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 U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern and Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States between the East Coast of the United States ...

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 *

Newport News Newport News () is an independent city in southeastern Virginia, United States. At the 2020 census, the population was 186,247. Located in the Hampton Roads region, it is the fifth-most populous city in Virginia and 140th-most populous city i ...

Norfolk Norfolk ( ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in England, located in East Anglia and officially part of the East of England region. It borders Lincolnshire and The Wash to the north-west, the North Sea to the north and eas ...

* Chesapeake *

Suffolk Suffolk ( ) is a ceremonial county in the East of England and East Anglia. It is bordered by Norfolk to the north, the North Sea to the east, Essex to the south, and Cambridgeshire to the west. Ipswich is the largest settlement and the county ...

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 an American nonprofit civil rights organization founded in 1920. ACLU affiliates are active in all 50 states, Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico. The budget of the ACLU in 2024 was $383 million. ...

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 Ve ...

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