using the simulator technology to collect data on a steady basis over the years.
The electronic simulators, which are sometimes referred to as "sniffers" and "dirtboxes," was initially used in the Middle East as part of the U.S. effort to track down terrorists, states one report. Now the Marshals Service is using the sniffing technology, which supposedly has cost more than $100 million dollars, to track down domestic criminals. The dirt boxes let law enforcement find, identify and track specific cell phones with tremendous accuracy.
The activity is coming under fire from various organizations for being intrusive and violating citizen privacy. The Electronic Frontier Foundation along with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) are actively investigating the surveillance reports in an effort to determine the scope of domestic cellphone tracking activity and may be mulling legal action.
"[The new information about the CIA] certainly raises troubling questions," said Nathan Wessler, an ACLU lawyer. "What legal authority are they using? Do they get warrants? If not, why? What are they doing to protect bystanders' privacy?"
The surveillance and tracking activity comes as U.S. lawmakers and citizens are still hotly debating the information flowing from NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden regarding spying and covert surveillance activities by U.S. intelligence agencies.
The latest claims of surveillance also bring into question other reasons why the CIA and the Marshals Service are using the sniffer box technology.
"It raises the question of whether the CIA was effectively using U.S. citizens as guinea pigs to develop spy gear that was really developed for use overseas in war zones or espionage situations," said Wessler.
"Just because our intelligence agencies know how to fly over Afghanistan and assemble a list of all the cellphones below them doesn't mean our domestic law enforcement agencies should be doing the same thing," he added.
