“White House-led surveillance program accesses vast phone data, raises privacy concerns.”
A confidential surveillance endeavor, managed by the White House, grants law enforcement unparalleled access to vast troves of American phone data, sparking considerable privacy and legal apprehensions.
An investigation by Wired has unearthed a clandestine White House surveillance initiative, dubbed Data Analytical Services (DAS), facilitating federal, state, and local law enforcement’s access to a comprehensive array of U.S. phone records. Partnering with telecommunications behemoth AT&T, DAS offers exhaustive analyses of American call records to law enforcement entities across government levels. This initiative spans not only direct contacts of criminal suspects but extends its surveillance to their social circles, intruding into the lives of individuals uninvolved in any criminal activity.
For more than ten years, DAS has tracked over a trillion domestic phone records annually, evolving from its previous incarnation as Hemisphere to utilize chain analysis. This method broadens its scope beyond suspects, scrutinizing the connections of those individuals and encompassing a wider network, including innocent bystanders.
DAS’ methodology diverges significantly from conventional wiretapping, eschewing the need for a warrant grounded in probable cause. Instead, it relies on AT&T’s stored records encompassing caller and recipient names, phone numbers, and call times. Curiously, AT&T isn’t legally obligated to retain these records for prolonged periods but voluntarily does so, facilitating law enforcement efforts.
Operating through AT&T’s infrastructure, DAS aggregates records spanning the entire United States. Despite its vast scope, the program has largely operated clandestinely, shielded from public knowledge, bolstered by the White House’s Freedom of Information Act exemption.
Leaks and public records have unveiled DAS’ extensive utilization in various law enforcement scenarios, including requests for “Hemisphere analysis” to identify suspects via their social connections. These disclosures reveal the program’s broad application across different law enforcement branches, with a range of officials partaking in DAS training sessions, underscoring its widespread adoption.
