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FBI Says Paper Trails Are Optional
WerewolfOfVulcan writes "According to this Washington Post article, the FBI says that it doesn't have to comply with even the unconstitutional provisions of the Patriot Act when asking for phone records. Apparently that whole due process thing doesn't include them. Funny thing is, they've apparently already been doing it for years." Quoting: "Under past procedures, agents sent 'exigent circumstances letters' to phone companies, seeking toll records by asserting there was an emergency. Then they were expected to issue a grand jury subpoena or a 'national security letter,' which legally authorized the collection after the fact. Agents often did not follow up with that paperwork, the inspector general's investigation found. The new instructions tell agents there is no need to follow up with national security letters or subpoenas. The agents are also told that... they may make requests orally, with no paperwork sent to phone companies. Such oral requests have been made over the years in terrorism and kidnapping cases, officials said."
Funny thing is, they've apparently already been doing it for years.
Oh yeah, that's funny. it's almost a real riot.
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
Well the committee for State Security, (Russian translation KGB) is alive and well in the USA. It now comes out what I have been posting for some time that this was an effort to trounce the constitution.
Never Politically Correct ~ I prefer the facts If you don't like what I say, get a life, or comment yourself.
I'd make a funny about "In Soviet Amerika", but it just ain't funny anymore.
We need to step on these bastards necks NOW.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
you're probably above the law too.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Well, phone companies have never had the greatest track record on upholding the rights of their customers, so it's no wonder the FBI tells its agents they don't have to fill out any paperwork. The companies just bend right over.
Some attitudes replaced or by cgi optimizes
I pick and choose the laws I obey as well, and after reading this, I feel even more vindicated when I do so.
Blar.
... bitch at your phone companies.
This isn't wire taps, this is getting your phone records. This is social engineering.
You could do this too, you don't have to be a federal agent.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
Well, of course it doesn't. What are you gonna do, call the cops? Oh, wait, the FBI are the cops!
Silly citizens.
Well yeah. If you were going to use the powers of the USAPATRIOT act inappropriately, why would you keep a paper trail? That way the worst you can be accused of is not keeping the record, not whatever it is you actually did.
Insufficient accountability morphs directly into a complete lack of accountability. Who is surprised by this? Who did not anticipate this over five years ago? Those who were blinded by fear. Everyone else was either outraged by the potential -- and thus innevitable -- abuse, or lying and appealing to the fearful. Don't worry, there doesn't need to be any safeguards because we promise to use our powers wisely and justly, and besides, don't you hate Terrorists?!
The enemies of Democracy are
Hmm. That law they cite provides a justification for a telephone provider to turn over records; it does not provide a justification for law enforcement to request the records. Semantics, but important.
That the law clarifies under what kind of emergency such requests can be made is good-with-a-capital-G. What remains to be seen is if the old definition of emergency ("I can't be bothered with paperwork") will continue to be the de facto reason for a subpoena-less request.
IMO, any federal agent who acts outside the law wrt information requests should be prosecuted. They've broken the law no less than someone who smoked a joint -- and the cumulative negative effects on society are probably far worse for those who act outside the law in the name of the law.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
No, this is abuse of authority.
This is about removing accountability.
We don't need a paper trail just for a paper trail. We need one to make sure that the requests are legitimate and fair.
All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.
eleven plus two / twelve plus one
"has told its agents they may still ask phone companies to voluntarily hand over toll records in emergencies by using a new set of procedures" ...
"The new guidance to agents cites a provision in federal law allowing a telephone provider to voluntarily turn over phone records to law enforcement figures "in good faith" if they "believe that an emergency involving danger of death or serious physical injury to any person requires disclosure without delay," a senior FBI official said."
Not that I think the phone companies should ever hand over such information voluntarily but the article seems to be saying FBI agents don't need a subpeona to ask, rather than demand, that a company give them your phone records.
I'd suggest that we actually discuss the content of the article but I think I know better by now.
Don't worry citizens, all you have to do is trust your government and obey the law. Then you can be assured that when the government asks questions, it's not about you. Because, as we all know, the FBI only makes requests about Bad Guys. The are from the Executive Branch, after all, and it's only the Judicial branch that feels you are "innocent until proven guilty".
At a certain point, citizens have to say that anyone who prefers to feel "secure" over living in society where all people are given due process should just leave.
the submitter seems to have his pants in a knot over the FBI's misconduct, but he fails to realize that all police in all countries try to pull dirty tricks like that, and have done so for many decades. The difference between a free society governed by the rule of law and a dictatorship is that, in a free society, telcos have the liberty and *duty* to tell the police to sod off and come back with a proper warrant.
That US telcos comply to such oral requests alone should tell you something of the state of this country, which is the merging of the corporate world and the state. As in country that have this other form of government...
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
That summary is completetly out of touch with the actual article. If you RTFA there is no mention of the Patriot Act, equally the /.summary doesn't even bother to mention the unconstitutional provisions of the Patriot Act in question.
Thanks for that completely useless and misleading article summary.
>
>
Hey, we're all pseudonymous here. Maybe FatSean is an elected official, in which case it'll work fine.
Is former Soviet Russia and fooling is be done on you.
Please see The White House for more information about this topic.
Regards,
Agent 119876662622
is anybody actually surprised by things like this anymore? I can honestly say that when the warrantless wiretapping first came to light, I was shocked by how little press the story received compared to other things and by its subsequent all-but-disappearance from the public eye. Perhaps there is a legal loophole somewhere that purportedly allows corrupt politicians to do whatever the hell they want in Washington, but I haven't seen it. As far as I was aware, on the day of his inauguration, President Bush swore to uphold the Constitution. He broke his oath. It doesn't matter whether or not he believes working around the Constitution was good for America; the simple fact of the matter is that he broke his oath, which is an act of high treason, as far as I'm concerned. Clinton's affair did not undermine the foundation of all of our freedoms that Bush speaks so highly of out of one side of his mouth while he hands out instructions to the Great American Wrecking Co. from the other.
I was pleased when the Democrats took Congress, because I (perhaps naively) thought that they would order an investigation and discuss impeachment. Nope, didn't happen. There was no trial, and nobody went to jail. I, a concerned citizen of this country, was left feeling unsatisfied and betrayed by the very government I am forced to pay to support. I'm growing tired of hearing about how the democratic process will repair these evils. How? When? How many of our freedoms will we lose before America wakes the fuck up and takes its dream back from these greedy, power-hungry criminals?
Why do we stand here idly watching while it seems like almost weekly some new affront on everything America used to stand for appears in the news? The USA is dying a slow, agonizing death, and "we the people" appear powerless to stop it. Is there anything we can do?
> I'd make a funny about "In Soviet Amerika", but it just ain't funny anymore.
Usually, those jokes illustrate something that's different in Soviet Russia than here, not something that's exactly the same in both places.
I just hope they don't discover Polonium 210 any time soon.
All they need to do now is start cracking down on dissent, intimidating, bringing false charges, etc, and we will be living in a real police state. Who said it couldn't happen here? Maybe next time I make a post like this it will be as an anonymous coward from a car parked in front of a starbucks.
Libertarian Leaning Political Discussion Forum.
How did they find out about this? Interviews?
on CSPAN radio. (What a life, eh?) Long story short - one rep said in response to the FBI saying "they'll do their best" to clean up the situation, was "If you don't clean it up, you won't have these NSO/NSL letters to worry about any more." (Taking them away).
The FBI counsel came back to that whole "in an emergency" thing, but they cannot gaurantee that it's an emergency. They couldn't even gaurantee it was part of an investigation (a requirement). What a mess we've created these last six years.
Leave the gun, take the cannoli -- Clemenza, The Godfather
This is a story about the FBI calling up and making a request that doesn't have the force of law. If you want to do something about this call up your phone company and ask what the policy is regarding oral requests from the FBI. If you don't like it, use a different one.
And we're not talking about wiretaps, here. We're talking about records of who you call. The courts have ruled, over the years, that this data is not yours. It belongs to the phone company. In fact, those court rulings are probably what prompted the change in policy.
Why am I not surprised at this development?
Much wiretapping in the US is actually outsourced to Verisign. Verisign's NetDiscovery center provides a full-service wiretapping service, with hooks into telcos, cellular networks, VoIP providers, cable TV systems, wireless data networks, and ISPs. Verisign's proprietary back door into the SS7 telephone signaling control network makes this not only possible, but allows Verisign to offer wiretapping services at a lower cost.
Verisign is extending their wiretapping network internationally. Italy is already hooked up.
So if Congress or the press wants to look into this matter, the place to go is Verisign's Network Security Office. Also, attending Intelligence Support Systems for Lawful Interception, Cybercrime Investigations and Intelligence Gathering Conference and Expo in May, in Washington, DC. "Now that most nations of the world require lawful interception support of VoIP and other IP-based services, ISS World Spring 2007 is a must attend event." Talks include "Best Practices for Successful Deployments of Word Spotting Technology" and "Content and P2P Monitoring and Filtering". Major topics for this year include inteconnecting multiple intercept systems to allow easier remote access.
Still free!
I was being sarcastic. I think anyone who abuses authority granted to them by the people of the USA should be shot in the face, and a bill for the bullet sent to their family. Corrupt cops and any other cops covering up for them, corrupt politicians and the people who cover for them, etc...
It'll never happen tho.
Blar.
Then this whole law thing has become a bit of a joke hasn't it?
Hahaha!
I was going to moderate this, maybe "Insightful," but then it descended into Trolldom. Making up gratuitous clever nicknames like "Foul Breathed Investigators" does nothing to bolster your argument; in fact it makes me (at least) focus on the name-calling rather than the argument. Attributing outright malevolence to Bush is also cliche by now.
You have a legitimate case to make about the abuses and expansion of government power.
Revive the Constitution.
If he had it this good, he would have been able to cross-dress in public, and he wouldn't get a second glance.
What?
Tough luck. You signed the agreement (also subject to change without noice) with the phone company when you joined. A private company or business of any kind does not have to protect the consumer's privacy regardless of the Constitution. If the government was running the phone company then there would be a problem. That is not the case.
Isn't this the same bunch of yahoos currently trying to push through an act that forces ISPs to keep a paper trail of user actions for law enforcement? Talk about "do as we say not as we do"!
The problem with the phone companies, the Federal Reserve, and, as I understand it, even the IRS, is they are privately owned and controlled interests. They are not owned by US voters. They are not transparent. Heck, many of the phone companies are not even in US hands!
Additionally, the US has a government (both sides of politics) which pays no regard to international norms or even the interests of their voters (such as health, education, housing), nor its own laws. So how can anyone expect the FBI which answers to a power which itself doesn't take any notice of the constitution or laws, to act within its own laws? Whilst there is no doubt a vast majority of FBI employees who are dedicated and truly patriotic - the institution isn't.
The same problem is found around the globe with privatization being rife.
The fewer assets a democratic government has, the less power it has. If a government does not control the nation's infrastructure, then, when you vote, your vote counts for very little, as everyone in government ends up totally compromised and at the whim of those who control the nation's infrastructure.
How can anyone trust such a system?
Do it yourself, because no one else will do it yourself. [beta blockade 10-17 Feb]
Even if wiretapping is a teensy bit OT from TFA, the Verisign stuff is still very interesting and consistent with the drift of this thread.
Then they were expected to issue a grand jury subpoena or a 'national security letter,' which legally authorized the collection after the fact. Agents often did not follow up with that paperwork, the inspector general's investigation found. The new instructions tell agents there is no need to follow up with national security letters or subpoenas. The agents are also told that... they may make requests orally, with no paperwork sent to phone companies.
If the feds didn't follow up with the required paperwork, then does this even qualify as a patriot-act request? Seems like the companies could follow up in next month's phone bill:
Dear Customer,
On Jan 1, 2007 the FBI invoked the patriot act to ask for the records of John Q Smith, saying they would provide us with a subpoena in a timely fashion to keep this request confidential.
The subpoena was never brought to us. We thought you might like to know.
Sincerely,
Phone Company
I am not a sig.
You know, even on the best of computers, sometimes you just have to reset. Memory leaks, background processes fail to exit entirely but leave no warning trail, Windows needs an update...
Can someone find the "reset" button on the U.S. Government and hit it on the way out? Thanks.
"Why shouldn't he be on my phone - he's on everybody else's!"
They have rendered the Constitution irrelevant.
It's a legal loophole. In most states, you do not own your CDR, the phone company does. Since they own it, they can do whatever they want with it.
Jail the agents? On what grounds?
/.).
The concept here is very simple. The memo defines situations where the FBI will ask the phone company for a voluntary disclosure of information. They are not forcing the phone company to comply through some draconian legal provision- the phone company can easily deny the request if they do not agree with the exigency of the circumstances, and there is nothing that the FBI can do about it.
Accountability has not been removed. According to the article, there will still be an audit trail involved, and in case you missed it, these types of audit trails are doing a pretty good job of keeping law enforcement in check (in spite of the rabid anti-Bush hysterics that qualifies as "mainstream" here on
"The defense of freedom requires the advance of freedom" - George W Bush
Actually, it's a public company, not a private one. If it were private, it would not be publicly traded.
Also, even private companies have to adhere to the constitution. The fact they are a company does not exempt them from they law.
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
don't respect nothin'. - Santino 'Sonny' Corleone
What?
The article reads ...
New rules from the FBI general counsel's office tell agents they are to limit emergency requests for phone records to the most dire situations, in which the loss of life or bodily harm is believed to be imminent. They are to document carefully the circumstances surrounding the request.
So assuming the rules are followed there should be no problem as there will be a paper trail? If the rules are not followed who cares what the rules are anyway.
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President George W. Bush == 'My fraternity bought my way through PoliSci'.
In light of his membership at Yale, that's in the ballpark.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
I didn't vote for Clinton, but the current admin makes me nostalgic for him.
Even with Nixon's corruption, he's starting to look comparably cleaner than his Ivy-loving contemporary.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
If FBI agents don't need to get proper authorization and follow due process before they ruin someone's life over a hunch, then how long before they start executing people ? There's not much of a difference at that point. If they ignore constitutional rights whenever it is "deemed appropriate", might as well go all the way and start erasing people in bulk. After all, they're acting to protect the common, law-abiding citizen so that makes it all right ? :P
The fun part is that the FBI's shady practices probably went through some sort of approval process, but clearly the board members voting on the issue failed to serve their clients' best interests (that'd be you and me - well for now actually just you, I'm Canadian). The problem with democracy is that there's a significantly larger number of dumb people than smart. You just mention Al-Qaeda, Islam or even dare speak any language that isn't English, and all of a sudden you have an army of scared americans ready to give up everything to shoo the "terrorists" away. The bad guys aren't the ones with the holy books and bad facial hair The real terrorists live within our borders, they run companies, they run the government, and control the media. They are the ones who want to take over the country, to satisfy their lust for power and wealth. A suicide bomber might blow up few dozen people, but an out-of-control government will make everyone's lives miserable, everyone who isn't part of the clique that is.
-Billco, Fnarg.com
Before you all go criticizing FBI is like Gestapo, please stop.
Gestapo, for all its flaws, followed the WRITTEN laws of Reich at that time meticulously.
They NEVER violated the law of the land, and always had paperwork done. Always.
That is why it was easier in Nuremberg trials to convict so many of them, since they left such thick paper trials.
In FBI case, it simply wants to avoid all that...
In way FBI is worse...
"Doing what i can, with what i have." ~ Burt Gummer
"This is a story about the FBI calling up and making a request that doesn't have the force of law."
No this is a story about the FBI calling up and making a request that HAS THE FORCE OF LAW, (Patriot Act). But that law requires a subpoena AFTER or a national security letter AFTER. The FBI then aren't getting that subpoena or NSL because they already have the information. Further, these were cases where the NSL or post subpoena would never have been issued anyway and the FBI had preknowledge of this.
By removing the paperwork, they are concealing the evidence of the crime. They make a request under patrio act, then later claim it was a non binding verbal request. Without the evidence it is difficult to prove the crime.
But who Investigates the Bureau of Investigation?
CfkRAp1041vYQVbFY1aIwA== RV/hBCLKKcSTP5UFK3kqsg==
Ring, ring. Hi, I'm from HP, er... I mean the FBI and I'd like you to look up some phone records for me.
Home fucking is killing prostitution.
Uh, I support our government being able to catch the bad guys, but these fucks need to follow protocol. These dicks shouldn't be above the law.
Even if they are morally wrong.
It all hinges on certain words whose definition in the Constitution are taken for granted: liberty, search and seizure. It may be time to reexamine the constitution to bring it into agreement with the liberties Americans presume they have.
Due process under the fifth and fourteenth amendment is defined as deprivation of "life, liberty or property." So the question arises: does being investigated based on unfounded suspicion count as a deprivation of liberty? Most people would say yes. If, for example, you are constantly subjected to searches at the airport because the government can't manage it's terrorist watch list, most people would consider that a deprivation of liberty.
However, technically speaking being investigated is not considered a loss of liberty. In fact quite the opposite. Investigation is seen as a good thing, so long as it consists of actions which fall within bounds of legality, because it theoretically should tend to exonerate the innocent. There may have been some practical validity to this argument in the eighteenth century, given the lack of technology and state snooping apparatus, the ability of the government snooping to interfere with the life of a citizen was much more limited.
Given this precedent under antiquated notions of technology and society, we can't use a due process argument against the practice of collecting phone records.
So the question is, is the request for phone records itself illegal? If so, under what law?
It is not unconstitutional, although it skirts unconstitutionality in some unexpected ways. In 1979, the SC held in Smith v. Maryland that individuals do not have an expectation of privacy in their phone records, since the fact that A called B is known to a third party, the phone company. Generally speaking, anybody who discloses anything to anybody else undertakes the risk that the other party will reveal that fact (excepting certain special relationships such as doctor/patient, lawyer/client). Since A reveals to the phone company he is calling B, he risks the phone company disclosing this fact, and in fact the phone company can be compelled to reveal this information, just like any other business records it has. This is not a violation of A's fourth amendment rights because nothing of his is being searched or seized (unless he has a proprietary interest in his personal information which is another can of worms). It is not a violation of his fifth amendment rights because he is not being asked to incriminate himself -- its the trail of data he leaves behind that does this.
So far, we have determined that requesting phone information is neither a violation of due process (in a technical sense), nor is it unconstitutional. If it is illegal, it must be because of some statute.
Congress reacted to Smith v. Maryland by passing the Pen Register Act, which is supposed to protect precisely this information. But it's not clear to me that it protects the information at all, it merely proscribes a means of obtaining that information: the installation of a device which intercepts phone numbers is prohibited without a court order. However, if that information already exists in some other form, it doesn't prevent the FBI from simply asking for it. The law is technologically obsolete.
The FBI may be in trouble for misusing their emergency powers, for demanding information under emergency provisions that in the proper sequence of events would be backed up by a court order or national security letter. This, in effect, misrepresented their authority to compel the disclosure of the information.
But going forward, they can probably simply ask the phone companies for this information, saying there's a really, really important reason they need to have it; possibly even an emergency. If the phone companies decide to give them this information, it probably is not in violation of any laws, nor is it technically in violation of any enumerated rights in th
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Fuck all you liars who are on here roaring in anger, because you're not going to do ONE GODDAMN THING about this and you know it. You're too afraid to act because you don't want to disrupt your shitty meaningless lives. You're here to vent and nothing else. Tomorrow morning you will get up, eat your Kellogg's Corn Flakes, get in your car and with a great sigh of unending despair go off to work again, just a numbered cog in the great machine that enables the power elite to live above it all.
That is the meaning of your existence.
So shut the fuck up and go back to sleep.
the NPG electrode was replaced with carbon blac
Indeed, the Gestapo was evil by design, but it adhered to its own charter. They knew what they were mandated to do, and did exactly that. The FBI on the other hand, they know what they're doing is wrong, not just morally wrong but legally wrong, as it is in direct contradiction to their established practices, they just do it because they can get away it.
-Billco, Fnarg.com
a species that hires bodyguards to protect it looses the ability to protect itself and is doomed to extinction
CRIMES COMMITTED BY THE F.B.I.
SUGGESTED READING LIST
Bari, Judi. TIMBER WARS. Monroe, Maine: Common Courage Press, 1994.
The F.B.I. attempted to stop the political activity of Judi Bari and Daryl Cherney by exploding a
bomb under their car. Daryl Cherney and Judi Bari filed a Civil lawsuit against the FBI and Oakland police. A jury awarded them $4.4 million dollars in 2003. see www.judibari.org
Bowen Roger. INNOCENCE IS NOT ENOUGH: The Life and Death of Herbert Norman
New York USA M.E. Sharpe Inc 1988
Looks at FBI murder of Herbert Norman, Canadian Ambassador to Egypt.
Buitrago, Ann Mari. F.B.I. FILES. Grove Press, 1981.
Covers the procedures for obtaining and interpreting your F.B.I. file.
Burnham, David. ABOVE THE LAW. Scribner, 1996.
Looks at secret deals and fixing of cases by the Justice Department.
Buttino, Frank. A SPECIAL AGENT. William Morrow, 1993.
Investigates F.B.I. attacks on gay agents during the 1980's.
Carson, Clayborne. MALCOLM X: THE F.B.I. FILE. Carroll & Graf, 1991.
Looks at the role of the F.B.I. in the assassination of Malcolm X.
Cashill,Jack, Sanders,James. FIRST STRIKE Thomas Nelson Press, 2003
Overwhelming evidence presented by Dr. Cashill on the downing of TWA Flight 800
by a missle over Long Island and the ensuing cover-up by FBI agents.
Charns, Alexander. CLOAK AND GAVEL. University of Illinois Press. 1992.
After reviewing thousands of pages of FBI documents the attorney author
exposes the FBI illegal phone tapping of the Supreme Court and how the FBI fix court
cases and manipulate Congress and State legislatures.
Churchill, Ward. AGENTS OF REPRESSION. South End Press, 1988.
Professor Churchill gives first hand accounts of F.B.I. death squad activities.
Churchill, Ward. THE COINTELPRO PAPERS. South End Press, 1990.
Explores how the F.B.I. disrupts legitimate political activities and engage in Death Squad activities.
Criley, Richard. THE F.B.I. VS. THE FIRST AMENDMENT. First Amendment Foundation, 1990.
Looks at the destruction of the First Amendment by the F.B.I.
Davis, John. MAFIA KINGFISH: CARLOS MARCELLO AND THE ASSASSINATION OF JOHN F.
KENNEDY. McGraw-Hill, 1989.
Pivotal book in understanding how the FBI has uses the Mafia to carry out political and other murders of our political and civil rights leaders.
De Camp, John. THE FRANKLIN COVERUP. AWT Publishers, 1992.
A former Republican state senator from Nebraska writes about a pedophile ring involved in the
kidnaping, sexual torture and murder of children that went all the way to the Bush White House.
Attorney DeCamp discusses the FBI role in the coverup of this case and the murder of a special
prosecutor appointed to investigate the pedophile ring.
Dempsey, James X. and David Cole. TERRORISM AND THE CONSTITUTION: SACRIFICING CIVIL
LIBERTIES IN THE NAME OF NATIONAL SECURITY. Los Angeles, CA: First Amendment
Foundation, 1999. Examines FBI campaign of terror to undermine civil liberties.
Diamond, Sigmund. COMPROMISED CAMPUS. Oxford University Press, 1992.
Professor Diamond attempts to get F.B.I. files showing collaboration between the F.B.I. and colleges
and universities from 1945-1955.
Donner, Frank. PROTECTORS OF PRIVILEGE. University of California Press, 1990.
Looks at collaboration between local police and the F.B.I. to stifle first amendment rights.
Dwyer, James. TWO SECONDS UNDER THE WORLD. Diane publishers 1997.
The most important book you will read on understanding FBI involvement in 9-11
terrorist act at the World Trade Center. This book lays out in detail how the FBI engineered
the first World Trade Center explosion.
Emerson, Steven and Brian Duffy. THE FALL OF PAN AM 103. G.B. Putnam's Sons, 1990.
Oliver Revell was the number 2 man at the F.B.I. until he was demoted by F.B.I. Director
Wil