Slashdot Mirror
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?"
http://www.gregpalast.com/massacre-of-the-buffalo- soldiers#more-1418
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"African-American Soldiers Scrubbed by Secret GOP Hit List"
"A confidential campaign directed by GOP party chiefs in October 2004 sought to challenge the ballots of tens of thousands of voters in the last presidential election, virtually all of them cast by residents of Black-majority precincts."
"Here's how the scheme worked: The RNC mailed these voters letters in envelopes marked, "Do not forward", to be returned to the sender. These letters were mailed to servicemen and women, some stationed overseas, to their US home addresses. The letters then returned to the Bush-Cheney campaign as "undeliverable."
"The lists of soldiers of "undeliverable" letters were transmitted from state headquarters, in this case Florida, to the RNC in Washington. The party could then challenge the voters' registration and thereby prevent their absentee ballots being counted."
"The BBC obtained several dozen confidential emails sent by the Republican's national Research Director and Deputy Communications chief, Tim Griffin to GOP Florida campaign chairman Brett Doster and other party leaders. Attached were spreadsheets marked, "Caging.xls." Each of these contained several hundred to a few thousand voters and their addresses.
"A check of the demographics of the addresses on the "caging lists," as the GOP leaders called them indicated that most were in African-American majority zip codes."