 The official position of the US Federal government is that the use of Stingrays does not require a probable cause warrant, because they claim Stingrays are a kind of pen register tap, which do not require a warrant, as decided in Smith v. Maryland.The government notes that they do not intercept the actual conversation, only tracking identity of the phone and its location.The devices do have the technical capability to record the content of calls, so the government requires these content-intercepting functions to be disabled in normal use.