Texas Insider Report: AUSTIN Texas For the first time a federal judge has suppressed evidence obtained without a warrant by U.S. law enforcement using a stingray a surveillance device that can trick suspects cell phones into revealing their locations. Stingrays also known as cell site simulators mimic cell phone towers in order to force cell phones in the area to transmit pings back to the devices enabling law enforcement to track a suspects phone and pinpoint its location usually without a warrant.
Critics of the technology call it invasive and say it has been regularly used in secret to catch suspect in violation of their rights under the U.S. Constitution.
U.S. District Judge William Pauley in Manhattan on Tuesday July 12 ruled that defendant Raymond Lambis rights were violated when the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration used such a device without a warrant to find his Washington Heights apartment. The DEA 
had used a stingray to identify Lambis apartment as the most likely location of a cell phone identified during a drug-trafficking probe.
Judge Pauley said doing so constituted an unreasonable search.
Absent a search warrant the government may not turn a citizens cell phone into a tracking device Pauley wrote.
The ACLU has counted 66 agencies in 24 states and the District of Columbia that own stingrays but said that figure under-represents the actual number of devices in use given what it called secrecy surrounding their purchases. According ACLU lawyers a Maryland appeals court in March became the first state appellate court to order evidence obtained using a stingray suppressed. Pauleys decision was the first at the federal level. The ruling marked the first time a federal judge had suppressed evidence obtained using a stingray according to the American Civil Liberties Union which like other privacy advocacy groups has criticized law enforcements use of such devices.This opinion strongly reinforces the strength of our constitutional privacy rights in the digital age ACLU attorney Nathan Freed Wessler said in a statement.
It was unclear whether prosecutors would seek to appeal. A spokeswoman for Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara whose office was prosecuting the case declined to comment.
Bernard Seidler Lambis lawyer noted that occurred a week after his client was charged. He said it was unclear if the drug case against Lambis would now be dismissed.
The U.S. Justice Department in September changed its internal policies and required government agents to obtain a warrant before using a cell site simulator.
