In a recent disclosure, WIRED revealed the existence of a little-known surveillance program, Data Analytical Services (DAS), which tracks over a trillion domestic phone records annually in the United States.
U.S. Senator Ron Wyden, in a letter to the Department of Justice, raised serious legal concerns about DAS, previously known as Hemisphere. This program, in collaboration with telecom giant AT&T, allows federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies to analyze Americans’ phone records, including those of individuals not suspected of any crime.
The program, which has been operational for over a decade, employs a technique known as chain analysis. It targets not only individuals in direct contact with a criminal suspect but also their contacts, resulting in extensive data mining.
AT&T captures and analyzes U.S. call records for various law enforcement agencies, using its expansive infrastructure of routers and switches across the nation. Despite no legal requirement, AT&T has stored decades’ worth of call records, with the White House providing over $6 million to support this initiative.
Documents and internal communications obtained by WIRED indicate that law enforcement agencies, including local police and federal organizations like customs and postal inspectors, extensively use the DAS program.
The scope of surveillance extends beyond criminal suspects to their families and associates. In one instance, an Oakland Police Department officer requested a “Hemisphere analysis” to track a suspect’s contacts.
The program, managed under the High-Intensity Drug Trafficking Area (HIDTA) initiative and funded by the White House’s Office of National Drug Control Policy, covers 33 U.S. regions. It notably focuses on drug trafficking but has been employed in various unrelated cases.
The data collection under DAS does not involve wiretapping but includes detailed records like caller and recipient identities, phone numbers, and call times.
Senator Wyden’s letter highlights the enormous scale of data available to law enforcement, raising privacy concerns. The DAS program’s operations have largely remained secret, with instructions to never officially acknowledge its existence. Although funding was suspended under President Obama and resumed under President Trump, the Biden administration has continued this funding.
The disclosure of the DAS program echoes previous surveillance initiatives that faced legal and ethical scrutiny, such as the Drug Enforcement Agency’s 1992 program and the National Security Agency’s metadata collection deemed illegal in 2014. Unlike these past programs, DAS operates without congressional oversight and benefits from various legal loopholes.
Senator Wyden and other lawmakers recently introduced the Government Surveillance Reform Act, aiming to address these loopholes and potentially render the DAS program illegal in its current form.
It is frightening what the level of surveillance occurring under federal auspices on average Americans in the name of national security. The rights of American citizens outlined in the US Constitution are slowly eroding away.
