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AT&T Maintains Call Database For the DEA Going Back To 1987
Jah-Wren Ryel writes "Forget the NSA — the DEA has been working hand-in-hand with AT&T on a database of records of every call that passes through AT&T's phone switches going back as far as 1987. The government pays AT&T for contractors who sit side-by-side with DEA agents and do phone records searches for them. From the article: 'For at least six years, law enforcement officials working on a counter narcotics program have had routine access, using subpoenas, to an enormous AT&T database that contains the records of decades of Americans’ phone calls — parallel to but covering a far longer time than the National Security Agency’s hotly disputed collection of phone call logs.'"
The article is behind a god damned paywall. This one isn't. Google lists many, many sources.
Does Jah-Wren Ryel work for the Times and is trying to increase subscription numbers? A link to a paywall is no citation whatever.
Oh, and according to what I read, these aren't warrentless searches.
Free Martian Whores!
If you never voted for Ron Paul, don't you feel like an idiot now.
I think there is a simple solution for this. All phones sold should have a written disclaimer stamped on the case that reads "All calls are monitored for possible criminal activity and any other reason the authorities may deem necessary." I can't believe anyone thinks there is any privacy left on any public communications system.
...do not expect privacy on communications infrastructure you do not own and control.
The Cloud is dead, long live The Cloud. ...We the citizens are not very smart.
Hoorah, Hoorah!
Sharing the same database would have been too easy.
Isn't this information shown in every cop show or movie?
The key difference here is that this requires a subpoena, so it has some form of over sight. This is just a headline grabbing article.
'For at least six years, law enforcement officials working on a counter narcotics program have had routine access, using subpoenas, to an enormous AT&T database that contains the records of decades of Americans’ phone calls — parallel to but covering a far longer time than the National Security Agency’s hotly disputed collection of phone call logs.'
See that, NSA? Somehow the DEA managed to use the ordinary justice system without totally dismantling the Constitution.
Not that I think the War on Drugs (TM) is any less stupid and wasteful than the War on Terrism (TM), but at least we see that we don't need a parallel, secret justice [sic] system to "fight" it.
I am not a crackpot.
Ron Paul was a libertarian in the party that started the war on drugs (Reagan) and was helping them effectively by being their fig leaf to bring in libertarian votes. Overall republicans were more in favor of warrant less wiretapping etc. (although democrats suck too so there is enough blame to go around) but Paul was not the answer. He was a part of the problem.
More proof, if any were needed, that plenty of government agencies are entirely out of control and are doing things that are not in the least reasonable in any widely accepted sense of the word.
The DEA in particular exists to push for a world-wide implementation of a (mostly anti-)drug policy that has by now been shown to not work (count the dead in Mexico for one; they're a relatively direct result of US policies enacted through a variety of treaties) and the agency is evidently having great fun... but it's neither improving physical nor recreational-pharmaceutical safety in a meaningful way, nor is what it does justifiable on any ground at all.
But it's clear that the DHS (and TSA, and ICE, and so on) didn't have to reinvent the wheel. They had excellent example to copy from.
Per NPR:
"We don't have a domestic spying program," Obama said on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. "What we do have is some mechanisms that can track a phone number or an email address that is connected to a terrorist attack. ... That information is useful."
President Obama seems to lie every time he opens his mouth.
War on drugs, war on terror: just scare tactics used to get us to accept a police / surveillance state.
What do you do when the cure is worse than the poison?
I don't know how often this happened but when I was at Contel Cellular (which got bought by GTE which got bought by Bell Atlantic & became Verizon) there was at least one drug dealer whose service got cut for non-payment & next day DEA called & asked us to turn him back on/they'd pay but don't reflect it on his bill. this was AMPS (analog) days so we weren't letting them tap our network since they could just pick him up on a scanner (most people didn't know back then)
Would love to hear story about how they lost the records from before 1987
While i don't believe in the 'if you are innocent you have nothing to hide' concept, most people really don't care of the government knows that the wife told them to grab some milk on the way home.
The trade off was cheap and instantaneous communication between you and said wife. Most of us are willing to accept that level of intrusion for the convenience.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Don't forget those are record and available to the government from the beginning of time too...
What you buy today legally and innocently may get you a call from the FBI 5 years later to ask you a few questions. ( i have personally seen this happen )
The moral is that *anything* we do with a commercial provider can and will be recorded. Even if is for honest and non invasive reasons today, that doesn't mean it wont be used different ways by other people decades later.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Please read the article further. Your statement is far from correct:
Look, it's not a constitutional issue, the government isn't doing this at all. The government is paying someone else to do it, which is completely different.
"Bob Smith? Bob never worked here. I've got last year's 1099 we gave him to prove it."
For another example of left-wing psychos going overboard with public land, read about People's Park in Bezerkely.
I especially like how they made Ohlone Park a dog's park, where dogs could be free from human oppression. Big surprise, they formed a pack, run by a Top Dog. Not only did Berkeley fail to create the New Man, they failed to create the New Dog.
"Once we've identified and embraced our sickness, we'll have strength...and that's when we get dangerous." - John Waters
While i don't believe in the 'if you are innocent you have nothing to hide' concept, most people really don't care of the government knows that the wife told them to grab some milk on the way home.
But I do care about the NYPD cannibal cop that abused a restricted law-enforcement database so that he could find women to consume. Do you really think he's the only one abusing the system?
"Once we've identified and embraced our sickness, we'll have strength...and that's when we get dangerous." - John Waters
My point exactly. If fighting drug use with the criminal justice system requires that America turn into a fascist police state...then it's not worth it.
Whatever the scourge of drug use, I put it that the fascist police state has caused far more damage to the country than the drugs themselves ever could.
"Once we've identified and embraced our sickness, we'll have strength...and that's when we get dangerous." - John Waters
Agreed, it's surveillance when they record your actions, not when then get a warrant to take a look at that recording (or in the case of the NSA click a checkbox and fucking lie to Congress about getting a warrant).
It's no different than if they stuck a GPS tracker on you, just in case they wanted to serve a warrant on you in future to get your GPS location.
Come to think of it, the phone records now include your location, so its exactly identical.
Fucking mass surveillance. They got away with it, because it was kept secret. As if hiding a crime, somehow makes it not a crime!
Let's run a diff against both databases.
Authoritarian Tattle Tales, that's what.
I am not sure anymore if it was 1992/05/23 or 1992/05/22 I did some phonecalls at about 8pm. I can't find the number anymore. Could you help me?
Oh, it might have been 1993/04/18 17:45 as well. Or 2003/01/14 21:12.
Well, I don't care, just send me the data and I will search it myself.
Thanks in advance
I used to be a drug user, I know what goes on in the black market. The government has dealers they approve of (let them stay in business, and they get their cut), and dealers they don't approve of. It's simple rule the market by force. It's known the government ships in the drugs, and gets a cut from it. It is invisible money that is gained to fund projects like the reverse engineering of Alien technology. You actually think the technology behind Xbox's and PS3's are made my humans? dumb fucks.
Due to this new information the Ability to retroactively solve this crime and prosecute those involved. Lets get it done.
From the article:
"It is queried for phone numbers of interest mainly using what are called “administrative subpoenas,” those issued not by a grand jury or a judge but by a federal agency, in this case the D.E.A."
So the DEA agents themselves decide to have AT&T pull your phone records.
This is to be expected..Hell it was probably by those damn DEA personell who ordered AT&T to do this in the first place, since obviously the government has to listen every damned thing that we say and do!!
I'll wait for the NY Times story that the government has been keeping a database of all your mouse clicks, and will apply for a warrant to track suspicious patterns after it detects them without a warrant.
One single county in Texas pays on average $900,000 a year to AT&T Hemisphere.
"Request for approval of sole source, Community and Economic Development, and other exemptions from the competitive bid process for.... AT&T sole source for Operation Hemisphere, formerly Hudson Hawk, investigative services for the Sheriff’s Department in the amount of $924,500."
http://reason.com/blog/2013/09/02/report-dea-has-been-secretly-snooping-on#comment
Someone needs to do a parody of the AT&T "You will" commercials: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5MnQ8EkwXJ0
Except instead of the original script, have it go something like:
"Have you ever tapped someone's phone...without leaving your desk? Or downloaded their entire call history at the touch of a button?...You will - and the company that will bring it to you: AT&T."
I haven't thought about this in a while so I'm happy to be corrected but I used to believe that companies voluntarily giving information to authorities is a bigger threat to privacy/(some) freedom than when they are legally compelled to do so (i.e. under threat of violence for all the non-AnCaps in here).
This is often present in privacy policy language like, "We promise we will not share your shit except for (A), (B), ... and except where required by law." I suppose I believed this was better than volunteering information because at least we're aware of the potential for leakage (inb4 secret courts of which we are now - somewhat - aware).
So there should be strict penalties for the sharing of customer information where not required by law - again, assuming legal transparency that has subsequently been found to be untrue in FISA courts. These exist for things like data stolen by hackers (disclosure laws, etc.). But obviously the incentives aren't there to penalize holders of your information irresponsibly leaking the information when it is the government itself that wants to steal it.
Fuck you to anyone brushing this off . Apparently you haven't been keeping current with the analyses done that show just exactly what information meta-data can reveal.
No one supposed that ALL DOMESTIC CALLS' meta data was being recorded for and kept forever. What can be inferred about the activities of political candidates, corporate activities, activists of every persuasion, etc etc is incredible. This is what's been happening since the 80s? Really?
There is a ocean of difference between asking for so called pen -register data on a person under investigation and then as a result having such data start to be collected and CONSTANTLY COLLECTING AND PERSISTING ALL SUCH DATA ON EVERYONE from the mid 80s onwards. A motherfucking OCEAN of difference.
Since all this meta data is "public" Can I get it? Please put it online and let me download it. What? No I can't get it? But who HAS gotten, because *anyone* can since it's been ruled to be a public record.
From NBC news:
"Telephone calls were the first technology to attack the notion. Are calls passing through wires inside or outside your home? Back in 1979, the U.S. Supreme Court clarified this issue and ruled that information about telephone calls â" such as numbers dialed, or the length of phone calls â" was distinct from the content of phone calls, and thus was not protected by the Fourth Amendment. " ...
"The Supreme Court explained its pen register vs. wiretap distinction in 1979 by calling on the "third-party doctrine." Americans lose their expectation of privacy, the court reasoned, whenever they voluntarily give information to a third party, such as a phone company. Telling the phone company who you call by dialing a number is enough to surrender your expectation of privacy that you are contacting that person, the court held."
So for decades we've been effectively spied on by persons or groups unknown to us.
Does that explain anything about how history in this country has taken a hard right turn along every dimension? How labor has been decimated and unable to counter the 1%'s machinations? How attempts to organize against off-shoring and to fight against NAFTA and the rapid rise of the right wing since 1980 ?
I mean, this is public information - no one has a right to expect privacy , except .. except ... it's funny public information isn't it? You and I can't get it, just the people the phone companies want to give it to can have it.
So the telcos have done very well for themselves since 1980 I notice, .. I notice that cable in this country
1) sucks ass and
2) is a duopoly where I live and oh by the way where you live too.
I also notice that despite these incredibly invasive powers we're losing the war on drugs and have been every year since 1980. But this is supposed to help us win that fight, right? That's its stated purpose right? So why is it so useless?
Uh, maybe it's not really for that purpose. Maybe it's being used an instrument of political control because THAT has been going very well indeed for the 1%.
This is a joke. If anyone had suggested that all data on all Americans would be logged , analyzed and made available to private actors forever, then the courts would NOT have decided the way they did because people wouldn't have stood for it.
I don't want my kids growing up in this country. I don't want them manipulated and marginalized and thwarted at every turn by an unseen class of people who have unique and private access to their activities and use that information to undermine their lives, their aspirations, their political activities, their attempts to implement change in this nation.
This is a joke. This is what people were afraid the NSA would BECOME- a gigantic spy machine for the purpose of political control by a privileged political class with privileged access to secret "public" information.
This is far far far far far far far worse than anything the NSA did. This is a BIG FUCKING DEAL PEOPLE.
The NSA had a copy of this one from the beginning, too.