Over a trillion domestic phone records a year. That’s how many records the Data Analytical Services program (DAS), in coordination with AT&T, collects each year and it has been running for over a decade.
Even if you are a victim of a crime or aren’t suspected of a crime, you may be under surveillance purely for being degrees of separation away from persons of interest.
Before its rebranding, the program was known as Hemisphere, and cops unsurprisingly participated in training sessions. But so have USPS inspectors, port authorities, and parole officers.
It isn’t a wiretapping program, which would entail listening to your conversations. However, DAS records do include phone numbers, caller and recipient names, and dates and times. Officials use information to find the locations of suspects and people they know.
And, because this program is run out of the White House, it’s unfortunately exempt from certain privacy and transparency rules.
For example, the Freedom of Information Act requires disclosing certain previously unreleased U.S. documents - but that doesn’t apply to the White House. And unless the Government Surveillance Reform Act goes through, the program will remain technically legal, continuing to slip through other privacy loopholes.
Officials may claim DAS exists to keep Americans safe. But more and more, the state continues to chip away at our privacy and autonomy without our consent. What about that is safe?