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Feds Operated Yet Another Secret Metadata Database Until 2013
A story at Ars Technica describes yet another Federal database of logged call details maintained by the Federal government which has now come to light, this one maintained by the Department of Justice rather than the NSA, and explains how it came to be discovered: [A] three-page partially-redacted affidavit from a top Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) official, which was filed Thursday, explained that the database was authorized under a particular federal drug trafficking statute. The law allows the government to use "administrative subpoenas" to obtain business records and other "tangible things." The affidavit does not specify which countries records were included, but specifically does mention Iran. ... This database program appears to be wholly separate from the National Security Agency’s metadata program revealed by Edward Snowden, but it targets similar materials and is collected by a different agency. The Wall Street Journal, citing anonymous sources, reported Friday that this newly-revealed program began in the 1990s and was shut down in August 2013. From elsewhere in the article:
"It’s now clear that multiple government agencies have tracked the calls that Americans make to their parents and relatives, friends, and business associates overseas, all without any suspicion of wrongdoing," [said ACLU lawyer Patrick Toomey]. "The DEA program shows yet again how strained and untenable legal theories have been used to secretly justify the surveillance of millions of innocent Americans using laws that were never written for that purpose."
Who has answers? Obviously we do need better ways to catch and confine criminals and we also need better ways to tune these people up and make them normal members of society. Punishment simply does not work. On the other hand we have a government with a very long history of wrong doing when we give them any legal powers at all. The FBI has a perverse history. The CIA has gone nuts at times and the NSA seems to have no bounderies. And on top of that local cops are often operating outside the law with the backing of local governments. And it is not that local cops are just after people of minority races. There is some poorly defined Ozzie and Harriet factor that causes cops to want to control anyone that is unlike Ozzie and Harriet in their life style. As a matter of fact a cop's entire world is controlling other peoples' behaviours. It gets to the point where cops can't turn it off. they go off duty and still think they exist to set the behaviour of everyone around them. It is the order part of law and order that is the issue. The cops look for usual and common behaviours whereas different cultures have entirely different modes of behaviour. There was a ghetto near where I worked and it was quite common to see black kids out on their tiny bicycles at three or four AM. I live in a hot climate and the kids simply could not play outdoors during the day. Many of their homes also had no air conditioning or had problems with enough money to pay electric bills. The effect was that almost year round the kids were on their bikes and doing whatever they could to not be bored silly. Some were very dangerous while others were simply poor kids playing. Obviously it is illegal to have kids roaming about in the wee hours when they are as young as eight years and very much at risk in ghetto areas. How can cops deal with this sort of thing?