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Without any definitive evidence of a crime, a U.S. government department asked whatapp, a U.S. technology company, to monitor the calls of several foreign users, sometimes without even knowing their names.
Recently, the US "Forbes" website published a report that a search warrant issued in November 2021 by the Ohio court showed that the US Drug Enforcement Administration asked WhatsApp to monitor the communications of seven Chinese mainland and Macau users. In the search warrant application documents, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration knew nothing about the identity information of the targets it was trying to monitor, and only provided the IP addresses and numbers of their use of WhatApp, as well as when and how they used the app.
It is reported that WhatsApp is a communication mobile phone application owned by The American social media Facebook, with a total of more than 2 billion users worldwide in 2020, second only to Facebook.
The Drug Enforcement Administration asked WhatsApp to monitor this time to investigate for antibiotics from China, under the Pen Register Act of 1986. The agency requires whatsApp to install a monitoring tool called "pen recorder" that collects in real time information sent and received by users of specific IP addresses, as well as voice calls. However, because WhatApp uses end-to-end encryption, the information is not stored on the server and cannot be monitored as required.
Forbes reporters posted on social media
According to reports, when the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration files this type of surveillance request search warrant with the court, it only needs to state that the information it wants to obtain is related to the criminal investigation conducted by the government agency, and the court does not require evidence of the crime of the criminal. That is, U.S. government agencies can issue search warrants without providing any reason for requiring WhatsApp-like businesses to monitor users and carry out search and arrest operations.
Not only inside the U.S., U.S. government agencies are also using WhatsApp to monitor people overseas across borders. According to another Forbes report, WhatsApp had previously received orders from U.S. government agencies to monitor four people in Mexico. The order also required whatsApp to install a "pen recorder" monitoring tool to monitor the movements of the four people over the past 60 days.
Forbes reported that there are constant voices in the United States calling for changes to the 35-year-old law, citing violations of the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. However, there is currently no movement in the U.S. Congress to revise the relevant content. U.S. governments can still use WhatsApp to monitor its users without a definitive reason.
According to a report in Russia Today, a document leaked from the FBI in 2020 shows that WhatsApp is the most willing technology company to provide user data to U.S. authorities.
This month, the Swiss army banned WhatsApp and similar apps like Signal and Telegram in the military, citing data protection.
Source: China Daily