DEA tracked billions of international phone calls in 'blueprint' for NSA program
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In 1992, the Drug Enforcement Agency began keeping secret records of Americans’ phone calls to as many as 116 foreign countries in a program that served as a precursor to National Security Agency surveillance, a newspaper investigation has found.
According to USA Today’s findings, the DEA program collected billions of calls and “provided a blueprint” for the broader NSA program. The story was based on interviews with more than a dozen current and former law enforcement and intelligence officials, most of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity.
The DEA used Pentagon supercomputers to process the information about phone calls made to countries where drug traffickers operated, according to the article. The database collected from phone companies didn’t include callers’ names or identifying data, but the DEA was able to identify targeted individuals by cross-referencing other databases or sending follow-up requests to phone companies, the USA Today article says.
The DEA obtained the phone records without court approval using administrative subpoenas, which can be used to obtain records that are relevant or material to federal drug investigations. “We knew we were stretching the definition” of DEA authority under the administrative subpoena law, a former official told USA Today.
Former DEA administrator Thomas Constantine told USA Today that the database provided “a treasure trove of very important information on trafficking.” Justice Department spokesman Patrick Rodenbush told the newspaper that the DEA “is no longer collecting bulk telephony metadata from U.S. service providers.” A DEA spokesman declined to comment.
The Justice Department disclosed limited information about the DEA program in January, but its scope was not known at the time.
Attorney General Eric Holder was among those approving the collection effort when he served as deputy attorney general to Janet Reno, according to a previously undisclosed 1998 letter to Sprint seeking call records. Holder ended the program in 2013 after Edward Snowden’s revelations about the NSA surveillance program.
Human Rights Watch filed a lawsuit late Tuesday after USA Today published its report. The suit alleges the DEA program was illegal and seeks to ensure the program is never resurrected, IDG News Service reports. The Electronic Frontier Foundation represents Human Rights Watch in the suit.
