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Former FBI Agent: All Digital Communications Stored By US Gov't
New submitter davesays writes "CNN anchors Erin Burnett and Carol Costello have interviewed Former FBI Counterterrorisim specialist Tim Clemente. In the interviews he asserts that all digital communications are recorded and stored. Clemente: 'No, welcome to America. All of that stuff is being captured as we speak whether we know it or like it or not.' 'All of that stuff' — meaning every telephone conversation Americans have with one another on U.S. soil, with or without a search warrant — 'is being captured as we speak.' 'No digital communication is secure,' by which he means not that any communication is susceptible to government interception as it happens (although that is true), but far beyond that: all digital communications — meaning telephone calls, emails, online chats and the like — are automatically recorded and stored and accessible to the government after the fact. To describe that is to define what a ubiquitous, limitless Surveillance State is."
"'ve heard rumors that AT&T captures all, but never anything that confirms that. "
It most certainly is confirmed. In a court case some years ago, a technician outed that the government had installed a splitter in a special room in one of their exchanges, which fed ALL of their digital data straight to the government. The telcos involved admitted that it was only one of many such. Mass collection, and no warrants involved, anywhere.
In fact, that was the whole reason Congress voted to give telcos immunity, remember? How short our memories can be.
There's not a lot of storage necessary. Not what you're thinking. Text messages and chats are very small in size. Phone conversations are very small using the right codecs. I also heard once about 8 years ago that the US government was buying up symmetrix like they were going out of style.
Honestly, I believe it. It's entirely possible.
They're using their grammar skills there.
Here is Klein's statement.
https://www.eff.org/files/filenode/att/SER_klein_decl.pdf
The splitter sent the internet traffic to a secure room.
And another interview with Klein:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/homefront/interviews/klein.html
It's pretty obvious that room contained a Narus DPI. End of story.