Boulder County buys phone-hacking tech using money meant to treat, prevent drug addiction

Last month, Boulder County spent the first of what it hopes will be millions of dollars for the treatment and prevention of drug addiction, courtesy of lawsuits against the drug manufacturers, distributors and pharmacies that helped fuel America’s opioid epidemic.

Among the spending was money for controversial yet widely used technology to gain access to locked cell phones and computers. Law enforcement officials argue such products are necessary to find and prosecute drug dealers, whose illegal enterprises have produced an ever-mounting body count.

Yet the increasing usage of such products has occurred largely without public knowledge and debate, or corresponding evolution of regulation to protect against potential abuse — a chief concern of privacy experts and human rights groups who warn the tools are an unprecedented, unchecked expansion of police power.

“There’s this really remarkable power that police have that can be used quietly and silently,” said John Davisson, senior counsel for Washington, D.C.-based Electronic Privacy Information Center. “It’s really putting a lot of power into the hands of law enforcement.”

Crucial tool for catching drug dealers

Spending on mobile device forensics tools, or MDFTs, as they’re known, represents just a sliver of Boulder County’s opioid settlement spending so far: $81,250 — 4.5% of an $1.8 million total first funding round — went to purchase products from Cellebrite and GrayKey, which unlock Android and Apple/iOS products, respectively, and Nighthawk and Magnet Forensics, which assembles extracted data into a readable format and “puts it all together in a pattern,” according to Boulder County Sheriff’s Office Sergeant Jeff Pelletier, who presented on the purchases at a December meeting of Boulder County’s Regional Opioids Council.

The equipment will go to Longmont Police Department’s Special Investigations Unit, which handles narcotics investigations and Boulder County’s Drug Task Force, which serves the same function for most of the county, excluding Longmont and Louisville. A third Cellebrite device will go to Boulder County’s Digital Forensics Lab, which aids…