Concerns over the United States government\u2019s vast surveillance apparatus aren\u2019t subsiding, even three months after former intelligence contractor Edward Snowden first started leaking national security documents.<\/p>\n
On Thursday, the American Civil Liberties Union, the National
\nOrganization for the Reform of Marijuana Law and more than 20
\nother groups signed letters to Congress asking for an
\ninvestigation into a recently revealed spy program that lets
\nfederal officials with the Drug Enforcement Administration access
\nnon-terrorism intelligence collected by other agencies.<\/p>\n
Earlier this month, Reuters unveiled news of a long-standing Documents obtained by the New York Times suggest that 4 billion “[T]he scale and longevity of the data storage appears to be Now the ACLU, NORML and roughly two-dozen other groups are asking According to Reuters, the groups sent a letter to congressional “For too long Congress has given the DEA a free pass<\/i>,” The revelation earlier this month regarding a NSA\/DEA alliance Only days after the first Snowden leak revealed that the NSA was
\nfederal program, the Hemisphere Project<\/a>, that puts intelligence collected
\nby the National Security Agency into the hands of DEA agents. In
\nturn, Hemisphere allows narcotics officers to benefit from
\ninformation that was accumulated with the intent of thwarting
\nterrorist plots, not drug deals, since 2007.<\/p>\n
\ncall detail records are populated within the Hemisphere database
\neach day, all in great secrecy until this month.<\/p>\n
\nunmatched by other government programs, including the NSA’s
\ngathering of phone call logs under the Patriot Act<\/i>,\u201d the
\nTimes claimed.<\/p>\n
\nUS lawmakers to look into the program.<\/p>\n
\nleaders on the judiciary, homeland security and oversight
\ncommittees this week, condemning the latest revelations
\n\u201cserious and far-reaching<\/i>.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nBill Piper of the Drug Policy Alliance told Reuters. “Our hope
\nis that Congress does its job and provides oversight of an agency
\nthat has a long track record of deeply troubling behavior<\/i>.”<\/p>\n
\ncame amidst a series of other scoops<\/a> in recent weeks exposing how the US
\nintelligence community has conducted itself in the years since
\nthe September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. Leaked NSA documents
\nattributed to Snowden have shown that information about the phone
\ncalls and Internet habits of millions of Americans has been
\ncollected by the government, and a steady stream of disclosures
\nhave continuously been covered in the media since the UK\u2019s
\nGuardian and the Washington Post began profiling the leaker\u2019s
\ncache of classified documents on June 5.<\/p>\n
\ncollected telephony metadata pertaining to millions of Verizon
\nBusiness Services customers on a daily basis, the ACLU filed a suit<\/a> alleging they were denied their
\n\u201creasonable expectation of privacy, free speech and
\nassociation, right to be free of unreasonable searches and
\nseizures and due process rights<\/i>.\u201d<\/p>\n