Washington, D.C. – U.S. Senator Ron Wyden, D-Ore., called for the White House to release a report it commissioned examining the privacy impacts of surveillance activities funded by the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP), including a program that scoops up data from Flock cameras and other license plate readers across the country and a dragnet phone surveillance program called Hemisphere.
Wyden learned of the report as part of his oversight of the Hemisphere phone surveillance program, which mined trillions of American phone records under an arrangement between AT&T and the federal government. The White House ultimately ended that program in 2025 after repeated requests from Wyden and Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Ariz. The Hemisphere program was operated by the Houston High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area (HIDTA) program and paid for with funds from the ONDCP.
After Wyden began questioning ONDCP about its funding of the Hemisphere program, ONDCP informed Wyden’s staff that it had commissioned the nonprofit technology research firm MITRE to study privacy issues related to the HIDTA program. However, the ONDCP refused to share the report with Wyden’s office when it was finished in 2024, and has continued to keep it hidden from the public.
Recently, 404 Media reported that local law enforcement agencies are funneling data from Flock and other license plate reader cameras into a national database, also operated by the Houston HIDTA.
“Flock’s AI surveillance cameras have sparked a nationwide backlash against unnecessary government intrusion into Americans’ lives,” Wyden said. “As Congress debates solutions to protect our privacy and civil liberties, the MITRE report could provide important information about how these cameras and other surveillance programs are already impacting Americans’ rights. The White House should make MITRE’s findings public as soon as possible.”
Wyden was the first member of Congress to question Flock over its security and privacy practices, and has defended Americans’ privacy rights against unnecessary government surveillance for decades.
The full letter is available here.
###