In May of 2014 the Florida ACLU filed a FOIA request to Sarasota PD for their documents on Stingrays. However, just days before the ACLU was due to inspect the documents, the United States Marshals Service swooped into Sarasota and rushed off with almost all of SPD’s Stingray records.
Their legal argument for doing this? An SPD detective that had worked with the USMS on a case in which Stingrays were used had been deputized by the Marshals, which according to them made the documents the possession of the Marshal Service.
While this is, of course, legally dubious at best, and downright illegal by some interpretations, it also helps explain the strange collection of records that SPD gave us, which evidently is everything the Marshals missed.
These documents are the result of Joint Law Enforcement Operations Task Forces (JLEOs) that the SPD participated in from the years 2008 to 2014 with various local departments in their area, and also the DEA and the Marshals. Considering that South Florida has been designated as a High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area, or HIDTA, it’s not surprising that they are engaged in high level operations with federal law enforcement agencies.
What is surprising is how often they resorted to pen register and trap and trace court orders to be officially permitted to use their Stingray. Referring to cell site simulators as “trap and trace devices” is common, even by the DOJ. A quick glance at the documents released by SPD will show you just how much this technique was used.
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