FOIA Cases
EPIC v. DEA – Hemisphere
US District Court for the District of Columbia
Background
On September 1, 2013, the New York Times reported on a previously secret government program called “Hemisphere,” which is the largest telephone record collection program reported to date. According to the Times and a Hemisphere training PowerPoint obtained by the paper, Hemisphere allows law enforcement personnel in multiple agencies to access billions of phone records of AT&T customers, as well as any non-customers whose communication is routed through an AT&T switch; unlike the controversial NSA phone records collection program, Hemisphere also includes location information. A government subpoena to AT&T will retrieve CDRs on calls made as recently as one hour before the request was approved, and as far back as 1987.
The program, which has been in operation since at least 2007 and is funded by the Drug Enforcement Agency (“DEA”) and the White House’s Office of National Drug Control Policy, supplies “electronic call detail records” in response to both administrative and grand jury subpoenas. Every day, AT&T adds 4 billion new records to the Hemisphere database, which is used primarily for counternarcotics investigations, but is also used for a variety of other law enforcement activities.
Although the records are stored by AT&T, four of the company’s staff are paid by the program. Columbia Law professor Daniel C. Richman told the Times that “[e]ven though the data resides with AT&T, the deep interest and involvement of the government in its storage may raise constitutional issues.” Additionally, the government uses an algorithm, untethered to judicial authority, to determine which phone records to subpoena. EPIC President Marc Rotenberg noted to the Associated Press that Hemisphere “raises several privacy concerns, including that if a query returns call records that are similar to, but not, those of the suspect, agents could be reviewing call records of people who haven’t done anything wrong.”
EPIC’s Interest
The Hemisphere Program raises at least two complementary issues that are of substantial and longstanding concern to EPIC: domestic surveillance and private corporations’ disclosure of telephone records without judicial review.
First, EPIC is extremely active in matters of domestic surveillance. For example, in 2012, EPIC President Marc Rotenberg testified on the need for increased oversight and transparency before the House Committee on the Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security, which was discussing reauthorization of the FISA Amendment Act of 2008.
Additionally, EPIC filed an amicus brief with the Supreme Court in the case of Clapper v. Amnesty International USA concerning the NSA’s surveillance and collection of domestic communications. EPIC has also reported extensively on fusion centers, which aggregate information on civilians in secret databases. The degree of EPIC’s interest in surveillance issues is indicated by the amount of attention given to them at EPIC.org, which contains many pages devoted to informing the public about developments regarding the NSA phone record surveillance program, wiretapping, FISA, FISC, the USA PATRIOT Act, telephone call monitoring, and locational privacy.
Second, a substantial amount of EPIC’s work has been directed at defending the privacy of telephone records. For example, EPIC filed a successful petition to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) concerning the illegal sale of telephone records. The FCC responded to our petition with a new order and proposed rulemaking that established limitations on the disclosure of information. As another example, in Conboy v. AT&T, a case concerning the disclosure of unlisted number, home address and telephone billing information, we argued that courts have recognized the harm that flows from the unauthorized disclosure of personal information and have expanded privacy protections in response to new threats to this fundamental right. In our efforts to defend the privacy of telephone records from unauthorized access, EPIC has recognized the importance of the neutral review offered by judicial process, which is a key issue with the Hemisphere Program.
EPIC’s Freedom of Information Act Request
On September 25, 2013, EPIC submitted FOIA requests asking for:
- 1) All Hemisphere training modules, request forms, and similar final guidance documents that are used in the day-to-day operation of the program;
- 2) Any analyses, memos, opinions, or other communications that discuss the legal basis of the program;
- 3) Any analyses, memos, opinions, or other communications that discuss the privacy impact of the program; and
- 4) Any presentations, analyses, memos, opinions or other communications for Congress that cover Hemisphere’s operations.
Freedom of Information Act Documents
- EPIC’s FOIA Request to the DEA (Sep. 25, 2013)
- EPIC’s FOIA Request to DHS (Sep. 25, 2013)
- EPIC’s FOIA Request to the ONDCP (Sep. 25, 2013)
- DEA Letter to EPIC (Nov. 13, 2013)
- EPIC’s Modified FOIA Request to the DEA (Nov. 15, 2013)
- EPIC’s FOIA Appeal to DHS (Nov. 20, 2013)
- EPIC’s FOIA Appeal to the ONDCP (Nov. 20, 2013)
- Response Letter from ONDCP (Dec. 19, 2013)
- Letter to Rep. Serrano from ONDCP Director R. Gil Kerlikowske Re: Budget for FY 2012 (Jul. 16, 2012)
- Letter to Sen. Durbin from ONDCP Director R. Gil Kerlikowske Re: Budget for FY 2011 (Oct. 19, 2011)
- Letter to Rep. Scott from ONDCP Director R. Gil Kerlikowske Re: Budget for FY 2010 (Mar. 16, 2010)
- Letter to Rep. Gohmert from ONDCP Director R. Gil Kerlikowske Re: Budget for FY 2010 (Mar. 16, 2010)
Legal Documents for EPIC v. DEA, 1:14-cv-00317 (D.D.C. filed Feb. 26, 2014)
- Complaint (Feb. 26, 2014)
- Answer (Apr. 7, 2014)
- DEA’s Motion for Summary Judgment (Sep. 29, 2014)
- DEA’s Amended Declarations
- EPIC’s Cross Motion for Summary Judgment and Opposition (Dec. 1, 2014)
- DEA’s Opposition and Reply (Dec. 22, 2014)
- EPIC’s Reply (Jan. 12, 2015)
- DEA’s Motion for Leave to File A Surreply (Jan. 20, 2015)
- EPIC Response in Opposition to DEA’s Motion for a Surreply (Feb. 3, 2015)
- DEA Reply in Support of the Motion for a Surreply (Feb. 4, 2015)
- Minute Order Granting Motion for a Surreply (Sept. 29, 2015)
- DEA Surreply (Oct. 6, 2015)
- Memorandum Opinion (June 24, 2016)
- DEA Supplemental Brief (Sept. 21, 2016)
- EPIC Response to DEA’s Supplemental Brief (Oct. 13, 2016)
- DEA Supplemental Brief in Response to June 17, 2019 Court Order (June 24, 2019)
Released Documents
Previously Released Documents
- Hemisphere Training PowerPoint, Sep. 1, 2013.
- Top-Down Study of the Drug Enforcement Administration Intelligence Division, performed by SAIC and ICF Incorporated, 2004
News Items
- Rachel Swan, The Wireless: Law Enforcement’s Secret Partnership with Phone Companies Makes Everything Transparent Except the Law, SF Weekly, Jan. 15, 2014.
- Zusha Elinson, Data Sweeps in Drug Cases Face Challenge, Wall Street Journal, Nov. 23, 2013.
- Nathan Freed Wessler, Government Refusing To Say Whether Phone Tracking Evidence Came From Mass Surveillance, ACLU Blog, Nov. 15, 2013.
- Linda Lye, Creepy Government Surveillance Shouldn’t Be Kept Secret, ACLU Blog, Oct. 15, 2013.
- Hanni Fakhoury, EFF Files Brief to Reveal the DEA’s Secret Use of Electronic Surveillance in Criminal Cases, EFF Blog, Oct. 15, 2013.
- Inquirer Editorial: Data trolling violates rights, The Philadelphia Inquirer, Sep. 5, 2013.
- Ezekiel Edwards, Drug Agents Have an NSA-Style Spying Problem, ALCU Blog of Rights, Sep. 4, 2013.
- DEA has more extensive domestic phone surveillance op than NSA, RT, Sep. 4, 2013.
- Catherine Crump, The Vast, Troubling Call Database Drug Agents Use to Identify Burner Phones, Slate, Sep. 3, 2013.
- Gene Johnson & Eileen Sullivan, Drug Agents Plumb Vast Database of Call Records, Associated Press, Sep. 3, 2013.
- In Secret AT&T Deal, U.S. Drug Agents Given Access to 26 Years of Americans’ Phone Records, Democracy Now, Sep. 3, 2013.
- Richard Esposito, DEA phone call database bigger than NSA’s, NBC News, Sep. 2, 2013.
- Drug agents reportedly have access to bigger phone database than NSA’s, Fox News, Sep. 2, 2013.
- James Ball, US drug agency partners with AT&T for access to ‘vast database’ of call records, The Guardian, Sept. 2, 2013.
- Gene Johnson And Eileen Sullivan, Drug agents plumb vast database of call records, Bloomberg News, Sep. 2, 2013.
- Michael Zennie, REVEALED: Secret program gives federal agents nearly instant access to BILLIONS of AT&T phone records without a court order, Daily Mail, Sep. 2, 2013.
- Evan Perez, DEA Program Linked to Vast AT&T Database, CNN, Sep. 2, 2013.
- Mike Levine, DEA Puts Phone Company Inside Government Offices, ABC News, Sep. 1, 2013.
- Scott Shane & Colin Moynihan, Drug Agents Use Vast Phone Trove, Eclipsing N.S.A.’s, New York Times, Sep. 1, 2013.

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