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Gizmodo: The NSA Forced Verizon to Share Every US Customer's Phone Records

MattFancy

By MattFancy
in The Tailgate

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MattFancy

MattFancy

Posted
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http://gizmodo.com/the-nsa-is-collecting-phone-records-of-millions-of-amer-511565570

 

We're being watched. Or listened to. Or recorded. Probably all three. The National Security Agency is collecting the phone records of millions of US citizens on Verizon right now. It's ongoing. It's daily. It's happening right now. How is that possible? A top secret court order forced Verizon to give up the call data.

The Guardian, which got a hold of the court order made by the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, reports that the government basically has "unlimited authority to obtain the data for a specified three-month period ending on July 19." The order was granted on April 25th, so data has been collected since then.

So what exactly is the NSA collecting? The court order says Verizon has to give up "all call details or 'telephony metadata' created by Verizon for communications (i) between the United States and abroad; or (ii) wholly within the United States, including local telephone calls". The court defined telephony metadata as:

Telephony metadata includes comprehensive communications routing information including but not limited to session identifying information (e.g., originating and terminating telephone number, International Mobile Subscriber Identity (IMSI) number, International Mobile station Equipment Identity (IMEI) number, etc.) trunk identifier, telephone calling card numbers, and time and duration of call.

That's basically who you are, where you are, who you're talking to and how long you're talking for. What's unusual about this blanket order though is that it's unlimited. Typically, FISA court orders specifically target a suspected terrorist group or set their sights on a finite set of numbers. An unlimited amount of data might be a little excessive. Maybe?

There's still a lot unknown about the court order though. Is it a one time thing? Are other phone carriers giving up call data to the NSA too? Is this an invasion of privacy? Who knows. Just know that eventually we're all going to be watched. Or listened to. Or recorded.

 

Ummm this doesn't sound good...

 

I didn't think I was that interesting lol

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Tulane Skins Fan

Tulane Skins Fan

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The only person who still calls me frequently is my mother lol. Every now and then (rarely) I might have something work related.

 

Just left Verizon a few weeks ago for AT&T.

 

I sincerely doubt AT&T doesn't turn over the same info.  Same for Sprint, T-mobile and all other carriers in the U.S.  

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Xameil

Xameil

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The only person who still calls me frequently is my mother lol. Every now and then (rarely) I might have something work related.

 

Just left Verizon a few weeks ago for AT&T.

 

You think Verizon is the only one they got info from? I would almost guarantee they all had to.

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Elessar78

Elessar78

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Wired article from last year about MASSIVE domestic "listening" complex built in Utah desert

 

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/03/ff_nsadatacenter/

 

The NSA Is Building the Country’s Biggest Spy Center (Watch What You Say)

The spring air in the small, sand-dusted town has a soft haze to it, and clumps of green-gray sagebrush rustle in the breeze. Bluffdale sits in a bowl-shaped valley in the shadow of Utah’s Wasatch Range to the east and the Oquirrh Mountains to the west. It’s the heart of Mormon country, where religious pioneers first arrived more than 160 years ago. They came to escape the rest of the world, to understand the mysterious words sent down from their god as revealed on buried golden plates, and to practice what has become known as “the principle,” marriage to multiple wives.

mag_2004bug2.jpg

Today Bluffdale is home to one of the nation’s largest sects ofpolygamists, the Apostolic United Brethren, with upwards of 9,000 members. The brethren’s complex includes a chapel, a school, a sports field, and an archive. Membership has doubled since 1978—and the number of plural marriages has tripled—so the sect has recently been looking for ways to purchase more land and expand throughout the town.

But new pioneers have quietly begun moving into the area, secretive outsiders who say little and keep to themselves. Like the pious polygamists, they are focused on deciphering cryptic messages that only they have the power to understand. Just off Beef Hollow Road, less than a mile from brethren headquarters, thousands of hard-hatted construction workers in sweat-soaked T-shirts are laying the groundwork for the newcomers’ own temple and archive, a massive complex so large that it necessitated expanding the town’s boundaries. Once built, it will be more than five times the size of the US Capitol.

Rather than Bibles, prophets, and worshippers, this temple will be filled with servers, computer intelligence experts, and armed guards. And instead of listening for words flowing down from heaven, these newcomers will be secretly capturing, storing, and analyzing vast quantities of words and images hurtling through the world’s telecommunications networks. In the little town of Bluffdale, Big Love and Big Brother have become uneasy neighbors.

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Tulane Skins Fan

Tulane Skins Fan

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They're welcome to listen in on me. 

Doesn't matter if you welcome it or not, for the record.

 

This was being discussed in the AP phone records thread.  This bothers me, big time.  Its a huge failure of our government.  It was a failure and an affront to civil liberties when it passed after 9/11 and its a failure of Obama now that he hasn't repealed or let this ridiculous act sunset.

 

Otherwise, we are a military state.

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twa

twa

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They're welcome to listen in on me. 

I don't have a problem with it, but is seems counter to the assertion AQ and co are defeated.

 

if there is a clear need it should be publicly justified,rather than a state secret

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visionary

visionary

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http://bigstory.ap.org/article/house-chairman-nsa-records-search-stopped-attack

House chairman: NSA records search stopped attack

 

The chairman of the House Intelligence committee says the ongoing NSA search of telephone records thwarted an attempted terrorist attack in the United States in the last few years.

 

Republican Rep. Mike Rogers of Michigan defended the telephone records collection at a Capitol Hill news conference on Thursday. He said the information culled from the records enabled U.S. authorities to stop a "significant case."

 

He declined to provide additional details but said he was in touch with U.S. officials about providing more information.

He said the NSA search is for business records and is constantly being reviewed. He said nothing is done without court approval.

 

 

https://twitter.com/SkyNewsBreak

White House says phone record collection is a "critical tool" to protect against terror
1:27 PM

 

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twa

twa

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Wouldn't publicly justifying it alert whoever we are watching that they are being monitored so they'll change up their code or communication patterns?

Not in such a general sense/large net.

the monitoring of all communication has become standard

I assume this was legal since the Patriot Act was passed but I can't tell if this recent report covers everybody or just people suspected to be terrorists?

access to all, which then can be sifted by programs that flag patterns

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Tulane Skins Fan

Tulane Skins Fan

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Are people really so uninformed that they are surprised that the Patriot Act is being used the way in which the SC, Congress, and the President have all said it can be used.

 

Personally, I think its unconstitutional, but it doesn't matter what I think because that has been settled and this type of recon has been blessed by the SC.  

 

This is what the Patriot Act is.  It is terrible.  Whether its constitutional or not, it can be repealed.  It should be repealed, not amended, right away.

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visionary

visionary

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Author of Patriot Act: FBI’s FISA Order is Abuse of Patriot Act

 

Congressman Jim Sensenbrenner (R-WI) today sent a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder regarding the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s application for a top secret court order to collect the phone records of essentially every call made by millions of Verizon customers.

http://sensenbrenner.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=337001

 

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Larry

Larry

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Wouldn't publicly justifying it alert whoever we are watching that they are being monitored so they'll change up their code or communication patterns?

 

There is no "whoever they're watching". 

 

They're gathering the information, and storing it, just in case, somewhere down the road, they get a tip on somebody.  Then, they want to be able to go back and monitor their target, retroactively. 

 

If they catch a suspect, they want to be able to go back and see every person he talked to, back before they knew he was a suspect.  So they can find other suspects. 

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BRAVEONTHEWARPATH93

BRAVEONTHEWARPATH93

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ehh, who the hell TALKS on the phone anymore anyway? lol. 

 

I don't have important covos anyway so it's whatever. Is it a little creepy? Sure, at the end of the day it won't change anything

 

They are monitoring text messaging too.  This affects everyone.

so they'll see me tell my gf I'm off work and the weird, vulgar group chats I have with my friends. So what?

 

I personally think this has been going on longer than this anyway. I'm not one of those people that think the gov't will start to kick down doors just because you txted you're friend that you're gonna kill him for puking in your sink or something stupid like that

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Tulane Skins Fan

Tulane Skins Fan

Posted
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Author of Patriot Act: FBI’s FISA Order is Abuse of Patriot Act

 

Congressman Jim Sensenbrenner (R-WI) today sent a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder regarding the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s application for a top secret court order to collect the phone records of essentially every call made by millions of Verizon customers.

http://sensenbrenner.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=337001

 

Ah, so the guy who wrote this piece of crap that everyone said would lead to this type of surveillance is now decrying that its being used illegally.  

 

Yea, I'd say that too if i was responsible for the biggest intrusion into civil liberties on this massive scale in decades.  Tell him to **** off.

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Tulane Skins Fan

Tulane Skins Fan

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This news is disconcerting.  Pols on both sides of the aisle say it's no big deal.  I guess they forgot their Oath to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.  I guess it really is just a piece of paper to them.

 

Have you seen how this passed Congress?

 

House: 357-66

Senate: 98-1

 

Bipartisan agreement on this one.

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