US government may have been spying on citizens with AT&T, claims report

The US government has reportedly been spying on its citizens for years, with telecom carrier AT&T in on this program. According to a report in Wired, a lesser-known surveillance initiative, the Data Analytical Services (DAS) program has been used to track over a trillion domestic phone records annually within the United States. This program is said to have enabled federal, state, and local law enforcement to scrutinise the phone data of countless Americans, including non-suspects and victims, for more than a decade.
According to an internal memo obtained by Wired, the program known as DAS initially went by the name of Hemisphere.It partners with AT&T and uses its infrastructure to collect and analyse call records for various law enforcement agencies across the United States. DAS not only focuses on individuals who are in direct contact with criminal suspects but is also claimed to extend its scrutiny to anyone connected to these individuals.
The program is said to formerly allow federal, state, and local law enforcement to access and analyse large amounts of domestic phone records spanning over a decade, including those of non-suspects and even victims. Through chain analysis, the program scrutinises individuals connected to suspected criminals without direct suspicion of wrongdoing.
According to the report, Senator Ron Wyden has expressed serious concerns regarding the legality of the Data Analytical Services (DAS) program and has addressed these concerns in a letter to US Attorney General Merrick Garland. In the letter, Wyden highlighted troubling information that was confidentially shared by the Department of Justice (DOJ). The information is classified as “sensitive but unclassified” and is forbidden from public dissemination, but could still potentially outrage the public if disclosed.
Leaked documents are said to have revealed the extensive use of DAS data by law enforcement agencies for various purposes. This, the report claims, includes identifying associates of suspects and solving cases that are unrelated to the original investigation.
Despite initial suspension and changing funding under different governments, the White House is said to have allocated over $6.1 million since the year 2013.