Bipartisan legislation in the House of Delegates would require police to obtain a search warrant to use the cell site simulator, known as a "stingray," to track a suspect. It also would impose strict requirements that officers filter out and discard information about other cellphone owners caught up in any sweep.
Proponents of the bill say it is needed to protect individuals' Fourth Amendment right against unreasonable search and seizure. Police and prosecutors say the bill is unnecessary and would hobble a vital tool for fighting crime.
The Baltimore Sun reported last year that the city's Police Department had used the controversial technology thousands of times in recent years and hid that fact from prosecutors and judges, at the FBI's request. Del. Charles E. Sydnor III, lead sponsor of the bill, said it was prompted in part by articles in The Baltimore Sun.
Sara Love, a lawyer with the Maryland ACLU, told the House Judiciary Committee that privacy concerns outweigh the technology's usefulness to police.
"Breaking into everybody's home and searching it also would help them catch bad guys, but we have a Constitution," she said.
But Scott Shellenberger, the state's attorney for Baltimore County, told lawmakers the bill is based on "misinformation" about a technology that locates only a cellphone's unique identification signal.
"It does not listen to your phone call. It does not capture your text. It does not capture email. It doesn't capture anything that's in your phone," he said. Shellenberger was joined in opposition by witnesses from the state police and the Baltimore and Baltimore County police departments.
©2016 The Baltimore Sun Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
