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Today, federal lawmakers sent a letter to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) demanding information on any plans Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has to use Graphite, a spyware program that can access — without the owner’s knowledge or consent — a phone’s location data, photos, and encrypted applications, including WhatsApp and Signal.
Last year, the Biden administration paused the contract with Paragon Solutions, which operates Graphite, while it conducted a review to ensure it complied with an executive order issued in 2023 which limits the government’s use of spyware. In August, the Trump administration lifted the stop work order, news that was first reported by All-Source Intelligence.
The letter to DHS Secretary Kristi Noem was signed by Democratic Reps. Summer Lee (Pennsylvania), Shontel Brown (Ohio), and Yassamin Ansari (Arizona).
The lawmakers asked Noem to provide information on the government’s use of surveillance technology by October 14, including “a comprehensive list of data surveillance targets and ICE’s strategy for deploying spyware or mass data surveillance within the United States.”
The lawmakers warned that allowing ICE to use to spyware “threatens Americans’ freedom of movement and freedom of speech.”
“Given the Trump Administration’s disregard for constitutional rights and civil liberties in pursuit of rapid mass deportation, we are seriously concerned that ICE will abuse Graphite software to target immigrants, people of color, and individuals who express opposition to ICE’s repeated attacks on the rule of law,” they wrote.
Paragon was founded in 2019 by former Israeli military intelligence officers who worked in the Israeli military’s Unit 8200. Last year, the Florida-based private equity firm, AE Industrial Partners, bought Paragon.
Recently, Microsoft blocked Unit 8200’s access to its cloud software after an investigation published in The Guardian revealed that the unit was using the cloud to store information on Palestinians — information that was then used to plan deadly attacks on Gaza.
Paragon has been repeatedly accused of violating people’s human rights. Earlier this year, the company was embroiled in a scandal after investigations revealed that the software had been used to spy on activists and journalists in Europe.
“There’s no link to click, attachment to download, file to open or mistake to make,” John Scott-Railton, a senior researcher at the Citizen Lab, told the Associated Press of Graphite. “One moment the phone is yours, and the next minute its data is streaming to an attacker,” he said.
Researchers with The Citizen Lab, based at the University of Toronto, conducted a forensic analysis of two reporters’ phones — “a prominent European journalist” who asked to remain anonymous, and Italian journalist Ciro Pellegrino. Both journalists’ phones were targeted with Graphite, according to the researchers’ report released in June.
Amnesty International says Graphite “can never be human rights compliant and should be banned.”
“Paragon’s Graphite spyware product is a form of highly invasive spyware capable of covertly accessing the most intimate and sensitive data on an individual’s phone, and cannot be independently audited,” the group said in March.
The letter to Noem comes as the Trump administration has targeted anyone it perceives as an enemy, including pro-Palestine activists, anti-ICE protesters, and Democratic elected officials. On Friday, the administration deported award-winning journalist Mario Guevara for livestreaming law enforcement activities, which is protected by the First Amendment.
In comments to Truthout on Monday, Lee said that she will “not allow ICE to operate in the shadows.”
“Once that kind of surveillance is allowed, it rarely stays limited to whatever the government claims it is for,” she said. “History shows what happens when governments are given this kind of unchecked access. It leads to intimidation, to silence, to control. And too often, it is immigrants, organizers, and people speaking out for justice who feel it first. Our responsibility is to protect civil liberties, not surrender them.”
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