Federal investigators have horrified civil liberties experts by obtaining previously unreported warrants to use controversial surveillance tech on a college student, according to a new report.
Law enforcement agents earlier this year obtained permission to use cell-site simulators to track down Jerome Richardson, a 21-year-old who helped journalist Don Lemon document an anti-ICE protest in Minnesota earlier this year, Wired reported Monday.
Privacy experts were stunned.
“Using an advanced surveillance capability such as a cell-site simulator against members of the free press for reporting stories that are unfavorable to the president is an appalling attack on the First Amendment,” Cooper Quintin, of the civil liberties nonprofit Electronic Frontier Foundation, told Wired.
Richardson, now a Temple University graduate, was charged with conspiring to violate worshippers’ civil rights at St. Paul’s Cities Church, which was targeted for protest in January because one of its pastors, David Easterwood, led the city’s ICE field office, according to the report.
While prosecutors allege Richardson joined chants and obstructed congregants, the then-college student said he served only as Lemon’s producer.
The warrant affidavits claimed video showed Richardson, Lemon and journalist Georgia Fort “chanting with agitators.” Prosecutors have since conceded that Lemon and Fort did not chant, and Fort’s lawyers say the government acknowledged the false claim appeared in at least 15 warrant affidavits, according to the report.
While it remains unclear whether agents actually used the devices, Wired argued the fact that the warrants were sought was disturbing in and of itself for two reasons.
The first is that while investigators said they needed to locate and arrest Richardson, the college student made public statements suggesting he had no intention of fleeing, and ultimately turned himself in at a federal courthouse in Philadelphia, according to the report.
Richardson was released on bond the same afternoon.
“The cell-site simulator warrants raise serious questions about both the accuracy of the information investigators presented to judges in their effort to obtain authorization for surveillance tool’s use,” the Wired report stated, “as well as why they sought such intrusive tracking to find Richardson in the first place.”
The second cause for concern is the nature of the technology itself, which privacy advocates describe as dragnet surveillance tools.
That’s because the simulators mimic cell phone towers and collect identifying information from nearby devices, including those of people not suspected of any crimes, Wired noted.
“The use of cell-site simulators has long been shrouded in secrecy,” according to the report. “FBI records released in 2023 showed that police borrowing its simulators had to agree to keep details of their use secret, even in court. Privacy advocates have long warned that the devices could be turned against protesters and journalists.”
