The National Security Agency has been collecting the telephone records of millions of U.S. customers of Verizon under a top secret court order, according to a report in Britain’s Guardian newspaper.
The order was granted by the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court on April 25 and is good until July 19, the newspaper reported Wednesday. The order requires Verizon, one of the nation’s largest telecommunications companies, on an “ongoing, daily basis” to give the NSA information on all telephone calls in its systems, both within the U.S. and between the U.S. and other countries.
The newspaper said the document, a copy of which it had obtained, shows for the first time that under the Obama administration the communication records of millions of U.S. citizens were being collected indiscriminately and in bulk, regardless of whether they were suspected of any wrongdoing.
The Associated Press could not authenticate the order because documents from the court are classified.
Verizon spokesman Ed McFadden said Wednesday the company had no comment. The White House declined comment and referred questions to the NSA. The NSA had no immediate comment.
[…]
Under the terms of the order, the phone numbers of both parties on a call are handed over, as are location data, call duration, unique identifiers, and the time and duration of all calls. The contents of the conversation itself are not covered, The Guardian said.
The broad, unlimited nature of the records being handed over to the NSA is unusual. FISA court orders typically direct the production of records pertaining to a specific named target suspected of being an agent of a terrorist group or foreign state, or a finite set of individually named targets. NSA warrantless wiretapping during the George W. Bush administration after the 9/11 attacks was very controversial.
The FISA court order, signed by Judge Roger Vinson, compelled Verizon to provide the NSA with electronic copies of “all call detail records or telephony metadata created by Verizon for communications between the United States and abroad” or “wholly within the United States, including local telephone calls,” The Guardian said.
The law on which the order explicitly relies is the “business records” provision of the USA Patriot Act.
Look, I know I’m supposed to be OUTRAGED by this — and perhaps as more information comes to light I will be — but back when the NSA was data mining to try to uncover terror networks in the aftermath of 911, I fought very hard against the leftists who kept arguing that a) what was being done was sinister, and b) that the NSA didn’t have the authority. The problem was and is always that cellphone technology and the nature of contemporary communication itself makes it impossible to get specific FISA warrants in a timely manner and on an individual basis such that they are at all efffective; meaning that the warrants would have to be issued broadly.
If I’m understanding what’s happening here — and there’s a chance I’m not, and that the Obama administration is tracking Verizon data for other reasons, and has access to specifics, including names and the like — then I find it hard to get too worked up: it seems to me this is very function of the NSA, and that the kind of meta data they agency is gathering is what is used to find potential nodal points for terror networks.
What I’d be interested in learning is what precautions are being taken to assure those of us who are Verizon customers that, unless we’ve been flagged by our meta data, no information on us individually is being retained. And that once we have been flagged — by certain aspects of usage and patterns of data that the NSA has determined are potentially indicative of terror activity — any further investigation requires additional judicial approval and oversight.
I did a lot of work on the NSA “warrantless wiretap” so-called “scandal” back in the earlier days of the blogosphere. For those of you interested, see here.
If what this is is but a further iteration of what the NSA was doing in the months after 911, I will pass on trying to turn this into an Obama administration scandal.
— Though all those lefties who determined that this was an outrageous offense and a corruption of liberty when George Bush was President should be howling at Obama today. And I suspect some will in order to save face. Most, though, will defend him, apply tu quoque “reasoning” — Bush did it too! — at which point we should agree and say, yes, but why were you so outraged by Bush’s actions, but now defend Obama’s on the basis that he is acting perfectly consistently with the person that so outraged you with his actions to begin with?
(h/t JHo and Jim Geraghty)
Kanly (kanli) is a Turkish word meaning sworn enemy. The act of kanly was originally created as a way of allowing bitter disputes to be resolved without any harm being brought upon innocent bystanders.
The “Forms Of Kanly” must be properly observed, and scooping up all of Verizon customers violates these “forms.”
To be honest, it’s just nice to be vindicated. See? The government really is snooping on me!
A certain amount of paranoia is both justified and healthy.
it would be different if we didn’t know beyond a shadow of a doubt that this federal government is a wholly corrupt and fascist exercise increasingly given to fits of spasmodic totalitarian caprice
Yes.
Racist! SHUT UP!!!
I’m with you on the on the NSA mining for data on terrorist activities. The problem, as you know, is this administration’s track record of using found information to intimidate and/or embarrass their political opponents.
The Bush administration, as far as we know, actually tracked and stopped several terrorist plots by using information that they got from captured phones and computers.
OT. Its kind of amazing where sock puppet boy GG has gone from his heyday in sock puppetry to where he is now:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/06/nsa-phone-records-verizon-court-order
I don’t trust that this administration (or future ones, for that matter) would follow through on promises to destroy data. I don’t trust that once government analysts have the Holy Grail of a Complete Data Set rather than a representative sample, they won’t find out anything they can on anybody they can.
Yes, and I don’t have a problem with tracking specific people via various numbers they might be associated. But it seems that demanding all the data for every call from every subscriber is beyond overkill, particularly when it’s clear that they’re going to keep it forever.
Correct me if I am wrong (which has a high probability, I admit), but it seems to me that the criticism of the Bush administration in this area had to do with hoovering up all kinds of information without a warrant.
So: I am guessing that some of our liberal neighbors are ok with the hoovering, and not ok with without-a-warrant. Even when it’s clear that the warrant is just a formality; Verizon was asked (if I am reading this correctly) to provide data on all of its customers. If this is the case, it pretty much voids the notion that a warrant requires some kind of special evidentiary support. Unless somehow the government has made a case that we are all (including Eric Holder) under suspicion of nefarious something-or-other.
Seems unlikely.
Anyway, just wanted to split that hair and then note that it’s effectively unsplit.
One thing we can be sure of in all this: All of the important government people use Sprint.
Is Verizon the only cat in that bag or the only one made public so far?
*snort*
+2
I’m torn between your suggestion and Darth’s, leigh.
Anyone who is worried about this should use a burner phone.
In general, assume that all conversations are being monitored, so don’t say anything you wouldn’t say in public.
We only know about the Verizon court order, and that doesn’t mean they don’t already have the others.
In fact, their competition may have simply handed over the data without a legal order.
cranky, I think services like Silent Circle are going to skyrocket. There’s a reason that strong encryption is classified as “war materiel”, after all.
I hereby amend my previous joke: s/use Sprint/don’t use Verizon/
I will now feel shame for my illogically constructed humor story.
When we learned of DOJ hoovering up the AP’s phone records, nearly everyone concluded, “There’s more.” James Rosen reads about this Verizon thing, nods, and spits.
Neal Stephenson was about 15 years ahead of his time.
Note that neither the government or Verizon will confirm or deny. We have only the leaked order. Oh, yes. There’s more.
Well, here’s the thing: they’re supposedly handing over not records of conversations, but metadata. Encryption wouldn’t do anything to the metadata. But Skype might.
I predict Skype will (if it hasn’t already; I haven’t checked) roll out Skype Secure some time very soon.
There will be, if there aren’t already, telephone anonymizers put into place, so that calls in cannot be connected at all with calls out. Call sources and destinations won’t be connectable.
And I’d guess once you get enough people using it, you can effectively timewise-decorrelate calls in and calls out.
I think services like Silent Circle are going to skyrocket.
With offices within sight of the Beltway, I’m not sure I’d trust them any more than I’d trust Verizon. If they’re serious about their service, they’ll locate their facilities outside the reach of our Trustworthy Authorities.
Also, I’d like to remind the community that the descriptor “tu quoquesuckers” was coined for a reason.
Hey, they gotta have something to get their spiffy new data storage center in Utah going. I mean, it wouldn’t do to have a new 50 thousand square foot mansion and not go furniture shopping…
Slart —
Yes. My point was that it was never warrantless wiretapping and it was always data mining. When needed, FISA warrants were obtained.
Here, the government has just figured out a way around what was already a silly argument and gotten a massive preemptive warrant, with the need for specific warrants for specific cases if the content of specific wiretaps are to be gathered and put to any kind of legal use.
Yes, and I agreed with you when you were making that point. Still, it’s useful to remind those who criticised Bush on this point that a) they’re still wrong about how they described what he was doing, and b) Obama is effectively doing the same thing, only after having obtained warrants broad enough to trivialize the meaning of a warrant. After all, if it’s possible to obtain a warrant that broad, what is the FISA court going to say no to?
Yes, they can use metadata to effectively suss out cells and connections and organizations. My company uses metadata analysis for bug tracking in a network.
They can also use that very same metadata to suss out Tea Partiers and “homophobes” and other enemies of the administration.
Nah, they’d never do THAT.
Unsurprisingly, it’s not just Verizon.
Does anybody really believe that it is Verizon only? That would defeat the purpose – what if terror cells only use Sprint because of a good deal they got?
After thinking about it, I realize I’m not outraged by this. They are collecting information ABOUT the calls, not the information WITHIN the calls, and are doing it legally. We can discuss whether they should have been granted the warrant, but that is different – they have it, and are using it. I am not pleased that they now have a record of every call I make (I am a Verizon customer for both landline and celluar) that they can now access without ever having to get a specific warrant – maybe I should program my smart phone to dial every other Verizon celluar number and screw up their analysis system.
I haven’t read the warrant – does anybody know if there is any retention limits placed on the data, or can they keep it forever?
They are collecting information ABOUT the calls, not the information WITHIN the calls, and are doing it legally.
Like I said, they can use the metadata to suss out Obama’s enemies as easily as they can to suss out the terrorist networks.
Consider this, though: they’re looking at everyone’s phone records, but they can’t keep track of Saudi visa-jumpers and Known Suspicious Characters returning from Russia or all of the folks streaming over the southern border.
The phone records are a good way to look busy instead of get busy.
Here, the government has just figured out a way around what was already a silly argument and gotten a massive preemptive warrant,
Which silly argument was that? The accusation that they were engaging in warantless wiretapping? But if they weren’t what are they getting around?
It’s really eerie to read this thread from 2006, when Bush was in office and we were giving the full benefit of the doubt to the NSA.
there is a difference between private sector and the government having information. You can refuse to shop safeway. You can’t refuse to have the NSA know who you call and for how long.
That was from actus.
Who also participated thusly in this exchange:
Do we file this under “Elections Have Consequences” or “Which Ox Is Being Gored”?
Jim Sensenbrenner, Patriot Act Author, Slams ‘Un-American’ NSA Verizon Phone Records Grab
Gobsmacking.
What was done during the Bush years was marginally defensible because (they argued, IIRC) they were collecting this data on calls that crossed the border and there were specific parties they were looking for information on.
Naturally, as in all things involving government’s use of power, Obama has cranked it up to eleven … hundred. And in his case we already know he’s used the government to collect information about, and use it against, his political foes.
The only thing I’m sure of here is that he cannot possibly have set out to demonstrate in every conceivable way why government and the politicians that run it cannot be trusted with anything, ever. If he had, then like everything else he’s set out to do, he would have failed.
On this one he has succeeded spectacularly. It has to have been an accident.
Imagine the possibilities.
You put all these records into a neo4j database and you can then recognize clusters of people who call each other. You can then compare timelines and infer which calls inspired other calls.
Connect these timelines with people involved in events in the world and you can get a picture of the command and control structure involved in making them happen.
BTW, the events don’t have to be “man-caused disasters.” An event might be a gathering of people the administration doesn’t like. It might be a reporter reporting a story the administration doesn’t like.
Given the current administration, I find this a worrying development.
I don’t know that I’d be that worried about what they’re looking at if the fascist Obama wasn’t in charge of the executive branch.
But since it’s the Obama administration, they’re probably looking for their enemies, not the country’s enemies.
In WWII, when the Nazis wised up and changed their encryption practices, the Allies were able to get good intelligence from traffic analysis until Bletchley Park cracked the codes again and got back to reading Hitler’s mail. They couldn’t see what the Krauts were hiding, but they knew they were hiding something, and who was particularly interested in it.
Traffic analysis is a powerful tool, and it’s not one I like in the hands of a government so willing to use its power for petty, personal, and vengeful reasons. There are lots of things you and I prefer to hide or keep private, for lots of valid and innocuous reasons, and the prospect of government showing up because of a “nodal convergence” is chilling.
I think we need to take into account that any power ceded to the government will be abused. If we didn’t want to risk letting Hillary have it, we shouldn’t have let Dubya have it.
And then it turned out what we got was worse than Hillary.
the skull what flames
Just Three Months Ago, Director National Intelligence James Clapper Told Congress That the NSA Does Not Collect Data on Millions of Americans
Clapper was asked if any data at all was being collected on millions of Americans and he said no.
Then walked it back, saying he meant that they were not reading our e-mails.
The context of the question is pretty clear: “any data at all” is broad, not narrow.
Jerks.
Well, well: HuffPo reports on leaker who says it’s been going on for years with all the companies: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/06/nsa-whistleblowers_n_3398618.html
Which, is this the same thing that USA Today reported in May 2006? (via Jeff’s old post): http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-05-10-nsa_x.htm
The response here should not be to complain and demand that the NSA stop its data mining and traffic analysis efforts. Rather, the response should be to strip Congress and the White House of at least three-quarters of their power, so that its ability to use the NSAs analysis is limited to its Constitutional powers.
If the feds’ options were limited to military and law enforcement actions against recognized enemies and criminals, I wouldn’t be quite so paranoid about their data gathering on Obama’s personal enemies list. But as we’ve seen with the ongoing Tea Party harassment, these people have no qualms about bringing the full power of the
Death Starbureaucracy to bear on their enemies. Hello, EPA, IRS, NLRB, FLSA, SEC, OSHA, and a dozen other agencies happy to dig through your trash, examine your records, interview your employees, depose your officers, and otherwise make you spend your every waking moment trying to prove that you don’t owe millions of dollars in fines.From HuffPo (emphases mine):
So there’s the flaming skull: they’re not supposed to be gathering metadata on domestic-to-domestic calls — just the ones that go overseas. The USA Today article was reporting a rumor.
So what is the deal, here? When USA Today rumored that the metadata was being collected, proteinwisdom was OK with it? Why was that, again? Because we figured it would be used to track cells internal to the U.S. but that the rest of our data would be ignored?
Are we still sure that’s how it’s being used?
Andrew McCarthy’s comments are useful here: http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/350331/phone-record-gathering-story-blown-out-proportion-andrew-c-mccarthy
and
Look here’s how it is.
Part A:
Lando: Lord Vader, what about Leia and the Wookiee?
Darth Vader: They must never again leave this city.
Lando: [outraged] That was never a condition of our agreement, nor was giving Han to this bounty hunter!
Darth Vader: Perhaps you think you’re being treated unfairly?
Lando: [after a pause; nervous tone] No.
Darth Vader: Good. You know it would be unfortunate if I had to leave a garrison here.
Lando: [to himself] This deal is getting worse all the time!
Part B:
Darth Vader Calrissian. Take the princess and the Wookie to my ship.
Lando: You said they’d be left at the city under my supervision!
Darth Vader: I am altering the deal. Pray I don’t alter it any further.
Lando FINALLY realizes what is up, signals Lobot who signals the guards who are still armed, people begin to evacuate, and to let them get away the guards arrange it so that storm troopers start falling down elevator shafts and getting shot in the back.
That is reality. This always happens.
The only real question is:
Will the people play Vader’s role and bully the government who will seek to go around them rather than the stripped down to minimum power and influence and finally making a run for it in the hopes of coming back at some later date?
Will the people play Lando’s role first deal making and then opening to the door to more and more bullying until resistance is the only option.
Right now I think we are playing Lando’s role. I think we need to stop that, bring in the storm troopers (hobbits really) and make a serious case the motherfucking government seriously needs to turn Han Solo over to that Bounty Hunter and bring the wookie and the Princess to my mother-fucking ship tout suite because we are in the mood to alter the motherfucking bargain. Don’t make the people choke you from across the room. Don’t expect Lobot to get you out of this. The garrison is already here, it just needs to sack up and take the damned city not give the blue-hat guards a chance to loot the place and flee.
But the government and the people ALWAYS fight.
The farmer and cowboy CAN’T be friends. Or is it the former pod racing slave turned corrupt mystic swordsman in charge of the secret police and the gambler turned mining executive can’t be friends?
Embrace the dark side. The other side embraced it a long time ago. And the yare up three points and the ref looks afraid of them.
who is “we”?
The problem here is not government power.
really?
they “cannot connect the dots,” as we demand that they do, unless you let them have the dots in the first place.
this crowd ain’t connecting the dots andy wants. they got other dots to connect.
ummm
U.S. intelligence mining data from nine U.S. Internet companies in broad secret program
For the record, Hewitt is shrugging his shoulders and Levin is busting a vein.
From nr’s link.
Dr. Krauthammer says PRISM has a Bond-like ring to it. Spooooky.
The racist.
dr. kraut be what stupid
Krauthammer’s Take: IRS Scandal ‘Not a Necessary Product of Big Government’
Agreed.
dr kraut thinks “if the ‘right’ peeps run big gov’t” which is what racist?
i’m very happy that the nsa has my donation to cruz’s “abolish the irs” campaign. i’m sure that info won’t irs.
>get back to the irs<
“if the ‘right’ peeps run big gov’t”
He’s kinda sorta right: no matter what power you give the gubmint, it can be abused by those who have it, so you have to be careful which people you give that power to.
Civil society being dependent on having more honest people than not.
Which, that ain’t the ratio anymore.
no matter what power you give the gubmint,
how about the state dept and the military for a start?
Remember.
time for a massive environmental impact lawsuit about the utah facility. time for utah to shut down construction.
how about the state dept and the military for a start?
Don’t be silly. The military is a Constitutionally enumerated power of the federal government and therefore cannot be used against the populace.
” The military is a Constitutionally enumerated power of the federal government and therefore cannot be used against the populace.”
the other 535 bastards won’t let that happen.
time for utah to shut down construction.
They had the ribbon-cutting about a week ago. Google Maps shows only the initial scraping: 40.426205,-111.932917
The data center is across the road from Camp Williams, so I reckon the fed has owned it for a long, long time.
It’s not particularly rich in wildlife habitat, either.
Is it drone friendly?
“It’s not particularly rich in wildlife habitat”
oh there is always some sub species affected
oh there is always some sub species affected
Yes, pocket-frogs, mostly.
As for being drone-friendly, couldn’t say.
“Yes, pocket-frogs, mostly.”
insects, flora and fauna are on the docket. anything can shut it down. use their tactics against the them statists. why no civil disobedience? sit down strike by thousands daily bussed in like the proggtards do.
effin hugh hewitt should be the lead in shutting this down environmentally
Let’s just stop having elections. Problem solved!
c@!ksuckers
New York Times quietly changes published editorial to make it less damning of Obama
Also Revealed by Verizon Leak: How the NSA and FBI Lie With Numbers
He’s kinda sorta right: no matter what power you give the gubmint, it can be abused by those who have it, so you have to be careful which people you give that power to.
I think this is exactly backwards. For starters, it’s not that the power can be abused; it’s that it most certainly will be, sooner or later. So the only answer is to keep the power to yourself, and not grant it to an authority that will certainly grow corrupt, turn around and abuse you with your own power.
There’s only two people in the world that I trust with the power of life and death, and that’s you and me. And I’m not so sure about you.