AT&T Maintains Call Database For the DEA Going Back To 1987 141
Jah-Wren Ryel writes "Forget the NSA — the DEA has been working hand-in-hand with AT&T on a database of records of every call that passes through AT&T's phone switches going back as far as 1987. The government pays AT&T for contractors who sit side-by-side with DEA agents and do phone records searches for them. From the article: 'For at least six years, law enforcement officials working on a counter narcotics program have had routine access, using subpoenas, to an enormous AT&T database that contains the records of decades of Americans’ phone calls — parallel to but covering a far longer time than the National Security Agency’s hotly disputed collection of phone call logs.'"
WTF??? (Score:5, Insightful)
The article is behind a god damned paywall. This one isn't [go.com]. Google lists many, many sources.
Does Jah-Wren Ryel work for the Times and is trying to increase subscription numbers? A link to a paywall is no citation whatever.
Oh, and according to what I read, these aren't warrentless searches.
Re:WTF??? (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah, having a hard time raging at this. There's a difference between just giving every call ever to the government for the fun of it, and having an agent show up with papers in order, asking for the calls to/from a certain number and getting only that.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:WTF??? (Score:5, Insightful)
That's great, except that all of our phone calls are still being recorded. This is something the Stasi could only DREAM of.
Read a little closer. This is the metadata that everyone is so worried about. It's not the actual conversation that's recorded, but the number called, call duration, and locations the cell phone was in for the duration of the call. The only new thing added to this list since the last half century is location data.
The scary thing about this is AT&T never deletes your call data. EVER. There's a reason why some EU privacy directives have a retention limit [wsj.com]. Which is ironically in direct contrast to the mandatory retention policies for law enforcement use in those very same countries.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
"Read a little closer. This is the metadata that everyone is so worried about. It's not the actual conversation that's recorded, but the number called, call duration, and locations the cell phone was in for the duration of the call. The only new thing added to this list since the last half century is location data."
We know that you called a local dealer 27 times in 89, 42 times in 95 an 17 times in 03, we busted him last week.
So don't tell us you never touched that stuff.
Re: (Score:3)
Circumstantial. He was a local drug dealer and bookie. All I did was make illegal bets. I swear!
Hmm, DEA or IRS. That choice entirely depends on how much money you have to throw at the problem. The IRS will often just take a check, and it's all nice and legal. The DEA on the other hand will tell you just how much you're going to spend on the half way house. You really thought the government paid for those? All the while, they'll be mentioning how much cheaper it is for you to just cooperate with them. Pay a "fine" right then and there. Cash only, no lawyers.
Re:WTF??? (Score:4, Interesting)
Back in the early-mid 1990s, I worked on a billing data collection system that was to be sold to the Australian and German telcos.
The EBAF and SMDR data collected from the phone switches only includes the to/from phone numbers, the start time of the call, and the end time of the call. it's sufficient to do billing calculations, but absolutely does not include recordings of the calls themselves.
Back then, of course, online storage was very expensive and computers were only in the 386 power range, so once billing was completed, the data was archived off to tape in case there were any billing discrepencies that had to be investigated in the future. It would seem those tapes were retained and loaded into the online systems that are feasible nowadays.
Still, I am surprised that they bothered doing so -- it's not like they'd be willing to correct billing that far back. So it had to be done in response to law enforcement demands rather than because of any valid business need.
Re: (Score:2)
Of course I'd also presume newer systems, especially cellular ones, have a lot more metadata than those old POTS systems did.
Re:WTF??? (Score:5, Insightful)
This is the metadata that everyone is so worried about. It's not the actual conversation that's recorded, but the number called, call duration, and locations the cell phone was in for the duration of the call.
That's a lot. It means they can track you everywhere you make a phone call. If I go to my girlfriend's house and make a call there, it means they know who my girlfriend is.
It means that if I'm the (Democratic) governor of a state, and I call up an escort service, the (Republican) federal prosecutor will know about it, and he can decide whether to prosecute me or not, at his sole discretion. He can even agree not to prosecute me if I agree to step down from office, to be replaced by an ineffective successor.
Re: (Score:2)
I used to work for MCI (and briefly Verizon Business after they bought us), and they did this as well. We had access to these archaic DB2 systems with a bazillion records going back to the 80s, with all the standard telco metadata. Our team used the recent data for calls through our IP relay (voice to text/text to voice service primarily intended for deaf people) system to help identify fraud users (the same Nigerian 419 scammers).
Re: (Score:1)
No, the calls aren't 'recorded'. These are essentially billing records. AT&T can't function without gathering and storing this information, it is in fact illegal for them NOT to gather this information and record ti because we, the people, have demanded that they keep this data so we can have accurate billing.
You're ignorant and being ridiculous.
Re: (Score:3)
I think if they haven't billed me for a call I made in 1987 yet, they can just suck it up. The accurate billing excuse can hold only for 6 months or so. A year at most. Anything else should be required by law to be deleted.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
and having an agent show up with papers in order
Now, if only that were a 4th Amendment warrant that was enforcing an enumerated power, it might even be legal.
Re:WTF??? (Score:4, Interesting)
There's a difference between just giving every call ever to the government for the fun of it, and having an agent show up with papers in order, asking for the calls to/from a certain number and getting only that.
The NSA has a warrant for everything they do to. The problem is not the warrants, the problem is the existence of the database. It is begging for abuse, perhaps by the government, perhaps by AT&T, perhaps by criminals that have infiltrated either.
The cali cartel set up their own version of this database [cocaine.org] in Colombia and used it to sniff out any of their people who were talking to law enforcement.
Re: (Score:3)
Warrants are only as good as the judges who issue them - the NSA makes use of FISA courts, which are really just rubber-stampers. In any case, if a warrant is ever denied, there's nothing to stop it just being reworded and applied for again in hope of a more sympathetic judge.
Re: (Score:2)
The cali cartel set up their own version of this database [cocaine.org] in Colombia and used it to sniff out any of their people who were talking to law enforcement.
Interesting. Hezbollah also used a cell phone database to track down informers. They searched for anomalies, such as cell phones that were only used for a short period of time or from specific locations. Apparently spies used dedicated cell phones to call their handlers.
http://seattletimes.com/html/politics/2016817370_apushezbollahcia.html [seattletimes.com]
Hezbollah unravels CIA spy network in Lebanon
Backed by Iran, Hezbollah has built a professional counterintelligence apparatus that Nasrallah - whom the U.S. government des
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
What? Just because some D.E.A. Nimrod shows up with crap from a warrant mill in the basement of some D.C. government office building we should all just bend over. Go ahead, tell me that we don't have judges that rubber stamp piles of paper every day...
Re: (Score:1)
Oh, and according to what I read, these aren't warrentless searches.
That is usually what "with subpoenas" means. Which makes me wonder. If there's been a paper trail of this leading all the way back to 1987, why are we only just now hearing about it?
Re:WTF??? (Score:5, Insightful)
If there's been a paper trail of this leading all the way back to 1987, why are we only just now hearing about it?
Because it is no big deal. The DEA had proper judicial oversight, and only saw records of specific individuals, and only when they had sufficient probable cause to get a subpoena. It is the way the system is supposed to work, and is the way it should have worked with the NSA. What you should be outraged about is the very existence of the DEA, a government agency devoted to monitoring and controlling our bodily fluids. Once you get past that, worrying about a few phone records is pretty silly.
Re:WTF??? (Score:5, Informative)
If there's been a paper trail of this leading all the way back to 1987, why are we only just now hearing about it?
Because it is no big deal. The DEA had proper judicial oversight,
"Administrative subpoena" == NO judicial oversight, not even by a judge's clerk. The term is newspeak, deliberately chosen to induce exactly the misunderstanding you had.
Warrantless surveillance (Score:1)
Agreed, it's surveillance when they record your actions, not when then get a warrant to take a look at that recording (or in the case of the NSA click a checkbox and fucking lie to Congress about getting a warrant).
It's no different than if they stuck a GPS tracker on you, just in case they wanted to serve a warrant on you in future to get your GPS location.
Come to think of it, the phone records now include your location, so its exactly identical.
Fucking mass surveillance. They got away with it, because it
Re: (Score:1)
"Because it is no big deal. The DEA had proper judicial oversight, and only saw records of specific individuals, and only when they had sufficient probable cause to get a subpoena. It is the way the system is supposed to work,"
What? Preemptively covering all communications of a 25 year old dope dealer since the day he was born?
And everybody who ever called him from the age of 5 is a possible user, flagged in the database?
Cross-referenced with all other 25 year old dealers?
Way to go.
Re:WTF??? (Score:5, Insightful)
and only when they had sufficient probable cause to get a subpoena.
If by sufficient you mean none at all.
"Probable cause is not a prerequisite to the issuance of a subpoena." [justice.gov]
Re: (Score:3)
Because it is no big deal. The DEA had proper judicial oversight, and only saw records of specific individuals, and only when they had sufficient probable cause to get a subpoena. It is the way the system is supposed to work, and is the way it should have worked with the NSA.
From the article:
Crucially, they said, the phone data is stored by AT&T, and not by the government as in the N.S.A. program. It is queried for phone numbers of interest mainly using what are called "administrative subpoenas," those issued not by a grand jury or a judge but by a federal agency, in this case the D.E.A.
So the DEA issues their own "warrants" making a mockery of the whole idea.
Re: WTF??? (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
You had the Church report so no domestic operation/unit/task force really ever wanted any unique keywords used again.
You also had an interesting funding mix and database upgrades - many connecting to each other for the first time or been able to be searched via a network and the results combined - cases/city/state/federal/telco.
The results where hinted at in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Core [wikipedia.org]
http://c [consortiumnews.com]
Re: (Score:2)
From the TFA:
Crucially, they said, the phone data is stored by AT&T, and not by the government as in the N.S.A. program. It is queried for phone numbers of interest mainly using what are called “administrative subpoenas,” those issued not by a grand jury or a judge but by a federal agency, in this case the D.E.A.
Sounds like they get everything they want without much review...
Re:WTF??? (Score:5, Informative)
Every call that passes through a switch is covered ie not just one teclo's customers.
All the call data ie the classic pen register seems to be collected at the rate "four billion call records are added to the database every day".
The locations of callers is also logged.
The data is not stored by the US gov ie telco employees work on the system ie as "private data".
All done under friendly administrative warrants -ie courts??? judges???
Basically it is what many have hinted at - total mastery of all US calls via one telco.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:WTF??? (Score:5, Informative)
Aside from the 'WTF is AT&T doing with over a quarter-century of phone records that would justify the cost of storing them, anyway?' angle, there are a few... concerning... elements.
1. The searches aren't "warrantless" in the strictest sense; but apparently most of them occur by the process of 'administrative subpoena', which requires no judicial oversight. The DEA has the power to get one simply by asserting that it needs one because drugs. (Sections 506 and 507 of the Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act of 1970 [gpo.gov]). Given that the features of the program include turnaround times of an hour or less, barring atypically complex queries, there is clearly very limited review going on. It isn't the DEA running raw SQL queries; but the separation between it being the 'DEA's database' and 'AT&T's database' appears to be fairly limited.
2. Pretty much everything in the section of the presentation entitled "Protecting The Program"(starts on page 8): The program is 'unclassified' but "All requestors are instructed to never refer to Hemisphere in any official document" and there are specific instructions on how to conceal Hemisphere as the source in an investigation by using it first, to guide further subpoenas, and then retroactively building a case only on the subsequent subpoenas, in order to conceal, from the court and everyone else, the role of Hemisphere. As they describe the process:
When a complete set of CDRs are subpoenaed from the carrier, then all memorialized references to relevant and pertinent calls can be attributed to the carrier’s records, thus “walling off” the information obtained from Hemisphere. In other words, Hemisphere can easily be protected if it is used as a pointer system to uncover relevant numbers.
In special cases, we realize that it might not be possible to obtain subpoenaed phone records that will “wall off” Hemisphere.
In these special circumstances, the Hemisphere analyst should be contacted immediately. The analyst will work with the investigator and request a separate subpoena to AT&T
This practice of evidence laundering would appear to be very similar to the "Parallel Construction [reuters.com]" process described as in use by the DEA for other giant secretive data sources (with 'Parallel Construction' being the term for "recreating" a fictional chain of evidence that excludes the existence of sensitive data sources. Less friendly audiences might call this 'perjury'...)
Re: (Score:2)
> This practice of evidence laundering would appear to be very similar to the "Parallel Construction [reuters.com]" process described as in use by the DEA for other giant secretive data sources (with 'Parallel Construction' being the term for "recreating" a fictional chain of evidence that excludes the existence of sensitive data sources. Less friendly audiences might call this 'perjury'...)
Exactly, and that is what most worries me about it. It is lying to the court by omission - so it is not clear at al
Re:WTF??? (Score:5, Informative)
Does Jah-Wren Ryel work for the Times and is trying to increase subscription numbers? A link to a paywall is no citation whatever.
I use a combination of plugins that have the side-effect of making most paywalls disappear, I don't even know it is there.
I recommend you do it too:
CookieSaver Lite [mozilla.org] - Set to block the NYTimes cookies
RefControl [mozilla.org] - Set to spoof the referrer when reading all NYTimes pages as "http://google.com/"
NoScript [noscript.net] - The NY Times does not need javascript for most pages. This may be optional for the NY Times but there are some paywalls like foreignpolicy.com that do rely on javascript.
FYI - the NY Times article is the definitive citation as they are the ones who broke the story.
Re: (Score:2)
Thanks for the info, but I don't want paywalled sites to get my eyeballs. The Illinois Times manages to give away paper copies as well as their online version and still make money, why can't the Times? They certainly have a much larger readership.
Re: (Score:2)
Thanks for the info, but I don't want paywalled sites to get my eyeballs.
If your goal is not to give any traffic to paywalled sites then that's not enough. You'll have to get a plugin that blocks access to a list of websites and then add the paywalls to that list.
That is because most big name paywalls are deliberately porous, so you will never know if you are reading an article at a paywall site that just happened to let you through this time. Those plugins I mentioned are mainly for increasing privacy while browsing, they just have the side-effect of making paywalls think you
Re: (Score:2)
There is one site I visit that has occasional stories paywalled, the local paper here. Most info isn't likely elsewhere and the paywalls are trivial to overcome. But I generally avoid them. I'm thinking about a simple HOSTS file to send DNS requests to those sites to the bit bucket.
Re: (Score:2)
Pay me $100 for reading this sentence. If you don't you are an unimpressive thief and a hypocrite.
They are warrantless- DEA agents subpoena AT&T (Score:2)
From the article:
"It is queried for phone numbers of interest mainly using what are called “administrative subpoenas,” those issued not by a grand jury or a judge but by a federal agency, in this case the D.E.A."
So the DEA agents themselves decide to have AT&T pull your phone records.
Re: (Score:2)
You call yourself a nerd?
If you can't figure out a way to get past the NYT payroll, you're through. Turn in your propeller beanie. And your pocket protector.
Re: (Score:2)
I'm not interested in getting past an NYT paywall when there are non-offensive sources of the same information.
Re: (Score:2)
Yes it is:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citation [wikipedia.org]
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Ron Paul was/is different. If you can't see that, then you are blind, and a useful slave.
Not really no. He voted with his party (Score:1)
Ron Paul was a libertarian in the party that started the war on drugs (Reagan) and was helping them effectively by being their fig leaf to bring in libertarian votes. Overall republicans were more in favor of warrant less wiretapping etc. (although democrats suck too so there is enough blame to go around) but Paul was not the answer. He was a part of the problem.
Re:Not really no. He voted with his party (Score:4, Informative)
I can't stand Ron Paul but you really can't tie Ron Paul to any of the complaints you just listed since he was on voting record for being against everything you just mentioned.
And you also can't say the democrats are less in favor of warrant less anything when these types of wiretaps and general invasions of privacy has increased since the democrats took over. I guess you can make the case that the democrats talk louder against theses actions, but that doesn't really count for shit - well, I guess talking loud works to fool people like you.
Re:Not really no. He voted with his party (Score:5, Informative)
Ron Paul was a libertarian in the party that started the war on drugs (Reagan)
Nixon [wikipedia.org] came up with the phrase, although it actually started under a Democrat [wikipedia.org], young fellow.
Re: (Score:1)
Point of order: in Wilson's time the Dems were still the conservative party.
Re: (Score:2)
That's funny.
It is also funny that you were modded insightful.
Quoted from upon the wikipedia article that was on the reply you responded to
"In his first term as President, Wilson persuaded a Democratic Congress to pass major progressive reforms. Historian John M. Cooper argues that, in his first term, Wilson successfully pushed a legislative agenda that few presidents have equaled, remaining unmatched up until the New Deal.[1] "
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
I voted Green Party. The Libbies want corporations to have the liberty to foul the water and air. I grew up two miles from a Monsanto plant and saw the difference after the Clean Air Act. I don't want to go back to those times. The Greenies want to legalize drugs AND keep environmental protections.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Offtopic)
Environmentalists who push like this really piss me off. Meanwhile
Re: (Score:2)
People's Park in Bezerkely (Score:3)
For another example of left-wing psychos going overboard with public land, read about People's Park [wikipedia.org] in Bezerkely [wikipedia.org].
I especially like how they made Ohlone Park [wikipedia.org] a dog's park, where dogs could be free from human oppression. Big surprise, they formed a pack, run by a Top Dog. Not only did Berkeley fail to create the New Man, they failed to create the New Dog.
Re: (Score:2)
That Wikipedia link refers to it as "a dog park," not "a dog's park."
The vignette about the "dog's park" is from the book Destructive Generation: Second Thoughts About The '60s [google.com]. It hasn't filtered down to Wikipedia yet.
Disclaimer (Score:5, Insightful)
I think there is a simple solution for this. All phones sold should have a written disclaimer stamped on the case that reads "All calls are monitored for possible criminal activity and any other reason the authorities may deem necessary." I can't believe anyone thinks there is any privacy left on any public communications system.
Re:Disclaimer (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:1)
In other news, an ample supply of white flags is a cheap and effective national defense strategy...
Hmmm, doesn't seem to work too well for the French.
Re: (Score:2)
Not only that, but actually current cell-site data for any phone is publicly available for a small fee [numberport...lookup.com] (1 cent). The GSM Home Location Register is a worldwide database which all carriers need access to for roaming to work, the fact that somehow some companies are able to sell access to it perhaps should not really surprise anyone. What you get back are cell tower IDs, not co-ordinates, but I guess it may be possible to build a map of tower IDs to physical locations (or obtain one) if you're determined enoug
Re: (Score:3)
Probably because they aren't public communications systems.
Privacy (Score:3)
While i don't believe in the 'if you are innocent you have nothing to hide' concept, most people really don't care of the government knows that the wife told them to grab some milk on the way home.
The trade off was cheap and instantaneous communication between you and said wife. Most of us are willing to accept that level of intrusion for the convenience.
NYPD cannibal cop! (Score:4, Interesting)
While i don't believe in the 'if you are innocent you have nothing to hide' concept, most people really don't care of the government knows that the wife told them to grab some milk on the way home.
But I do care about the NYPD cannibal cop [usatoday.com] that abused a restricted law-enforcement database so that he could find women to consume. Do you really think he's the only one abusing the system?
Re: (Score:1, Insightful)
Doesn't involve a judge though. Just the DEA.
Makes me wonder, though, just how many times the DEA denies a subpoena on a DEA-supposed pusher?
(Due process being SO last century...)
Re:Why was this even posted? (Score:5, Informative)
Doesn't involve a judge though. Just the DEA.
Wrong. If there's a subpoena, there's a judge.
Not necessarily [fas.org]. The DEA gained the ability to issue 'administrative subpoenas' in 1970, and uses them routinely and on a nontrivial scale. All they have to do is assert that the material is 'relevant to an investigation' [wired.com] and out it goes. No muss, no fuss, no tedious judicial oversight.
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:3)
From the article:
In other words, no, there's no oversight. The DEA issues its own legal requests. The AT&T "contractors" who issue the queries sit next to the agents and are paid for by the DEA (in other words, they're employees of the government). Elsewhere the presentation makes a reference to routin
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Most classic scripts would have some hint at a court/judge and then some hardware on site or telco look up of a person named.
Billing records would be presented as fair game but after the right paperwork - all very formal and correct, tension in needing "evidence" and not losing a case.
A total 24/7 database of all a countries/regions calls, telco staff helping and internal paperwork per 'look' feels like a spy movie
Re: (Score:2)
CSI featured the 'Omniscient Database' so often, it inspired the TV Tropes page. Numb3rs didn't even bother to go into the question of where all the data was pulled in from, but communications analysis was a frequent technique there, and the police department in Dexter just has access to every DNA database everywhere to identify DNA - if they don't find a match in the police database they'll simply use the medical records database, or the paternity test record database. In one case they got a match because
Re: (Score:2)
Isn't this information shown in every cop show or movie?
Well, if Leslie Nielsen did in in The Naked Gun, it must be constitutional.
Some of the writers of more serious cop dramas make references to certain police activities in order to bring attention to them and trigger public discussions.
Important clause there (Score:5, Insightful)
'For at least six years, law enforcement officials working on a counter narcotics program have had routine access, using subpoenas, to an enormous AT&T database that contains the records of decades of Americans’ phone calls — parallel to but covering a far longer time than the National Security Agency’s hotly disputed collection of phone call logs.'
See that, NSA? Somehow the DEA managed to use the ordinary justice system without totally dismantling the Constitution.
Not that I think the War on Drugs (TM) is any less stupid and wasteful than the War on Terrism (TM), but at least we see that we don't need a parallel, secret justice [sic] system to "fight" it.
Re: (Score:1)
The "ordinary justice system" involves judges in determining whether subpoenas apply. As I understand it, this seems to bypass the usual checks and balances by allowing the would-be prosecutor
Re:Important clause there (Score:5, Informative)
They are administrative subpoenas, issued by the DEA, and never seen by a judge or a grand jury. These shouldn't be constitutional either.
Re: (Score:2)
There are some important differences between what this is and what the NSA is doing. Probably the most important is that the DEA doesn't have a 'general warrant', that is permission to vacuum up ALL the call detail records.
The 4th amendment was put in place in large part because of a reaction against general warrants issued by the British Crown.
Wikipedia:
The Fourth Amendment (Amendment IV) is an amendment to the United States Constitution and part of the Bill of Rights. It prohibits unreasonable searches an
Re: (Score:2)
You couldn't be, or shouldn't be, this ignorant. Even your "source"(while Wikipedia may present accurate data on average, Wikipedia is a failure of a source given that alterations are open to anyone(registration isn't controlled, and that is all which is required to alter, add, or delete) and accuracy of data isn't verified in all cases) contradicts your statement. There is no difference between what the DEA and NSA are doing.
Unless a warrant is based on probable cause, and issued by judge(magistrate, circu
Re: (Score:2)
Exactly where do you even attempt to make an argument? A couple of ad hominem attacks and a obvious basic lack of understanding of history is your response?
How about citing a source for facts supporting your view?
Here's another citation from the EFF supporting mine.
https://www.eff.org/files/filenode/att/generalwarrantsmemo.pdf [eff.org]
Basically it's quite obvious you have no idea what you are talking about, or how to make an argument. And you call others ignorant?
Re: (Score:3)
Not that I think the War on Drugs (TM) is any less stupid and wasteful than the War on Terrism (TM), but at least we see that we don't need a parallel, secret justice [sic] system to "fight" it.
Both are drains on the treasury and both are harmful to society. The "war" on terror castrates the constitution, and the drug laws foster violent crime. Look at Chicago in the 1920s [virginia.edu] and Chicago today. Different illegal drug, same outcomes.
Read further.... (Score:1)
Please read the article further. Your statement is far from correct:
Re: (Score:2)
Tracking 'the' person over every/any network would be just fine.
Some ongoing massive database of people who have done nothing wrong other than use a US phone... waiting for that administrative subpoena to fish a tiny subset of data out.
Re: (Score:2)
we don't need a parallel, secret justice [sic] system
We? There is no "we." You clearly don't need one. Somebody clearly does.
welcome to the surveillance state (Score:2)
War on drugs, war on terror: just scare tactics used to get us to accept a police / surveillance state.
What do you do when the cure is worse than the poison?
War On Drugs NOT worth a police state (Score:2)
My point exactly. If fighting drug use with the criminal justice system requires that America turn into a fascist police state...then it's not worth it.
Whatever the scourge of drug use, I put it that the fascist police state has caused far more damage to the country than the drugs themselves ever could.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
It's my understanding that drug prohibition started after alcohol prohibition for three main reasons:
I didn't say they were good reasons...
where is the rest? (Score:2)
Would love to hear story about how they lost the records from before 1987
Re: (Score:3)
I think the better question is why is AT&T holding call records for 26 years.
I don't know what they do with them; but, whatever it is, they developed a custom programming language [berkeley.edu] to make it easier and more efficient.
"Hancock is a C-based domain-specific language designed to make it easy to read, write, and maintain programs that manipulate large amounts of relatively uniform data. Because Hancock is embedded in C, it inherits all the functionality of C. Valid C programs are also valid Hancock programs, and Hancock programs can use libraries written for C. But Hancock is more tha
Credit Card Purchases (Score:2)
Don't forget those are record and available to the government from the beginning of time too...
What you buy today legally and innocently may get you a call from the FBI 5 years later to ask you a few questions. ( i have personally seen this happen )
The moral is that *anything* we do with a commercial provider can and will be recorded. Even if is for honest and non invasive reasons today, that doesn't mean it wont be used different ways by other people decades later.
Not a Constitutional issue (Score:1)
Look, it's not a constitutional issue, the government isn't doing this at all. The government is paying someone else to do it, which is completely different.
"Bob Smith? Bob never worked here. I've got last year's 1099 we gave him to prove it."
What does AT&T stand for? (Score:4, Funny)
Authoritarian Tattle Tales, that's what.
AT&T "You Will" Commercials (Score:2)
Someone needs to do a parody of the AT&T "You will" commercials: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5MnQ8EkwXJ0 [youtube.com]
Except instead of the original script, have it go something like:
"Have you ever tapped someone's phone...without leaving your desk? Or downloaded their entire call history at the touch of a button?...You will - and the company that will bring it to you: AT&T."
THIS IS A BIG DEAL (Score:2)
Fuck you to anyone brushing this off . Apparently you haven't been keeping current with the analyses done that show just exactly what information meta-data can reveal.
No one supposed that ALL DOMESTIC CALLS' meta data was being recorded for and kept forever. What can be inferred about the activities of political candidates, corporate activities, activists of every persuasion, etc etc is incredible. This is what's been happening since the 80s? Really?
There is a ocean of difference between asking for so calle
Don't kid yourself (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)