As the war on fentanyl in the US continues, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has announced that following its purchase of Israeli-made spyware, it has been able to hack into suspicious WhatsApp chats, even if they’re encrypted.

ICE purchased Paragon spyware for $2 million in 2024 to target fentanyl networks, but Biden’s administration initially blocked the contract over privacy issues.

In turn, the Trump administration reactivated the deal in August 2025 and has since raised concerns about surveillance, immigrant deportation quotients, and even drawn comparisons to China in its scale of monitoring on the population.

ICE Acting Director Todd Lyons, responding to legislative questions, wrote:

In response to the unprecedented lethality of fentanyl and the exploitation of digital platforms by transnational criminal organizations.

The spyware, named Graphite, can surveil a user's private chats and data, which raises concerns for everything stored inside one device, including health records and other personal data.

Three House Democrats previously raised red flags about ICE’s use of spyware, with representatives Summer Lee, Shontel Brown, and Yassamin Ansari leading the push.

Legislators have long been expressing their concerns regarding mass surveillance of both the American population and incoming immigrants tracked by ICE, and even foreign journalists have expressed concern regarding the issue.

In 2025, two Italian journalists were ominously tracked down by the Graphite software. These incidents are often logged and thought of as an infringement of civil liberties.

Paragon was established in 2019 by ex– Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak. It is mainly deployed in law enforcement and intended to track down international criminal and terrorist organizations.

Installed remotely, Graphite is almost undetectable, as under the hood, it can monitor a user's digital footprint and private activity.

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Meanwhile, fentanyl continues to be a major epidemic in the US, with the BBC reporting in 2023 on the fourth wave of overdoses, claiming the substance was responsible for over 66% of the 100,000 overdose deaths that year.

There have even been claims that the fatalities have entered their fifth wave, as the debate between surveillance and public protection swings both ways.

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