I wonder what on earth the NSA is doing. All phone records (not the content of the calls themselves, nor the caller’s identity) including numbers dialed, duration of calls, location data, unique identifiers all are being handed over on an ongoing basis to the NSA. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court in Miami ordered this in April 25th, for a three month period ending July 19th.
This means that whether you are suspected of wrongdoing or not, your records are being analyzed by the NSA, and whoever they share the info with (legally or not). This is the first proof that such bulk info gathering is going on. The government has wanted this metadata forever to learn of peoples’ network connections.
Just because the Verizon Order was leaked and we now know of it, they might not be the only carrier having had such an Order presented to them. It is also unclear if the leaked Order was a one time order, or part of a series of such orders for three moth or longer periods. The FBI, NSA and Justice Dep’t. responded with a “No comment” comment.
The first time this came to light was during the prior President’s administration. Now it’s clear this has probably been an ongoing practice.
What is truly incredible here is the unprecedented scale of the data collection: Choosing one or several targets would be the ‘norm’. Here, every Verizon customer’s records are involved! How in the world could a judge order such a thing? This is a seemingly marked increase in the government’s data collection.
As usual, included in the Order is the gag order forbidding the revealing of the existence of the Order to anyone (including legal consul). That has been the subject of judicial order to cease such gag orders and which the Justice Dep’t. is trying to perform an end run around (my article https://forums.wincustomize.com/445202/page/1/#3366027).
This is all product of the Patriot Act, 50 USC section 1861’s “business records” provision. It is amazing that a judge has interpreted that as an “everybody’s data is now the government’s”. Really? This crap was started in 2001 and discovered in 2006 when multiple carriers were shown to be involved and that data was being collected on tens of millions of Americans.
The NSA was tasked from its inception on monitoring and collecting electronic intelligence from foreign sources. It has been increasingly focused on domestic sources. In the 1970’s, the NSA’s mandate expressly forbade that.
The words of Senator Frank Church return to haunt us:
"The NSA's capability at any time could be turned around on the American people, and no American would have any privacy left, such is the capability to monitor everything: telephone conversations, telegrams, it doesn't matter."
How very true.
Source:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/06/nsa-phone-records-verizon-court-order