KNOW YOUR VOTING RIGHTS
Across the state, local clerks, their staff, and election workers work hard to make sure every eligible voter can cast a ballot – and every vote is counted. Local clerks recruit community members to be poll workers, maintain polling locations, and carry out the checks and balances that protect every ballot.
Elections belong to the people. Every eligible voter should have equal say in the decisions that impact our lives. Know your voting rights. Practice your voting rights.
Know Your Tech: Cell Site Simulator
What are they?
Cell-site simulators, also known as Stingrays or IMSI catchers, are devices that masquerade as legitimate cell-phone towers, tricking phones within a certain radius into connecting to the device rather than a tower.
Cell-site simulators operate by conducting a general search of all cell phones within the device’s radius, in violation of basic constitutional protections. Law enforcement use cell-site simulators to pinpoint the location of phones with greater accuracy than phone companies and without needing to involve the phone company at all. Cell-site simulators can also log IMSI numbers, (International Mobile Subscriber Identifiers) unique to each SIM card, of all of the mobile devices within a given area. Some cell-site simulators may have advanced features allowing law enforcement to intercept communications.
In October 2017, the Detroit Police Department (DPD) obtained a cell-site simulator, which is a type of surveillance technology that locates and tracks phones by mimicking cell phone towers. Also known as IMSI catchers and Stingrays (a specific model of cell-site simulator made by Harris Corporation), cell-site simulators are increasingly used by law enforcement to locate suspects in investigations across the country.
The technology was purchased for $622,000 from KeyW Corporation in 2016, but DPD did not take possession of the equipment until the fall of 2017.
DPD’s cell-site simulator was deployed at least 66 times between January 1, 2018, and October 31, 2018.
State police in Michigan have been secretly using hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of cell site simulator equipment to locate and track cell phones since at least 2006, according to records obtained by the ACLU and ACLU of Michigan. And although the agency justified its initial purchase of the surveillance gear as “vital to the war on terrorism,” the records show that the department used its cell site simulators in 128 run-of-the-mill investigations last year—not a single one of which was for terrorism. The records also highlight the continuing problem of excessive secrecy about use of this invasive tracking equipment.