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US Started Keeping Secret Records of International Telephone Calls In 1992

Posted by samzenpus on from the original-list dept.

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.

7 of 81 comments (clear)

  1. Well... by burtosis · · Score: 4, Funny

    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.

  2. Nope by BradMajors · · Score: 3, Informative

    Nope. The US started monitoring all international calls much earlier. Read a book on the NSA.

    1. Re:Nope by JWSmythe · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I'd be willing to wager that intelligence monitoring of international phone calls started right about the time international phone calls were first available.

      This article says the first trans-Atlantic calls was in 1927.

      This article says government wiretaps started in the 1860s.

      --
      Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
    2. Re:Nope by quenda · · Score: 4, Informative

      Read a book on the NSA.

      That would be The Puzzle Palace by James Bamford published in 1982,
      which detailed how the NSA were intercepting all international calls by methods including replicating the phone-company satellite base-stations.

  3. Re:1992, eh? by sjames · · Score: 3, Informative

    Clinton took office in January of 1993

    This is yet another started by an R, continued by a D.

  4. Re:That's interesting ... by Fire_Wraith · · Score: 4, Insightful

    And according to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_Order_12333, that part of it dates back to Reagan.

    Really, I don't think you're going to find any president in recent history whose hands are clean on any of this. They're all responsible for adding another layer or two. The only time I can think of anything getting rolled back was the Church Committee and such in response to Watergate, but even that didn't go nearly far enough, I suspect.

  5. I can trace government monitoring to the sixties. by sharkbiter · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.