U.S. Gov't Spent $30M On Citizens' Personal Info

infosec_spaz writes "According to a news story on Yahoo! News, the U.S. Government has spent US$30 million in the last year on buying citizens' personal phone records from online brokers...The very ones who Congress is trying to put out of business." From the Article:"Congressional investigators estimated the U.S. government spent $30 million last year buying personal data from private brokers. But that number likely understates the breadth of transactions, since brokers said they rarely charge law enforcement agencies any price." "So...who is getting all of BellSouth, SBC(AT&T) and other phone records?"

Comments

Pardon my language, but...

[bombadier_beetle]

What the fuck? What the fucking fuck?

Feel free to mod me down, I just needed to vent. I've absolutely had it with this administration - of course, I find myself saying that every couple of weeks or so.

What really blows my mind...

[Descalzo]

is the almost total trust people have in our government in other areas. For example, you don't want the government to have access to your phone records, but you have no problem with them telling your child what to think (if you don't think federal funding of education gives any control over what your child learns in school, think again), or no problem with the government holding all the guns, or no problem with the government being the only person who can pay your doctor.

I don't, of course, know that you trust the government to do all of these things. I just hear lots of arguments telling me how little the government can be trusted, then we start hearing about 'increased federal funding of education is good,' and 'nationalized health care is good,' and 'gun control is good.' It seems completely inconsistent to me.

I have a friend who is very much anti-Bush. This is a man who sees real reasons to mistrust Bush. He is suspicious of our president on every count. This is a good thing. I think Bush has shown himself untrustworthy in many areas. Yet this same friend wants to give over his family's health care into his (and his cronies') hands. He wants to give this government control over who gets to do business with him and how they do business. I just don't get it.