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US Started Keeping Secret Records of International Telephone Calls In 1992
schwit1 writes Starting in 1992, the Justice Department amassed logs of virtually all telephone calls from the USA to as many as 116 countries. The now-discontinued operation, carried out by the DEA's intelligence arm, was the government's first known effort to gather data on Americans in bulk, sweeping up records of telephone calls made by millions of U.S. citizens regardless of whether they were suspected of a crime. It was a model for the massive phone surveillance system the NSA launched to identify terrorists after the Sept. 11 attacks. That dragnet drew sharp criticism that the government had intruded too deeply into Americans' privacy after former NSA contractor Edward Snowden leaked it to the news media two years ago. More than a dozen current and former law enforcement and intelligence officials described the details of the Justice Department operation to USA TODAY. Most did so on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss the intelligence program, part of which remains classified. The operation had 'been approved at the highest levels of Federal law enforcement authority,' including then-Attorney General Janet Reno and her deputy, Eric Holder.
What's the point if you can't collect pictures of people's junk? Also, given how teens act today, wouldn't the NSA have the largest collection of pedo in the world? Apparently the NSA does think of the children.
This revelation explains why the NSA was pushing on Qwest to be their spy bitches 6 months before 9/11.
Nope. The US started monitoring all international calls much earlier. Read a book on the NSA.
Not to sound like a conspiracy theorist, but likely the problem was due to lobbying efforts of companies that are anti open source. Anyone remember NSA Linux (now SELinux)? It was released and soon thereafter the goverment started backpeddling in the glare of strong corporate lobbying efforts, and decided that they wouldn't release things under the GPL without serious consideration in the future. One company in particular, lobbyied heavily to stop this sort of action from the NSA, because it inhibited them from selling their 'hardened' software.
To give you an idea of the power those at NSA already have. I was walking home a couple of months ago. Two policeman pulled over and arrested me. The reason? I was wearing similar clothes to a burglar. Apparently fawn is a very unusual colour for a suit (it was bought from Marks & Spencer so yeah really rare). I was locked up. Because I had been arrested, the police are allowed to search my home **without a warrant**! My wife was in the bath, heard a noise and discovered 3 policeman in our hallway. This was the first she'd heard of my arrest.
Janet Reno and Eric Holder authorized mass surveillance of Americans? That's going to sting for some people, it's a little hard to blame that one on George W. Bush.
Yes it's Constitution Thursday and time to blame Bill Clinton's administration for stepping on the rights of the American people for a newly revealed outrage touching all Americans during peacetime.
Remember Elian!
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
You REALLY think the first time they monitored international calls was 1992? Maybe that's the first time they could definitively say they got ALL of them?
Thank goodness the government had the good sense to protect us from ourselves. We very well could have ended up a nation of hopeless addicts constantly scouring social media sites in search of validation of our otherwise meaningless existences.
That year conveniently allows us to put all the blame squarely on Bill Clinton.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
Why not do something useful with this phone system tracking. /indian accent
Bust all the phone scammers that call me daily ?
"This is microsoft, we have detected a problem with your computer"
This is AMerica. We have watch pigskin. Quit wasting your time here
On first glance, with some help from a greasy bridge, I thought it read "1922". Then, after a forefinger restoration, I was actually disappointed to see how small this story really was.
And probably even earlier. But, one thing that everyone seems to be ignoring is that AT&T, and I am sure many others, kept all its call records. It treats the data as an asset.
"To those who are overly cautious, everything is impossible. "
*BSD is dead.
Long Live *BSD!
http://www.engineeringradio.us/blog/2009/07/cold-war-relic-att-long-lines-microwave-site-kingston-ny/
There were a series of Receive Only (RO) towers constructed across the US when Western Electric (AT&T nowadays) had Line Of Site microwave transmissions across the US. Prior to that, there was the transference of tape recordings from them to the various spy agencies.
They've always been listening. It's only now that it's a big deal. That and your junk is in danger of being laughed at...
Google "Puzzle Palace" and see what comes up.
Yes, I get the Snowden makes an attractive and easy media story, but anybody who was paying attention knew this was happening. Why it has been going on for two years and gotten stale means that most people don't care. It was a losing battle to begin with anyways. And it just is the paranoid conspiracy theorists and media who have to write negative articles about politicians who are worried about the potential for wrongdoing. I still haven't seen much evidence of real wrong doing in the revelations outside of LoveINT, which I think FaceBook has just as much potential for misuse anyways.
These days, the NSA collects your entire online life. You are a fucking idiot if you don't realize this by now.
Look what he's done now! ;-)
While we're confessing, how long have they been faking evidence to cover up secret (and likely illegal) surveillance in parallel construction cases?
If the surveillance goes back earlier then the parallel construction does too.
the paranoid conspiracy theorists
You mean the ones who have been pretty much correct about everything?
I mean really, "tinfoil hats" don't seem stupid anymore since we found out the mind control rays were real. Have a declassified document about energy weapons. These devices are being used against innocent citizens, just like the government did with its MKULTRA project. Sorry pal, but we have plenty of documented reasons to be concerned about government spying. FFS, the pentagon is militarizing the police because they're scared of "environmental activists". Care about recycling "too much" on facebook? Send in the COINTELPRO team guys, we've got another anti-american extremists. Fire pain rays at will.
Seriously, if you want to dismiss people now you're going to have to find a different slur than "conspiracy theorist" since they have far more credibility today than the governments do.
which detailed how the NSA were intercepting all international calls by methods including replicating the phone-company satellite base-stations
That's crazy tinfoil-hattery libertarian nutzo Echelon talk, dude.
You sound just like Cold Fjord
Captha: iceberg
How many? All of them.
When I started working for ITT Avionics on 1987, I was told on starting that all international calls to/from the eastern seaboard were monitored and/or recorded. That was to avoid disclosing any company-confidential shit about how they were screwing the government on an open line. It wasn't phrased like that, but that was the intent since the remainder of the discussion was about what we were permitted to say to the GAO reps.
Not that it help them. They still got caught in lies and lost contracts.
I strongly suspect that if we want to investigate anything in order to help protect our nation we should not be so worried about the terror loonies but instead focus on what goes on in businesses. In order for our nation to survive we need to have a degree of trust in our corporations.. As it stands corporations do not deserve one bit of trust from the public. Whether it is the under handed efforts to hold back the Tesla cars or the outrageous salaries payed to executives or off shoring for tax purposes our corporations betray us hourly. As mistrust of social institutions grows individuals tend to adopt the same psychopathic reasoning as the corporations. The morality of the petty gangster with a gun in a convenience store follows the same logic as big business. That gangster doesn't give a hoot as long as he gets his and the same can be said for almost all businesses that you deal with in your lives. Corruption is the new American way.
They've always been listening. It's only now that it's a big deal.
The difference is the scale and the automated collection and analysis capabilities. It gives you unprecedented options for Selective Enforcement of laws that are pretty much invisible to both citizens and (as it turns out) judges.
You know, just for the record ... I don't think a single American has the right to complain if another country hacks into your computers or spies on you.
You clowns seem to feel self entitled to track everybody, so fuck all of you.
The rest of us simply don't care about your security if it comes at the expense of our privacy.
When will Americans understand we'd rather see you die than give up out rights for you?
Because we don't consider ourselves subservient to you, you arrogant bastards. And some day when you have no friends left you might understand that.
That Republicans hate so so much that they can't be bothered to vote for his replacement and get him out of office? Gotcha.
Correction if it was in 1992 that would be put on Bush Sr.
Clinton didn't get sworn into office until January 20, 1993
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F...
Yes, but as fashionable as it is to despise the NSA these days, there are also many who would not object to foreign telecom traffic being monitored for the sake of legitimate national security. (Not saying I'm one of them, but I can at least appreciate the argument.)
What's the DEA's excuse?
There was a great talk on 31C3 (Chaos Communication Congress), the largest hacker conference in Europe. Tell no-one A century of secret deals between the NSA an the telecom industry
The talk can be found on youtube as well.