Report: NSA collecting data on all Verizon calls

[Geee]

The Hill:

The National Security Agency (NSA) is collecting the telephone records of millions of Verizon customers under a top secret court order, according to the Guardian.

The British newspaper obtained the order, which requires Verizon to give the NSA information on all of its customers' phone calls—not just those under any suspicion of wrongdoing. The order covers the numbers of both callers, the time and duration of the calls and other identifying information. The order does not cover the contents of conversations or text messages.

The order by the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court covers all Verizon call information between April 25 and July 19. Verizon is barred from discussing the order.

[Valin]

@Geee



NSA collecting phone records of millions of Verizon customers daily
Exclusive: Top secret court order requiring Verizon to hand over all call data shows scale of domestic surveillance under Obama
Glenn Greenwald
Wednesday 5 June 2013
• Read the Verizon court order in full here

(Snip)

(Snip)

The document shows for the first time that under the Obama administration the communication records of millions of US citizens are being collected indiscriminately and in bulk – regardless of whether they are suspected of any wrongdoing.

The secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (Fisa) granted the order to the FBI on April 25, giving the government unlimited authority to obtain the data for a specified three-month period ending on July 19.

Under the terms of the blanket order, the numbers of both parties on a call are handed over, as is location data, call duration, unique identifiers, and the time and duration of all calls. The contents of the conversation itself are not covered.
(Snip)
3 quick points
A. We really don't know much about this...yet. So lets not get out draws in a bunch yet
B. This was OKed by FISA so there may be a good reason for it.
C. It does seem to me to be a bit over broad.



They told me if I voted for Mitt Romney all our phones would be tapped....and they were right.

[clearvision]

The hits just keep coming.

[Valin]

The hits just keep coming.

It must be admitted this Looks really bad.

 

 

Needless to say this is a god send to the Tin Foil Hat community. Infowars will be all Verizon all the time!

[clearvision]

 

The hits just keep coming.

It must be admitted this Looks really bad.

 

 

Needless to say this is a god send to the Tin Foil Hat community. Infowars will be all Verizon all the time!

 

I actually expect there is a similar document for all carriers and this is the only one that has been "discovered". Sounds like this may be an on going thing they renew every three months and lets them access what they need when they need it versus having to ask each time they have a "case".

[Valin]

 

 

The hits just keep coming.

It must be admitted this Looks really bad.

 

 

Needless to say this is a god send to the Tin Foil Hat community. Infowars will be all Verizon all the time!

 

I actually expect there is a similar document for all carriers and this is the only one that has been "discovered". Sounds like this may be an on going thing they renew every three months and lets them access what they need when they need it versus having to ask each time they have a "case".

 

Welcome to the XXIst century.

I think people on our side just assume it is Political, and it must be admitted there are good and valid reasons to assume this, given their history. But there may also be good national security reasons they have done this.

I also wonder who it was that leaked this to the Guardian? You can be assured that person is being hunted....and rather vigorously.

[Casino67]

It may not be well-known that if whatever goes out over the air, the government is listening via NSA. Actually not listening, but gathering the info on tape for further analysis later on if needed. If one wants to maintain privacy to the extreme, only use land-lines for conversations or face-to-face conversations in a lead-lined closet.

 

Personally, if gathering phone records from any provider, helps to identify a pocket(s) of phone calls to suspect countries or phone numbers, I am all for it. If I thought my calls were actually being monitored, I would have a problem. Not that I say anything worth anything, but the government would be over-stepping, or, in the vernacular of the day, over-reaching, court approved or not.

[Valin]

@Casino67

 

While I agree, (you know my feelings about conspiracy nuts)....The Lives of Others is out there.

[Casino67]

I think if Hillary gets elected, then we should be worried. Remember Craig Livingston? No one has yet to figure out who hired him (Hillary Clinton). The Clinton's will make the Stasi look like amateurs.

 

Many years ago, maybe more that 20 years, I was talking via landline to a buddy (who was working for NSA at the time) in Germany--West Germany. I don't remember what subject came up, but he told me to be careful what I said. He didn't amplify, but it was pretty clear that overseas communications were being monitored for 'keywords'.

[NCTexan]

Where are all the Liberals that wailed and gnashed their teeth at GWB's invasive tracking of "How to Make a Bomb" books at the public library?

 

[Valin]

Administration, lawmakers defend NSA program to collect phone records

Ellen Nakashima and Ed O’Keefe

6/6/13

 

The Obama administration and key U.S. lawmakers on Thursday defended a secret National Security Agency telephone surveillance program that one congressman said had helped avert a terrorist attack in recent years.

The program apparently has collected the telephone records of tens of millions of American customers of Verizon, one of the nation’s largest phone companies, under a top-secret court order.

 

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), who chairs the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, said the court order, issued in April, appears to be “the exact three-month renewal” of the program that has been underway for the past seven years. She said the program is “lawful.”

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers (R-Mich.) said Thursday that the NSA program helped thwart a “significant case” of terrorism in the United States “within the last few years.”

 

(Snip)

 

The official said such information “has been a critical tool in protecting the nation from terrorist threats to the United States, as it allows counterterrorism personnel to discover whether known or suspected terrorists have been in contact with other persons who may be engaged in terrorist activities, particularly people located inside the United States.”

The official added that “all three branches of government are involved in reviewing and authorizing intelligence collection” under the secret court, and that Congress “is regularly and fully briefed” on how the information is used.

 

At a hastily arranged news conference Thursday morning, Feinstein distributed copies of letters sent by the Intelligence Committee in February 2010 and February 2011 that invited senators to review information on the program in a classified setting. She said she does not know how many senators took up the offer.

Beyond the metadata, she said, more detailed records of calls may be obtained only if there is “reasonable, articulable suspicion” that the records are relevant and related to terrorist activity.

“There have been approximately 100 plots and also arrests made since 2009 by the FBI,” Feinstein said. “I do not know to what extent metadata was used or if it was used, but I do know this: That terrorists will come after us if they can, and the only thing we have to deter this is good intelligence.”

 

(Snip)

 

H/T TAS

[Valin]

I also wonder who it was that leaked this to the Guardian? You can be assured that person is being hunted....and rather vigorously.

[Valin]

 

 

 

[Geee]

Now on Fox - there is supposedly another plan called PRISM which collects your internet data!!!!!!!!!!!

[Valin]

Now on Fox - there is supposedly another plan called PRISM which collects your internet data!!!!!!!!!!!

Well one thing they will find out....I really need a life!

[NCTexan]

Why do I keep having this image pop into my head?

 

[Casino67]

Why do I keep having this image pop into my head?

 

Uhhhh, you are trying to grow a mustache??

[Valin]

Now on Fox - there is supposedly another plan called PRISM which collects your internet data!!!!!!!!!!!

Is the PRISM Surveillance Program Legal?

Orin Kerr

June 7, 2013

 

The leaked news about the PRISM surveillance program has been the big news story today. The details are murky, but one question that we should be asking is whether the program is legal. From what I’ve seen so far, it sounds like the program is the way the government is implementing the FISA Amendments Act of 2008 and the Protect America Act of 2007, which were enacted in response to the 2005 disclosure of the Bush Administration’s warrantless wiretapping program. Here’s what I wrote about the PAA of 2007 when it was going through Congress:

 

So what does the legislation do? A. . . The first change is a clarification that FISA warrants are not needed for “surveillance directed at a person reasonably believed to be located outside of the United States.” That is, if the government is monitoring someone outside the United States from a telecom switch in the U.S., it can listen in on the person’s calls and read their e-mails without obtaining a FISA warrant first. The Fourth Amendment may still require reasonableness in this setting when one or more people on the call of e-mail are inside the U.S. or are United States citizens, but there is no statutory warrant requirement.

 

The second change is a requirement of a formal authorization of a program to do such monitoring. The Director of National Intelligence and the AG have to approve a program (for up to one year) reasonably designed to be limited to the monitoring of persons outside the United States. Those procedures have to be submitted to the FISA court, which then reviews whether the Executive’s conclusion that the procedures are reasonably designed to only pick up the communications of people reasonably believed to be outside the U.S. is “clearly erroneous.” If the conclusion is clearly erroneous, the court sends them back and tells the Executive to try again. The government can also appeal that determination to the FISA Court of Review and if needed the Supreme Court. I’m not exactly sure, but my sense is that this is a one-size-fits-all order; that is, the one authorization covers all the providers.

(Snip)

 

Presumably the bit about “selectors” that are “designed to produce at least 51 percent confidence in a target’s foreignness” are ones that have been approved by the DNI and AG and then approved by the FISA court to implement the authority to target “persons reasonably believed to be located outside the United States to acquire foreign intelligence information.” 50 U.S.C. 1881a(a).

 

Anyway, maybe this is obvious to everyone, but I thought I would add it just in case it wasn’t.

[Draggingtree]

Now on Fox - there is supposedly another plan called PRISM which collects your internet data!!!!!!!!!!!

[Casino67]

Results for #NSACalledToTellMe

 

https://twitter.com/search?q=%23NSACalledToTellMe&src=hash

 

John Q. Public ‏@OHenrysStepchld 18s
#NSACalledToTellMe - Somebody kept calling while I was out, and they think it might be important.

Aaron Pailthorp ‏@BucketDrop 38s
#NSACalledToTellMe that it looks like I should up my data plan, might go over this month. And that my tweets are inane, please work on it.

Brian Shellabarger ‏@brianshell 1m
#NSACalledToTellMe I should check my email... one of them looked important.

Coach Dasch's Do ‏@CoachDaschsDo 1m
#NSACalledToTellMe I have great hair. Apparently the satellites get distracted when flying over me.

Meatface ‏@RealBuckyB 1m
RT “@texyellowdogdem: #nsacalledtotellme that my last tweet was highly offensive and that I need to tone it down.”

 

[Valin]

Results for #NSACalledToTellMe

 

https://twitter.com/search?q=%23NSACalledToTellMe&src=hash

 

John Q. Public ‏@OHenrysStepchld 18s

#NSACalledToTellMe - Somebody kept calling while I was out, and they think it might be important.

 

Aaron Pailthorp ‏@BucketDrop 38s

#NSACalledToTellMe that it looks like I should up my data plan, might go over this month. And that my tweets are inane, please work on it.

 

Brian Shellabarger ‏@brianshell 1m

#NSACalledToTellMe I should check my email... one of them looked important.

 

Coach Dasch's Do ‏@CoachDaschsDo 1m

#NSACalledToTellMe I have great hair. Apparently the satellites get distracted when flying over me.

 

Meatface ‏@RealBuckyB 1m

RT “@texyellowdogdem: #nsacalledtotellme that my last tweet was highly offensive and that I need to tone it down.”

 

 

 

[Valin]

Theres no NSA scandal (yet), but Obama should explain the situation

Paul Mirengoff

6/7/13

 

Theres no NSA scandal (yet), but Obama should explain the situation

 

I agree with John that, from all that appears so far, the NSAs collection of phone records is not a scandal. No law appears to have been violated; the administration proceeded with permission from the appropriate court; Congress was in-the-loop; and there is no evidence (to my knowledge) that the information NSA obtained was used abusively, oppressively, or in a discriminatory or partisan way.

 

Moreover, as John explained, NSAs data collection is consistent with the Constitution under existing precedent, although the constitutional issues associated with the war on terror always seem to be up for grabs.

 

If there is any scandal, I believe it resides in the leaking of classified information about NSAs PRISM program. The Washington Post says it received PowerPoint slides and supporting materials about PRISM from a career intelligence officer. That officer has committed a crime. He or she should be pursued and, if identified, prosecuted. If journalists have engaged in criminal activity, they should also be prosecuted.

 

(Snip)

 

Finally, what about Johns suggestion that, even absent a scandal, we are overdue for a public debate about privacy? Privacy is a big topic and there may be aspects of it that warrant a public debate. Whether such a debate should focus on issues relating to the war on terror depends, I suppose, on the extent to which the public considers PRISM and other such data collection programs correctly understood to be problematic.

 

(Snip)

[nickydog]

Why do I keep having this image pop into my head?

 

 

This whole thing actually has brought to mind our two years in Moscow in '87- '89. Sometimes Mr.n. and I would communicate via magic slates. Anyone remember them?

[NCTexan]

Sometimes Mr.n. and I would communicate via magic slates. Anyone remember them?

 

@nickydog

 

[nickydog]

 

Sometimes Mr.n. and I would communicate via magic slates. Anyone remember them?

 

@nickydog

 

 

 

 

Yep, that's it. All you had to do was lift up the plastic cover to erase what you wrote. About as far from high tech as you can get, but cheap and effective.