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

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.

Comments

It'll only get worse

[ausekilis]

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.

Re:It'll only get worse

[mrchaotica]

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.

too big?

[TimothyHollins]

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

Sometimes I just lose faith.

Re:too big?

[ShanghaiBill]

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.

Re:too big?

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:too big?

[Archangel Michael]

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. ;)

Re: too big?

[Anonymous Coward]

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

Obama

[Xenographic]

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

Discovery

[doconnor]

"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.

Re:Discovery

[Anonymous Coward]

two words: Parallel Construction

This is 2016

[Oswald McWeany]

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.

Profit? Who is paying?

[PPH]

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.

Re:Before it's too late

[jo7hs2]

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...

Stallman right yet again

[JoeyRox]

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.

So, let me get this straight...

[Weaselmancer]

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.

Re:So, let me get this straight...

[Rick Schumann]

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?

Re:Companies keeping records...

[edtice1559]

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.