Stopping DHS Domestic Surveillance: An Action Plan for the Biden Administration
Under President Trump, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has grown into a 60,000-agent-strong domestic surveillance agency. DHS has monitored online social media posts; tracked when and where the public drives; biometrically scanned people’s faces contained in driver’s license and social media photograph databases; and more. The unique danger of DHS’s combined law enforcement and surveillance power emerged this summer, when DHS agents began policing and surveilling protests in American cities and detaining protesters in unmarked vans.
President-elect Biden will inherit DHS’s infrastructure of dragnet domestic surveillance. On day one, President-elect Biden should use executive authority to begin dismantling it.
President Biden should take executive action directing DHS to:
Stop spending taxpayer dollars to fund companies that indiscriminately surveil the public. President Biden should direct agency leadership to terminate DHS contracts with commercial data brokers that indiscriminately:
- catalog where people live. DHS should terminate contacts with companies that exploit people’s need for water, heat, and electricity service to collect and sell their home address information, including DHS contracts with Thomson Reuters (CLEAR).
- monitor people’s use of social media. DHS should terminate contracts for services that secretly monitor the public’s social media activities, including the Visa Lifecycle Vetting Initiative (General Dynamics).
- track when and where people drive. DHS should terminate contracts for services that track when and where people drive, including DHS contracts with Vigilant Solutions (via Thomson Reuters) for access to automated license plate reader information.
- scan people’s faces using face recognition technology. DHS should terminate contracts for services that biometrically scan Americans’ faces using face recognition technology, including DHS contracts with Clearview AI for access to its web crawling face scanning system.
Stop biometrically scanning people’s faces. President Biden should reverse Section 8 of Executive Order 13780, providing for expedited implementation of a biometric entry-exit system. DHS should suspend the biometric entry-exit system, the Traveler Verification Service, and withdraw its corresponding Notice of Proposed Rulemaking. DHS should adopt a moratorium on face recognition searches of driver’s license databases maintained by departments of motor vehicles.
Stop collecting information about people seeking to care for asylum-seeking children. President Biden should direct agency leadership to terminate the April 13, 2018 memorandum of agreement (and accompanying system of records) that give DHS biometric and biographical information submitted by potential sponsors (and household members) of unaccompanied immigrant children. DHS should purge data collected pursuant to the April 13, 2018 memorandum.
Stop accessing personally identifiable information from schools, child welfare agencies, hospitals, and places of worship, or from departments of motor vehicles and utilities companies. President Biden should direct agency leadership to expand the October 24, 2011 sensitive locations policy by prohibiting access to or the collection of electronic records, physical documents, and similar materials derived from electronic databases, officials, or employees at sensitive locations and essential service providers.
Stop storing and disseminating personal information without statutory privacy safeguards. President Biden should reverse Section 14 of Executive Order 13768 (and agency memorandum), providing for revocation of Privacy Act protections for non-citizens’ personally identifiable information stored in government databases. President Biden should direct DHS to restore the January 7, 2009 Privacy Policy Regarding Collection, Use, Retention, and Dissemination of Information on Non-U.S. Persons.
Stop accessing DACA recipients’ personal information. President Biden should direct DHS to terminate deportation agents’ access to DHS records, including electronic records and databases, containing personally identifiable information from people who voluntarily applied to the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program.
With a stroke of his pen, President Biden could begin to dismantle DHS’s domestic surveillance infrastructure and restore Americans’ right to privacy. A long-term fix will require bipartisan congressional action. President Biden should not delay.
Harrison Rudolph is a Senior Associate with the Center. You can follow Harrison on Twitter at @harrisonsethdc.
