While Edward Snowden gives interviews to John Oliver and the NSA continues to gobble up our data, local police departments are quietly spying on people without public oversight, often thanks to a little device known as a Stingray.

The use of these surveillance tools is apparently widespread, but it's only recently that the general public is becoming aware of it. Last month, a judge that the Erie County, New York, Sheriff's Department had to release unredacted documents about its Stingray use. Last Tuesday, after receiving those documents, the New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU) reported that the department used Stingrays some 47 times, and seemingly on just one of those occasions got a court order for the subsequent surveillance.

On Friday, the Guardian published the results of the paper's own Stingray investigation. Thanks to some unredacted documents from the Hillsborough County, Florida, Sheriff's Department, the paper concluded that the FBI is directly involved in preventing police departments from sharing any information about their Stingray use and orders them to tell the Feds when requests for information on them are made so that they have time to "prevent disclosure." Worse still, Stingrays are not to be discussed by Florida law enforcement in warrants, testimony, or anywhere in court ever—even at the cost of dropping a case against a defendant.