DHS’s use of secretive legal weapon draws congressional scrutiny
After a Washington Post investigation, House Democrats are asking tech giants how they handle administrative subpoenas targeting DHS’s critics.
Congressional Democrats launched an inquiry Monday into how tech giants handle demands from the Department of Homeland Security for personal information on Americans who criticize the agency.
The probe comes after The Washington Post investigated Homeland Security’s use of administrative subpoenas, a powerful but little-known legal instrument that federal agencies can issue without an order from a judge or grand jury.
In the fall, a 67-year-old retiree named Jon emailed Homeland Security prosecutor Joseph Dernbach to urge mercy for an Afghan seeking asylum. Five hours and one minute later, Jon received a notice from Google that the agency had requested information from his account. The next month, a pair of Homeland Security investigators showed up to his suburban Philadelphia home to interview him about the email.
Related Knowledge Center: Digital privacy and data security
If you’re online, you’re generating a constant stream of information about yourself — sometimes voluntarily, sometimes unwittingly — that is assembled and used to craft your online experience. And generate wealth for data brokers. Meanwhile, designers and managers of the digital infrastructure on which the world depends are engaged in a never-ending effort to thwart attempts, by both criminal enterprises and state actors, to exploit vulnerabilities in those systems.
Signalgate | State surveillance
Related Knowledge Center: State surveillance
While government monitoring of personal digital communications has traditionally been associated with authoritarian regimes such as China, the Trump regime has moved to use citizens’ personal information in unprecedented ways.
Digital privacy and data security | FISA — Section 702