The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has been found to have improperly kept Chicago Police Department records for seven months, violating domestic espionage rules. The data was collected by DHS's Office of Intelligence and Analysis (I&A) as part of an experiment to test if police files could be fed into the FBI watchlist. The records included information on roughly 900 residents accused of gang ties.
The I&A field officer who initiated the transfer had left their post, leaving a staffing gap that went unaddressed. The data was stored on a federal server without proper oversight, and it wasn't deleted as required by law until November 21, 2023.
An investigation found that nearly 800 files were kept in violation of DHS's own rules, breaching domestic intelligence operations designed to prevent targeting legal US residents. The experiment collapsed due to mismanagement and oversight failures.
The lapse highlights the failure of federal intelligence officers to sidestep local sanctuary laws. Spencer Reynolds, a senior counsel at the Brennan Center, notes that this episode illustrates how federal agencies can circumvent policies protecting residents from immigration enforcement.
The incident also raises concerns about the scope of watch-listing activities and their potential impact on millions of Americans. The inclusion of data on US citizens in the Terrorist Screening Dataset has been criticized for its potential to justify targeting family members, churches, food banks, and others who support immigrants.
A subsequent review by Congress found that I&A still lacks basic controls needed to track how intelligence is collected and used. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) reported in July that I&A's internal list of offices conducting intelligence work hadn't been updated in nine years, leading to fragmented policy and compliance.
The DHS has pledged new procedures and set deadlines stretching into the new year, but it remains unclear what corrective steps were ultimately taken following the incident.
The I&A field officer who initiated the transfer had left their post, leaving a staffing gap that went unaddressed. The data was stored on a federal server without proper oversight, and it wasn't deleted as required by law until November 21, 2023.
An investigation found that nearly 800 files were kept in violation of DHS's own rules, breaching domestic intelligence operations designed to prevent targeting legal US residents. The experiment collapsed due to mismanagement and oversight failures.
The lapse highlights the failure of federal intelligence officers to sidestep local sanctuary laws. Spencer Reynolds, a senior counsel at the Brennan Center, notes that this episode illustrates how federal agencies can circumvent policies protecting residents from immigration enforcement.
The incident also raises concerns about the scope of watch-listing activities and their potential impact on millions of Americans. The inclusion of data on US citizens in the Terrorist Screening Dataset has been criticized for its potential to justify targeting family members, churches, food banks, and others who support immigrants.
A subsequent review by Congress found that I&A still lacks basic controls needed to track how intelligence is collected and used. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) reported in July that I&A's internal list of offices conducting intelligence work hadn't been updated in nine years, leading to fragmented policy and compliance.
The DHS has pledged new procedures and set deadlines stretching into the new year, but it remains unclear what corrective steps were ultimately taken following the incident.
This is just great, a federal agency can't even be bothered to delete old records after 7 months, who knows how many people's lives are being messed with because of this? 
It's like they're just playing with fire and everyone else gets burned. And what's up with the lack of oversight? I mean, come on, a staffing gap goes unaddressed for months? That's not just incompetence, that's negligence. 
I mean, can you believe that some dude just left his job without covering his shift and now we've got 800+ innocent Chicago residents on the FBI watchlist because of it? 
It's like, come on guys! Get your act together! The lack of oversight is insane. I'm all for keeping us safe, but not at the expense of our rights as Americans. And what's with this experiment thingy anyway? Can't they just get their priorities straight? 
Anyway, hope this whole mess gets sorted out ASAP 
And it's not just the data itself, but the fact that they were experimenting with putting US citizens' info on some kind of watchlist without checking in with local authorities first. It's like, what's next? Targeting people who volunteer at food banks or attend church services? 
The whole experiment was flawed from the start because of mismanagement and lack of oversight. 
That's not right! 
and now they're trying to spin it as if they're just 'following procedure'? 
we need real transparency here and some actual accountability from these folks 
. This incident raises so many questions about how our intelligence agencies are managed and who's actually watching over them 
. It's good that Congress is taking a closer look, but it's also super important for these agencies to have some basic controls in place 
. Can we get an update on what actually got done after this incident? 
.
. The inclusion of US citizens' data on watchlists raises significant concerns about the potential for targeting innocent individuals and communities who support immigrants 
. I'm cautiously optimistic that DHS has pledged new procedures, but it remains to be seen whether these steps will ultimately address the root causes of this incident 
.
And the fact that it took a congressional review to figure out what went wrong is just another example of government inefficiency... we need real reform here! 
anyway this whole thing fell apart because of mismanagement 
and now they're trying to fix it but i'm not sure if they'll actually get it right 
what's the point of having watchlisting activities if we're gonna end up targeting innocent ppl? 
. And now they're saying that I&A still doesn't have the right systems in place to track what they're doing... it's just so messed up 
. And now we know that nearly 800 people had their personal info floating around for months, just waiting to be exploited... it's crazy 
. I mean, how did this experiment even happen? Who signed off on it? It feels like a classic case of federal agencies trying to do things on their own without following the rules 
.
? It's like, what even is going on here?! 
. I don't think I'd want my info out there in the wild either 
, stat! We need to make sure these agencies have checks in place so this doesn't happen again 
this is a total fail on DHS's part - how can they mess up something as simple as deleting files after 7 months?! 
this is so worrying 
i mean who else's personal info do you think would be just lying around on a server without anyone checking? 
it's crazy to think that our own government can mess up something like this 
meanwhile 900 people's records are out there somewhere... what if they get targeted because of this 
? I mean, there's still no clear answer on what corrective steps were taken after it was discovered. It's like they're trying to pretend everything is fine when, in reality, something serious happened here 
.