Leahy, Grassley Want Information on Cell-Site Simulators
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., and ranking member Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, pressed the Obama administration on its use of cell-site simulators, which can collect cellphone users’ information. They sent a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder and Secretary…
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of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson Dec. 23, which they released Wednesday. Grassley, who will become chairman of Judiciary and Leahy ranking member in the new Congress, sought answers to several questions by Jan. 30. In the months since summer, “our staff members have participated in two briefings with FBI officials, and at the most recent session they learned that the FBI recently changed its policy with respect to the type of legal process that it typically seeks before employing this type of technology,” they wrote in the letter. “According to this new policy, the FBI now obtains a search warrant before deploying a cell-site simulator, although the policy contains a number of potentially broad exceptions and we continue to have questions about how it is being implemented in practice. Furthermore, it remains unclear how other agencies within the Department of Justice and Department of Homeland Security make use of cell-site simulators and what policies are in place to govern their use of that technology.”