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AT&T Is Spying on Americans For Profit, New Documents Reveal (thedailybeast.com)

Posted by msmash on from the hold-the-phone dept.

AT&T has been secretly spying on its own customers, the Daily Beast reports. The revelation comes days after the top carrier announced plans to purchase Time Warner. The report claims that AT&T ran a program called Project Hemisphere through which it analyzed cellular data from the company's call records to determine where a given individual is located and with whom they are speaking. The New York Times reported about the program's existence in 2013, but it was described as a "partnership" between A&T and the government for fighting narcotics trafficking. But today's report, which cites several classifed documents, claims that AT&T used Hemisphere for a range of other functions -- and always without a warrant. From the report:Hemisphere is a secretive program run by AT&T that searches trillions of call records and analyzes cellular data to determine where a target is located, with whom he speaks, and potentially why. [...] Hemisphere isn't a "partnership" but rather a product AT&T developed, marketed, and sold at a cost of millions of dollars per year to taxpayers. No warrant is required to make use of the company's massive trove of data, according to AT&T documents, only a promise from law enforcement to not disclose Hemisphere if an investigation using it becomes public. These new revelations come as the company seeks to acquire Time Warner in the face of vocal opposition saying the deal would be bad for consumers. While telecommunications companies are legally obligated to hand over records, AT&T appears to have gone much further to make the enterprise profitable, according to ACLU technology policy analyst Christopher Soghoian. "Companies have to give this data to law enforcement upon request, if they have it. AT&T doesn't have to data-mine its database to help police come up with new numbers to investigate," Soghoian said. AT&T has a unique power to extract information from its metadata because it retains so much of it. The company owns more than three-quarters of U.S. landline switches, and the second largest share of the nation's wireless infrastructure and cellphone towers, behind Verizon. AT&T retains its cell tower data going back to July 2008, longer than other providers. Verizon holds records for a year and Sprint for 18 months, according to a 2011 retention schedule obtained by The Daily Beast.

42 of 161 comments (clear)

  1. It'll only get worse by ausekilis · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I hope we get more Senators like Al Franken in our government. We really need to move more toward a culture that values privacy. Google and Facebook profits be damned, we need to be more like Germany and a majority of Europe.

    1. Re:It'll only get worse by mrchaotica · · Score: 5, Informative

      I'm glad I don't use AT&T and dropped Verizon a few years back. Can't be sure, but I bet CREDO will be very unlikely to do this sort of thing.

      Credo is an MVNO running on the Verizon network. Therefore, Verizon can do exactly the same monitoring of your calls as they do with those of their own customers.

      --

      "[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz

    2. Re:It'll only get worse by theskipper · · Score: 2

      That's actually a pretty interesting list. Beyond the obvious ones, I think we tend to forget that the data aggregators like Acxiom are always there, operating in the background to scoop up any information they can to sell. And that a company like Uber would sell your location and any other data related to timing/pickup/dropoffs at the drop of a hat. Whatsapp got exposed recently for privacy violations but guess that falls under the umbrella of Facebook. Then outside of the privacy realm you have pay-for-play schemes like Yelp that should be investigated formally too.

      But strictly to the point of privacy, of course the dividing line is what do you voluntarily expose vs. what is exposed involuntarily or against the published TOS. i.e. you get what you deserve by signing up to Pinterest, Facebook, etc. The problem is you would need a cluster of superhuman Al Frankens to get through most TOS's. Not unlike skynet, that's something that should be seriously debated before implementation.

    3. Re:It'll only get worse by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      Credo Mobile MVNO dumps Sprint for Verizon

    4. Re:It'll only get worse by Altrag · · Score: 2

      There's a difference between demanding compensation for a legitimate police request vs developing a spying system and actively trying to sell it to the police.

      The first is not wanting to work for free, and entirely understandable.

      The second is doing work they didn't even have to do based on some very very questionable practices. They could have chosen to just not do this. They wouldn't be "working for free" since _not_ doing something involves zero work.

  2. too big? by TimothyHollins · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I'm guessing too big to fail also means too big for jail.

    Sometimes I just lose faith.

    1. Re:too big? by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 5, Informative

      I'm guessing too big to fail also means too big for jail.

      Nobody is going to jail because none of this is illegal. That is the problem.

    2. Re:too big? by npslider · · Score: 2

      "I will *MAKE* it legal!"

    3. Re:too big? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Most spying is done for profit. A small percentage is actually done for civilian protection.

      The only reason you want to "lose faith" is because you aren't thinking objectively. You believe that the government should be full of true statesmen, who have the best interest of the majority at heart. As nice as that would be, there is no rational reason to expect that it would be so, nor does it doom us when this is not so.

      In order to attain power, one must defeat rivals who want that same power. The most effective means of doing this is to lie to the public. Therefore, those who lie effectively and trenchantly are the ones that win elections. Most true statesmen who run are filtered out by this alone.

      After that, in order to execute on a political agenda, one must co-operate with other politicians. Our government was designed to make it impossible for a rogue politician acting alone to accomplish much of anything (see: dictatorship). Politicians learn very quickly (really, they already knew) that co-operation requires compromise. No one will work with an absolutist who refuses to yield to their concerns. Furthermore, the people with whom they must co-operate are people who have the moral rectitude and mental disposition to be masterful liars (see above). The end result is simple: one must sell one's soul to the devil in order to get anything done.

      We will never "fix" this by encouraging people to vote. Nor by writing letters. Nor should this be a problem for us.

      If we are truly devoted to putting statesmen in office, we will need to fundamentally boost the intelligence of the general public (so they can smell the lies, and reject them). There is no practical means to do this in the short run, so we should stop crying about it and move on.

      In the real world, we can recognize the following facts:

      1) An evil governor still has the interests of the state at heart, inasmuch as his level of power is a function of the prosperity of the state.
      2) All politicians are ultimately still held accountable to the court of public opinion, so the more we can keep visibility on their actions, the more beneficial to us those actions will be.
      3) All politicians are for sale (see above): so the next most effective means of getting them to act as desired is to fund the appropriate lobby.

      It has always been this way. The only difference now is greater awareness of it. And the world is better now than it has ever been before, because of this.

      We can use evil men to good ends, if we try.

    4. Re:too big? by Archangel+Michael · · Score: 5, Interesting

      You've made the best case I've seen in a long time as to why Government should be limited. Not sure that was your intention though. ;)

      --
      Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
    5. Re:too big? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

      Power is dangerous, so the more power gets concentrated in a small group, the more dangerous that group becomes. This is why anything with power should be limited.

      It also happens that those who have power are universally focused on using their power to obtain even more power, so keeping a powerful body limited is no simple task. Especially not when their power is over a large group of people who would rather not deal with any of that.

      Knowing how power moves is still important, regardless of what limits are in place, so you know how much influence you can bring to bear, and how to do so. For most of us, our money is the only political influence we will ever be able to apply with any meaningful impact, and that through lobbying. People without much money absolutely hate this, and go through amazing mental gymnastics to explain why it is not true. Those with a little money just pony it up when they want to get something done.

    6. Re: too big? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Don't worry, if anyone does come forward with details of wrongdoing, they'll be prosecuted like the rest of the whistle-blowers.

  3. Obama by Xenographic · · Score: 5, Informative

    I sure wish Obama was actually going to stop this kind of thing like he promised long ago :(

    1. Re:Obama by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

      hahahahhahahahaahahahahHAHAHAAHAHAHAAA

    2. Re:Obama by maharvey · · Score: 3, Funny

      STOP it? Obama promised transparency, which (in hindsight) it turns out means transparency of our formerly-private communications... not of the government.

    3. Re:Obama by guises · · Score: 2

      Could you elaborate a little on this? What was the promise that he made, exactly? I don't remember this one.

    4. Re:Obama by Raenex · · Score: 2

      A little refresher for you. AT&T spying on behalf of the government is nothing new, and had the whistle blown a long time before Snowden.

      Obama used Bush's warrantless wiretapping as a club against Bush's policies when running for election in the primaries, then voted for telco immunity after the primaries and facing McCain -- because he didn't want to look weak on security and he no longer needed to appease his base. While he's given lip service to the Constitution and the privacy of citizens, once he got in power he used the same tools as Bush.

  4. Well, well, well.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    The proverbial chickens are coming home to roost, aren't they?
    Memo to all of you who are saying they're tired of the 'conspiracy theory' nuts: It's not a 'conspiracy theory' anymore, now is it? Also, don't allow yourself to think for a single moment that they're not collecting more data than even this article reveals, or that they're not doing more with all that data than it reveals.
    Also, Memo to the 'I'm not doing anything wrong, so I have nothing to fear' idiots: You helped create this dystopia we're living in, you sons of bitches!

    Now, recriminations aside: How do we start reversing this? It's bullshit, it's completely unacceptable, and it has to STOP.

  5. Discovery by doconnor · · Score: 4, Interesting

    "only a promise from law enforcement to not disclose Hemisphere if an investigation using it becomes public."

    Aren't they required to disclose this kind of thing in the discovery phase of the prosecution? Anything less would be blatantly unconstitutional.

    1. Re:Discovery by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

      Correct, which means that every single offender convicted as a result of this now has a legitimate claim to appeal based on "fruit of the poison tree".

    2. Re:Discovery by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      two words: Parallel Construction

    3. Re:Discovery by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      "only a promise from law enforcement to not disclose Hemisphere if an investigation using it becomes public."

      Aren't they required to disclose this kind of thing in the discovery phase of the prosecution? Anything less would be blatantly unconstitutional.

      I am not a lawyer (and you are not either, it seems). However, I do know the law is a complicated thing, and when private individuals take action no warrant is required.

      For example, if I walk into the police station with a video I took of my neighbor attacking her husband with a knife in her home, the defense can't claim that the video was recorded without a warrant. The state took no action to retrieve this data, so no warrant is needed. In this case AT&T is acting as a private individual to collect this information and provide it to law enforcement.

      It gets a bit tricky, though, if the state is paying for access to this data. The question would be whether the state is effectively contracting the work out (turning AT&T into an agent of the state), or if AT&T is still acting as a private individual. That's a question for a lawyer... although the recent trend seems to be the courts not even allowing a challenge due to failure of a person to prove standing (creating an elegant literal Catch-22).

      All this is to say... No, this does not necessarily require a warrant.

  6. This is 2016 by Oswald+McWeany · · Score: 4, Interesting

    This is 2016, I would have thought the very fact our telecommunications companies (and everyone else who has the ability to) are spying on us should be common knowledge, not news.

    Here's a quick flow chart that applies to all big companies and organisations that you associate with.

    Can they spy on you ------No-------> They're buying data about you from someone who can.
    .|..
    .|..
    Yes.
    .|..
    \./.
    They are spying on you.

    --
    "That's the way to do it" - Punch
  7. Re:Fighting narcotics trafficking by PPH · · Score: 2

    Then you have nothing to hide, citizen.

    --
    Have gnu, will travel.
  8. Re:Before it's too late by npslider · · Score: 2

    http://www.amateurradio.com/en...

  9. Profit? Who is paying? by PPH · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Lets say I want a list of all cell phone customers who regularly commute to a certain location in Langley, Virginia. And a list of the numbers that they call. And then I want a list of all of the phones worldwide that call these same numbers. I now have a pretty good list of all of your agents*. And if I am the FSB, it's a hell of a lot cheaper to buy that data from AT&T, Verizon and others than try to collect it myself. Thanks a lot, useful idiots.

    *It's a bit more complicated than this. But link analysis tools can dig down through quite a few nodes to recover useful information.

    --
    Have gnu, will travel.
    1. Re:Profit? Who is paying? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      But, but, but... according to the occupants of a certain location in Langley, Virginia, it's only meta-data and therefore harmless, does not require warrants to obtain, and is so innocuous that really, it tells them nothing. And despite telling them nothing, they are willing to work really hard and spend a lot of money to get it!

  10. AT&T was #4 in 2012 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    They followed the money http://www.phonearena.com/news/Wiretapping-is-common-practice-heres-how-much-carriers-charge-law-enforcement-agencies-for-it_id28755

  11. I already assumed this by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    I mean when I pick up the phone I already say hi to the NSA person, speak my location, who I am talking to, and the purpose of the call. Doesn't everybody do this?

  12. Re:Before it's too late by jo7hs2 · · Score: 4, Informative

    As stated well by a ham in the comments to the linked article... "Amateur radio is explicitly not for traffic that needs to remain private. It exists for limited purposes not including routine communication that can be served by other means (e.g. a phone or ordinary internet connection). It is chiefly for education and research/experimentation in radio. It is not for general personal communications or commercial use." http://www.kb6nu.com/if-gotenn...

  13. Stallman right yet again by JoeyRox · · Score: 4, Insightful

    He's been saying for years that our phones are being used as spying devices. Most wrote it off as an extreme view, even those who are sympathetic to Stallman's causes. Turns out he's been right all along.

  14. So, let me get this straight... by Weaselmancer · · Score: 5, Insightful

    AT&T can determine where you are, and who you are talking to, and all sorts of super-spy stuff like that. But they can't figure out where robocalls are coming from and stop those? AT&T can find me, but they can't find fucking Rachel from Card Member Services?

    Make it make sense to me, AT&T. I challenge you.

    --
    Weaselmancer
    rediculous.
    1. Re:So, let me get this straight... by edtice1559 · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Actually, an FCC working group did just put forth proposals to solve this problem. It's actually a harder problem to solve. AT&T has no trouble seeing who their customers call and potentially cutting off those who abuse the phone system. But that's not the same problem as what to do when calls from other networks hit yours. It's the difference between protecting your network from internal vs. external attacks.

    2. Re:So, let me get this straight... by Rick+Schumann · · Score: 4, Insightful

      It's actually very simple: They're getting paid in both cases you mention. The government is paying them to violate our rights and our privacy, and robocall companies are paying them to look the other way. AT&T is a bunch of assholes, and this surprises you why, exactly?

  15. Re:burner phone with no plan by mdm-adph · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Cross-check the IMEI of the phone against store inventories for when it was sold; pull CCTV camera footage for the store; put your face through face-recognition

    --
    It is by my will alone my thoughts acquire motion; it is by the juice of the coffee bean that the thoughts acquire speed
  16. Re:Why is this a problem? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Except AT&T uses corruption to push the competitors out of the so-called "free" market.

  17. Re:Before it's too late by npslider · · Score: 2

    I am not a licensed ham. I cited the article to indicate that other people have also *thought* about the idea. I have no intention of doing this.

    My original comment was a tongue in check.

    It was a sarcastic attempt to portray such an act of desperation as the only option left; to place emphasis on how truly bad things have become that the only way to achieve a measure of privacy was to resort to encrypting a communication method not owned and controlled by a corporate entity.

  18. Re:Before it's too late by npslider · · Score: 2

    "It is not for general personal communications or commercial use."

    Sad, that this may be one of the few ways to communicate that is not controlled (via centralized servers and corporate interests). Obviously w/o encryption it's not secure. Shows how competently modern communication methods have all been turned into one massive surveillance operation to both provide profit and power to the 'ones behind the curtain'....in the name of public safety of course, it's for the children!

  19. Re:Companies keeping records... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    What's new is that they're selling the data to law enforcement you ridiculous twat.

  20. Re:Companies keeping records... by edtice1559 · · Score: 4, Informative

    What's new is that they are selling the data to law enforcement. Until this was revealed, general opinion was that the data was only given to law enforcement when it was requested. Now we see that the phone company is out trying to encourage law enforcement to consume the data for a price. My answer is about the same as the AC response (currently moderated at zero) but without the unnecessary personal attack.

  21. Is it time to break up AT&T (again)? by cybersquid · · Score: 2

    Seems like we just did this but in fact it was way back in 1984 that the US government broke up (the original) AT&T.
    Then, like idiots, we allowed AT&T to gradually reconstruct itself. "It will be OK this time" we maybe thought. "They've learnt their lesson. No more abusing their position and size."

  22. Re:How is this not wiretapping? by postbigbang · · Score: 2

    Wiretapping means listening to the wire, or in this case, the signal of the audio conversation. That wasn't done.

    Instead, the metadata details were sold, meaning things like what time a call was made, where the tower locations were, the duration, and so forth.

    Not wiretapping, but still ratting out customers.

    --
    ---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.