NSA isn't the only one spying, cell phone tracking by police

The National Security Agency isn't the only government entity secretly collecting data from people's cellphones. Local police are increasingly scooping it up, too. With new technologies, including mobile devices that tap into cellphone data in real time, dozens of local and state police agencies are capturing information, the Voice of Russia said.

Police collects information from thousands of cellphone users at a time, whether they are targets of an investigation or not, according to public records obtained by USA Today, The Des Moines Register and other Gannett newspapers and TV stations.

About one in four law-enforcement agencies have used a tactic known as a "tower dump," which gives police data about the identity, activity and location of any phone that connects to the targeted cellphone towers over a set span of time, usually an hour or two. A typical dump covers multiple towers, and wireless providers, and can net information from thousands of phones.

Moreover 25 police departments own a Stingray, a suitcase-size device that costs as much as $400,000 and acts as a fake cell tower. The system, typically installed in a vehicle so it can be moved into any neighborhood, tricks all nearby phones into connecting to it and feeding data to police. In some states, the devices are available to any local police department via state surveillance units.

Police maintain that cellphone data can help solve crimes, track fugitives or abducted children or even foil a terror attack.

Organizations such as the American Civil Liberties Union and Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) say the swelling ability by even small-town police departments to easily and quickly obtain large amounts of cellphone data raises questions about the erosion of people's privacy as well as their Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable search and seizure.

Many people aren't aware that a smartphone is an adept location-tracking device. It's constantly sending signals to nearby cell towers, even when it's not being used. And wireless carriers store data about your device, from where it's been to whom you've called and texted, some of it for years.

Americans "are sensitized right now" to cellphone surveillance because of reports about potential abuses by the NSA, said Washoe County Sheriff Michael Haley of Reno. He is opting not to use the Stingray.

"I'm being cautious about how I access information, because at the end of the day I know that I will be in court if I access information using systems and techniques that are not constitutionally vetted," Haley said.