text: The Baltimore Police Department has used secret cellphone surveillance equipment 4,300 times since 2007 - amid claims it is ordered to withhold such evidence from prosecutors, a court heard. A detective from the department said officers used a device called Hailstorm, which can identify phones from a 360-degree antenna from about a city block away. Police use it to trace stolen phones or to find people. The details, revealed in court, resemble the original plot of HBO’s hit series The Wire, the crime drama based in the same city, which featured electronic surveillance of drug dealers. Baltimore Police used cellphone surveillance equipment 4,300 times since 2007, a court heard. The case resembles parts of the plot of The Wire (pictured), which featured electronic surveillance of drug dealers . Testifying on Wednesday, Baltimore police Detective Emmanuel Cabreja said the department is under orders by the US government to withhold evidence from criminal trials and to ignore subpoenas in cases where the device is used. Cabreja said under questioning from defense attorneys that he did not comply with a subpoena to bring the device to court because of a nondisclosure agreement between the Baltimore police and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. 'Does it instruct you to withhold evidence from the state's attorney and the circuit court of Baltimore city, even if upon order to produce?' asked defense attorney Joshua Insley. 'Yes,' Cabreja replied, saying he spoke with the FBI last week about the case. The Baltimore case surrounds a carjacking and robbery. Nicholas West and his co-defendant, a juvenile, pleaded guilty on Wednesday. Yet the case, like a handful of others in the city, has raised questions among defense attorneys and even a circuit court judge over the use of the cellphone-tracking equipment. The Hailstorm, made by Florida-based Harris Corp., can sweep up cellphone subscriber-identity data by tricking phones into thinking it's a cell tower. It is an upgraded version of the Stingray surveillance device. Hailstorm is an upgraded version of the Stingray surveillance device (pictured) manufactured by Harris Corporation, of Melbourne, Florida . That data is then transmitted to the police, allowing them to locate a phone without the user even making a call or sending a text message. 'This is a very expensive and very invasive technology developed for military use, now used on the streets of America,' said Nathan Freed Wessler, a staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union, which has fought for the release of these types of records. 'The public has a right to know how taxpayer dollars are being spent, and if our constitutional rights are being respected,' he said. The FBI declined to immediately answer questions about the case last night. Police across the country have largely been kept silent on how they use the devices. A detective from Baltimore (pictured) said officers used a device called Hailstorm, which can identify phones from a 360-degree antenna from about a city block away in distance . Because documents about Stingrays and Hailstorms are regularly censored in public records requests by citizens and journalists, it is not entirely clear what information the devices could capture - such as the contents of phone conversations and text messages, what they routinely capture based on how they are configured, or how often they might be used. Cabreja  said Hailstorm can identify phones from an antenna from about a city block away in distance. He said no content, such as text messages or phone conversations, is captured in the process. Some judges have pushed back against state and local government agencies in criminal trials and freedom-of-information requests involving the surveillance devices. In Baltimore, Circuit Judge Barry Williams presided over an earlier trial in which the police apparently used a surveillance device to collect evidence on a robbery suspect. At a November 2014 hearing, Williams lost his patience with a state prosecutor after a police technician wouldn't answer a defense attorney's questions about the device - citing the same FBI nondisclosure agreement. 'You don't have a nondisclosure agreement with the court,' Williams told police Detective John Haley, part of the department's advanced technical team. 'Answer the question.' The prosecutors instead withdrew the evidence, avoiding a contempt citation and questions about the equipment's use.
target: Hailstorm equipment used by department 4,300 times since 2007, court told .
  Device can identify phones from 360-degree antenna from city block away .
  Detective says department under orders from US government to withhold evidence from courts where device has been used .
  Details resemble original plot of HBO's series The Wire, based in same city .