Democrats Demand Audit of Federal Agencies’ Secret Surveillance Subpoenas

Two congressional Democrats are calling for a sweeping investigation into what they describe as a decades-long pattern of federal law enforcement agencies using surveillance subpoenas to secretly collect Americans’ private records—then coercing the companies that receive them into silence under both Democratic and Republican presidents.Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon and Representative Pramila Jayapal of Washington sent letters this week to Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts and Acting Comptroller General Orice W. Brown of the Government Accountability Office, urging both to rein in agencies that they say routinely bully private firms into keeping government demands hidden from the very customers being surveilled.The examples they cite are wide-ranging. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, they say, has stretched its narrow customs-summons authority — meant only for trade and import violations — to unmask an anonymous Instagram account criticizing ICE operations, pressure news organizations to reveal sources, and demand records from a youth soccer league in Texas, a major abortion provider in Illinois, and an elementary school in Georgia. In one case, the Democrats say ICE’s Homeland Security Investigations arm sought six months of phone records for Minneapolis journalist Georgia Fort and asked Google for information on the YouTube accounts of Ms. Fort and former CNN anchor Don Lemon — even after a judge had twice rejected a related search warrant.The lawmakers argue the secrecy demands have no legal teeth, yet work anyway. “While these secrecy demands carry no force of law, their coercive effect is extremely successful,” Mr. Wyden and Ms. Jayapal wrote in their letter. “This leaves customers entirely in the dark about government incursions into their personal data.”Under federal law, agencies can compel companies to hand over customer records through administrative, grand jury, and trial subpoenas without a judge’s prior approval. But only courts can impose gag orders, and only in limited circumstances. Rather than seek those orders, the lawmakers say, agencies embed boilerplate language into their subpoenas instructing recipients to stay quiet and threatening vague legal consequences.That practice, they wrote, is entrenched across multiple agencies. ICE inserts silence requests into routine immigration subpoenas — even when secrecy is pointless. On July 8, 2025, Harvard University received three ICE subpoenas regarding international students, each with boilerplate demands for silence. “The absurdity of this secrecy demand was demonstrated the very next day,” the letter notes, when the Department of Homeland Security issued a press release celebrating the same enforcement action.The Drug Enforcement Administration and Department of Justice engage in similar tactics, the lawmakers say. For more than 40 years, the DOJ has instructed grand jury subpoena recipients “not to disclose the existence of this subpoena or the fact of your compliance for a period of 90 days,” warning that disclosure “could seriously impede the investigation.”The lawmakers say heavily regulated businesses — in telecommunications, pharmaceuticals, and banking — often comply out of fear of retaliation. “Companies like AT&T and CVS have explicitly cited these extra-legal government demands to Congress to justify their failure to notify customers,” they wrote.Mr. Wyden and Ms. Jayapal want the GAO to audit DOJ, DHS, and component agencies including DEA, ICE, and HSI, and asked the Judicial Conference to revise subpoena templates to make clear recipients may speak out absent a court order.

Democrats Demand Audit of Federal Agencies’ Secret Surveillance Subpoenas

Democrats Demand Audit of Federal Agencies’ Secret Surveillance Subpoenas

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