The US administration used customs regulations to access journalists' data

The US administration used customs legislation to bypass the court to gain access to data on telephone calls of journalists. This was reported by The Guardian.

According to the publication, the US Department of Homeland Security several times used the rule related to customs checks to obtain information about journalists without a court order. In particular, the mobile operator T-Mobile handed over to the department more than 10 thousand recordings of telephone conversations and messages of journalist Georgia Fort made over six months.

It is clarified that Google received a similar request from the authorities, but refused to fulfill the request because it did not see its connection with customs legislation.

The publication notes that federal prosecutors tried to gain access to the data of Georgia Fort and journalist Don Lemon in court, but were refused. In addition, the authorities' requests concerned other journalists, media outlets, public organizations and trade unions.