A new surveillance system called FalcoNet is spreading through Texas law enforcement. Confirming exactly where it’s operating matters, because getting that wrong helps no one. This article separates what’s verified from what isn’t, explains your Fourth Amendment rights, and gives you real steps to protect your privacy.
What Is FalcoNet?
FalcoNet is a cell-site simulator built by Cognyte, an Israeli surveillance company. It’s sometimes called an “IMSI catcher.” Instead of targeting one suspect’s phone, it impersonates a real cell tower. Every phone nearby automatically connects to it — not just a suspect’s phone, but everyone’s. It sweeps 2G through 5G networks at once, pulling device identifiers and location data from commuters, shoppers, and bystanders alike.
The hardware is often hidden inside ordinary-looking police SUVs. In one confirmed case, four Chevrolet Tahoes were fitted with the system, with antennas concealed behind false raised roofs. From the outside, they look like any other cruiser. The same core technology can also be carried in a backpack or flown from a helicopter. Setup reportedly takes about three minutes. Once running, the system can process thousands of devices per minute.
Is FalcoNet Actually in Hood County?
Here’s what we can verify, and what we can’t.
Confirmed: the state bought it. In March 2026, the Texas Department of Public Safety purchased four FalcoNet-equipped Tahoes for $4,487,500. Only about $600,000 of that paid for the vehicles themselves. The remaining $3.9 million bought the surveillance hardware and software. The purchase was funded by the Texas Legislature as part of a broader surveillance expansion tied to Operation Lone Star, and it was classified as an emergency purchase to bypass standard procurement review. State troopers patrol highways across Texas, including through Hood County, so it’s plausible these vehicles pass through the area.
Not confirmed: local ownership. We found no public record of the Granbury Police Department or the Hood County Sheriff’s Office purchasing or operating FalcoNet. If your own tax dollars, specifically your city or county property taxes, paid for this equipment, that claim needs a receipt: a purchase order, council minutes, or a local news report. If you have one, share it, and this section will be corrected and cited.
One important legal gap: Texas has no state law requiring police to get a warrant before using a cell-site simulator like FalcoNet. The Department of Justice adopted a warrant requirement for federal agencies back in 2015, after years of lawsuits over Stingray devices. That rule only binds federal agencies. It does not bind Texas DPS, and it does not bind local police departments.
What is confirmed and local: Flock Safety cameras. Separately from FalcoNet, Granbury operates roughly 26 Flock Safety automated license plate reader cameras. Vehicle data from these cameras can reportedly be retained for 30 days. This became enough of a local flashpoint that the Hood County GOP passed a resolution calling for stronger privacy protections, urging Granbury’s City Council to remove or deactivate the network until safeguards are in place. Hood County’s own Commissioners Court went further: it voted 4–0 to cancel the county’s separate Flock Safety contract and is now seeking a $126,000 refund.
The real story here isn’t confirmed FalcoNet spending — it’s transparency. Whether it’s a state-funded surveillance van passing through on the highway or a locally-funded camera network, residents deserve full visibility into how these tools are used, how long data is kept, and who can access it. That’s worth demanding answers about regardless of which specific technology is or isn’t confirmed in your backyard.
What the Law Actually Says
It’s tempting to say mass phone sweeps are simply illegal. The real answer is more useful: courts are actively narrowing what’s allowed, and the trend favors privacy.
The baseline is Carpenter v. United States (2018). The Supreme Court ruled 5–4 that police generally need a warrant, backed by probable cause, before obtaining someone’s historical cell-site location records. The Court’s reasoning: letting police reconstruct a person’s movements without judicial oversight is exactly the kind of surveillance the Fourth Amendment was written to prevent. Carpenter didn’t rule directly on cell-site simulators. But it built the constitutional foundation that later cases have applied to them.
Courts have started applying that logic to devices like FalcoNet. In one federal case, a judge rejected a request to run a cell-site simulator continuously for 30 days across a wide area. The court compared it to searching an entire apartment building, or a city block, when police only had probable cause for one unit. That kind of broad, untargeted sweep violates the Fourth Amendment’s particularity requirement. A warrant has to specify who and what is being searched. It can’t authorize scooping up everyone.
What this means in practice:
- A narrow, specific warrant to locate one phone stands on firm legal ground.
- An open-ended sweep with no individualized suspicion is exactly what courts have been rejecting.
- Legality depends heavily on the jurisdiction and whether a warrant was obtained at all. DOJ policy requires warrants for federal use. Texas has no equivalent state law for state or local police.
- This is still being fought out in court. That’s a reason to stay informed and push for local transparency, not a reason to assume the issue is settled.
This isn’t legal advice. If you believe you were specifically targeted, talk to an attorney who handles Fourth Amendment and surveillance cases, or reach out to organizations like the ACLU or EFF, which track this issue closely.
Real Steps to Protect Your Privacy
These steps won’t stop a cell-site simulator from existing. They limit what it, or anyone else, can pull from your phone.
Encrypt what you can
- Use end-to-end encrypted apps for messages and calls. Signal is the standard recommendation among security researchers. It encrypts both content and, as much as possible, metadata, and its protocol is open and independently audited. WhatsApp and Apple’s iMessage/FaceTime also encrypt message content end-to-end, though they retain more metadata about who you’re talking to. Standard SMS texts and regular calls are not end-to-end encrypted. Avoid them for sensitive conversations.
- Use a reputable VPN on cellular data or any Wi-Fi network you don’t control. A VPN won’t stop a simulator from seeing that your phone is connected to it. It will block a lot of passive interception of your actual browsing traffic.
Reduce what your phone broadcasts
- Turn off location services for apps that don’t need them. Check periodically, since updates sometimes reset these permissions.
- Turn off Bluetooth and Wi-Fi when you’re not using them. Both broadcast identifiers that can track a device even without an active connection.
- Limit app permissions. Microphone, camera, contacts, and location access should go only to apps that genuinely need them, and only “while using the app,” not “always.”
- Avoid public Wi-Fi for anything sensitive, or use it only through a VPN.
Keep the basics current
- Install security patches promptly. Most real-world phone compromises exploit known vulnerabilities a patch already fixed.
- Clear browsing data regularly, and consider a privacy-focused browser with built-in tracker blocking.
What people get wrong: Wi-Fi/Bluetooth off and Faraday cages aren’t the full answer
This is the most misunderstood part of phone privacy, so it’s worth being precise.
Turning off Wi-Fi and Bluetooth does nothing to stop cellular tracking. A cell-site simulator doesn’t talk to your phone over Wi-Fi or Bluetooth. It impersonates the cell tower your phone talks to constantly, by design, so it can receive calls and texts. As long as cellular radio is on, your phone looks for the strongest nearby signal. It will connect to a well-built simulator without you knowing.
A Faraday cage helps, but people overestimate it. A well-made, properly sealed Faraday bag genuinely blocks radio signals in both directions. In practice, though:
- Many consumer Faraday pouches are poorly shielded or degrade over time. Seams and zippers can leak signal, and you often can’t tell a good one from a bad one just by looking.
- A cage blocks signals going forward. It does nothing to erase location history or cached data already stored on the device, or already synced to the cloud, before it went in the bag.
- If the phone is already compromised by malware, a cage doesn’t remove that malware. It just delays it until the phone comes back into range.
- A sudden signal drop followed by a sudden reappearance is itself a detectable pattern. It doesn’t make you invisible. It makes you notable.
The only certain method is powering the phone off completely. Airplane mode and Faraday cages both rely on hardware and software behaving exactly as intended. A powered-off phone has no radios running, full stop. If certainty matters more than convenience, that’s the real answer.
The Bottom Line
Confirmed FalcoNet spending in Texas is currently a state-level story, tied to Texas DPS and Operation Lone Star. What’s confirmed and local in Hood County is the Flock camera network and the pushback from both the county GOP and the Commissioners Court. Both threads point to the same underlying problem: residents are funding surveillance tools without full visibility into how they’re used, how long data is kept, or who can access it. You have real Fourth Amendment protections and real tools to reduce your exposure. You also have the right to show up at a council meeting and ask exactly how these tools are governed.
Sources consulted: Cybernews, Yahoo News/The Drive, Carscoops, TechStory, Gadget Review, Forbes, Techdirt, Let’s Address Texas (Substack), the Dallas Express, Hood County News, and legal summaries of Carpenter v. United States (2018) and related cell-site simulator case law. This article is for informational purposes only and is not legal advice. If you have documentation of a local FalcoNet purchase not reflected here, please share it so this piece can be corrected.