Democratic Senator Ron Wyden has called on the U.S. government to examine the use of hacking tools and spyware by federal law enforcement agencies against American citizens. He highlights the lack of transparency regarding the frequency and reasons for deploying these tools.
On Friday, Wyden sent a letter to the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO), which is responsible for auditing the federal government. He requested a thorough investigation into the use of hacking and spyware by the FBI, the Drug Enforcement Administration, ICE’s Homeland Security Investigations, and the Secret Service.
In his letter, shared with JS, Wyden expressed that despite being in use for over two decades, there is minimal public information about the scope, frequency, or operational safeguards of these tools.
Wyden pointed out that unlike wiretaps and pen registers, which provide data on call details, the government does not release annual reports on hacking operations. Consequently, he asked the GAO to issue an unclassified report detailing its findings and recommendations.
Federal agents have utilized hacking tools and spyware numerous times, but Wyden noted that the U.S. Department of Justice and the FBI have historically ignored congressional calls for increased transparency across various administrations.
Wyden is requesting the GAO to:
- Investigate if agents have misused hacking tools and spyware for unauthorized or personal purposes, and to assess the technical and oversight measures in place to prevent such misuse;
- Examine how agencies acquire, store, and secure these tools to prevent leaks, and whether they submit them to a program designed to report security flaws to help tech companies address them;
- Evaluate how federal agencies inform courts when seeking warrants for these tools and whether they disclose the risk of impacting unknown or innocent individuals.
To underscore the risks related to acquiring hacking tools, Wyden cited the case of Peter Williams, an executive at the defense contractor L3Harris, who stole and sold advanced hacking tools to a Russian broker. These tools were used by Russian spies against Ukraine and Chinese cybercriminals against cryptocurrency owners.
The earliest known instance of the FBI using spyware dates back to 1999. During an investigation into illegal gambling and loan sharking, federal agents discovered that Philadelphia mobster Nicodemo S. Scarfo used Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) to encrypt a file on his computer, which they believed was crucial evidence.
To access the file, the FBI installed rudimentary malware to record the keystrokes on Scarfo’s computer, enabling them to decrypt the file.
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