CriticalSecurity & Privacy
DHS abuses 1930s customs law in attempt to get data on Canadian from Google
The Department of Homeland Security is reportedly misusing a 1930s customs law to obtain user data from tech companies for purposes unrelated to actual customs enforcement, including targeting individuals for online political speech critical of immigration enforcement. This represents a significant expansion of government surveillance authority and demonstrates how administrative subpoenas can bypass traditional judicial oversight, creating substantial legal and compliance risks for technology companies. IT leaders and CIOs must prepare for increased regulatory scrutiny, potential litigation costs, and pressure to strengthen data governance policies while balancing law enforcement cooperation with user privacy protections.
The Department of Homeland Security tried to obtain a Canadian man’s location information, activity logs, and other identifying information from Google after he criticized the Trump administration online following the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti by federal immigration agents in Minneapolis early this year. Lawyers for the man, who has not been named, are alarmed in part because they say that the man has not entered the United States in more than a decade. “I don’t know what the government knows about our client’s residence, but it’s clear that the government isn’t stopping to find out,” says Michael Perloff, a senior staff attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union of the District of Columbia who is representing the man in a lawsuit against Markwayne Mullin, the secretary of DHS, over the summons. The lawsuit alleges that DHS violated the customs law that gives the agency the power to request records from businesses and other parties. Perloff argues that the government is using the fact that big tech companies are based in the US to request information it would not otherwise be able to get. “It’s using that geographic fact to get information that otherwise would be totally outside of its jurisdiction,” he says. “I mean, we’re talking about the physical movements of a person who lives in Canada.”Read full article Comments