Maryland’s use of Stingray cellphone tracking technology caused quite a bit of controversy when it became public knowledge last year. But Brian E. Frosh, Maryland’s attorney general, thinks the drama is overblown.
If you have a cell phone and you turn it on, then you’re basically consenting to surveillance, Frosh argued this week. This argument is causing a stir among people who are supporters of data privacy, and/or people who have cell phones that they sometimes turn on.
“The argument is a terrifying but not unprecedented escalation of previous rulings regarding cell phone location privacy,” Vice’s Motherboard said. Others made a more pointed comparison:
Finally surveillance victim-blamers have their own version of “She was asking for it by wearing that short skirt” https://t.co/q77hV3BwWe
— ᴢᴇɴ ᴀʟʙᴀᴛʀᴏss (@zenalbatross) February 4, 2016
Despite the enthusiastic endorsement of Maryland’s attorney general, the legal status of stingray surveillance remains somewhat murky.
One needs a court order to wiretap land lines. Why should cell phones be any different?