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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!
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.
Not even a little bit. Do you imagine Ron Paul would somehow have changed any of this?
'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.
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?
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 ----
I can't stand Ron Paul but you really can't tie Ron Paul to any of the complaints you just listed since he was on voting record for being against everything you just mentioned.
And you also can't say the democrats are less in favor of warrant less anything when these types of wiretaps and general invasions of privacy has increased since the democrats took over. I guess you can make the case that the democrats talk louder against theses actions, but that doesn't really count for shit - well, I guess talking loud works to fool people like you.
From the article:
In other words, no, there's no oversight. The DEA issues its own legal requests. The AT&T "contractors" who issue the queries sit next to the agents and are paid for by the DEA (in other words, they're employees of the government). Elsewhere the presentation makes a reference to routing requests via Washington state which somehow converts them into court orders, not sure what that's about.
Also, the presentation tells agents to cover up the fact that it exists and how to do so, so we're back into "parallel reconstruction" terroritory.
That said, I actually care less about this sort of thing than what the NSA is doing, as it's (a) not classified and apparently can be learned about via the regular channels despite their requests for secrecy and (b) it's being used to catch more ordinary, every day criminals like people who rob jewellery shops or make bomb threats. The almost total blurring between corporation and state is very concerning because it implies there's nothing stopping it from stepping over the line and becoming used for petty political activism or worse, but at least they try to actually justify the programs existence with examples (unlike nearly all NSA training material, it seems).
Ron Paul was a libertarian in the party that started the war on drugs (Reagan)
Nixon came up with the phrase, although it actually started under a Democrat, young fellow.
Free Martian Whores!
Doesn't involve a judge though. Just the DEA.
Wrong. If there's a subpoena, there's a judge.
Not necessarily. The DEA gained the ability to issue 'administrative subpoenas' in 1970, and uses them routinely and on a nontrivial scale. All they have to do is assert that the material is 'relevant to an investigation' and out it goes. No muss, no fuss, no tedious judicial oversight.
Keep doing what you have always done, you will get what you always got.
Ron Paul was/is different. If you can't see that, then you are blind, and a useful slave.
Same as any president in our lifetime.
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
Authoritarian Tattle Tales, that's what.