Dragnet: Feds Using Planes to Spy on Cellphones

The U.S. government is using airplanes to spy on Americans' cellphones.
    
The Wall Street Journal reports the Justice Department is using devices on Cessna airplanes that mimic cellphone towers to collect data from thousands of mobile phones.
    
The planes have a flying range that covers most of the American population.

According to the report, the devices trick phones into sharing its location data and revealing the phone's identity.
    
The technology enables investigators to collect data from tens of thousands of cellphones in a single flight.

Critics are panning the program as "dragnet surveillance."

"It's inexcusable and it's likely - to the extent judges are authorizing it - they have no idea of the scale of it," Christopher Soghoian, chief technologist at the American Civil Liberties Union, said.

The Justice Department has neither confirmed nor denied the existence of the program.