Submission + - WhatsApp Ordered To Help U.S. Agents Spy On Chinese Phones (forbes.com)
HillNKnowlton22 writes: U.S. federal agencies have been using a 35-year-old American surveillance law to secretly track WhatsApp users with no explanation as to why and without knowing whom they are targeting. A just-unsealed government surveillance application reveals that in November 2021, DEA investigators demanded the Facebook-owned messaging company track seven users based in mainland China and Macau. The application reveals the DEA didn’t know the identities of any of the targets, but told WhatsApp to monitor the IP addresses and numbers with which the targeted users were communicating, as well as when and how they were using the app. Such surveillance is done using a technology known as a pen register and under the 1986 Pen Register Act, and doesn't seek any message content, which WhatsApp couldn’t provide anyway, as it is end-to-end encrypted. Over at least the last two years, law enforcement in the U.S. has repeatedly ordered WhatsApp and other tech companies to install these pen registers without showing any probable cause but instead showing only "elements" of justifications. “Other than the three elements described above, federal law does not require that an application for an order authorizing the installation and use of a pen register and a trap and trace device specify any facts,” the government wrote in the latest application. American agencies can, therefore, continue to carry out surveillance on users of one of the world’s most popular messaging apps without having to provide any reason, either to a judge or the public.
