CIA Pays AT&T Millions To Voluntarily Provide Call Data 107
First time accepted submitter binarstu writes "The New York Times reports that 'The C.I.A. is paying AT&T more than $10 million a year to assist with overseas counterterrorism investigations by exploiting the company's vast database of phone records, which includes Americans' international calls, according to government officials. The cooperation is conducted under a voluntary contract, not under subpoenas or court orders compelling the company to participate, according to the officials.'"
ATT (Score:2, Funny)
Re:ATT (Score:5, Interesting)
And yet some people I've spoken to would rather trust AT&T than a company like Google when it comes to their choice of Internet Service Provider. I'm always amused by these guys.
"Google is evil! How can you even think of taking Internet service from them? AT&T? Oh sure! Sign me up!"
Apparently they believe that just because Google is an ad company they'll sell your personal information for cash. Well, no they won't because that's not how it works and they'd be pretty stupid to do that since their entire business model is based on trust. And second...well apparently AT&T is straight up selling data for money. Surprise surprise!
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The NSA doesn't have to buy the data from Google... Do you think the hundreds of employees they share and the fact that most of their biggest data centres are right beside each other is simply a coincidence?
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Re:ATT (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, no they won't because that's not how it works
That's not how it works today while Google is rolling in the dough. When they hit hard times, that could easily change, but all the data they've collected over the last decade will still be right there, tempting management to sell it for a quick buck.
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1) It would be bad for business
That is a blanket unsupported assertion, particularly given the context of google's current business model starting to fail, perhaps as a result of the public's move to more decentralized communications (p2p messaging, etc) that aren't so ammendable to google's "man in the middle" services.
2) It would be bad breaking the NDA
What NDA? Google didn't sign any contracts. You agreed to a click-through contract that includes terms that permit Google to change the terms whenever and however they see fit.
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Economics nerd here ... but as long as there are a few people in the world with some foresight, google will make more money selling those assets to them. That's why investment works reasonably well under capitalism; while all people are selfish, and many are shortsighted, as long as there are some that want to save money for retirement or whatever, you can make more money through ar
I know him! (Score:1)
And yet some people I've spoken to would rather trust AT&T than a company like Google when it comes to their choice of Internet Service Provider. I'm always amused by these guys. "Google is evil! How can you even think of taking Internet service from them? AT&T? Oh sure! Sign me up!"
Yeah, he's my neighbor: S . Man - he prefers to be called "Straw".
Re:ATT (Score:5, Informative)
Agreed. It's sad that our movements, our preferences and our communications are subject to the whims of some corporate fat cat who wants to find new ways of maximizing shareholder value. They'll do anything with the data you entrust to them and all it takes is a policy shift because the terms of service you agreed to gives them the right to do this, even without a judge ordering them to turn the data over. Right now there's only a few voices out there who are yelling loudly about this in Congress and we need to get a piece of comprehensive legislation in place that genuinely protects our privacy. Unfortunately I don't see the current administration doing anything about it because they're too busy sniffing our in-boxes. Besides I'm still waiting for Guantanamo Bay to close.
Since the TFA is talking about overseas operations, it's interesting to look at their policies/TOS in the US since this call data can get you wrapped up in some government investigation because you have a friends in "those foreign places, not in 'Merica."
AT&T has multiple privacy policies but this one [att.com] is of particular interest.
It says safe, not confidential but the second line seems to be in conflict however again, this is "overseas" stuff right? So they'll sell it to the feds because they also state...
Assist in the prevention and investigation of illegal activities and violations of our Terms of Service or Acceptable Use Policies.
So they've given themselves a moral way out because if you're doing naughty things or harming their network, they'll do whatever they want to keep their good name intact.
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Sorry, but that last line should read:
So they've given themselves a moral way out because if you're accused of doing naughty things or harming their network, they'll do whatever they want to keep their good name intact.
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{accused of | suspected of | know somebody | were once affiliated with somebody } ;-)
Re:ATT (Score:5, Interesting)
And all along I'd been thinking they were doing it all for free.
Glad to see my tax dollars are supporting it!
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Your tax dollars are supporting criminal investigations.
And it takes time to compile the data. Even a straight data query without going to backup requires some dedicated time. I don't expect companies to volunteer this time.
The issue is volume of requests. Say the volume is too high if you want, but each company has millions of customers generating lots of data.
Get congress to make fewer things illegal, that's a far easier line to argue.
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The FBI and local/state police do criminal investigations. The NSA and CIA do not, and almost without exception refuse to share data with other non-intel agencies, even when those agencies are investigating terrorism.
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'The C.I.A. is paying AT&T more than $10 milli (Score:5, Insightful)
Wow... (Score:3)
Also, given that AT&T has slightly over 100 million wireless customers, never mind all the Ma Bell copper customers, apparently the volume discounts on customer information are pretty good...
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Why where they doubling up on work perfectly done by the NSA and GCHQ/contractors globally?
Why did the CIA feel it was not getting everything from the
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CIA != NSA
Nah different names, same scum.
Re: Wow... (Score:5, Insightful)
for all intents and purposes they're joined at the hip.
that is, their bullshit is the same and they stand on the same legs but they got different heads so the information doesn't end up being used for it's stated purpose, just for myriad of other things. ..oh and I guess this just underlines how stupid it is to not have decent privacy laws in place. they can sell all your information - to anyone who asks and pays.
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Like a first date, AT&T fell in love with "counterterrorism investigations", such a clean and respectable sounding type. Turns out it is little more than organizing illegal kidnappings [opensociet...ations.org], torture, assassinations - outside the rule of law [ccrjustice.org], anyones law, anywhere... and forget the constitution.
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I had no idea AT&T was such a cheap date. I would have assumed that the 10 million might cover the fee for transferring all those heavy packets through the tubes to NSA HQ, with the data and analysis itself ringing in at at least a factor of ten greater.
Nah. The ten million covers the pipes, and the data and analysis is already being done by AT&T for their own purposes, and simply being forwarded on to the feds.
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However, if I've learned anything about the world from software, it's that the fact that the work has already been done is absolutely no obstacle to charging each customer for doing the work...
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However, if I've learned anything about the world from software, it's that the fact that the work has already been done is absolutely no obstacle to charging each customer for doing the work...
They were made an offer they could not refuse. Let us not forget the lesson of Qwest [wikipedia.org].
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I had no idea AT&T was such a cheap date.
It's $10M plus "what happened to Joseph Nacchio won't happen to you". Remember, these guys have all the phone calls (at least metadata, probably more) and all the emails of all the execs running these corporations. I'm sure they all lead lily-white lives, right?
After all the Snowden briefings, who will be surprised to learn that these TLA's have groups that specializes in collecting "strategic data" on people those TLA's need to get certain behavior from?
so... (Score:1)
AT&T is a shameless hooker?
Bending over for any Government agency who pays out?
Giving up the goods on its clientele for a "fat" sum of cash... (snitch? traitor? turncoat? oh wait, its AT&T, its all about the money, fuck anything and everything else)...
CAP: critter
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AT&T is a shameless hooker?
Bending over for any Government agency who pays out?
Yes.
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Think of the $10 million as a reach-around, and AT&T as a consenting participant.
That's closer to what's happening.
What does AT&T get in return? (Score:5, Interesting)
Contracts with the government to supply telecommunications without needing to worry about competition?
Free date nights with top rung escorts when they're in town for meetings?
Free big-data analytics?
$10 million for the bottom line of a company like AT&T is chicken feed. What's really going on here?
Re:What does AT&T get in return? (Score:5, Insightful)
They get to coninue doing business in the U.S.
Re:What does AT&T get in return? (Score:4, Interesting)
Their executive's stocks don't get scrutinized for insider trading, as happened to a certain Qwest executive...
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They also get to not get served FISA orders to hand it over for free.
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Antitrust violations are ignored, while they continue to be cooperative. Same goes for most big companies, play ball or be investigated...
Legal immunity (Score:1)
They may be breaking many laws, but they don't care. They have legal immunity as long as they are doing the NSA's bidding, so nobody in AT & T will ever question the legality of what they do.
Who cares what laws Congress writes if you are immune from them?
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They may be breaking many laws
It's the exact opposite problem. They're not breaking laws here because no such law exists. It should, but it doesn't.
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oh if they only had written the laws.
in couple of next years there's going to be bigger and bigger scandals abut monetization of databases because it's 100% legal in usa.
credit check companies selling information to credit card fraudsters is just he beginning.
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Now, the article does say "it does not disclose the identity of the Americans and 'masks' several digits of their phone numbers," but admits "the agency can refer such masked numbers to the F.B.I., which can issue an administr
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I've actually seen Verizon in much higher usage in that realm than AT&T. I'm sure there's a similar arrangement with them.
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All that well lit optical not providing profits to local interconnects - been routed all the way to the USA and back thats the 'gift' that keep on giving.
Chicken feed? (Score:2)
Set up some system to provide the call data, provide the relatively low cost infastructure to do it, and you're rolling in $10m/year?
Companies don't make money with billion dollar checks, its incremental. If their infastructure and support for this is $2m/year and you have to staff 8 people for it, that's still a massive profit margin.
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Information from CIA performed industrial espionage?
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The alternative is saying no, and fighting a very expensive lawsuit.
Warrants cost more money than paying off ATT, so everyone just assumes it would be granted. Saves time and money for everyone.
If they require a warrant, they can't bill for time spent, and LEA could just seize servers. So it is business continuity as well.
Many more points to be made, including things like the current scotus opinions on whether that data is protected from warrants, and soon you see ATT made the right choice.
Which is why I do
Corps pay more just for gmail/facebook privateinfo (Score:1)
That's crazy, AT&T getting only $10mil/year? I don't believe it. The value of data is a lot higher than that. Someone is lying....
NOT voluntary (Score:2)
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What on earth makes you think data about the customers' activity belongs to the customers? You must not have been paying attention to the telecom or computer industries for the past 15 years.
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What on earth makes you think data about the customers' activity belongs to the customers? You must not have been paying attention to the telecom or computer industries for the past 15 years.
Technically it is still illegal for AT&T to provide this information to a third party without a court order, regardless of who "owns" it, as long as they maintain the facade of being a common carrier. But of course this is the "New Amerika" where the rule of law doesn't apply to the government or big business.
Re:NOT voluntary (Score:5, Insightful)
Ah, but the trick is that, as interpreted, this is actually AT&T's own data collected as part of their business.
The logic goes that since AT&T owns the wires, and needs this information to do billing and monitor their networks, then that data actually belongs to AT&T. And since that data belongs to AT&T (so goes the theory) you don't get a vote in AT&T giving over 'their' data even if 'their' data happens to be about you.
Sure you did, you voluntarily used their system, and in the process implicitly provided them with it.
All there in the Terms of Service, and neatly upheld by the courts.
Welcome to the Brave New World, where if you want privacy you are free to not use the phone system, the internet, the banking system, go outside your house, or interact with people lest details of what you do becomes 'property' of a corporation who is free to voluntarily assist intelligence agencies.
Grand, aint it?
AT&T IS PATRIOTIC !! I WANT TO SIGN UP NOW !! (Score:4, Funny)
Sign me up, AT&T !! This exemplifies what it means to be an American corporation !!
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cold_fjord
Mob Manuever (Score:1)
Seriously this is classic mafia behavior. Force them to take a bribe so you have blackmail leverage as accomplicies and their "cooperaton". The CIA has been arround far too long commiting crimes.
Eh? (Score:2)
Ok. I'll bite. "Pays" ..... "Voluntarily". So that's an inducement right?
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Think of it as an 'incentive' to do it without a subpoena, and a friendly gesture of good-will towards the national security people.
It's patriotism, honestly.
The Modern-Day German Industrialists (Score:4, Insightful)
America's IT companies are today's modern-day equivalent to the pre-WW2 German Industrialists. More than happy to clamp diigital handcuffs on their own customers for a few $$$, shove them into electronic cattle cars and ship them off to Information Death Camps.
Is that legal? (Score:3)
Is it even legal for AT&T to just hand over personal data, to anyone who asks for it? Don't you guys over in the US have privacy laws, preventing or at the very least tightly regulating this kind of data transfer?
Otherwise, why would anyone ever bother with subpoenas and so to get such information?
Personal data is valuable. If AT&T can freely sell it to the CIA, what's stopping them to sell to other companies, for use as marketing purposes, or maybe even for identity theft purposes?
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This is what weak privacy law gets you. Not enough in the laws to make this clearly illegal.
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Terms of service, and a big proviso they will cooperate with law enforcement.
And limit what corporations can do? Are you mad?
What's to say they don't?
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Is it even legal for AT&T to just hand over personal data, to anyone who asks for it? Don't you guys over in the US have privacy laws, preventing or at the very least tightly regulating this kind of data transfer?
I believe the courts just ruled that it's not your personal data, it's the company's data. Which is complete bullshit in my opinion.
"Buys" that's the word (Score:5, Insightful)
Shockingly Similar (Score:2)
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why is this news? (Score:1)
We live in a new
Paid voluntry? (Score:1)
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"Voluntarily" is not the same as "volunteered". If they had volunteered the data, that would mean that they weren't getting paid for it. Turning it over voluntarily just means that they weren't coerced (e.g. with a subpoena or search warrant).
this is what happens when (Score:2)
Re:this is what happens when (Score:4, Interesting)
there is no accountability for the government, the US Govt and its three letter bureaucracies degenerate in to gangs of criminals, you can bet they milked that information for all its worth, i bet valuable data went to their criminal friends on wallstreet, the US Govt has degenerated in to a kleptocratic gang of fascists that are liars, thieves and murderers. and they know they can get away with it because there is no accountability
This is one more step in the breakdown of our society. When the average person sees that powerful people are not subject to the law, they start to wonder why they themselves should be subject to the law. When they see people lying, cheating and stealing to get ahead, and it working, they conclude that only chumps play by the rules. When they perceive that there is one set of rules for the rich and powerful, and another for everyone else, they lose respect for the system.
These attitudes are a cancer on our society. When trust and respect break down, all that is left to order society is force. When people can't trust the authorities, they become an adversary. This won't end well.
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This is one more step in the breakdown of our society. When the average person sees that powerful people are not subject to the law, they start to wonder why they themselves should be subject to the law.
These are the same people who have been convinced that universal health care is a "communist" plot. "Better dead than Red." Wish granted. There is no hope when the citizens vote for their own slavery, hell, they insist on it.
Stop calling it counter-terrorism! (Score:2)
Because Angela Merkel is really suspected of being in Al Qaeda? The U.S. does this because
1) We like being imperialistic fucks
2) Because we can
3) Corporate espionage
4) Skirts the 4th amendment - see DEA and fusion centers
Actual terrorists, they can't catch even when given point-blank warnings from foreign governments or even their own officials. See: 911 and t
10 million? puleeze... (Score:3)
Word on the street is that AT&T billings for intelligence related activities were around $2 billion a year total, between FBI NSA, CIA and other security organizations.
Are they going to blame Edward Snowden again ? (Score:5, Insightful)
Now that we know AT&T is on the take; Now that we know CIA is using our tax monies to bribe a PRIVATE COMPANIES so to SPY ON US, are they going to cook up even more harebrained excuses and then try to pin them to Edward Snowden ?
Can't wait to see the astroturfers crawling out from their hideouts with their brainless accusations ...
Calling Mr. Cold Fjord ...
The CIA Made them an offer... (Score:3)
...that AT&T couldn't refuse.
Even if AT&T were inclined to say No Thanks, does anyone believe that answer would be accepted?
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And if they did say no, the NSA would just splice into their network, and reverse engineer the data they wanted ala Google. $10M may be cheaper though.
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...that AT&T couldn't refuse.
Even if AT&T were inclined to say No Thanks, does anyone believe that answer would be accepted?
That would be helping pedophiles.
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Who is this "Mr. Cold Fnord" you speak of?
Am I the only one who sees that?
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Think of the children!