New police radars can 'see'
inside homes
(Photo: L3 Communications)
Brad
Heath, USA TODAY 9:39 a.m. EST January 20, 2015
At
least 50 U.S. law enforcement agencies quietly deployed radars that let them
effectively see inside homes, with little notice to the courts or the public.
WASHINGTON
— At least 50 U.S. law enforcement agencies have secretly equipped their
officers with radar devices that allow them to effectively peer through the
walls of houses to see whether anyone is inside, a practice raising new
concerns about the extent of government surveillance.
Those
agencies, including the FBI and the U.S. Marshals Service, began
deploying the radar systems more than two years ago with little notice to the
courts and no public disclosure of when or how they would be used. The
technology raises legal and privacy issues because the U.S. Supreme Court has
said officers generally cannot use high-tech sensors to tell them about the
inside of a person's house without first obtaining a search warrant.
The
radars work like finely tuned motion detectors, using radio waves to zero in on
movements as slight as human breathing from a distance of more than 50 feet.
They can detect whether anyone is inside of a house, where they are and whether
they are moving.
Current
and former federal officials say the information is critical for keeping
officers safe if they need to storm buildings or rescue hostages. But privacy
advocates and judges have nonetheless expressed concern about the circumstances
in which law enforcement agencies may be using the radars — and the fact that
they have so far done so without public scrutiny.
"The
idea that the government can send signals through the wall of your house to
figure out what's inside is problematic," said Christopher Soghoian, the
American Civil Liberties Union's principal technologist. "Technologies
that allow the police to look inside of a home are among the intrusive tools
that police have."
Agents'
use of the radars was largely unknown until December, when a federal appeals
court in Denver said officers had used one
before they entered a house to arrest a man wanted for violating his parole.
The judges expressed alarm that agents had used the new technology without a
search warrant, warning that "the government's warrantless use of such a
powerful tool to search inside homes poses grave Fourth Amendment
questions."
By
then, however, the technology was hardly new. Federal contract records show the
Marshals Service began buying the radars in 2012, and has so far spent at least
$180,000 on them.
Justice
Department spokesman Patrick Rodenbush said officials are reviewing the court's
decision. He said the Marshals Service "routinely pursues and arrests violent
offenders based on pre-established probable cause in arrest warrants" for
serious crimes.
The
device the Marshals Service and others are using, known as the Range-R, looks
like a sophisticated stud-finder. Its display shows whether it has detected movement
on the other side of a wall and, if so, how far away it is — but it does not
show a picture of what's happening inside. The Range-R's maker, L-3
Communications, estimates it has sold about 200 devices to 50 law
enforcement agencies at a cost of about $6,000 each.
Other
radar devices have far more advanced capabilities, including
three-dimensional displays of where people are located inside a building,
according to marketing materials from their manufacturers. One is capable of being mounted on a drone.
And the Justice
Department has funded research to
develop systems that can map the interiors of buildings and locate the people
within them.
The
radars were first designed for use in Iraq and Afghanistan. They represent the
latest example of battlefield technology finding its way home to civilian
policing and bringing complex legal questions with it.
Those
concerns are especially thorny when it comes to technology that lets the police
determine what's happening inside someone's home. The Supreme Court ruled in 2001 that
the Constitution
generally bars police from scanning the outside of a house with a thermal
camera unless they have a warrant, and specifically noted that the rule would
apply to radar-based systems that were then being developed.
In
2013, the court limited police's ability
to have a drug dog sniff the outside of homes. The core of the Fourth
Amendment, Justice Antonin Scalia wrote, is "the right of a man to retreat
into his own home and there be free from unreasonable governmental
intrusion."
Still,
the radars appear to have drawn little scrutiny from state or federal courts.
The federal appeals court's decision published last month was apparently the
first by an appellate court to reference the technology or its implications.
That
case began when a fugitive-hunting task force headed by the U.S. Marshals
Service tracked a man named Steven Denson, wanted for violating his parole, to
a house in Wichita. Before they forced the door open, Deputy U.S. Marshal Josh
Moff testified, he used
a Range-R to detect that someone was inside.
Moff's
report made no
mention of the radar; it said only that officers "developed reasonable
suspicion that Denson was in the residence."
Agents
arrested Denson for the parole violation and charged him with illegally
possessing two firearms they found inside. The agents had a warrant for Denson's
arrest but did not have a search warrant. Denson's lawyer sought to have the
guns charge thrown out, in part because the search began with the warrantless
use of the radar device.
Three
judges on the federal 10th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the search,
and Denson's conviction, on other grounds. Still, the judges wrote, they had
"little doubt that the radar device deployed here will soon generate many
questions for this court."
But
privacy advocates said they see more immediate questions, including how judges
could be surprised by technology that has been in agents' hands for at least
two years. "The problem isn't that the police have this. The issue isn't
the technology; the issue is always about how you use it and what the
safeguards are," said Hanni Fakhoury, a lawyer for the Electronic
Frontier Foundation.
The
Marshals Service has faced criticism for concealing other surveillance tools.
Last year, the ACLU obtained an e-mail
from a Sarasota, Fla., police sergeant asking officers from another department
not to reveal that they had received information from a cellphone-monitoring
tool known as a stingray. "In the past, and at the request of the U.S.
Marshals, the investigative means utilized to locate the suspect have not been
revealed," he wrote, suggesting that officers instead say they had
received help from "a confidential source."
William
Sorukas, a former supervisor of the Marshals Service's domestic investigations
arm, said deputies are not instructed to conceal the agency's high-tech tools,
but they also know not to advertise them. "If you disclose a technology or
a method or a source, you're telling the bad guys along with everyone
else," he said.
L-3 Communications
Ann E. Dunwoody
is a director at L-3 Communications
Holdings Inc., a member of the Belizean
Grove, was a 4-star general for the U.S.
Army, and a commander for the U.S.
Army Materiel Command.
Gen. Ann E.
Dunwoody, U.S. Army Materiel Command commanding general
June
2, 2010
Note:
Sonia Sotomayor
was a member of the Belizean Grove, and
is a justice for the U.S. Supreme Court.
Henrietta
Holsman Fore is a member of the Belizean Grove, and a trustee at the
Aspen Institute (think tank).
Belizean_Grove
is the equivalent to the male-only social group, the Bohemian Club.
Mickey Hart is a
member of the Bohemian Club, and was the drummer for the Grateful
Dead.
John Perry Barlow
was a lyricist for the Grateful Dead, and a co-founder & director
for the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
Bob Weir is the
founder of the Grateful Dead, and a member of the Bohemian Club.
George H.W.
Bush is a member of the Bohemian Club, and was the president
of the George H.W. Bush administration.
George H. W. Bush New World Order Quotes
Walter L. Cronkite was a member of the Bohemian Club, and an anchorman for the CBS News.
CBS
News Anchor: I'm Glad to Sit at the Right Hand of Satan!
Henry A. Kissinger is a member of the Bohemian Club,
a director at the American Friends of Bilderberg (think tank) was a
lifetime trustee at the Aspen Institute (think tank), and a 2008 Bilderberg
conference participant (think tank).
Henry
Kissinger's 1974 Plan for Food Control Genocide
Foundation
to Promote Open Society was a funder for the Aspen Institute (think
tank), the NAACP Legal Defense &
Educational Fund, and the Center for
American Progress.
George Soros
was the chairman for the Foundation to Promote Open Society, was a
supporter for the Center for American
Progress, and is the founder & chairman for the Open Society Foundations.
Open
Society Foundations was a funder for the American Constitution Society, and the Center for American Progress.
Eric H. Holder Jr.
was an intern at the NAACP Legal Defense
& Educational Fund, a board member for the American Constitution Society, and is the attorney general at the U.S. Department of Justice for the Barack Obama administration.
Janet Reno is a board
of adviser’s member for the American
Constitution Society, and was the attorney general for the U.S. Department of Justice.
Robert Raben was
a director at the American Constitution
Society, the assistant attorney general for the U.S. Department of Justice, and is the president of the Raben Group.
Federal
Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is
a division of the U.S. Department of
Justice.
U.S.
Marshals Service is a division of the U.S.
Department of Justice.
Level
3 Communications, Inc. has national security agreement with the U.S. Department of Justice.
Raben Group is a
funder or the NAACP Legal Defense &
Educational Fund.
Melody C. Barnes
was a principal for the Raben Group,
the domestic policy council, director for the Barack Obama administration, the EVP for the Center for American Progress, is Barack Obama’s golf partner, and a senior director at the Albright Stonebridge Group.
Madeleine K.
Albright is a director at the Center
for American Progress, the chair for the Albright Stonebridge Group, a trustee at the Aspen Institute
(think tank), and was a director at the Center for a New American Security.
James S.
Crown is a trustee at the Aspen Institute (think tank), a director
at the General Dynamics Corporation,
and a member of the Commercial Club of Chicago.
Lester Crown
is a member of the Commercial Club of Chicago, was a lifetime trustee at
the Aspen Institute (think tank), and was a director at the General Dynamics Corporation.
General
Dynamics Corporation was a contributor for the Center for a New American Security.
Henrietta
Holsman Fore is a trustee at the Aspen Institute (think tank), and a member of the Belizean Grove.
Sonia Sotomayor
was a member of the Belizean Grove, and
is a justice for the U.S. Supreme Court.
Belizean_Grove
is the equivalent to the male-only social group, the Bohemian Club.
Ann E. Dunwoody
is a member of the Belizean Grove, a
director at L-3 Communications Holdings
Inc., was a 4-star general for the U.S.
Army, and a commander for the U.S.
Army Materiel Command.
Gen. Ann E. Dunwoody, U.S.
Army Materiel Command commanding general
June
2, 2010
U.S. Army was a
contributor for the Center for a New
American Security.
General
Dynamics Corporation was a contributor for the Center for a New American Security.
Madeleine K.
Albright was a director at the Center
for a New American Security.
is
a director at the Center for American
Progress, the chair for the Albright
Stonebridge Group, and a trustee at the Aspen Institute (think tank).
Henry A. Kissinger was a lifetime trustee at the Aspen
Institute (think tank), is a member of the Bohemian Club, a director
at the American Friends of Bilderberg (think tank) and a 2008 Bilderberg
conference participant (think tank).
Belizean_Grove
is the equivalent to the male-only social group, the Bohemian Club.
Mickey Hart is a
member of the Bohemian Club, and was the drummer for the Grateful
Dead.
John Perry Barlow
was a lyricist for the Grateful Dead, and a co-founder & director
for the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
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