{"id":352942,"date":"2026-09-21T23:36:08","date_gmt":"2026-09-21T23:36:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/352942\/"},"modified":"2026-09-21T23:36:08","modified_gmt":"2026-09-21T23:36:08","slug":"myrie-launches-probe-into-dhss-quest-of-new-yorkers-data","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/352942\/","title":{"rendered":"Myrie launches probe into DHS\u2019s quest of New Yorkers’ data"},"content":{"rendered":"

A probe is underway into federal surveillance practices as a New York state senator seeks answers on the potential efforts from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to obtain New Yorkers\u2019 data.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s after state Democratic Sen. Zellnor Myrie sent a formal letter<\/a> to DHS and made similar inquiries of other major companies.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are potentially seeing a federal administration that is unconstitutionally violating people\u2019s privacy,\u201d said Myrie. \u201cIt could be the case that, right now, you have had your phone records, your bank records, other private records subpoenaed, asked for without a judicial warrant, without going through the process.\u201d<\/p>\n

In his letter to DHS, Myrie writes:<\/p>\n

\u201cPublic court filings, the Department of Homeland Security\u2019s own Inspector General\u2019s warnings, and feedback from constituents all indicated that since at least January 2025, DHS has used various methods \u2013 including, but not limited to, administrative warrants that do not need judicial approval to obtain personal or otherwise private information of individuals from third parties such as Meta, X, Redditt, Google, PayPal\/Venmo, T-Mobile and local law enforcement.\u201d<\/p>\n

Myrie, chair of the state Senate\u2019s Codes Committee, is seeking information about the agency\u2019s requests.<\/p>\n

In inquiries to the companies, Myrie asked how they \u201cevaluate government demands for customer information and the process for notifying users when their information is disclosed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Myrie shares what he believes the federal government is after, \u201cPart of this is just straight up intimidation. This is to discourage any sort of political dissent. This is to send a message that if you disagree with us, and you have the gall, you have the courage to step up and say something about it, we\u2019re going to come after you and we\u2019re going to try and expose you.\u201d<\/p>\n

When reached for comment, Meta referred Spectrum News 1 to its online transparency center<\/a> which explains how it handles government requests for user data.<\/p>\n

It reads in part:<\/p>\n

\u201cMeta has a dedicated, trained Law Enforcement Response Team (LERT) that reviews and evaluates every government request for user data individually, whether the request was submitted related to an emergency or through legal process obtained by law enforcement or national security authorities. This team ensures that all requests are consistent with applicable law and our policies.\u201d<\/p>\n

Spectrum News 1 also reached out to X, AT&T and the Department of Homeland Security for comment. We did not immediately hear back.<\/p>\n

Myrie said some of the companies have responded to his office, but at this time he isn\u2019t at liberty to share which ones. He said the conversations are \u201congoing\u201d and in coming weeks, he anticipates he will share his office’s findings with the public, including which companies responded and who didn\u2019t to his inquiries.<\/p>\n

Myrie also said if needed, he will seek legislation to protect New Yorkers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A probe is underway into federal surveillance practices as a New York state senator seeks answers on the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":352943,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[206,9,11,10,49,51,50,12,5304,112,108,87,200],"class_list":["post-352942","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-albany-capital-region","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news","tag-new-york-state","tag-new-york-state-headlines","tag-new-york-state-news","tag-news","tag-nicole-neuman","tag-ny-state-of-politics","tag-ny-state-of-politics-blog","tag-politics","tag-vod"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/352942","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=352942"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/352942\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/352943"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=352942"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=352942"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=352942"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}