
<p>A secret government program illegally collected up to 200 million records regarding Americans&#8217; money transfers without a warrant and without congressional oversight, wrote Oregon Senator Ron Wyden (D) in a letter to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).</p>



<p>The program, operated by a branch of the DHS and overseen by investigators with Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE), collected data on all money transfers over $500 going to or from Mexico, Arizona, California, Texas, and New Mexico. </p>



<p><strong>Money transfers are popular among ; immigrants who lack bank accounts but need to send cash to relatives in other countries. ;Congress was informed about the program last month, but only after Wyden started asking questions. </strong></p>



<p>&#8220;Given the many serious issues raised by this troubling program, I request that you investigate the program&#8217;s origins, how the program operated, and whether the program was consistent with agency policy, statutory ;law, and the <em>Constitution</em>,&#8221; wrote Wyden, who asked DHS Inspector General Joseph Cuffari to ensure that any similar programs being run through the agency are subject to congressional oversight. ;</p>



<p>A spokesperson for the DHS claimed the agency was &#8216;committed to ensuring that its criminal investigative methods are as effective as possible while also consistent with the law,&#8217; but this is clearly not the case. The clandestine program began as early as 2010 when Arizona&#8217;s Attorney General began collecting money transfer data from financial services company Western Union in connection with a money laundering settlement. For years, Western Union and dozens of other companies voluntarily shared information with TRAC, a nonprofit organization established to house money transfer data. TRAC was set up in 2014 following a second money laundering settlement involving Arizona and Western Union. </p>



<p>TRAC data was available to hundreds of federal and local police, who were able to search through it for leads without a warrant. When TRAC&#8217;s agreement with Arizona ended in 2019, the state&#8217;s attorney general asked ICE to force Western Union and other companies to continue sharing data about money transfers. Records show that ICE subpoenaed Western Union 6 times between 2019 and 2022, each time requesting data for a 6-month ;period. The information Western Union was asked to provide likely included personal information such as names, addresses, and ID numbers for both senders and recipients. ;</p>



<p>ICE collected roughly 6 million records through TRAC &#8211; roughly 3% of the data housed by the nonprofit organization &#8211; but promised to halt its subpoenas to Western Union after Wyden&#8217;s inquiry. TRAC data is still being used by US Customs and Border Protection to catch criminals, however, and according to a <em>Wall Street Journal </em>report aided law enforcement in tracking down and seizing 150,000 illicit painkiller pills that were smuggled from Mexico to Oregon.</p>



<p>Moving forwards, the DHS has agreed to work with a team of lawyers to create guidelines so that TRAC data is used more responsibly &#8211; but privacy advocates say the use of a non-governmental organization (NGO) to store data used by federal law enforcement is strange.</p>



<p>&#8220;I cannot think of another arrangement like this that combines an illegal use of subpoenas with an inscrutable, private nonprofit just for the purposes of housing this information,&#8221; laments ACLU attorney Nathan Freed Wessler. NGOs are not always subject to federal public records laws, he adds, meaning that the use of TRAC as a middleman &#8220;has the effect of shielding this tremendously concerning program from public scrutiny.&#8221;</p>



<p><strong>Editor&#8217;s note:</strong> Don&#8217;t you guys get tired of government agencies violating our Fourth Amendment rights and actually spying on the people they are supposed to serve?</p>



<p><strong>Sources:</strong></p>



<p><a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/secret-surveillance-program-collects-americans-money-transfer-data-senator-says-11646737201?mod=hp_lead_pos4">Secret Surveillance Program Collects Americans&#8217; Money-Transfer Data, Senator Says</a></p>



<p><a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10589817/DHS-secretly-collected-data-200M-money-transfers-Americans-12-years.html">Homeland security secretly collected data on at least 200 million money transfers of over $500 made by Americans in the last 12 years without a warrant, Democratic Senator says</a></p>



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DHS Illegally Monitored Americans’ Money Transfer Data
