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."

Comments

Bad Summary no cookie

[Gnpatton]

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.

How's Verisign handling those requests?

[Animats]

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.

Re:The real worrying thing is

[Chris Burke]

I don't get this.. do you not have privacy laws in the U.S.?
I work (through three contractor levels of abstraction) for a telco here in Aus, and there are laws and BIG penalties for giving out customer records to anyone, including the police, who doesn't have the correct authority
What I'm trying to say is, aren't the US telco's here breaking a few laws?

No, because the USAPATRIOT Act gives the FBI the authority to get this information from the telcos.

Now USAPATRIOT only grants that authority under certain circumstances, and given that the FBI takes certain actions such as filing the correct paperwork afterward, but the telco has no way of knowing that the situation is really how the FBI says, nor does it have any idea that the FBI is not producing the correct paperwork for accountability. Basically, they have little choice but to comply.

Normally in the United States if you want to know if an agent of the law has the proper authority to get information or search your premises, you ask to see the warrant.

The whole problem with USAPATRIOT is that it makes warrants unecessary in certain circumstances, and worse it allows the FBI to decide what those circumstances are, and even worse it does not at any point require a judge to verify that the circumstances were such that a warrant could be bypassed. It basically grants law enforcement super-powers, then puts them on the honor system for not abusing those powers.

Making this into a problem of the telcos is tempting, and yeah I would love it if they fought back, but this is at its heart a problem of our government and expecting the telcos to fight the government for us is naive.