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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?"
Silly American government, spending taxpayers money buying personal data...
Our government *sells* personal data, saving the taxpayer money!
If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we shoot people for Apollo-related non-sequiturs?
This is pretty bad news for fugitives who want a FREE XBOX 360*!!!
Ok first off, this is an AP story - not a Yahoo! News story, because Yahoo! News doesn't write or report news any more than slashdot does, they just cut and paste.
But lets look down the bulleted list:
_A U.S. Labor Department employee who used her government e-mail address and phone number to buy two months of personal cellular phone records of a woman in New Jersey.
_A buyer who received credit card information about the father of murder victim Jon Benet Ramsey.
_A buyer who obtained 20 printed pages of phone calls by pro basketball player Damon Jones of the Cleveland Cavaliers.
OK, so these are individual people who happen to work for the Government - not the government itself, ie; it's not like theres the "department of buying phone records" set up somewhere.
I was watching MSNBC's "to catch a predator", the sting operation where they lure pedophiles to a house thinking there's a 13 year old waiting, and then bust them. One guy they busted was some sort of government official, but nobody started reporting the news that "Government is now molesting children!"
Blah, reactionary clap-trap "arrr we hate bush arrr".
As far as the NSA - they don't need to buy your personal information. They already have it.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
I use CASH for alll transactions
I take a different route every time I go somewhere
I use different public pay phones all the time
I use random public WiFi hotspots
I don't use the Internet
I don't surf Slashdot
I don't use electricity
I don't have any artificial fibers in my clothing
I am a mountain man, my wild plant eating skills are unsurpassed
And finally...
I drink Budwiser, the king of beers for paranoid people
-Eric
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
I don't really care if the government wants to find out how to better target their product advertisements. In fact, I prefer it because it should reduce the number advertisements that I have to watch for government products that I am not interested in.
Doh!
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
another expense column in a war on terror. But who's expense is it?
(end of post)
Numerous federal and local law enforcement agencies have bypassed subpoenas and warrants designed to protect civil liberties and gathered Americans' personal telephone records from private-sector data brokers.
These brokers, many of whom advertise aggressively on the Internet, have gotten into customer accounts online, tricked phone companies into revealing information and even acknowledged that their practices violate laws, according to documents gathered by congressional investigators and provided to The Associated Press.
So, the US Government, which tells us it is trying to protect us, is doing it by buying illegal records. What else is new?
When it comes to security, any kind of security, it's a black ops world. The Federal Government is not going to have any qualms about getting what it wants, precisely because it wields so much unfettered power. While we elect our President and Congressional Representatives, once we do, we tend to let them go their own way and the average American doesn't apply much oversight to them, unless they've done something blatantly wrong, and even then people don't always react appropriately.
So here's the Government, telling us it needs our phone records and plenty of people are like "oh sure, if it's for security reasons," little realizing that it doesn't matter if they give their ok or not -- the Feds will get the data, even if from admittedly illegal sources. Come on -- do you think spying on another country is "legal?"
Of course now someone is going to decide to sue the government, taking them to task for dealing with these brokers. There will be Congressional hearings on the matter, a lot of harrumphing, and in the meantime, the Government will simply find another way to get the data it wants.
GetOuttaMySpace - The Anti-Social Network
This is why neither companies nor government should have access to that data. Anyone who has it really needs to keep it confidential and be responsible if it gets out.
Government agencies freely buying information they are essentially constitutionally barred from having is BAD! I find it even more distressing that due to some of the extraterritorial implications of the PATRIOT act, US firms could cause *my* personal information to seep back into US control, and become US government property despite Canadian privacy laws which are supposed to prevent exactly that.
I used to respect the US constitution and system of government. Now, they're really beginning to scare me as they become more of a police state.
You have already lost to terrorism, time to stop pretending you still care about those constitutional protections and just roll over.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
This is why I love the conservative philosophy of government! They're the guys that respect privacy and limited government intrustion! Illegally gathering my phone records and then selling them to the government? Sounds good to me!
Basically, so long as fags can't marry, I'm 100 percent happy with my country right now.
How can it be legal to sell this information? I am not American so I don't understand the laws. I am used to laws where there are strict rules for all companies that holds personal information, what they can do with it and how they shall protect it.
Can you also sell personal information from websites? Like what people have visited etc.
Perhaps if you own a site where peole have used their credit card. Can you sell the information about what they have done?
I'm sure there's someone (probably LOTS of "soneones") in the .ru domain that could have sold all sorts of info to them for much, much less less - and it would be more up-to-date.
I can give them a better deal that the folks they're buying it from now. It's always fresher if you get it straight from the source.
This all comes down to what you are scared of and who you trust.
Are you actually worried that a terrorist is going to kill you? Are you really concerned about the dealers on the corner selling drugs or the kids next door smoking pot? What is it you are afraid of and why? Does the government need personal information on millions of americans to fight what you are most afraid of?
When I think about these questions I can answer them pretty quickly. I am more worried about being killed in a car crash than being blown away by terrorists. I don't care what people shoot/smoke/snort as long as they do it on their own property. What am I most afraid of? The government's reactionary and arbitrary laws. The government certainly doesn't need to know personal information about millions of american's to stay the fuck out of my life.
What I see is the USA spending 30 mil on things I'm not concerned about when they could have put it into education, public transportation, food for the poor, social-security, research, etc, etc. But the question needs to be asked: Why does the goverment want to spy on americans? Because the majority of the american publics wants the government to. Most american's want the government to tell gays they can't marry. Most people don't want grandpa to be allowed to smoke a bowl before going to bed. Most people want to fine radio and TV stations for making certain vibrations in the air!
Most people cannot handle freedom and they want someone else to tell then what they can and cannot do. We need to fix the people more than we need to fix the government.
I am a viral sig. Please help me spread.
A few things:
1) Apparently the "U.S. Fair Credit Reporting Act" explicitly prevents them from getting some kinds of information. Ever.
2) Someone (or multiple someone's) have given legal opinions that "The FBI said it relies only on well-respected data brokers and expects agents to abide by the law. "The FBI can only collect and retain data available from commercial databases in strict compliance with applicable federal law," spokesman Mike Kortan said Monday.
Basically, they've been told it's OK to buy information they're not supposed to have, from someone who may have used illegal means, because since it's at arms length (ie. no Federal employee needed to break a law) and not an organization who is bound to obey any consumer protection laws, it must be all OK. All of the crimes were comitted by other people who apparently don't have to follow the rules.
You know, it's like when Rumsfeld and Gonzales make any of their scary-assed interpretations on legal issues. We can torture them if we don't show photos or if we can keep it secret. We can deem constitutional protections don't apply to certain citizens when it's inconvenient. What Geneva convention? Trade agreements don't apply. That kind of stuff.
Scary, indeed!
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
http://www.gregpalast.com/massacre-of-the-buffalo- soldiers#more-1418
...
....
"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."
http://gregpalast.com/detail.cfm?artid=502&row=0
...
THE SPIES WHO SHAG US
by Greg Palast
I know you're shocked -- SHOCKED! -- that George Bush is listening in on all your phone calls. Without a warrant. That's nothing. And it's not news.
This is: the snooping into your phone bill is just the snout of the pig of a strange, lucrative link-up between the Administration's Homeland Security spy network and private companies operating beyond the reach of the laws meant to protect us from our government. You can call it the privatization of the FBI -- though it is better described as the creation of a private KGB.
The leader in the field of what is called "data mining," is a company called, "ChoicePoint, Inc," which has sucked up over a billion dollars in national security contracts.
Worried about Dick Cheney listening in Sunday on your call to Mom? That ain't nothing. You should be more concerned that they are linking this info to your medical records, your bill purchases and your entire personal profile including, not incidentally, your voting registration. Five years ago, I discovered that ChoicePoint had already gathered 16 billion data files on Americans -- and I know they've expanded their ops at an explosive rate.
They are paid to keep an eye on you -- because the FBI can't. For the government to collect this stuff is against the law unless you're suspected of a crime. (The law in question is the Constitution.) But ChoicePoint can collect it for "commercial" purchases -- and under the Bush Administration's suspect reading of the Patriot Act -- our domestic spying apparatchiks can then BUY the info from ChoicePoint.
****
It's worth reading, that and Choicepoint's responses. Palast (American with a BBC broadcast) has an entire chapter on the subject called "Double Cheese with Fear" in his book on the subject, "Armed Madhouse".
Stop trying to spin this story to your political ends. The list you give is halfway through the article, as an example of people who also use the service. It comes after a much longer list of government agencies that are using the services.
You deliberately lied, hoping that people would believe your summary and not read the story, didn't you? You hate it when "your team" looks bad, don't you? This isn't about partisan politics. Would you have the same dismissive reaction if it were a Democrat in office right now? Your "Arr, we hate bush, arr," comment gives your game away. No one is saying they hate Bush. We hate what the government is doing, and we'd hate it if it were a Democrat doing it.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
"Legal experts said law enforcement agencies would be permitted to use illegally obtained information from private parties without violating the Fourth Amendment's protection against unlawful search and seizure, as long as police did not encourage any crimes to be committed"
Would just love to see them try to use any of this court, by the simple fact that they are paying for illegally obtained information they are encouraging crimes to be committed
Also, as it is illegally obtained information, could very easyly be clasified as something simerlar as "recieving stolen goods"
Americans really needs to wake up to their information being sold left and right and get real laws to put a stop to it....and also stop giving it out to anyone who asks
The problem is that anyone can buy this information. Of course it's disgraceful that the government is using illegal or questionably legal means to gether information, but it's even more outrageous that anyone at all with a modest stack of cash can get this information.
What if someone holding a grudge against you decided to avail themselves of these services? Anyone here been involved in an acrimonious legal proceeding?
This is regrettably another in a long line of cases where government gets around the checks and balances in the system by getting third parties to do it - usually at extortionate rates. See also the use of Halliburton to replace the US Army engineers and the hiring of Blackwater USA as a form of 'Mercenaries R Us.'
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.
But you can extend such arguments back to any President you choose. Would we have had a 9/11 if Clinton had actually ordered the missile strike on Bin Laden, instead of being overly concerned about the political repercussions in the middle of the Lewinsky scandal? Just how much did Reagan know about selling arms to the Contra Rebels? Why did Kennedy feel compelled to launch the Bay of Pigs invasion when it would have been easier to simply bide his time and have Castro assassinated?
No President can be trusted wholly, even if everybody voted for him. Same holds for Congress. The power that these people get exposed to is intoxicating. When you sit at the highest peak, and the functioning of the country turns on the decisions you make, how hard is it to resist the urge to put your own personal predilections into play and shape the country as you see fit? Pretty hard, I imagine. It was just this kind of thing George Washington feared when he stepped down as President.
GetOuttaMySpace - The Anti-Social Network
So can we now use the Freedom of Information Act to request this data legally?
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
The reason a lot of us want the government to pay for health care is simple: 16% of Americans have no health care at all.
The reason a lot of us want increased federal spending for education is simple: there is huge inequity in school funding. The system was designed so that poorer people got poorer education, and richer people got much better education. It's part of the American class structure. (Off-topic: our education system is fucked from the get-go. We need a massive overhaul of our education system, from kiddy-garden up to the hallowed halls of the greatest University. We need a variety of schools, and we need equity between schools. There is a direct correlation between education and success in life.)
The great thing about both of these ideas is this: they can be monitored. Watched. Observed. And they can both be implemented by cutting our military spending in half. Granted, that would only give us a military budget three time greater than China, the second largest military spender. And maybe we'd only be spending more than the next 6 nations combined, rather than the next 14.
And these new programs could be monitored.
The expanded power Bush has granted himself was done without oversight. It was done without consent, or review, or even knowledge of others whom it affected. They did it in secrecy, which indicates they knew it was wrong. Bush has proven more than untrustworthy. He has betrayed America, and the world. And the worst part is, the same people who got their panties in a twist over a blow-job in the oval office are sitting by silently, like they are sports fans who support their team through even the worst losing streak.
This is a far cry from the desire to see everyone have access to basic medical care, or have the opportunity for a decent education. It doesn't require trust in the government. It just requires the recognition that something is deperately wrong in this country.
Oh, and the only gun control I'm for is the ability to accurately hit your mark.
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
It's amazing that in a consumer driven society the people with the most influence rarely effect a change as often as they bitch about it. It's not difficult to understand why this happens though. Even I would rather go snowboarding then march to washington and line Pennsylvania Avenue with fancy signs and flaming bags of poo.
I do vote though and write my congressmen about important issues -- which should be enough to effect a change IF more people would do the same.
Life is very much about competition, and crafty companies and governments hoard information and dish out only what they want you to hear. But then again, I bet you do the same thing on a personal level too. Only someone without self-preservation would share the same information with his or her boss AND coworkers AND spouse AND surley DMV worker, et al. Of course, companies and governments can do this on a larger scale and with a greater effect than you can, but it is the same thing and can be just as damaging. Granted there IS a difference between Ford's Pinto fiasco and not telling Jane Rottencrotch that you just gave her herpes, but just look through your local newspaper if you want real-world examples. But I digress...
In a society where people don't need to make any sacrifices -- EVEN DURING A WAR -- it's not surprising that the US public has slowly let companies collect more and more information. Whether you look at marketing companies, software EULAs, the actions of the RIAA or phone companies, or even the US Government, the story is basically the same: take without asking and check if anybody notices. Repeat.
Nobody wants to give a few minutes out of their schedules to pay attention or care about any sort of accountability. Data brokers have been operating legally for quite some time now, but I doubt public opinion of them has changed. They were bad news when they started and they're still bad news today. Perhaps more people know about them today, but does that mean more people will do something about them? It's OK as long as it's not in my backyard.
Instead of being shocked and annoyed that the US Government would utilize information from legal data mining companies, realize that: your fellow citizens do it to each other every day, and that you do have the power to do something about it.
It's almost noon. I need to finish my beer and get back to Langley.
Must your analysis of the situation be so technical?
Everybody knows that government is important, and necessary to provide services that people themselves are too stupid to provide.
Actually, our government is there to provide for common services that no individual, group, of individuals, city, or state can provide. I certainly can't defend the United States against a terrorist attack or attack by missiles from North Korea by myself. I've entrusted the Federal Government to provide for my defense, to hopefully provide some kind of retirement if I can't doit for myself, and to make sure the infrastructure of this country operates so that I can go about my daily tasks without having to worry if there will be roads, electricity, etc.
That said, the current structure of our Federal government is inadequate to the task. It's not about what's good for all Americans, but what's good for legislators and their cronies, on both sides of the aisle. Our Founding Fathers had the right idea, but they could not forsee the changes that would take place in technology and culture all over the world. But they did leave us an out: the ability to change and amend the Constitution to take into account these changes. I've said it for many years now: what this country needs is a Constitutional Convention, to bring the Constitution more up-to-date and to iron out inequities in the system.
GetOuttaMySpace - The Anti-Social Network
"If it's on the Internet and it's been commended to us, we wouldn't do a full-scale investigation," Marshal's Service spokesman David Turner said. "We don't knowingly go into any source that would be illegal. We were not aware, I'm fairly certain, what technique was used by these subscriber services."
Since when did "I didn't know it was illegal" become an acceptable response?
Eating the brains of your enemies does not make you smarter. But it's still fun.
The Bill of Rights is not an all-inclusive list. It just lists some of the specific rights that were felt, at the time, needed to be specifically enumerated due to recent experiences with the British Crown and its agents.
The Right to Privacy has been confirmed by SCOTUS as a fundamental right that is only to be violated with due process (meaning court-ordered warrants). Warren and Brandeis do a pretty good job of explaining it in this 1890 brief. While this largely applies to Right of Privacy from private interests, it applies also to the government. Never mind the fact that the US ratified the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which Article 17 of which states: "1. No one shall be subjected to arbitrary or unlawful interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to unlawful attacks on his honour and reputation."
Of course, the ICCP doesn't apply to US domestic law (only international law), exception are made in times of formally declared exigencies, and the US ratified with the disclaimer that Articles 1-26 are not self-executing.
However, ratification of this treaty serves to reaffirm the US's belief in the Right to Privacy as a fundamental humand right.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai