NYCLU Sues Erie Co. Sheriff for Information on Surveillance Device

The New York Civil Liberties Union has filed a lawsuit challenging the Erie County Sheriff’s Department’s failure to follow the law and make public information about how it uses mobile devices to track and record New Yorkers’ locations. The NYCLU first filed a Freedom of Information request in June after local media reports revealed that the Sheriff’s Office was using mobile devices known as ‘stingrays’ to pick up signals from all cell phones and wireless devices within a given area, collecting information on the comings and goings of innocent people in the process.

“The Erie County Sheriff’s department cannot hide behind a shroud of secrecy when it is in fact invading the privacy of the communities it has sworn to serve and protect,” said John A. Curr III, director of the NYCLU’s Western Regional Office. “This advanced surveillance technology raises serious concerns regarding the tracking of innocent people, and the public has a right to know how and when such invasive techniques will be employed.”

Stingrays can collect information on all cell phones in a given area as well as precisely track particular phones, locating people within their own home, at a doctor’s office, at a political protest or in a church. Some stingrays and similar devices are even configured to record private conversations.

Press reports reveal that the Sheriff’s Office is not only actively using the device, but that it might be doing so without applying for a warrant based on probable cause of criminal activity. The NYCLU’s Freedom of Information request specifically sought information about records regarding the Sheriff’s Office’s acquisition of stingrays, including invoices, contracts, loan agreements and communications; policies and guidelines governing the use of stingrays; and any court applications for authorization to use stingrays or other cell site simulators, but was denied in full.

In its denial, the Sheriff’s Department made no distinction between what documents it had in its possession and which simply do not exist. The NYCLU filed the petition yesterday afternoon.

“The Sheriff’s Office has spent more than $350,000 since 2008 on this surveillance equipment – it is ridiculous for them to suggest they have no paperwork or records on the matter,” said NYCLU Staff Attorney Mariko Hirose. “The blanket denial of our entire request, without any explanation, only underscores their wholesale disregard for the right to privacy.”

After the initial response from the Sheriff’s Department, the NYCLU filed an appeal requesting the same documents and citing the flawed logic used in the original denial. The Erie County Sheriff’s Office failed to reply to the appeal, forcing the NYCLU to turn to the courts to get access to basic public information.

In addition to Hirose, attorneys on the case are Robert Hodgson and Christopher Dunn from the NYCLU and cooperating counsel John Ned Lipsitz from Lipsitz & Ponterio, LLC in Buffalo.