The Hampton Roads Telephone Analysis Sharing Network was a program through which law enforcement agencies in five

Virginia Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States, between the Atlantic Coast and the Appalachian Mountains. The geography and climate of the Commonwealth ar ...

cities access a shared database containing phone records and contents of seized mobile devices. The program was active from 2012 to 2015.

Participating cities

Hampton Hampton may refer to: Places Australia *Hampton bioregion, an IBRA biogeographic region in Western Australia *Hampton, New South Wales *Hampton, Queensland, a town in the Toowoomba Region * Hampton, Victoria Canada * Hampton, New Brunswick *Ha ...

Newport News Newport News () is an independent city in the U.S. state of Virginia. At the 2020 census, the population was 186,247. Located in the Hampton Roads region, it is the 5th most populous city in Virginia and 140th most populous city in the Uni ...

Norfolk Norfolk () is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in East Anglia in England. It borders Lincolnshire to the north-west, Cambridgeshire to the west and south-west, and Suffolk to the south. Its northern and eastern boundaries are the No ...

Chesapeake Chesapeake often refers to: *Chesapeake people, a Native American tribe also known as the Chesepian * The Chesapeake, a.k.a. Chesapeake Bay *Delmarva Peninsula, also known as the Chesapeake Peninsula Chesapeake may also refer to: Populated plac ...

Suffolk Suffolk () is a ceremonial county of England in East Anglia. It borders Norfolk to the north, Cambridgeshire to the west and Essex to the south; the North Sea lies to the east. The county town is Ipswich; other important towns include Lowes ...

Sharing

Participating agencies have, through a memorandum of understanding, agreed to "share telephone intelligence information derived from any source with the (task force) including: subpoenaed telephone call detail records, subpoenaed telephone subscriber information, and seized mobile devices."

Controversy

Rob Poggenklass, an

ACLU The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is a nonprofit organization founded in 1920 "to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to every person in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States". T ...

staff attorney, stated that the program violates Virginia's Government Data Collection and Dissemination Practices Act. The

Virginia State Police The Virginia State Police, officially the Virginia Department of State Police, conceived in 1919 and established in 1932, is the state police force for the U.S. state of Virginia. The agency originated out of the Virginia Department of Motor Vehi ...

stated that they declined to join, citing the same statute.

Termination

In 2015, Chesapeake asked Virginia Attorney General

Mark Herring Mark Rankin Herring (born September 25, 1961) is an American lawyer and politician who served as the 47th Attorney General of Virginia from 2014 to 2022. A Democrat, he previously served in the Senate of Virginia since a 2006 special election, ...

for a formal opinion on whether the program was legal under Virginia law. The official response delivered in November 2015 was that the examination was closed because the program had been terminated. Newport News Police Chief Rick Myers said that the task force had joined a federal data-sharing program which required search warrants.

References

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External links

Government Data Collection and Dissemination Practices Act

Hampton Roads Telephone Analysis Sharing Network Memorandum of Understanding
Privacy of telecommunications Privacy law in the United States