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True, if not for this http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/interactive/2013/jun/06/verizon-telephone-data-court-order http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/interactive/201

True, if not for this http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/interactive/2013/jun/06/verizon-telephone-data-court-order http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/interactive/2013/jun/06/veri... The order, signed by Judge Roger Vinson, compels Verizon to produce to the NSA 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 order directs Verizon to "continue production on an ongoing daily basis thereafter for the duration of this order". It specifies that the records to be produced include "session identifying information", such as "originating and terminating number", the duration of each call, telephone calling card numbers, trunk identifiers, International Mobile Subscriber Identity (IMSI) number, and "comprehensive communication routing information". This court order and the extremely wide net makes me believe the worst for the rest.

leoc 13y ago
Google went on record as saying that they'd never even heard of any FISA order remotely as broad as that before the Verizon story broke, let alone acceded to one, and other tech companies said something similar. That doesn't answer every question about just how much ground the orders moving through the tech companies' streamlined new FISA-order pipeline cover. But does mean that either the tech CEOs are orchestrating a brazen and elaborate lie, or they're not sharing information on anything close to the Verizon scale.
- anonyfuss 13y ago
  Or their marching orders are to provide live data collection on specific government-identified suspects, rather than live data collection on all users. In which case, they could claim to be lawfully complying with information requests that are "not as broad", even if the system as designed makes it as easy for the NSA as hitting a "monitor this person" button. It also wouldn't take vast systemic corporate knowledge. All centralized systems have centralized administrative control that allow for in-depth view and analysis of user accounts and data, and most large-scale systems have relatively powerful and easy-to-use tooling (especially to support customer service, sales, etc). Complete access to those systems is generally restricted due to the likelihood for abuse, but there remain valid internal management reasons for such access. Adding to those systems to allow the NSA unfettered (or barely fettered) access could be done without having to alert the entire organization that their internal management systems, which they built knowingly, and have no reason to distrust, have been subverted to allow for on-demand government spying.

leoc 13y ago

Google went on record as saying that they'd never even heard of any FISA order remotely as broad as that before the Verizon story broke, let alone acceded to one, and other tech companies said something similar. That doesn't answer every question about just how much ground the orders moving through the tech companies' streamlined new FISA-order pipeline cover. But does mean that either the tech CEOs are orchestrating a brazen and elaborate lie, or they're not sharing information on anything close to the Verizon scale.

anonyfuss 13y ago
Or their marching orders are to provide live data collection on specific government-identified suspects, rather than live data collection on all users. In which case, they could claim to be lawfully complying with information requests that are "not as broad", even if the system as designed makes it as easy for the NSA as hitting a "monitor this person" button. It also wouldn't take vast systemic corporate knowledge. All centralized systems have centralized administrative control that allow for in-depth view and analysis of user accounts and data, and most large-scale systems have relatively powerful and easy-to-use tooling (especially to support customer service, sales, etc). Complete access to those systems is generally restricted due to the likelihood for abuse, but there remain valid internal management reasons for such access. Adding to those systems to allow the NSA unfettered (or barely fettered) access could be done without having to alert the entire organization that their internal management systems, which they built knowingly, and have no reason to distrust, have been subverted to allow for on-demand government spying.