US prosecutors refuse to say if they secretly obtained Don Lemon’s phone records

Experts have expressed deep concerns that the practice runs afoul of the fourth amendment’s right to privacy Federal prosecutors have declined to say whether they secretly obtained phone records for the journalist Don Lemon using an unusual administrative summons, his lawyers said in a Monday court filing , highlighting concern about a controversial legal authority the government has claimed to gather information as it charged Lemon and dozens of others with civil rights crimes in connection to a January protest at a church in Saint Paul, Minnesota.

In January, officials served Verizon with an administrative summons for a log of Lemon’s phone records between 19 December and 20 January.

The subpoena did not come from a grand jury, as is typical in criminal investigation, and also was not a court-approved search warrant.

Instead, it was a unilateral request from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which said it was requesting the information under 19 USC 1509 – an obscure law that gives the department power to investigate records related to customs issues.

Experts say the government is abusing that authority to gather records on journalists, activists, unions, non-profits and online critics, and have expressed deep concerns that the practice runs afoul of the fourth amendment’s right to privacy.

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