Sen Peters pressed ICE on July 23 over its $2 million purchase of Graphite, the spyware tool that can covertly take control of phones and pull in messages, photographs, location information, and other personal data. The request puts a hard deadline on a purchase that raises immediate questions about who ICE used it on and whether the agency took it inside the United States.
Graphite and ICE's phone access
Graphite was developed by Paragon Solutions and is now owned by REDLattice, according to the facts provided. The tool can reach into a phone without the owner seeing it. That means the collection can move beyond a call log or a public social post and into private material that most people assume stays on the device.
Peters called the purchase “one of the most significant expansions of DHS and ICE's surveillance ambitions to date.” He also said, “Misuse of Graphite is not hypothetical,” after citing public reporting that more than 90 journalists and civil society members were targeted by the technology across several countries.
Peters' July 23 letter
The letter went to Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin. Peters asked ICE to say whether Graphite has been deployed domestically, who has been targeted, what legal authority supports its use, and how many U.S. and non-U.S. people were affected. He also asked where those people were located and why ICE bought the software in the first place.
He wanted contracts, privacy assessments, civil rights reviews, security policies, and records tied to a September 2024 agreement, an October 2024 stop-work order, and the contract's reactivation in August 2025. He gave ICE until Aug. 7, 2026, to respond with documents and answers on the spyware's use, oversight, and security.
DHS and ICE response
A senior DHS official told CBS News that the department and ICE are using technology in investigations and law enforcement while respecting civil liberties and privacy interests, a defense that clashes with Peters' warning that he was “deeply troubled about how Graphite might be used in the United States to target Americans.”
Peters' staff had already sought briefings from the Department of Homeland Security in December 2025 and from ICE in January 2026, but they never got a substantive response. The practical question now is whether ICE used Graphite inside the United States and, if it did, who was on the receiving end of that surveillance.
