Surveillance

DEA Has Massive Phone Data Trove

Going back to 1987.

The NSA isn't the only government agency keeping reams of phone data. The Drug Enforcement Agency's Hemisphere Project, revealed in documents obtained by a peace activist, keeps data on every call that goes through an AT&T switch, going back as far as 1987—farther than the NSA's records, and unlike the NSA's data, including location information. AT&T works closely with the DEA on the program, with telephone company employees paid by the government to sit alongside drug agents and supply them with data. The Justice Department says the records are maintained by the phone company and Hemisphere merely streamlines the process of getting access to them, but the ACLU says the integration of government agents into the data-gathering process raises Fourth Amendment concerns.