U.S. Representative Andy Biggs (R-AZ-05) wants answers from the Biden administration about a spying program targeting Americans’ domestic communications.
Biggs (pictured above) last week sent a letter to Dr. Rahul Gupta, director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) after details emerged about the so-called Hemisphere Project. The program – reportedly undergoing a name change to “Data Analytical Services” (DAS) – is funded by the Drug Control Policy office and provides government agents warrantless access to trillions of Americans’ domestic communications records dating back decades, including callers’ Fourth Amendment-protected location information, according to Biggs’ letter.
“The federal government doesn’t care about your privacy and it’s long past time we end these abuses and hold rogue actors accountable,” Biggs said in a statement.
With Congress weighing renewal of Section 702 of the controversial Foreign Intelligence Act (FISA), Biggs asserted it is time for significant reforms to the federal government’s surveillance laws.
Concerns about the DAS / Hemisphere Project are bipartisan.
U.S. Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) recently wrote to Attorney General Merrick Garland about the constitutionality of the surveillance program. He noted that the materials provided by the DOJ contain “troubling information that would justifiably outrage many Americans and other members of Congress.”
“This is a long-running dragnet surveillance program in which the White House pays AT&T to provide all federal, state, local, and Tribal law enforcement agencies the ability to request often-warrantless searches of trillions of domestic phone records,” Wyden (pictured here) wrote in the letter, dated November 20.
The existence of the secret spying operation was first brought to light by The New York Times in 2013. Telecom giant AT&T has retained call records going back to 1987 in compliance with the Hemisphere Project, according to the publication. A slide deck, Wyden wrote, shows 4 billion new records added every day.
“The scale of the data available to and routinely searched for the benefit of law enforcement under the Hemisphere Project is stunning in its scope,” the senator’s letter to the AG states.
One law enforcement official described the surveillance program as “AT&T’s Super Search Engine” and “Google on Steroids,” according to emails released by the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) under the Freedom of Information Act.
“To be clear, any information referred to in Senator Wyden’s letter would be compelled by subpoena, warrant, or court order,” an AT&T spokesperson told The Register, a British technology news website reported this week.
The tech giant declined to answer The Register’s specific questions about the project.
“We defer to the Justice Department, to whom Senator Wyden’s letter is addressed, for comment,” the AT&T spokesperson told the publication. “Like all companies, we are required by law to comply with subpoenas, warrants and court orders from government and law enforcement agencies.”
While the Office of National Drug Control Policy reportedly funds the surveillance program, its use by the government apparently is not limited to drug-related cases. As Biggs notes in his letter to Gupta, law enforcement agencies across the country are apparently able to submit DAS / Hemisphere queries using administrative subpoenas, which are not subject to judicial review, in support of any investigation.
Biggs is asking the Office of National Drug Control Policy to identify each ONDCP-funded program in which Americans’ non-public data is made available to government agencies. The congressman also wants to know:
› How has ONDCP ensured that the Hemisphere Project is operating consistent with the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution and federal privacy laws?
› How many government agencies may request data from the Hemisphere Project?
› Are there any warrantless surveillance programs comparable in model or scale to the Hemisphere Project?
› Since White House funding for the Hemisphere Project resumed in 2022:
a. How many requests have been submitted?
b. How many call records have been provided to government agencies?
c. How many different phone identifiers have been provided to government
agencies?
d. How much money has the White House paid to entities to facilitate the operation
of Hemisphere?
e. How much has AT&T been paid pursuant to Hemisphere?
› For what purposes may a government agency request Hemisphere data?
Regarding the project’s renaming, Biggs asked, “Please provide any documents that informed the Biden Administration’s decision to
continue federal funding for Hemisphere under the name ‘Data Analytical Services.'”
He wants answers by no later than the end of Wednesday.
Biggs said the spying program is a “stark reminder that Congressional reform of government surveillance laws must go far beyond just Section 702 of FISA.”
Section 702, which allows communications tapping of certain foreigners without the encumbrance of a warrant has long been criticized as abusive and unconstitutional in its scope. It’s set to expire at the end of the year.
FBI Director Christopher Wray has cited the recent Hamas terrorist attacks on Israel in arguing for the section of the act’s renewal.
“Loss of this vital provision, or its reauthorization in a narrowed form, would raise profound risks,” Wray said earlier this month during a congressional hearing on worldwide threats. “For the FBI in particular, either outcome could mean substantially impairing, or in some cases entirely eliminating, our ability to find and disrupt many of the most serious security threats.”
Biggs, a longtime critic of such spying tools, wrote in his letter to Gupta that DAS / Hemisphere “highlights major loopholes in federal law through which the government is able to spy on Americans without judicial oversight, such as the purchase of personal data.”
“That is why it is critical that Congress enact the civil liberties protections outlined in the bipartisan, bicameral Government Surveillance Reform Act,” Biggs, a co-sponsor of the bill, wrote.
The legislation was introduced in the Senate by Wyden and Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT). It has brought together a legislative assemblage of politically strange bedfellows — from members of the far left “Squad” to hard-line conservatives.
“Americans are justifiably outraged that the Biden White House is buying their data without a court order, and I am concerned that this program is just the tip of the iceberg,” Biggs wrote.
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M.D. Kittle is the National Political Editor for The Star News Network.
Photo “Andy Biggs” by Andy Biggs.
