Lawmaker demands transparency on massive surveillance program

Rep. Ron Wyden (D-OR) Monday sent a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland demanding he declassify information about a massive surveillance program in which the federal government obtains taxpayers’ private phone records without warrants.

In 2013 the New York Times first revealed the existence of the Hemisphere Project which involved the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) buying phone records from AT&T and giving them to law enforcement agencies. Approximately four billion records were added each day to a special database kept by AT&T for the program which contained records stretching back to 1987.

As part of the Hemisphere Project, law enforcement agencies were able to not only obtain phone records of targets but also the phone records of everyone who communicated with the target. 

It is unknown whether other mobile carriers have also been working with the federal government under Hemisphere or other programs. Representatives from Sprint, T-Mobile, and Verizon refused to comment on the story. 

Because the federal government does not pay AT&T directly, the program is not subject to the usual mandatory Privacy Impact Assessment that the Justice Department would be required to conduct. Instead, ONDCP transfers the funds through a grant program referred to as Houston High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area (HIDTA), which has 33 subsidiaries that distribute federal funds.

The Obama administration froze funding for the Hemisphere Project in 2013 — the year it was exposed in the media. But while it was no longer funded by the ONDCP, the program continued to receive other federal funding under the name “Data Analytical Services.” In 2017 the Trump administration resumed funding under the ONDCP. It was paused again in 2021 by the Biden administration, and resumed again in 2022.

Between 2009 and 2011, the federal government spent between $1 million to $1.4 million on the Hemisphere Project. Since 2012 the disclosed number has remained $500,000 or under.

“I have serious concerns about the legality of this surveillance program, and the materials provided by the DOJ contain troubling information that would justifiably outrage many Americans and other members of Congress,” wrote Rep. Wyden in his letter. 

In 2019 the Justice Department provided Rep. Wyden with materials on the Hemisphere Project. But because they are classified as “law enforcement sensitive," they cannot be released to the public. In his letter, Wyden revealed he has been working for the past year to convince the Justice Department to declassify the information.

“While I have long defended the government’s need to protect classified sources and methods, this surveillance program is not classified and its existence has already been acknowledged by the DOJ in federal court,” he continued. “The public interest in an informed debate about government surveillance far outweighs the need to keep this information secret.”