Does the FBI's use of a fake cell tower constitute an illegal search?

[thewayne]

They set up this tower to capture information on a suspect in a fake ID ring that was forging IRS tax returns, netting them $4 million in three years. The suspect is defending himself in court ("...has a fool for a client") and demands information on this device known as a Stingray. Part of the issue is that it captured everyone's voice/SMS/cell data traffic before passing it to an actual cell tower, so they were capturing far more than just the suspect's information.

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2011/11/feds-fake-cell-phone-tower/

Comments

[silveradept]

They're arguing a couple different things - that capturing the data isn't a search, because you have no expectation of privacy when your mobile communicates to cell towers, which seems to me to be rather interesting reading of "secure in their persons and papers".

And then that their general search warrant covers setting up fake towers, which I would think, because of how it gathers data, would be a little bit tough to conform to "the specifics of the place to be searched and the things or persons to be seized."