FLORIDA · CELL-SITE SIMULATORS · SCALE
Records later identified 1,835 Florida state cell-site-simulator uses and hundreds of Tallahassee investigations.
Secretive technology ≠ rare technology
Documents obtained by the ACLU included a 2014 Florida Department of Law Enforcement email identifying 1,835 uses of cell-site-simulator equipment, apparently spanning state and local investigations. Tallahassee records separately listed more than 250 investigations from 2007 through early 2014, including ordinary robbery, burglary, theft and wanted-person investigations.
Why it matters: Public obscurity should never be mistaken for operational rarity. A surveillance technique can remain unfamiliar to the people being surveilled while becoming routine inside government.
This page preserves the anecdote and its caveats separately from the shorter Why Privacy Matters explainer. The goal is to keep the argument readable without hiding the receipts.