Page 24 - ARUBA TODAY

Monday 27 noveMber 2017 BUSINESS
A24

At Fukushima, Does cellphone-sweeping ‘StingRay’ go too far?

face-lift masks

morass inside By COLLEEN LONG that use them must take But privacy experts say building. Two months ago,
Associated Press
the unusual step of signing such gains come at too a Washington, D.C., ap-
NEW YORK (AP) — New York nondisclosure agreements high a cost. peals court overturned a
By MARI YAMAGUCHI City, Los Angeles, Chicago overseen by the FBI. “We have a Fourth Amend- conviction on a sex assault
Associated Press and Las Vegas are among An FBI spokeswoman said ment to the Constitution,” after judges ruled a viola-
OKUMA, Japan (AP) — scores of police depart- the agreements, which of- said Jennifer Lynch, an tion of the Fourth Amend-
Above ground, the tsuna- ments across the country ten involve the Harris Cor- attorney with the Elec- ment because of evidence
mi-hit Fukushima nuclear quietly using a highly secre- poration, a defense con- tronic Frontier Foundation, improperly collected from
power plant has had a ma- tive technology developed tractor that makes the de- referring to the protec- the simulator without a
jor face-lift since the 2011 for the military that can vices, are intended to pre- tion against unreasonable proper warrant. In the New
disaster. Inside and under- track the whereabouts of
ground remains largely a suspects by using the sig-
morass. A stylish new office nals constantly emitted by
building was the first thing their cellphones.
that came into view during Civil liberties and privacy
a tour for foreign media groups are increasingly rais-
last month. Another build- ing objections to the suit-
ing has a cafeteria and case-sized devices known
a convenience store. It’s as StingRays or cell site
easy to forget you’re in the simulators that can sweep
official no-go zone, where up cellphone data from
access is restricted. an entire neighborhood
We first went through auto- by mimicking cell towers.
mated security checks and Police can determine the
radiation measurement at location of a phone with-
the new building, where out the user even making a
1,000 employees of Tokyo call or sending a text mes-
Electric Power Co.’s de- sage. Some versions of the
commissioning unit work. A technology can even inter-
sign prohibits games such cept texts and calls, or pull
as Pokemon Go. information stored on the
Visitors no longer must put phones.
on hazmat suits and full- Part of the problem, pri-
face charcoal-filter masks, vacy experts say, is the de- This photo shows the StingRay II, a cellular site simulator used for surveillance purposes manu-
or plastic shoe covers, un- vices can also collect data factured by Harris Corporation, of Melbourne, Fla. Police departments across the country use
less they are going to the from anyone within a small military-developed technology that can track down suspects by using the signals emitted by
most contaminated ar- radius of the person being their cellphones.
eas. We donned the gear tracked. And law enforce- (U.S. Patent Trademark Office/AP)
for low-dose areas: a hel- ment goes to great lengths vent the release of sensitive search and seizure. “Our York murder case argued
met, double socks, cot- to conceal usage, in some law enforcement informa- Founding Fathers decided by the Legal Aid Society,
ton gloves, surgical mask, cases, offering plea deals tion to the general public. when they wrote the Bill of a judge in Brooklyn last
goggles, and a vest with a rather than divulging de- But the agreements don’t Rights there had to be limits month ruled that the NYPD
personal dosimeter. There tails on the StingRay. prevent an officer from tell- placed on government.” must have an eavesdrop-
was little reminder of the “We can’t even tell how ing prosecutors the tech- Lawmakers in several states ping warrant signed by a
devastation from 6 ½ years frequently they’re being nology was used in a case. have introduced propos- judge to use the device,
earlier. The highly contami- used,” said attorney Je- In New York, use of the als ranging from warrant a much higher bar than
nated debris and mangled rome Greco, of the Legal technology was virtually requirements to an out- the “reasonable suspicion”
vehicles are gone. The fee- Aid Society, which recently unknown to the public until right ban on the technol- standard that had previ-
ble-looking plastic hoses succeeded in blocking evi- last year when the New York ogy; about a dozen states ously been required. “By its
mended with tape and dence collected with the Civil Liberties Union forced already have laws requir- very nature, then, the use
the outdoor power switch- device in a New York City the disclosure of records ing warrants. Federal law of a cell site simulator in-
board that rats got into, murder case. “It makes it showing the NYPD used the enforcement said last year trudes upon an individual’s
once causing a blackout, very difficult” devices more than 1,000 that it would be routinely reasonable expectation
have been replaced with At least 72 state and local times since 2008. That in- required to get a search of privacy, acting as an
proper equipment. A new law enforcement depart- cluded cases in which the warrant before using the instrument of eavesdrop-
curved cover has been ments in 24 states plus 13 technology helped catch technology — a first effort ping and requires a sepa-
built over the Unit 3 reactor, federal agencies use the suspects in kidnappings, to create a uniform legal rate warrant supported by
whose roof was blown off, devices, but further details rapes, robberies, assaults standard for federal au- probable cause,” wrote
leaving a mess of girders, are hard to come by be- and murders. It has even thorities. state Supreme Court Judge
concrete and cables.q cause the departments helped find missing people. And case law is slowly Martin Murphy.q