U.S. Senator Calls for an Investigation Into Law Enforcement’s Use of Spyware
Democratic Senator Ron Wyden has asked the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) to conduct a comprehensive audit of how federal law enforcement agencies use hacking tools and spyware against Americans. TechCrunch reported this, citing the senator’s letter.
Wyden is asking the GAO to investigate the practices of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Internal Security Investigations Division of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and the Secret Service. In the letter, he noted that such tools have been in use for more than two decades, yet little information is publicly available regarding their scope, frequency of use, and operational safeguards.
The senator pointed out that the U.S. government does not publish annual reports on hacking operations—unlike its reporting on wiretaps and call logs. He therefore asked the GAO to prepare an unclassified report with findings and recommendations.
Among Wyden’s requests is to investigate whether agents have used such tools without authorization or for personal purposes, as well as to assess the technical mechanisms and oversight designed to prevent abuse. He also asked for an examination of how agencies acquire, store, and protect these tools to prevent dangerous leaks.
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Separately, the senator proposed determining whether agencies report vulnerability data to a government program that decides whether to notify technology companies so they can fix them. Another point concerns how law enforcement agencies inform the courts when seeking warrants to use such tools, particularly regarding the risks to unknown or uninvolved individuals.
As an example of the risks associated with the acquisition of hacking tools, Wyden cited the case of Peter Williams, the former head of defense contractor L3Harris. According to information cited in the letter, he stole and sold advanced hacking tools to a Russian intermediary; these were subsequently used by Russian spies from the aggressor state against Ukraine and by Chinese cybercriminals against cryptocurrency holders.
The earliest documented case of the FBI’s use of spyware dates back to 1999. During an investigation into illegal gambling and loan sharking, agents installed keylogging software on the computer of Philadelphia mobster Nicodemo S. Scarfo. This made it possible to decrypt a file encrypted using Pretty Good Privacy.
