That government agencies and law enforcement are constantly looking for fresh new ways of circumventing the Fourth Amendment's protections against unreasonable searches and seizures is no secret.
But what is almost always kept secret are the methods law enforcement and government agencies use to skirt those constitutional protections. That is, they are secret until someone blows the whistle. As detailed in this Wired story, the federal government has, for years, shared “trillions” of phone records with local law enforcement. And the overwhelming majority of those records were collected from citizens who were neither suspected, nor had committed, any crime.
In other words, it was a gigantic, extra-constitutional fishing expedition:
…a surveillance program now known as Data Analytical Services (DAS) has for more than a decade allowed federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies to mine the details of Americans' calls, analyzing the phone records of countless people who are not suspected of any crime, including victims. Using a technique known as chain analysis, the program targets not only those in direct phone contact with a criminal suspect but anyone with whom those individuals have been in contact as well.
The DAS program, formerly known as Hemisphere, is run in coordination with the telecom giant AT&T, which captures and conducts analysis of US call records for law enforcement agencies, from local police and sheriffs' departments to US customs offices and postal inspectors across the country, according to a White House memo reviewed by WIRED. Records show that the White House has provided more than $6 million to the program, which allows the targeting of the records of any calls that use AT&T's infrastructure—a maze of routers and switches that crisscross the United States.
And if that's not bad enough, the entire program somehow sits outside the reach of congressional oversight:
…the program takes advantage of numerous “loopholes” in federal privacy law. The fact that it's effectively run out of the White House, for example, means it is exempt from rules requiring assessments of its privacy impacts. The White House is also exempt from the Freedom of Information Act, reducing the public's overall ability to shed light on the program.
Because AT&T's call record collection occurs along a telecommunications “backbone,” protections enshrined under the Electronic Communications Privacy Act may not apply to the program.
There's a great deal more at the link, and you really should read the whole thing – if for no other reason to urge your member of Congress to support the bipartisan Government Surveillance Reform Act.
While the proposed law would not end all federal snooping, it would close many of the loopholes that currently allow an unconscionable amount of extra-constitutional activity. Among the fixes in the bill:
Protecting Americans from warrantless backdoor searches, ensuring that foreigners aren't targeted as a pretext for spying on the Americans with whom they are communicating, and prohibiting the collection of domestic communications.
Extending similar reforms to surveillance activities under Executive Order 12333, including by limiting warrantless searches of Americans' communications and prohibiting the targeting of foreigners as a pretext for surveilling Americans. It also limits the acquisition of Americans' information as part of large datasets.
Requiring warrants for surveillance of Americans' location data, web browsing and search records, including AI assistants like Alexa and Siri, vehicle data, and by prohibiting the government from purchasing Americans' data from data brokers.
Exceptions to ensure the government can continue to use Section 702 for defensive cybersecurity purposes, to assist in locating and rescuing hostages overseas and emergency provisions in cases where there isn't sufficient time to get a warrant in advance.
Backing this bill should be a no-brainer for self-described constitutionalists. It also serves as a handy test to separate the real constitutionalists and defenders of liberty from the pretenders.
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of American Liberty News.
