The phones of several top Trump-era United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials were deactivated when they left their posts and the data contained in them was likely erased, a court document released late last week shows.
The revelation came in a public records dispute between ICE and watchdog group American Oversight, which sought emails and text messages from former interim ICE directors Thomas Homan, Matthew Albence and Ronald Vitiello in a controversial case related to the immigration.
It follows recent controversies over deleted government phones and deleted text messages, including the potential loss of information relevant to investigations into the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol.
“We cannot stand by as agency after agency admits that it destroys public records,” said Heather Sawyer, executive director of American Oversight, in a statement. “Text messages often contain crucial information about what federal officials are doing and why they are doing it. The obligation to retain these records is not optional – it is the law.”
In Friday’s filing, ICE Chief Technology Officer Richard Clark said the agency could not provide information requested by American Oversight, attested that the phones of most employees named in the lawsuit were disabled and noted that it indicated that the data cell phone were was clean. American Oversight claims that many of the devices were wiped after the organization requested text messages from employees in 2019.
Under Trump-era rules, ICE instructed employees to erase data from their agency-issued cell phones when they return their devices or leave the agency, according to the court filing.
That guidance, issued in November 2017, along with a subsequent memo from 2018, mandated that employees be responsible for cleaning their phones and saving separate records if official business was conducted over the phone.
Such as CNN reported earlier this month, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said it would immediately stop wiping the mobile devices of high-level officials and political appointees without supporting them, launching a 30-day review of policies and practices to withhold messages from text and other electronic devices.
The review followed weeks of heavy criticism over lost Secret Service text messages and revelations that the phones of top former DHS staffers Ken Cuccinelli and Chad Wolf were wiped after they left office.
It is unclear how the DHS review affects telephony policy at ICE, which is part of the department. THE CNN contacted ICE and DHS.
In a separate case brought by American Oversight, the Department of Defense was found to have wiped the phones of top Defense and Army officials who were leaving at the end of the Trump administration. This meant that all texts from several key witnesses to the events around January 6, 2021 were deleted.
The ICE filing released on Friday is part of a lawsuit by American Oversight and the Massachusetts ACLU that seeks records about Judge Shelley M. Richmond Joseph’s federal criminal prosecution, including the emails and text messages of senior officials. of the agency.
The Massachusetts state judge and a court official were charged in connection with the exit of a criminal defendant through the back door of a courthouse in April 2018 while an ICE agent waited in another entrance.
Source: CNN Brasil
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