Sen. Wyden revealed that the Arizona attorney general’s office, in collaboration with the Phoenix Field Office of the Department of Homeland Security’s Homeland Security Investigations, had engaged in the indiscriminate collection of money transfer records for transactions exceeding $500 sent to or from Arizona, California, New Mexico, and Texas, as well as to or from Mexico.Any time anyone in the U.S. used companies like Western Union or MoneyGram to send or receive money to or from one of these states or Mexico — whether to send a remittance home, or help a relative with an emergency expense, or pay a bill — a record of their transaction was deposited into a database controlled by the Arizona attorney general and shared with other law enforcement agencies.Because members of marginalized communities rely heavily on these services rather than traditional banks, the burden of this government surveillance falls disproportionately on those already most vulnerable to law enforcement overreach.That year, the Arizona attorney general attempted to identify money transfers related to illegal activity and decided to issue administrative subpoenas to Western Union seeking information on all money transfers for more than $300 to or from a particular state in Mexico.This means the Arizona attorney general’s office knowingly issued 140 illegal subpoenas to build an invasive data repository."