{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.wyden.senate.gov/news/press-releases/wyden-urges-justice-department-to-release-information-about-hemisphere-phone-surveillance-program-that-would-outrage-americans-and-congress", "Wyden Urges Justice Department to Release Information About \u2018Hemisphere\u2019 Phone Surveillance Program that would Outrage Americans and Congress", "2023-11-20", "2023", "2023-11", "Democrat", "Senate", "OR", "Ron Wyden", "W000779", "www.wyden.senate.gov", "wyden", "https://www.wyden.senate.gov/news/press-releases", "scraper", "Unclassified Documents Contain Troubling Information About Dragnet Phone Surveillance Program\n\nWashington, D.C. \u2013 U.S. Senator Ron Wyden, D-Ore., called on Attorney General Merrick Garland to make public documents related to the Hemisphere phone surveillance program, which allows federal, state, local and Tribal law enforcement agencies to request searches of trillions of U.S. phone records, usually without warrants.\n\nAlthough the documents are not classified, the Justice Department has marked them as \u201cLaw Enforcement Sensitive,\u201d which is meant to prevent them from being publicly released. In a letter to Garland sent today, Wyden urged the department to remove those restrictions.\n\n\u201cI 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,\u201d Wyden wrote. \u201cWhile I have long defended the government\u2019s 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. The public interest in an informed debate about government surveillance far outweighs the need to keep this information secret.\u201d\n\nUnder the Hemisphere program, the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) indirectly pays AT&T to allow any federal, state, local or Tribal law enforcement agency to search AT&T customers\u2019 phone records as far back as 1987, according to public records about the program.\n\nHemisphere has not been subjected to a federal Privacy Impact Assessment because of its unique funding structure. Rather than directly funding the surveillance program, the ONDCP provides a grant to the Houston High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area, a partnership between federal, state and local law enforcement agencies, which in turn pays AT&T to operate this surveillance program. Law enforcement agencies nationwide are able to request Hemisphere searches, including for investigations that are not drug related, Houston HIDTA officials told Wyden\u2019s office.\n\nThe bipartisan Government Surveillance Reform Act would require a court order for surveillance of Americans\u2019 phone records, the same standard currently required for the government to obtain historical email and instant message metadata records.\n\nRead the full letter to Attorney General Garland here.\n\n###", 1, "2026-03-30T01:40:41Z", "2026-04-06T18:49:58Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://www.wyden.senate.gov/news/press-releases/wyden-urges-justice-department-to-release-information-about-hemisphere-phone-surveillance-program-that-would-outrage-americans-and-congress"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 1.4702538028359413, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}