AT&T provides the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) with records of Americans' phone calls dating back to 1987 as part of a surveillance program that goes beyond the scope of the National Security Agency's (NSA) call collection, the New York Times reported Sunday.

Besides covering a longer time span, the program is unlike the NSA's data collection because it "includes information on the locations of callers," the report said.

"For at least six years, law enforcement officials working on a counternarcotics program have had routine access, using subpoenas, to an enormous AT&T database that contains the records of decades of Americans’ phone calls—parallel to but covering a far longer time than the National Security Agency’s hotly disputed collection of phone call logs," the Times wrote. "The government pays AT&T to place its employees in drug-fighting units around the country. Those employees sit alongside Drug Enforcement Administration agents and local detectives and supply them with the phone data from as far back as 1987."

By comparison, the NSA stores call data for five years. "Hemisphere," as the AT&T/DEA partnership is known, was described in a slide deck obtained by an activist through "a series of public information requests to West Coast police agencies" and then provided to the Times. The paper described them as "Hemisphere training slides bearing the logo of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy."

In Hemisphere, call records are stored by AT&T rather than by the government. The database "contains CDRs [call detail records] for any telephone carrier that uses an AT&T switch to process a telephone call," the slide deck states. Roaming information can identify the city and state from which calls are made. Because "hemisphere data will only indicate calls that hit an AT&T switch... the only way to get a complete and accurate picture of the target's phone activity is to subpoena and review a complete set of the carrier's CDRs."

Most of the subpoenas for "phone numbers of interest" are "administrative" ones, meaning they are issued by the DEA without needing approval from a grand jury or judge, the Times wrote.

The program lists numerous "success stories," including cases involving crimes other than drugs. In one February 2013 case involving a woman who made repeated bomb threats, "Hemisphere toll record analysis of the threatened businesses showed the calls were coming from a Verizon Wireless customer. With this knowledge, calls to destination searches were requested of Verizon Wireless revealing the actual number making the calls."

In another case, a man suspected of impersonating a two-star general and assaulting an agent at a Naval base in San Diego was apprehended after Hemisphere "was able [to] determine his new telephone number and provide cell site data leading to his arrest."

The slide deck notes that "4 billion CDRs populate the Hemisphere database on a daily basis." Within an hour of a call, the database can provide call detail records in response to federal, state, or local subpoenas. The Los Angeles branch of the program has processed more than 4,400 requests for data covering more than 11,200 telephone numbers since its start in September 2007. Requests are also processed out of Atlanta and Houston.

Hemisphere has apparently grown more broad over time. For example, "Hemisphere began providing subscriber information in July 2012 for AT&T phones… started offering mapping through the GeoTime software in July 2012… [and] introduced limited pinging for some phones in May 2013," one slide says.

Another slide lists these "unique project features":

Dropped Phones —the program uses an algorithm and advanced search features to find the new number.

—the program uses an algorithm and advanced search features to find the new number. Additional Phones —the program can often determine cell phones the target is using that are unknown to law enforcement.

—the program can often determine cell phones the target is using that are unknown to law enforcement. International Phones—the program provides CDRs for a tremendous amount of international numbers that place calls through or roam on the AT&T network. The information is provided in response to the standard Hemisphere administrative subpoena.

In one DEA case that led to the seizure of 100 pounds of meth, other drugs, $190,000, and five assault rifles, the dropped phone search helped identify "multiple replacement phones" and "multiple Mexican phones roaming in the US." The dropped phone search works by "systematically grading the common calls report" and then ranking potential replacement phones by probability.

Plus, agents using Hemisphere data "really pissed off the Hells Angel's":

The program is technically unclassified, but the government has attempted to keep it secret. "All requestors are instructed to never refer to Hemisphere in any official document," one slide states.

A total of four AT&T employees work alongside government employees in what's known as the "High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area" program's offices in Atlanta, Houston, and Los Angeles.

The Obama administration acknowledged the program to the Times, the paper's report states. "But they said the project, which has proved especially useful in finding criminals who discard cellphones frequently to thwart government tracking, employed routine investigative procedures used in criminal cases for decades and posed no novel privacy issues," the Times wrote. "Brian Fallon, a Justice Department spokesman, said in a statement that 'subpoenaing drug dealers’ phone records is a bread-and-butter tactic in the course of criminal investigations.'"

AT&T declined to answer any specific questions but said, "We, like all other companies, must respond to valid subpoenas issued by law enforcement."

American Civil Liberties Union Deputy Legal Director Jameel Jaffer told the Times that Hemisphere raises "serious Fourth Amendment concerns."