Jason Chaffetz, Elijah Cummings and others from both parties send letter addressing ‘cell-site simulators’ to heads of 24 federal agencies

The chair of the House of Representatives oversight committee, Jason Chaffetz, with several subcommittee chairs, has sent a letter to the heads of 24 federal agencies, demanding information on the use of Stingray surveillance devices.



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Stingrays are the best known of a class of devices known as “cell-site simulators”. Roughly the size of a suitcase, such devices operate by pretending to be cellphone towers, then stripping data and metadata from phones which connect to them.



Use of the devices does not require a warrant. A bill introduced by Chaffetz last week aims to change that.



In the letters sent out on Monday, Chaffetz, with the committee’s ranking Democrat, Elijah Cummings, and the chair and ranking member of the information technology subcommittee, Will Hurd and Mike Kelly, demanded agencies provide all documented policies and guidelines regarding Stingray use, as well as related memoranda, non-disclosure agreements and purchase orders.



The representatives also demanded to see documents related to joint operations with local law enforcement agencies which use such devices. This is crucial, as the scope of usage by law enforcement is not known, partly because of a non-disclosure agreement local police are forced to sign with the FBI in order to use Stingrays and other such devices.

The agreement, a copy of which was obtained by the Guardian in April, mandated that local police and prosecutors throw cases out rather than have the use of cell-site simulators revealed in court.



The agencies, which include the 13 listed by the American Civil Liberties Union as being known to use Stingray and other cell-site simulators, plus 11 more, including Nasa and the Department of Education, have until 23 November to respond to the lawmakers’ letter.



In October, the Guardian revealed the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) as the 13th federal agency known to have possessed Stingray devices.

