70 Lawmakers Demand Probe into ICE's Warrantless Location Data Purchases

A group of 70 US lawmakers has called on the Department of Homeland Security's inspector general to investigate whether its agencies, including US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), illegally purchased Americans' location data without first obtaining warrants. The demand follows revelations about ICE's $2.3 million contract with data broker PenLink, which lawmakers have labeled as 'shady.' The concern centers on the practice of law enforcement and government agencies circumventing Fourth Amendment protections by purchasing commercially available location data from brokers, rather than obtaining it through court-ordered warrants. This data is often aggregated from ordinary smartphone apps. The lawmakers' letter argues that warrantless purchases violate the Supreme Court's Carpenter decision, which found that accessing historical cell-site location information constitutes a search under the Fourth Amendment. The investigation call targets DHS's Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Customs and Border Protection, and the Secret Service, questioning the legality and scale of their data acquisition practices.