New Federal Requirements On Cellphone Surveillance

WASHINGTON (AP) — Federal law enforcement officials will be routinely required to get a search warrant before using secretive and intrusive cellphone-tracking technology under a new Justice Department policy announced Thursday. Even as federal law enforcement officials tout the technology as a vital tool to catch fugitives and kidnapping suspects, privacy groups have raised alarms about the secrecy surrounding its use and the collection of cellphone information of innocent bystanders who happen to be in a particular neighborhood or location. The American Civil Liberties Union called the policy a good first step, but expressed disappointment that it did not cover federal agencies outside the Justice Department or local police who use federal funds to purchase the surveillance equipment. "After decades of secrecy in which the government hid this surveillance technology from courts, defense lawyers, and the American public, we are happy to see that the Justice Department is now willing to openly discuss its policies," ACLU lawyer Nathan Freed Wessler said in a statement. Nate Cardozo, a staff attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a privacy group, praised the policy as an important step, though he said he suspected Justice Department attorneys saw "the writing on the wall" and recognized that judges would increasingly begin requiring warrants.