Grand Theft America / Receipt power-2026-04-29-062
DHS buys real-time phone-location data
DHS awarded a contract for Penlink PLX, a system that aggregates and analyzes phone, text and internet activity. Prism reports the platform could enable DHS to track people's movements in real time; it is unclear how PLX collects location data. Civil-liberties lawyers argue the data-broker market lets the government obtain information it would otherwise need a warrant, court order or subpoena to get.
What happened
The contract supplements a $2.3 million no-bid contract awarded to Penlink the previous September for the ICE surveillance tools Tangles and Webloc. Penlink says the data is “lawfully obtained by law enforcement through established legal processes, such as subpoenas, court orders, or warrants.” The Electronic Frontier Foundation's Mario Trujillo: “In the past, to get location data, law enforcement had to use a warrant approved by a judge.”
Why it matters
Linking identity, biometric and commercial data expands the government's ability to identify, monitor and act against people at scale. It is tracked here under “Buy commercial data to skirt warrants”; the classification describes the documented institutional risk, not a claim about motive.
Receipt details
- Phase 1
- Build a surveillance machine
- Buy commercial data to skirt warrants
