{"id":52824,"date":"2023-11-25T10:51:21","date_gmt":"2023-11-25T15:51:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/?p=52824"},"modified":"2023-11-25T10:51:21","modified_gmt":"2023-11-25T15:51:21","slug":"spied-on-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/?p=52824","title":{"rendered":"Spied On Again"},"content":{"rendered":"

On Wednesday, The U.K. Daily Mail<\/a> posted the following headline:<\/p>\n

Congress demands answers from White House over ‘invasive’ surveillance program known as Hemisphere that has tracked TRILLIONS of phone records for Americans each year – even if they are not suspected of a crime<\/h1>\n

Who authorized this surveillance?<\/p>\n

The article reports:<\/p>\n

Congress<\/a>\u00a0is demanding answers from the Biden administration about a secret spying program that tracks more than a trillion phone records from innocent and unsuspecting Americans each year.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The under-the-radar system, known as Data Analytical Services or ‘Hemisphere,’ has been in operation for over a decade. It allows federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies to tap into the phone records of U.S. citizens who have not been accused of any\u00a0crime<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Under the Hemisphere program the\u00a0White House<\/a>\u00a0Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) pays phone service provider AT&T to hand over phone records as far back as 1987.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The deal first came to light in 2013 after a bombshell\u00a0New York Times<\/a>\u00a0report, but it has since been expanded.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The article notes that Congress is ready to investigate why the government is spying on innocent Americans.<\/p>\n

The article reports:<\/p>\n

Republican congressman Andy Biggs, Ariz., accused the government of spying on Americans.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Hemisphere is ‘invasive’ and allows ‘government agents warrantless access to trillions of Americans’ domestic communications records,’ he said.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Biggs went on: ‘The federal government doesn\u2019t care about your privacy and it\u2019s long past time we end these abuses and hold rogue actors accountable.<\/strong><\/p>\n

‘The Hemisphere Project 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.’<\/strong><\/p>\n

Congress is currently considering renewal of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act’s Section 702.<\/strong><\/p>\n

That allows for warrantless surveillance of foreigners but often catches the conversations of Americans.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Biggs said it must also look at the Hemisphere program.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The article concludes:<\/p>\n

The program is run primarily by the Drug Enforcement Administration.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Its stated purpose is to help investigate drug traffickers and other complex criminal enterprises.<\/strong><\/p>\n

However, it has also been used to arrest jewelry store robbers, a murder suspect and even a woman who was making nuisance bomb threats.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The program bypasses usual privacy regulations through a complex network of funding.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Rather than directly funding the surveillance, the ONDCP provides a grant to the Houston High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area, which in turn pays AT&T to operate the program.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Because of this Hemisphere is not subject to a federal Privacy Impact Assessment like most projects funded by federal agencies.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The program is obviously not successful in stemming the drug problem; why is it still in place?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On Wednesday, The U.K. Daily Mail posted the following headline: Congress demands answers from White House over ‘invasive’ surveillance program known as Hemisphere that has tracked TRILLIONS of phone records for Americans each year – even if they are not … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2239,13417,5569,913,10627,12795,10015,10685,34,5409,14017,13343,13418,211],"class_list":["post-52824","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-americans","tag-biden-administration","tag-daily-mail","tag-drug-enforcement-administration","tag-drug-trafficking","tag-federal-agencies","tag-federal-government","tag-foreign-intelligence-surveillance-act","tag-new-york-times","tag-surveillance","tag-the-biden-administration","tag-the-u-k-daily-mail","tag-u-s-citizen","tag-white-house"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52824","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=52824"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52824\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":52827,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52824\/revisions\/52827"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=52824"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=52824"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=52824"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}