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Lawmakers ask GAO to investigate DHS use of customs summonses for secret surveillance of Americans
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Two congressional Democrats asked the GAO to audit DHS's use of administrative customs summonses to secretly obtain phone, financial, and social media records from companies without judicial oversight.
The practice lets investigators bypass judges entirely; in one case DHS obtained YouTube records from Google after a judge had twice rejected a warrant application for the same data. Companies receiving these summonses face pressure to comply and not notify users, even though privacy experts say the non-disclosure language is not legally binding.
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DHS's investigative arm used customs summonses to obtain phone records, financial data, and social media account information outside of customs matters and without court approval.
Wyden and Jayapal also asked the judicial conference to amend subpoena templates to clarify that recipients may disclose a subpoena's existence absent a court order.
Large tech firms sometimes ignore the non-disclosure requests, but companies in heavily regulated sectors like telecom and banking often comply out of fear of regulatory retaliation.
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