Secret government spy program targets American cellphones

The US Department of Justice is putting devices that emulate cellphone towers in Cessna aircraft and flying them around the country to track the locations of cellphones, a practice that targets criminal suspects but may also affect thousands of US citizens, according to a news report Thursday. The program is run by the DOJ’s U.S. Marshals Service and has been in operation since at least 2007, according to the report in the Wall Street Journal, which cited two unnamed sources. The aircraft are flown out of at least five metropolitan-area airports and can cover most of the US population, it said.