The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has covertly gathered Americans’ financial records wholesale, according to Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.).
Wyden revealed the presence of a DHS financial surveillance program in a March 8 letter to the department’s examiner general, calling for an examination into the formerly unidentified activities.
DHS Runs ‘Indiscriminate And Bulk Surveillance Program’ On American Financial Records
Wyden said he has recently found out that Homeland Security Investigations (HSI)– a regulation enforcement element of DHS– was running an “indiscriminate and bulk surveillance program that swept up millions of financial records about Americans.”
“After my staff contacted HSI about the program in January 2022, HSI immediately terminated the program,” Wyden wrote to DHS Inspector General Joseph Cuffari.
The legislator said his workplace was oriented by HSI on Feb. 18– the very first time Congress had actually been told about the program.
“HSI told my staff that it used custom summonses to obtain approximately six million records about money transfers above $500, to or from Arizona, California, New Mexico, Texas, and Mexico,” Wyden wrote. “HSI obtained these records using a total of eight customs summonses, which it sent to Western Union and Maxitransfers Corporation (Maxi), demanding records for a six-month period following the order.”
Wyden said the HSI economic security activities are highly problematic for numerous reasons, consisting of the reality that only eight summonses were used to get even more than 6 million documents.
“The customs summonses authority only permits the government to seek records that are ‘relevant’ to an investigation,” he said.
“HSI should have known that this authority could not be used to conduct bulk surveillance, particularly after the Department of Justice inspector general harshly criticized the Drug Enforcement Administration in 2019 for using subpoenas to conduct a bulk surveillance program involving records of international phone calls.”
Wyden also stated the HSI database permits hundreds of police “unfettered accessibility” to the economic documents without any kind of court guidance.
The reality that DHS right away shuttered the program after being spoken to by the senator further recommends a lack of internal oversight, he stated.
“I write to request that you thoroughly investigate the program to determine whether HSI’s surveillance of Americans was consistent with DHS policy, statutory law, and the United States Constitution,” the letter reads.
Responding to Wyden’s discoveries, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) called the HSI program “blatantly illegal.”
“This practice presents real-world harms to people who, for good reason, would like to keep private the transfer of money and the identifying information that goes with it,” EFF, a global not-for-profit electronic legal rights group, claimed in a March 10 statment.
“Sharing financial and other personally identifying records of domestic violence survivors, asylum seekers, and human rights activists could expose them to danger, particularly given that TRAC allows hundreds of law enforcement agencies unfettered access to these records.”
EFF agreed with Wyden’s ask for an investigation right into the program, keeping in mind that the 6 million-plus documents need to be promptly purged. It likewise claimed firms such as Western Union and Maxi ought to withstand the federal government as well as secure consumer personal privacy.
“Companies like Western Union and Maxi should stop caving to these overbroad administrative subpoenas for sensitive customer information by filing motions to quash. These administrative subpoenas are government requests—not official warrants, signed by a judge, that legally compel the company to hand over all of this data,” EFF stated.
“Companies should answer only when compelled by law to do so. Until then, they have an obligation to protect their customers’ information, and that obligation should extend to protections from overly-broad and easily rebuttable government fishing expeditions.”
Western Union supplied the complying with statement when gotten in touch with by The Epoch Times: ” Western Union is devoted to safeguarding the personal information of our customers, as well as battling serious criminal activity such as cash laundering, human trafficking, as well as human smuggling.
“We also actively work with law enforcement agencies globally to promote privacy principles while enabling law enforcement to combat crime. We are unable to comment further on law enforcement investigations.”
H/T The Epoch Times
