One of the largest local police departments in the American South has revised its surveillance applications to judges, making its judicial requests to use cell-site simulators much more explicit for the first time.

According to the Charlotte Observer, the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department (CMPD) in North Carolina has “revised court papers that judges review before granting officers permission to track phones, in an effort to ‘improve the effectiveness of the process and provide greater transparency.’"

The CMPD did not immediately respond to Ars’ request for comment and a copy of the new applications.

These devices, commonly known as "stingrays," can be used to determine a phone’s location, but they can also intercept calls and text messages. During the act of locating a phone, stingrays also sweep up information about nearby phones. Earlier this month, Ars reported on how the FBI is actively trying to “prevent disclosure” of how these devices are used in local jurisdictions across America.

The Observer added in its Sunday report:

The agency would not provide examples of the new documents, but said the applications more clearly describe investigative tactics, including cellphone tracking. CMPD says it now includes definitions for each type of equipment officers deploy in its applications to judges. Documents also provide more information in each case about the legal grounds for an officer to make an arrest or search a property.

“Certainly the degree of transparency, this is very, very unique and it’s a pleasure to see,” Chris Soghoian, a privacy researcher at the American Civil Liberties Union and an expert on stingrays, told Ars. “It’s huge. It’s great that they’ve moved in this direction, but this isn’t happening in every town in America. In most parts of America, judges still don’t know what they’re being asked to authorize. In most parts of the country, police are keeping courts in the dark, in some cases intentionally. In most parts of the country, most courts don't have enough information to do their job.”

Staying mum

Charlotte is one of the rare examples of local judges shedding some light on the process by which cops are allowed to use stingrays.

Last fall, a Charlotte judge unsealed a set of 529 court documents in hundreds of criminal cases detailing the use of a stingray, or cell-site simulator, by local police. This move, which took place earlier this week, marks a rare example of a court opening up a vast trove of applications made by police to a judge, who authorized each use of the powerful and potentially invasive device.

The records, which Ars has obtained, seem to suggest that judges likely didn't fully understand what they were authorizing. Law enforcement agencies nationwide have taken extraordinary steps to preserve stingray secrecy.

“Our office is reviewing each one of those to determine whether that information was turned over to defense attorneys,” Meghan Cooke, a spokeswoman for the Mecklenburg County District Attorney's Office, told Ars on Monday. “It’s expected to take several more weeks.”

Relatively little is known about how, exactly, the stingrays are used by law enforcement agencies nationwide, although documents have surfaced showing how they have been purchased and used in some limited instances. In 2013, Ars reported on leaked documents showing the existence of a body-worn stingray. Back in 2010, Kristin Paget famously demonstrated a homemade device built for just $1,500.

Worse still, cops have lied to courts about the use of such technology. In January 2015, two US senators made public the FBI’s position that the agency could use stingrays in public places without a warrant. The largest manufacturer of the devices, the Harris Corporation, has been tight-lipped about its hardware capabilities.

As Ars reported in November 2014 after a similar journalistic investigation in Tacoma, Washington, judges in Pierce County have now begun requiring law enforcement agencies to ask for specific permission when using a stingray.

Bad guys vs. good guys

Privacy activists lauded the move by Charlotte authorities.

“[It’s] definitely a step in the right direction,” said Hanni Fakhoury, an attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation and a former federal public defender. “Though the fact we're celebrating the police deciding to be forthright with judges is a sign of how bad things have been.”

Mike Katz-Lacabe, a California-based privacy activist who has filed a substantial number of public records requests in an effort to reveal more information about how stingrays are used in cities nationwide, told Ars by e-mail, “Amazing what a little sunlight can do.”

“Since police departments that have and use this equipment aren’t willing to be transparent with the public, it seems that the best approach may be to inform the judiciary that they are being kept in the dark about the use of this equipment,” he continued. “It seems that most judges get very upset when the use of this equipment is kept hidden from them by law enforcement—which appears to be required under the [non-disclosure agreement] that police departments sign with the FBI.”

Following a speech given in Charlotte in October 2014, FBI Director James Comey said:

When we’re talking about using a device to find the location of a particular individual and where they might be using their cellphone, it’s not about intercepting their calls, their communications. We can’t listen to their calls without a court order. It may be about finding what cell tower someone’s phone is pinging off of. And with appropriate authority, we, the feds, and our local brothers and sisters, have to be able to do that to be able to investigate all kinds of things. It’s how we find killers. It’s how we find kidnappers. It’s how we find drug dealers. It’s how we find missing children. It’s how we find pedophiles. So it’s work that you want us to be able to do—again, appropriately, with appropriate authority, and with appropriate overseeing. But to me it’s not about—I didn’t mean to accuse you of asking a trick question. But you used the term “bulk collection.” That means something very different to me, and also “collection,” to me, means something very different to me. This is not about the content of people’s communications or collecting every number that they dial. OK? To me, it’s about—we are using some equipment, appropriately in my view, to find bad guys. I don’t want to say too much about that because I don’t want the bad guys to know how we might be able to find them. That’s one of the reasons why we ask local authorities who are working with us and using our equipment not to talk about it. It’s not that I have something to hide from good people, but I got a lot to hide from bad people.

However, Katz-Lacabe pointed Ars to the 2012 contract between Oakland County, Michigan, and the Harris Corporation, which expressly refers to "intercept and monitoring of oral communications.”

“I’m unsure whether the equipment used by law enforcement is not taking advantage of the equipment’s ability to intercept and monitor communications, hasn’t purchased a needed additional hardware or software package, or whether the specific equipment doesn’t have that capability,” he said. “One thing is clear: once you force a cell phone to connect to the stingray or similar equipment, it is technically possible to intercept its communications—not just find its location.”