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The NSA Knows Who You've Called

Posted by Zonk on Thu May 11, 2006 08:55 AM
from the at-least-i-know-i'm-free dept.
Privacy United States Government Communications Politics
Magnifico writes "USAToday is reporting on the National Security Agency's goal to create a database of every call ever made inside the USA. Aided by the cooperation of US telecom corporations, AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth, the NSA has been secretly collecting phone call records of tens of millions of Americans; the vast majority of whom aren't suspected of any crime. Only Qwest refused to give the NSA information because they were uneasy about giving information to the government without the proper warrants. The usefulness of the NSA's domestic phone call database as a counterterrorism tool is unclear."

Jamie adds: Traditionally, the devices which record dialed phone numbers are called pen registers, and trap-and-trace devices. The ECPA provided some legal privacy protection. It was controversial when Section 214 of the Patriot Act amended 50 USC 1842 to allow the FBI to record this information with minimal oversight. The Department of Justice has been required for some time to report to Congress the number of pen registers and trap-and-traces, though in recent years [PDF, see question 10] it declared that information classified.

If anyone has information about how the NSA, as opposed to the FBI, has been involved in domestic phone number collection, please post links in the discussion.

In related news, the National Security Agency has closed down an inquiry into the so-called "Terrorist Surveillance Program," a separate program from this one, by refusing to grant security clearance to the lawyers in the Department of Justice. The NSA and the DoJ are both established under the executive.

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Related Stories

[+] NSA Data Mining Much Larger Than Reported 863 comments
silassewell writes to tell us The New York Times is reporting that the "volume of information harvested from telecommunication data and voice networks, without court-approved warrants, is much larger than the White House has acknowledged." The NSA gained the cooperation of many American telecommunication companies after 9/11 to access streams of communication, both domestic and international, as a part of a presidentially approved program to hunt for evidence of terrorist activity.
[+] Telecoms Facing $50 Billion Lawsuit for Wiretaps 585 comments
hdtv writes "According to a MarketWatch article, BellSouth Corp and Verizon Telecommunications are facing lawsuits seeking billions of dollars in damages for the decision to turn over calling records to the government. The damages amount to $1,000 per person, whose records were turned over to Feds. According to the article, 'consumers could sue the phone service providers under communications privacy legislation that dates back to the 1930s. Relevant laws include the Communications Act, first passed in 1934, and a variety of provisions of the Electronic Communications and Privacy Act, including the Stored Communications Act, passed in 1986.'"
[+] News: Justice Department To Review Domestic Spying 222 comments
orgelspieler writes, "According to the New York Times, Justice Department Inspector General Glenn Fine has opened a review of his department's role in the domestic spying program. Democrats (and some Republicans) have been requesting an all-out investigation into the legality of the so-called 'Terrorist Surveillance Program' since it was made public. But this new inquiry stops short of evaluating the constitutional legitimacy of the program." From the article: "The review, Mr. Fine said in his letter, will examine the controls in place at the Justice Department for the eavesdropping, the way information developed from it was used, and the department's 'compliance with legal requirements governing the program'... Several Democrats suggested that the timing of his review might be tied to their takeover of Congress in this month's midterm elections as a way to preempt expected Democratic investigations of the N.S.A. program."
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The NSA Knows Who You've Called 25 Comments More /

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  • Among the big telecommunications companies, only Qwest has refused to help the NSA, the sources said. According to multiple sources, Qwest declined to participate because it was uneasy about the legal implications of handing over customer information to the government without warrants.

    Qwest's refusal to participate has left the NSA with a hole in its database.
    Clearly, Qwest is a nest of terrorists.

    I for one suggest NSA take aim at Qwest and bomb them back to to the PSTN-age!
  • What an awesome tool for a government agency to have!

    You know what I love? Scenarios! How about this one: You're arrested as a suspect for a crime you didn't commit. The government doesn't have anything on you except that there are no other suspects or witnesses. What they do have, is a network of vertices (phones) and edges (calls) spanning the past year of your life. They also have a list of "dirty" nodes or telephone users who have a rap sheet or ties to anti-American groups.

    Thanks to Dijkstra's [wikipedia.org] & the Bellman-Ford [wikipedia.org] algorithms, it's a hop skip and a jump to a prosecutor saying "we have records showing you called your mother on such and such date prompting her to call her hair dresser who has been forwarding money to his family living in Mexico that has ties to Islamic Extremist groups!"

    Farfetched? Maybe. But you don't have to be a Sci-Fi author to imagine crazy abuses of this data.

    In the eyes of the government, we are all innocent until proven guilty. This could easily be turned into a data mining tool making some of us "less innocent" than others. And frankly, I'm not looking forward to that day.

    <tinhat> Imagine a time and place where you have a security rating ... you approach an airport terminal and hand them your ID card (or scan your arm) but you can't board the plane because you've been making too many phone calls to your friends who happen to have a rap sheet. </tinhat>
    • "In the eyes of the government, we are all innocent until proven guilty."

      No, in the eyes of the government, we are all assets, and are protected as such. Any asset or group of asset wishing to upset the status quo is moved to the basement, the same way I had to move my circa 1970 pole lamp because it clashed with, well, everything.

    • Re:Oh, the Abuses We'll See! (Score:5, Funny)

      by Jon Luckey (7563) on Thursday May 11 2006, @09:14AM (#15307446)
      it's a hop skip and a jump to a prosecutor saying "we have records showing you called your mother on such and such date prompting her to call her hair dresser who has been forwarding money to his family living in Mexico that has ties to Islamic Extremist groups!"

      Then the government would have to explain why it has not captured the mastermind who lies at the heart of this six degreed web of terror:

      Kevin Bacon.

    • Re:Oh, the Abuses We'll See! (Score:5, Insightful)

      by bombadillo (706765) on Thursday May 11 2006, @09:14AM (#15307451)
      "Farfetched? Maybe. But you don't have to be a Sci-Fi author to imagine crazy abuses of this data.

      You only have to have lived through the McCarthy era to imagine the abuses...

    • Re:Oh, the Abuses We'll See! (Score:5, Insightful)

      by cgenman (325138) on Thursday May 11 2006, @09:16AM (#15307466) Homepage
      What, do you really think the database will be used for plausible terrorism exercises?

      Just think of what database searches will be fired off before the next election. I'm sure the outgoing Bush administration will know more about the democratic challenger than even they know about themselves. And as this program was started in 2001 who knows if it was used last election or not. There was some mighty bad stuff about Kerry that leaked... Not that any politician would abuse a position of power for something as petty as getting re-elected.

      This year's prognosis is the same as last: Screwed.

    • Re:Oh, the Abuses We'll See! (Score:5, Insightful)

      by BrynM (217883) * on Thursday May 11 2006, @09:24AM (#15307545) Homepage Journal
      You know what I love? Scenarios! ... Farfetched? Maybe.
      Here's a far-fetched scenario for you: On the day the NSA leaked the existence of a huge domestic spying database that covers every US citizen with a phone, the television news was preoccupied with tax legislation (that will benefit the rich mostly), Jeb Bush and the Vatican's position on a work of fiction. Oh wait...

    • Re:Oh, the Abuses We'll See! (Score:5, Interesting)

      by AGMW (594303) on Thursday May 11 2006, @09:24AM (#15307546) Homepage
      What an awesome tool for a government agency to have!

      I friend sent me this link just yesterday about someone trying to purchase a pizza [aclu.org] in the world it would appear both the UK and US governments want us to live in!

      I, for one, do not welcome any overlords, whether insect or other sufficently low life to want to be in politics!
      Just say NO [no2id.net]

  • At least a tech sector storage boom? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by BrynM (217883) * on Thursday May 11 2006, @09:03AM (#15307355) Homepage Journal
    Man, the NSA must have servers the size of Steven Colbert's galvanized balls. This and the Google search request they made represent massive data sets.
    The agency's goal is "to create a database of every call ever made" within the nation's borders
    Are they really going through old records as well? "Ever made" is a pretty big term, but I'm betting there are lots of old call records on legacy systems and paper out there. Do they have agreements with the companies in question to provide aggregate data for marketing purposes? I also wonder what points they're getting the data from. There's a lot of people and companies spoofing ANI with Asterisk or similar boxes these days. This is a government database though... how clean can that data be? That cleanliness, of course, makes the situation better and worse at the same time. If someone reading has more operational knowledge of telcos and how the call records themselves are transmitted, please post clarifications.

    So many questions, but me no longer wonders how those biggie telco mergers got past regulators anymore...

  • Can you hear me now? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Noryungi (70322) on Thursday May 11 2006, @09:04AM (#15307370) Homepage Journal
    Actually Bin Laden came that close to being snuffed by the NSA, since they have tapes of him talking to his mother by sat-phone, while he was in Afghanistan and she was in Saudi Arabia. This is why Clinton bombed Afghanistan and Sudan using long-range cruise missiles. They missed him, too, by a few minutes, unfortunately.

    Of course, last I heard, he only used trusted human couriers to deliver messages. He may be a madman, but he is a smart madman. And most of these couriers were not American, but Pakistani and Saudi citizens, and they try to be as discreet -- and "un-islamist" as possible. So the NSA domestic spying program is definitely not useful against terrorists. But remember, kids, if we can't listen to your phone, the terrorists have won!
  • Currently it's a simple message saying I'm not available and to leave a message. Now I'll have to add:

    Be aware that the National Security Agency may be recording this call and anything you say may be used against you. I have no control over this situation as my phone provider is turning over this information on all its customers to the NSA.

    Can't wait to hear the questions about this when people start calling.

  • For the customers of these companies, it means that the government has detailed records of calls they made -- across town or across the country -- to family members, co-workers, business contacts and others.

    And later on...

    Sources, however, say that is not the case. With access to records of billions of domestic calls, the NSA has gained a secret window into the communications habits of millions of Americans. Customers' names, street addresses and other personal information are not being handed over as part of NSA's domestic program, the sources said. But the phone numbers the NSA collects can easily be cross-checked with other databases to obtain that information.

    The telcos stand to make out like gangbusters: a) they ingratiate themselves to the military and the government, which will come in handy to defeat Net Neutrality legislation, b) they can sit there and claim plausible deniability when someone brings suit against them because their phone records were used against them in court wrogfully, as they claim they're not supplying personal information to the NSA and c) the NSA, by running these algorithms and tracing calling patterns is generating data that could potentially be used by them to modify call routing schemes, change marketing penetration, and generally give them access to potentially useful information, which I'm sure the NSA will be only too happy to provide, to gain further cooperation.

    Seems as if the telcos are now firmly in bed with the government and will pretty soon be able to write their own ticket to profits on the backs of taxpayers. Are all these illegal immigrants sure they want to be in this country?

  • People refuse to see the big picture (Score:5, Insightful)

    by MikeRT (947531) on Thursday May 11 2006, @09:14AM (#15307450) Homepage
    One of the great things about the public education system is that it doesn't teach a critical understanding of historical events. Take police states for example. Most people in the US think they're built in a day and that a police state only exists when thugs in snazzy uniforms goosestep down the street. They not only don't know, but don't even want to know what leads up to the formation of a police state.

    You know what does? People railing against one socio-political-economic class as the root problem of society. Newsflash, most classes are where they are for reasons they could have helped or legitimately earned. A pluralist society needs that class diversity to reinforce individualism. And let's not forget perceived enemies of all types. Then there's the "just give up part of your liberty and you'll be safe, if you've got nothing to hide of course." It's like gun control. There are a lot of cops out there who can't shoot worth a damn and police departments are legendary for resistance to change. Do you trust them with your daily safety? I don't.

    When people say to you "if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear," you can respond (which I usually do) with "no decent, civilized person would ever have grounds to criticize the basic checks and balances that you oppose."

  • Message from the NSA (Score:5, Funny)

    by pubjames (468013) on Thursday May 11 2006, @09:16AM (#15307463)
    Dear Osama,

    please can you start using the telephone more often? We're having real trouble finding where you are! It would help if you phoned one of your relatives, spoke loudly and clearly into the phone, and if you can say a few of our keywords that would be great.

    Thanks!

    The NSA

  • Terrorist threat is minimal (Score:5, Insightful)

    by alphorn (667624) on Thursday May 11 2006, @09:17AM (#15307471)
    Repeat after me: The terrorist threat is minimal.

    In the last ten years, smoking has killed 4 million Americans. Traffic has killed 400.000. Terrorism has killed 4.000. When will you stop handing total power to the government just to fight this one, close to irrelevant risk? And why not spend those many billions on the healthcare system and traffic safety?

  • Effective counter terrorism (Score:5, Insightful)

    by slushbat (777142) on Thursday May 11 2006, @09:18AM (#15307483)
    I think you don't appreciate how clever this really is. Once the terrorists are no longer jealous of your freedom, they will lose interest and leave you alone. All the NSA has to do is remove all of your freedoms and the problem is solved.

  • How to install country control system (Score:5, Insightful)

    by nysus (162232) on Thursday May 11 2006, @09:18AM (#15307488)
    Step 1) Put the technological infrastructure in place
    Step 2) Place your political friends and allies in charge of the infrastructure
    Step 3) Reduce measures to control abuse of they system by claiming it's in the interests of "national security"
    Step 4) Undermine the efforts of your political enemies with your newfound power

  • Never in my life (Score:5, Insightful)

    by koehn (575405) * on Thursday May 11 2006, @09:19AM (#15307496)
    Never did I think I'd actually be glad to be a Qwest customer. I mean, after all the rolling over that Qwest has done, all the anti-customer behavior, I'm surprised they took the moral high ground.

    Oh, wait. They didn't, they were just afraid they'd get sued.
  • It only costs a few buildings, over 3,000 lives but man oh man look at all the great stuff you can do now. You can run roughshod over civil rights and the population will let you do it!

    Terrorism, Terrorism, Terrorism, Terrorism, Terrorism, Terrorism, Terrorism, Terrorism, Terrorism, OMG TERRORISM!!!!!!!!!!!

    Keep your population on edge with a color coded system so they won't question anything. Oh need to raise the level..Is your bathroom breeding terrorists?

    Terrorism is the new Communism(tm)

    • Re:UK (Score:5, Informative)

      by Noryungi (70322) on Thursday May 11 2006, @09:06AM (#15307386) Homepage Journal
      Thank goodness the UK isn't planning anything like that.

      One (TLA) word for you: GCHQ.

      Think NSA without the silly "no-domestic-spying" rule.

      Have a nice day.

    • Re:UK (Score:5, Insightful)

      by mirio (225059) on Thursday May 11 2006, @09:09AM (#15307404)
      No, the UK just plans to track every single car's movement using a series of cameras that read license plates, and they video every square inch of public space. It's not any better, just different.

    • Re:This is not a troll.......... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Tx (96709) on Thursday May 11 2006, @09:14AM (#15307448) Journal
      I want the word free taken off all anthems, pledges, etc

      Nah, you just need to get the legal department to add some disclaimers. For example:

      "Land of the free (except where such freedom may be deemed by government agencies to conflict with the ability of the state to protect any such notional freedom from any perceived external or internal theats)"

      "I Pledge Allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one Nation under God, indivisible, with liberty (see disclaimer under freedom) and justice (pursuant to the ability of the pledgee to afford the aforesaid justice) for all."

      Problem solved!
      • Yeah, and the US is much better???

        What amazes me about the US is that I constantly hear from many of the people there how great a country is because it's free. Freedom, freedom, "land of the FREE", etc etc etc. Most of this sort of shit comes from the people who SUPPORT the opposite of freedom like that scary government you guys have got. Where I'm from (New Zealand) we don't go on about how great it is to be free because we live it. It's normal to us, it's what we're used to we take it for granted and that's the way it should be. I'm sure many will argue that point that it can't be taken for granted and say things like, "Your Freedom should be DEFENDED". Maybe for you but not for me. If it's not being attacked it doesn't need defence.
        We don't have no NSA, FBI, CIA, weird gun laws, death penalties and when it comes to crime - shit if a cat gets stuck up a tree it's basically front page news!

        The USA and Korea are not the two extremes of the world - get out and travel a bit more, I think you may be surprised what your country is missing.

    • is there any american who is proud of the way their country treats its citizens anymore?

      FUCK NO.

      I actually can't believe that it's gotten to this point. Every day on the news there is unveiled yet another invasion on my privacy and the privacy of my fellow citizens. Every day there is another civil liberty trounced.

      Every day there is news of how Dick Cheney is getting fatter on Halbituron dollars with no-bid contracts. Every day there is news of Bush appointing an old friend or serious yes-man to some high-level position in government that causes nothing but stress.

      And every day, the eyes of the people in this country glaze over and they quickly forget about the attrocities to our rights revealed from the day before. I don't understand the mentality.

      I actually find myself getting physically angry these days at the hubris with which the executive operates. There is no one standing in their way. Illegal wiretapping is now all but forgotten because the executive has envoked the "State Secrets" privledge - it's not even a real law, but part of what is known as "common law" but judges won't stand UP to these people.

      When you are a person hell-bent on control and dictatorship, it's hard to be stopped when the people who have the power to stop someone won't step up. Hell, just yesterday I read that GW Bush was saying how wonderful a president Jeb Bush would make. The man that botched the Florida election in 2000, the man with ties to arguably the most powerful family in the country if not the world... With two Bushes we have seen at least 3 wars.

      And the country will vote for Jeb. And the Bushes will continue to reign supreme. Already GW Bush has called for an end to presidental term limits. No surprise he'd want that passed before Jeb is elected.

      This country is no longer a democracy or even a republic. I get no say, and it is quite clear that the leaders in Washington in no way represent the will of the people. The country is ruled by money, greed, and power.

      I really, really hate to make this analogy. I loathe it actually. But the parallels between current events in the US and Nazi Germany are striking. Germany launched war based on the call to stamp out terrorisim. They controlled the populace thorough fear of outsiders, destroyed international trust, and made the country a very us-vs-them scenario of patriotism that allowed a fanatic to sieze control. Hitler very much said (paraphrased) "I can beat terrorism but only if you grant me more power than I normally have." Hello Patriot Act. And finally, Nazi Germany was stupidly meticulous with their records, including serious amounts of domestic spying.

      People. Listen. We are now under-represented if not completely un-represented. The federal government is no longer a checks-and-balances system, with unprecidented power being granted to the executive, going completely unchallenged. I have never before seen this ability to completely shut down investigations into illegal activities. Futher, no presidency has ever seen this degree of secrecy. We are governed by laws that we AREN'T EVEN ALLOWED TO READ. How can you be governed by laws that the government won't even acknowledge exist??

      I have become a person I never wanted to be. Conspiracy theory fills my head. But I'm not reading this stuff on some horrible "bushkills.com" site or something. Everything I read is on the front page of /. or the NY Times or Washington Post.

      So I'm afraid. Not sure there is anything I can do but try to rally people behind me and behind the very few who actually dare say "no" to the executive. I never thought I'd live in this type of fear of my government, and in fear that we may be witnessing the end of the government as our forefathers saw it.

      My only solace is that things of this nature have happened in the past, and have somehow righted themselves. So let's hope that this is just another Linconesque suspension of habius corpus, and that these wrongs will eventually be righted. But with such secrecy, and so much more going on than I will ever know about...

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