The FBI Now Needs a Warrant To Use Its Phone-Sniffing Stingray Boxes

Privacy took a blow last week when the NSA got permission to keep operating a massive dragnet. Here’s some better news: As of today, federal agents should have a harder time using Stingrays to spy on cell phones.

Today, the Department of Justice issued a new policy that requires federal agencies to get a search warrant before they deploy a “cell-site simulator,” aka Stingray, in all but the most dire circumstances.

(The Stingray is just the name of one specific device, made by the Harris Corporation, which pretends to be a cell tower in order to trick nearby phones into connecting to it.)

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