An Oregon senator says the Department of Homeland Security obtained millions of financial records of people who sent and received money transfers in Arizona, California, New Mexico, Texas and Mexico.
In a letter sent to DHS, Sen. Ron Wyden says a surveillance program conducted by the agency’s Homeland Security Investigations collected some 6 million records.
He says in a debrief last month his office was told the agency had been using a subpoena power called customs summons authority to pull records since 2019.
Wyden's letter alleges the collection was part of a larger effort by the Arizona Attorney General’s Office that dates back to 2006 and looks into money transfers of more than $500.
Wyden says the information has been put into a database and made available to hundreds of local, federal and state law enforcement agencies. He’s asking for a federal probe to see if the program was constitutional.
