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AT&T Maintains Call Database For the DEA Going Back To 1987

Posted by samzenpus on from the all-your-calls-are-belong-to-us dept.

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.'"

13 of 141 comments (clear)

  1. WTF??? by mcgrew · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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!
    1. Re:WTF??? by Qzukk · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Yeah, having a hard time raging at this. There's a difference between just giving every call ever to the government for the fun of it, and having an agent show up with papers in order, asking for the calls to/from a certain number and getting only that.

      --
      If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
    2. Re:WTF??? by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 5, Insightful

      If there's been a paper trail of this leading all the way back to 1987, why are we only just now hearing about it?

      Because it is no big deal. The DEA had proper judicial oversight, and only saw records of specific individuals, and only when they had sufficient probable cause to get a subpoena. It is the way the system is supposed to work, and is the way it should have worked with the NSA. What you should be outraged about is the very existence of the DEA, a government agency devoted to monitoring and controlling our bodily fluids. Once you get past that, worrying about a few phone records is pretty silly.

    3. Re:WTF??? by EmperorArthur · · Score: 5, Insightful

      That's great, except that all of our phone calls are still being recorded. This is something the Stasi could only DREAM of.

      Read a little closer. This is the metadata that everyone is so worried about. It's not the actual conversation that's recorded, but the number called, call duration, and locations the cell phone was in for the duration of the call. The only new thing added to this list since the last half century is location data.

      The scary thing about this is AT&T never deletes your call data. EVER. There's a reason why some EU privacy directives have a retention limit. Which is ironically in direct contrast to the mandatory retention policies for law enforcement use in those very same countries.

      --
      So lets pretend that we've just completed writing this code, as opposed to having just completed sabotaging it -Altera
    4. Re:WTF??? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      "Read a little closer. This is the metadata that everyone is so worried about. It's not the actual conversation that's recorded, but the number called, call duration, and locations the cell phone was in for the duration of the call. The only new thing added to this list since the last half century is location data."

      We know that you called a local dealer 27 times in 89, 42 times in 95 an 17 times in 03, we busted him last week.
      So don't tell us you never touched that stuff.

    5. Re:WTF??? by Jah-Wren+Ryel · · Score: 4, Insightful

      and only when they had sufficient probable cause to get a subpoena.

      If by sufficient you mean none at all.

      "Probable cause is not a prerequisite to the issuance of a subpoena."

      --
      When information is power, privacy is freedom.
    6. Re:WTF??? by nbauman · · Score: 4, Insightful

      This is the metadata that everyone is so worried about. It's not the actual conversation that's recorded, but the number called, call duration, and locations the cell phone was in for the duration of the call.

      That's a lot. It means they can track you everywhere you make a phone call. If I go to my girlfriend's house and make a call there, it means they know who my girlfriend is.

      It means that if I'm the (Democratic) governor of a state, and I call up an escort service, the (Republican) federal prosecutor will know about it, and he can decide whether to prosecute me or not, at his sole discretion. He can even agree not to prosecute me if I agree to step down from office, to be replaced by an ineffective successor.

  2. Disclaimer by amiga3D · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:Disclaimer by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 4, Insightful

      In other news, an ample supply of white flags is a cheap and effective national defense strategy...

  3. Re:remorse? by Sponge+Bath · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Not even a little bit. Do you imagine Ron Paul would somehow have changed any of this?

  4. Important clause there by Rob+the+Bold · · Score: 5, Insightful

    '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.
  5. More proof by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Insightful

    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.

  6. Re:Why was this even posted? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Doesn't involve a judge though. Just the DEA.

    Makes me wonder, though, just how many times the DEA denies a subpoena on a DEA-supposed pusher?

    (Due process being SO last century...)