A civil liberty non-profit was not entitled to seven affidavits that would have shed light on San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department’s use of fake cell phone towers, the Court of Appeal ruled Sept. 15.
Cell-site simulators are government devices that harvest data from cell phones by pretending to be a cell phone tower. The Electronic Frontier Foundation requested to unseal warrants issued by San Bernardino Superior Court, which activated simulators between March 2017 and March 2018.
“The affidavits relate to law enforcement’s digital surveillance activities, techniques that the Legislature has recognized create acute risks to individual privacy and can often sweep up intimate details on wholly innocent individuals,”
