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U.S. Is Secretly Collecting Records of Verizon Calls
- samstave 13y agoThe U.S. is openly storing any packet that traverses any wire it can field signal from. Quantum Tapping: The loophole is that they are not 'tapping' any communication until the moment when they actually observe/listen to it.
- rdtsc 13y agoYes presumably even with voice they can still store it. Only when a human examines (sees the data on their screen, listens to the audio) then only it is considered that a "search" has occurred. So let's assume that there are these scumbags and all they want to do is spy on everyone and there is this pesky Constitution still getting in their way, what is the strategy to eliminate the "annoyance"? The strategy is two-pronged: 1) Don't have statutes of limitation on data gathered in a search warrant. So say you commit what someone thinks is a crime at 99 years of age, they get a search warrant for your data and now legally they have access to all your data since the day you were born. 2) Store _everything_. Presumably this is what the new NSA complex is Utah is for. Sure enough you'd become inconvenient at some point. Let's say you spend a night too many with the Occupy crowd or your kid installs LOIC and now a search warrant is executed. The emails you sent 10 years ago now appear and well, who knows you might have written back then, but pretty sure it can be made to stick. Now of course you would be offered a deal. Maybe collaborate or just get scared enough of them to never step outside and never touch a computer again, well they win in that case as well. Good luck to everyone.
- einhverfr 13y agoYou can't "store everything" for the simple reason that feeding all the traffic back to Utah would be prohibitive. The thing is, though, this is not any real comfort because it doesn't matter. The reason we have the 4th Amendment is to keep general warrants like this from being issued, and to help retard the "show me the man and I will find you the crime" (to quote a member of the Stalin regime) from taking root here, or at least to make it more difficult. The problem is, for the worst abuses to occur they don't have to store everything. They just get general warrants like this, inspect packets, filter "interesting subsets" out and send those back to Utah. So I think the actual strategy is two pronged, in a different direction, and both worse and more economical: 1. Vague laws that people can be easily prosecuted for[1] particularly when it comes to terrorism. Bonus points for allowing military enforcement of domestic law.[2] 2. Get general warrants that let them target whoever they want without recourse, which is what is going on here. Better yet, let's get retroactive immunity for any accomplices and make sure it is all really above the law. The end result is the same, of course. The difference is that the above strategy takes a lot less time, resources, money, people, and hardware to pull off. [1] See Harvey Silverglate (civil liberties atty, veteran of the EFF, ACLU, and FIRE), "Three Felonies a Day: How the Feds Target the Innocent" [2] This is a trend, particularly when it comes to defining terrorism but has been going on since at least Clinton. Note that Clinton asked Congress unsuccessfully for a terrorism exception to Posse Comitatus. See Kopel, David (former Colorado Assistant Attorney General). "No More Wacos"
- RyanMcGreal 13y ago> "show me the man and I will find you the crime" (to quote a member of the Stalin regime) The sentiment precedes Stalin. In the 1600s, Cardinal Richelieu is said to have warned, "Show me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men and I will find something to have him hanged."
- TheCondor 13y agoYes and that more people don't pay attention is shocking. Just ask yourselves this,the NSA isn't supposed to spy on Americans, why on earth is the Utah data center in Utah? It's nearly the farthest physical location from the supposed targets...
- noselasd 13y agoThat said - the matter here is the call logs, not the content - there's nothing to listen to. The easiest thing for them to do is hand over the logs used for billing, though they may have the same information from network performance monitor systems as well. Not that it makes it ok, but Verizon isn't handing over the actual conversation in this case.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- joelrunyon 13y agoWhat happened to this being the most transparent administration "committed to creating an unprecedented level of openness"[1]? http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/TransparencyandOpenGovernment http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/TransparencyandOp...
- derefr 13y agoI would presume that "openness" refers to actions initiated by the administration itself. Already-established, long-running initiatives of autonomous sub-departments, even if they do fall under the purview of the executive, probably aren't included, since the administration isn't actually making any choices in how these programs are run, just letting them continue to run as they always have.
- mtowle 13y agoYou would presume that now, yes. Nobody who was presuming that when he said it, however, made much of an effort to speak up. Sort of like how "everybody knows" it was Congress's fault campaign promises X, Y, and Z didn't pass, yet at the time, nobody stopped to ask how much these promises can mean if the position he's campaigning for isn't capable of fulfilling them in the first place. "I presume by 'guarantee' he meant he'd try his best, since obviously the POTUS can't even introduce laws anyway. And as a former Constitutional law prof., I'm sure Obama knows that." Oh, super. Thanks.
- derefr 13y agoWell, yes, that's basically the converse of the Principle of Charity (let's call it here the Principle of Political Doublespeak): in est, when a politician makes a promise, what they're actually promising is to temper all the decisions which they themselves are presented with or hold sway over through that promise. For example, a promise to make the sky blue is really a promise on what color to paint the exteriors of all outgoing NASA satellite missions. The only reason this is allowed is that everyone involved in the promise--the speaker and the lobbyists and the corporate executives and the military generals and the foreign policy analysts, and congress and the senate, too[1]--all share an understanding that all promises requiring certain attitudes from other parties the executive must work with--at least within a non-dictatorship--are empty, so no one is actually confused as to whether they will be fulfilled (they won't.) Thus, the stances behind them become a means of signalling, showing that one stands for the views of one's base even if one can do practically nothing "within the system" to advance the proposed agenda. [1] Note that "the voters" aren't part of this list. This is one of the effects of truly representative democracy: there is no incentive for political language to be informative to anyone who doesn't have a say in "how the sausage is made."
- uvdiv 13y agoPrevious discussion (5 hours old, still active): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5829442 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5829442
- butner 13y agoNo checks and balances here... at least any that aren't classified and are transparent to the public. A Tyranny, as Thomas Jefferson might refer to it.
- uvdiv 13y agoChecks and balances are functioning perfectly. Congress voted for Patriot Act §215, President Bush signed it into law, President Obama and his congress reauthorized it, and the courts did not overturn it. The law has sat on the books, very publicly, for more than a decade, and has offered myriad opportunities for citizens to debate and challenge (an example: [1]). The broader issue of NSA dragnets is probably one of the top 20 political issues in the US, making regular headlines since 2005 (if you include foreign dragnets, 1995 [2] or earlier). Checks and balances aren't broken. This is democracy in action. [1] http://www.aclu.org/free-speech-national-security-technology-and-liberty/reform-patriot-act-section-215 http://www.aclu.org/free-speech-national-security-technology... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ECHELON#Controversy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ECHELON#Controversy
- nullc 13y agoWhich section of the §215 authorizes this activity?
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- Domenic_S 13y agoACLU explains §215: http://www.aclu.org/free-speech-national-security-technology-and-liberty/reform-patriot-act-section-215 http://www.aclu.org/free-speech-national-security-technology... (note: "§" means "section")
- mtgx 13y agoThere's no real oversight, and they are using "secret Courts" and "secret interpretations" even of these obscure and very vague laws.
- josh2600 13y ago*Edit: nevermind.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- salimmadjd 13y agoAFAIK, Amdocs processes most of the carriers billing, aka metadata. Many of Amdocs systems are based in Israel. So, does NSA need court ruling to get metadata from an Israeli company? Seems like it might be another convenient way to go around the constitution.
- shmerl 13y agoWell, it's not a surprise, but at least now there is a solid evidence. What can the public do about it though?
- alan_cx 13y agoLoads. But the real question is, what will the public do about it? I suspect nothing what so ever. They are scared witless by terrorists and if you guys are like the UK, paedophiles. Oh, and of course, it wont happen to them, although, as we see, it already is.
- volume 13y agodo they use Netezza or Greenplum for this sort of thing?
- Cieplak 13y agoIf you don't like this, call your representatives in congress, and tell two friends about it.
- qwertzlcoatl 13y agoThe War on Terror is taking more and more victims. Chasing this phantom is getting dangerously close to an Orwellian Paradise. As Terry Jones said, "How do you wage war on an abstract noun, it's like deciding to bomb murder".
- josefresco 13y agoI would argue that terrorism is less abstract than murder. Also, the US "war on terror" is about terror that specifically relates or effects the US making it an even more specific classification.
- betterunix 13y agoIt is not specific enough to end. Typically, wars end in either victory or defeat, but in the "war on terror" there is not even a clear definition of either.
- king_jester 13y agoMurder is far more concrete than the war on terror, because definitions of terrorist or what counts as a threat to national security is extremely nebulous and data about such determinations are hidden from most people, whereas murder is typically defined in laws that are generally accessible to the public and is strictly related to certain kinds of killings of human beings by other human beings.
- pekk 13y agoSo what policy do you want regarding terrorism? If you want everyone to ignore it, then you will have to persuade the rest of the US to ignore it.
- Vivtek 13y agoOh, who could possibly have predicted this? Why is everybody so surprised? I literally do not understand this.
- betterunix 13y agoFor some reason, everyone is convinced that this is the sort of thing Republicans do. The very suggestion that the Obama administration is, in fact, on the right wing of the political spectrum is shocking to many of his supporters.
- pekk 13y agoFor some reason, you missed that this IS something Republicans do. It started in 2005, well before Obama took office.
- betterunix 13y agoI suppose my wording is a bit ambiguous. It is not that Republicans don't do this, but rather than they are not unique in doing this.
- cema 13y agoCannot speak for everybody, but I, for one, while not surprised, still need to know the facts -- the difference between what can happen and what has actually happened is important.
- flyinRyan 13y agoWhat I don't understand is sentiment like yours. We shouldn't bring this up because "everyone knows already"? No, we should be shouting this from the roof tops and do everything we can to make people mad enough about it to act. What is your solution? Sit back and look smug while the world falls apart around us?
- Vivtek 13y agoSome of us have been shouting for the rooftops until hoarse for the last decade and more. Suddenly everybody's reacting (and I don't mean everybody here - I mean the New York Bloody Times) like this is the very first time this has ever come up.
- stfu 13y agoI, for one, am already looking forward in what ways the Obama administration is going to hunt down the leaker of this document. Because - how should a government function without having a basic level of secrecy? Oh irony... On the other hand the leak probably came even from the administration itself. After they pretty much got away with intimidating political opponents and spying on unfavorable reporters, why not unload a few other skeletons from the closet. Worst case scenario Jon Stewart is making a 5 minute skit out of it and with twinkle in his eye moving back to bashing some more convenient subjects.
- forgotAgain 13y agoYou're not being paranoid if they're really out to get you.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- JonSkeptic 13y ago>The order was marked “TOP SECRET//SI//NOFORN,” referring to communications-related intelligence information that may not be released to noncitizens. That would make it among the most closely held secrets in the federal government, and its disclosure comes amid a furor over the Obama administration’s aggressive tactics in its investigations of leaks. The author not only wrote the article about this, but also put in the classification of the document source. Salt in the wound. I can't help but feel that such a detail may have been included as a response to recent events regarding members of the news media and their treatment at the hands of the government. It very much seems that the honey moon is over.
- brown9-2 13y agoThat would make it among the most closely held secrets in the federal government seems to be an overstatement when you consider that millions of documents are marked TOP SECRET each year.
- Nelson69 13y agoThe clear and obvious question here is if it's "just metadata" and isn't really spying, then why is it secret at all? In fact, why don't we broadcast to the terrorists that we do this and wish them luck attacking us without the aid of electronic communication. The secrecy only makes it look like something illegal. (And there is no doubt in my mind that it is against the spirit of American law, if not the letter)
- pekk 13y agoWhat honeymoon? The media has eaten up every possible shadow of a scandal, including the birth certificate nonsense. That's business.
- AYBABTME 13y agoWhat do people expect? It's either that or open war mongering. This administration doesn't want to be seen as a militaristic one, but the world doesn't stop being what it is because voters get tired of wars. So something has to give. More drones, expanded secret ops, more information gathering. I don't like the idea of being spied on, not at all. But from a security perspective, I understand the need for better information. I'm kind of playing Devil-advocates, but it's naive to expect your government to provide you safety, lifestyle, freedom, without having to play behind the scene - or openly fight oversea - when the rest of the World lives a completely different story.
- e40 13y agowhen the rest of the World lives a completely different story What does this mean?
- mpyne 13y agoI remember reading about how Lebanon's cellular phone providers are deeply in bed with Hezbollah, as just one example. Likewise with the Taliban working in concert with AQ before 9/11. My gut reaction is that I don't like this, but it's hard to argue that the U.S. is fighting an even bout with those who would enter the country and use its civil liberties to aid their terrorism planning. Of course we expect that, the question is where to draw the line in areas where civil liberty directly conflicts with security.
- coldtea 13y ago>I remember reading about how Lebanon's cellular phone providers are deeply in bed with Hezbollah, as just one example. Likewise with the Taliban working in concert with AQ before 9/11. Some tribal people, in a god-forsaken land, with a technical sophistication somewhere between cavemen and world war II, were "working in concert with AQ"? Yeah, surely the US needs surveillance for all its citizens to counter that. >My gut reaction is that I don't like this, but it's hard to argue that the U.S. is fighting an even bout with those who would enter the country and use its civil liberties to aid their terrorism planning. What planning? After decades of external US intervention, invasions, wars, support for dictatorships (from the Shah to Pinochet) and weirdos (remember how Saddam and Laden were "allies" in the 80s?), there have been like 2 or 3 attacks on US soil, 9/11 included. Suburban kids with machine guns kill more people in their schools each year than most of those.
- Aloha 13y agoI've never considered call detail records to be particularly private. That's all this is.
- Thrymr 13y agoThis is a big difference from established law enforcement practice in that regard. Normally a prosecutor needs to issue a subpoena to the phone company to get your individual records, regarding a specific investigation. In this case, the government gets every record from all Verizon customers for the period in question. No, you would not expect that privacy would protect your records if you are specifically under investigation. But you might (certainly before the PATRIOT Act, if not before this revelation, unless you were a conspiracy nut) expect that government agencies don't have free reign to browse your records for no predefined purpose whatsoever. The potential for abuse is too huge and obvious. We seem to be well past all that now.
- Aloha 13y agoMaybe its because I work in the telecom industry, I'm used to CDR's being all over the place, easy to get, export as text even, and not particularly private. It's always seemed to me that what you say on the call is far more important than who you are calling.
- darkarmani 13y agoSo, post them on your blog then.
- PavlovsCat 13y agoAnd I care about what you consider private why, exactly? For any old thing you can find someone, or even a barrel full of people, who considers it to be true. The arguments matter. You provided none, and that's that.
- sixothree 13y agoSo post yours right here. I would like to see them.
- jordan_clark 13y agoEven taking it a step further - If monitoring my phone calls about my kid being sick and puking in the back seat of my car keeps me safe from assholes, be my guest. Listen away.
- flyinRyan 13y agoMaybe you're willing to give up your privacy to get protection from imaginary villains (what are the odds of you personally getting hurt or killed by a terrorist?), but I'm not.
- pekk 13y agoIf you read any news story about this from any newspaper, you will see that the issue is records of who called whom for how long, not full transcripts of all your calls. However terrible and indefensible that is, let's start by addressing reality instead of imagination
- jpdoctor 13y ago> highly classified court order Boy does that sound like a concept which needs to die. Justice does not tend to occur behind closed doors.
- mindcrime 13y agoIndeed. There is, as far as I can tell, no reason for this order to be secret at all, since it's so indiscriminate. I can understand (grudgingly) the argument for sealing the court order during an active investigation, since you don't necessarily want to tip off the suspect that you're "onto them". But if you're saying "give me everybody's data" then it won't be tipping anybody off. And weighed against the idea that our government, which we created, to serve us needs to be almost 100% transparent in order to be accountable to us, I just can't see any reason for this being kept secret. If We The People are to police our government, we need to know what it's doing. And when it does something wrong, we need to smite it mightily.
- DanBC 13y agoIn theory the secret stuff is given oversight by politicians. You elect the politicians, so that's the weak link to oversight by the people. I'm not sure how it works in the US, but I'm aware that GCHQ / CESG / etc have pretty rigorous scrutiny. I'm not disagreeing with you, btw. Far too much stuff is classified as top secret or secret when it just doesn't need to be.
- mindcrime 13y agoIn theory the secret stuff is given oversight by politicians. You elect the politicians, so that's the weak link to oversight by the people. In theory, yes. I, for one, don't consider that an acceptable form of oversight / accountability. We need to be able to see inside the box, and know damn near everything that's going on, end to end. There is, IMO, very little which truly needs to be classified: Launch codes for the nuclear missiles, things of that nature. Most of the rest, not so much.
- kfcm 13y agoWhat a bunch of whiners. It's not as if you don't hand much--if not all--of the same information over to marketing departments, app makers and ad companies when using a smart phone.
- edwardunknown 13y agoNo kidding, do they think Verizon doesn't keep track of your phone calls? What the NSA did isn't illegal and it certainly isn't new.
- phdp 13y agoMarketing departments won't come crashing through my door dressed in a police uniform.
- kfcm 13y agoYou've never heard of RIAA, MPAA, et al? What happens when marketing departments realize they can use the data freely given to them to target people to blackmail and extort, rather than just flash ads at and try to sell to? "For a monthly recurring fee of just $XX, conveniently and discreetly billed to your credit card, you can prevent this information from being sent to [spouse||significant other||law enforcement||employer]." Or company will be founded--if not already--to buy bulk data and develop reports and profiles on individuals and groups, with law enforcement and the intelligence community as the primary customers? Sign up and buy a report/profile for $25-50.
- taproot 13y agoI love how people in this thread are modding you down for this. None of this is news to me, you and many like us. Yet here we are, top 10 stories on HN, more comments than I have ever seen all about some new NSA leak. Apparently people on HN are far less informed about the world we live in than I previously thought. Go figure.
- bas 13y agoIs this actually "news" (i.e. new information)? Ever since the secret room business in 2006 (about events in 2003 or earlier), the handwriting was on the wall. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2006/04/att_assisting_n.html http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2006/04/att_assisting_...
- kunai 13y agoSince everything is out anyway, and since everyone else has iterated on this point several times now, all I have to say, is: FUCK YOU, BIPARTISAN, CORRUPT, DICKISH, TYRANNICAL, WORTHLESS PIECE OF SHIT. FUCK YOU, GOVERNMENT.