Stingray attacks: NYPD carried out cellphone surveillance more than 1,000 times since 2008

New York police own and operate Stingrays surveillance devices that were used over 1,000 times on city residents since 2008, according to new documents obtained by the New York Civil Liberties Union.

“If carrying a cellphone means being exposed to military grade surveillance equipment, then the privacy of nearly all New Yorkers is at risk,” Donna Lieberman, executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union, said in a statement.

The documents, obtained under a state Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) request made by the NYCLU in 2015, show the New York Police Department used the surveillance device without a written policy, and followed a practice of obtaining only lower-level court orders rather than warrants.

“Considering the NYPD’s troubling history of surveilling innocent people, it must at the very least establish strict privacy policies and obtain warrants prior to using intrusive equipment like Stingrays that can track people’s cell phones,” Lieberman said...

https://www.rt.com/usa/332229-nypd-stingray-surveillance-phones/