"DEA agents were regularly paying for and receiving private customer information." Rather than obtain a warrant for some mailed packages or consumer travel data, Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agents paid employees at private companies and other government agencies to simply hand over information. In a March 29 letter, Sens. Ron Wyden (D–Ore.) and Cynthia Lummis (R–Wyo.) asked the Department of Justice (DOJ) to put an end to this practice.
Wyden and Lummis noted that the DEA "has for years paid confidential sources, commonly known as informants, employed by other U.S. government agencies and companies as a means to access data held by those agencies and companies rather than using compulsory legal processes, such as an administrative subpoena or warrant, to request that data."
