Newly released documents definitively show that local law enforcement in Washington, DC, possessed a cellular surveillance system—commonly known as a "stingray"—since 2003. However, these stingrays literally sat unused in a police vault for six years until officers were trained on the devices in early 2009.

"It's life imitating The Wire," Chris Soghoian, a staff technologist at the American Civil Liberties Union, told Ars. "There's an episode in Season 3 where [Detective Jimmy] McNulty finds a [stingray] that has been sitting on the shelf for a while."

In response to a Freedom of Information Act request sent to the Metropolitan Police Department (MPDC), Ars received dozens of documents pertaining to the acquisition and training of stingrays and related upgrades. Vice News received the same documents, reporting on them last Friday.

Gwendolyn Crump, an MPDC spokeswoman, did not immediately respond to Ars’ specific questions as to when or how police in the District of Columbia have used stingrays.

While these new MPDC documents have the specific product name and purchase price redacted, they do clearly mention federal contract number GS-35F-0283J. Ars easily found a copy of that contract’s 65-page schedule pricelist as published by the General Services Administration, which specifically lists the StingRay and related upgrades.

"It serves a legitimate purpose."

StingRay is a trademark of its manufacturer, the publicly traded defense contractor Harris Corporation. But "stingray" has also become a generic term for similar devices. According to Harris' most recent annual report, which was filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission last month, the company profited over $534 million in its latest fiscal year, the most since 2011.

Relatively little is known about precisely how stingrays are used by law enforcement agencies nationwide, although more and more documents have surfaced showing how they've been purchased and used in limited instances. Last year, Ars reported on leaked documents showing the existence of a body-worn stingray. In 2010, security researcher Kristin Paget famously demonstrated a homemade device built for just $1,500.

Worse still, local cops have lied to courts (at the direction of the United States Marshals Service) about the use of such technology. Not only can stingrays be used to determine a phone’s location, but they can also intercept calls and text messages. While they do target specific phones, they also sweep up cell data of innocents nearby who have no idea that such data collection is taking place.

On Saturday, the Charlotte News and Observer reported that the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department (CMPD) has been using stingrays for eight years with hardly any oversight from local lawmakers.

One local judge, Richard Boner, told the paper that he "estimated he has approved hundreds of requests by police to use the equipment. Boner said he has never turned down the agency and is unaware of any instance in which the county’s six other Superior Court judges have rejected a CMPD request."

"This is a legitimate need," he was quoted as saying. "It serves a legitimate purpose. I think the police don’t abuse it."

In recent months, various local jurisdictions around the United States have been upgrading to the "Hailstorm" version, which can target 4G LTE phones. Federal records also show that other federal law enforcement agencies, such as the Drug Enforcement Agency, have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on Hailstorm as recently as September 2014.

These records demonstrate that other agencies—including the Internal Revenue Service, Immigrations and Customs Enforcement, the FBI, the Department of Defense, the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms—have collectively spent over $32 million on stingrays, related trainings, and upgrades since 2004. Since 2008, the Department of Defense has also spent more than $54 million on a similar device manufactured by Martone Radio Technology, a rival firm based in California.

"It does not surprise me that DC police are using stingrays," Brian Owsley, a former federal judge in Texas who is now a law professor at Indiana Tech, told Ars. "Small towns like Gilbert, Arizona, have them, so of course the nation's capital would have them. It is my understanding that Homeland Security is giving grants to buy this type of technology. Once departments have them they will start to use them, and most places just have ordinary crimes, and even a place like DC that has crimes implicating national security still only have mostly ordinary crimes."

Owsley added that he has many questions for judges willing to speak publicly about signing off on stingrays.

"I'd like to know the standard by which it was authorized," he said. "Are they being brought through pen registers or a search warrant? What about the information being swept up by third parties? If he knows that within a certain distance of the target that his information is being swept up and the government is keeping that."

Hanni Fakhoury, a staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation and former federal public defender, told Ars that it was "no surprise" that the MPDC was using stingrays.

"That's why the excessive secrecy is problematic," he said by e-mail. "The forms of oversight (judicial, legislative) have been completely bypassed because these devices are operating in the dark. Legislatures are approving funding for these things without knowing what they're doing; judges are signing off in some instances without questioning law enforcement tactics, and defendants are being deprived of discovery in their criminal cases. More transparency will increase oversight and create clear rules for police (reducing litigation) and informs the public about what is happening in their communities."

Removing "dangerous offenders" from DC

A three-page December 2008 memo from the commander of the Narcotics and Special Investigations Division at the MPDC to the chief of police describes why and how the city is upgrading its capability. It details Harris training MPDC officers on the devices over the course of five days.

The Narcotics and Special Investigations Division is currently in the process of upgrading the [REDACTED] and procuring additional equipment to allow the system to function completely. The [REDACTED] will be used by MPD to track cellular phones possessed by criminal offenders and/or suspected terrorists by using wireless technology to triangulate the location of the phone. The ability to [REDACTED] in the possession of criminal will allow MPD to track their exact movement, as well as pinpoint their current locations for rapid apprehension. The procurement of this equipment will increase the number of MPD arrests for fugitives, drug traffickers, and violent offenders (robbery, ADW, Homicide), while reducing the time it takes to locate dangerous offenders that need to be removed from the streets of DC.

related order document from January 2009 states that Harris would also teach the MPDC officers "procedures for obtaining court orders and subpoenas." This language suggests that both the firm and law enforcement believe that stingrays can be used without the high bar of a probable cause-driven warrant.

Unfortunately, legal experts say that this new revelation likely won't have much impact on Capitol Hill. Soghoian, of the ACLU, said that it will take a serious incident for Congress to do anything significant about stingrays.

"Getting members to do something about this is really difficult, particularly when there isn't a smoking gun showing that this is being used on them, like in the 1990s when [then-Speaker of the House] Newt Gingrich's phone calls had been recorded and played to the press, they took action."