Can you hear me now? Eep. The National Security Agency (NSA) has been collecting telephone records of millions of Verizon customers – right down to local call data – under a top-secret court order issued in April, Britain’s The Guardian newspaper reported late Wednesday.

Under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) order, the Guardian reported, Verizon must provide the NSA “on an ongoing daily basis” with information from calls between the U.S. and overseas – but also with calls entirely inside the United States. Calls made entirely overseas were not affected.

Guardian writer Glenn Greenwald, a frequent and fierce critic of the national security state’s expansion since 9-11, writes in his bombshell report that:

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 order, issued April 25 and valid through July 19, requires Verizon to turn over the numbers of both parties, location data, call duration, and other information – though not the contents of the calls.

Judge Roger Vinson’s order relies on Section 215 of the PATRIOT Act. That part of the law, also known as the “business records provision,” permits FBI agents to seek a court order for “any tangible things (including books, records, papers, documents, and other items)” it deems relevant to an investigation.

Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon, who sits on the Senate Intelligence Committee, has repeatedly sounded the alarm about the way the government interprets that provision -- though he is sharply limited in what he can say about classified information. Wyden and Democratic Sen. Mark Udall of Colorado, another committee member, wrote a scathing letter to Attorney General Eric Holder in Sept. 2011 warning that Americans would be "stunned" if they learned what the government was doing.

 Dreadclaw69 wrote:
http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/us-govt-secretly-collecting-data-millions-verizon-users-013542225.html

Can you hear me now? Eep. The National Security Agency (NSA) has been collecting telephone records of millions of Verizon customers – right down to local call data – under a top-secret court order issued in April, Britain’s The Guardian newspaper reported late Wednesday.

Under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) order, the Guardian reported, Verizon must provide the NSA “on an ongoing daily basis” with information from calls between the U.S. and overseas – but also with calls entirely inside the United States. Calls made entirely overseas were not affected.

Guardian writer Glenn Greenwald, a frequent and fierce critic of the national security state’s expansion since 9-11, writes in his bombshell report that:

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 order, issued April 25 and valid through July 19, requires Verizon to turn over the numbers of both parties, location data, call duration, and other information – though not the contents of the calls.

Judge Roger Vinson’s order relies on Section 215 of the PATRIOT Act. That part of the law, also known as the “business records provision,” permits FBI agents to seek a court order for “any tangible things (including books, records, papers, documents, and other items)” it deems relevant to an investigation.

Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon, who sits on the Senate Intelligence Committee, has repeatedly sounded the alarm about the way the government interprets that provision -- though he is sharply limited in what he can say about classified information. Wyden and Democratic Sen. Mark Udall of Colorado, another committee member, wrote a scathing letter to Attorney General Eric Holder in Sept. 2011 warning that Americans would be "stunned" if they learned what the government was doing.

 SilverMK2 wrote:
I hear if you have a gun it keeps you safe from the gov'men' snoopin on yah

 Hordini wrote:

 SilverMK2 wrote:
I hear if you have a gun it keeps you safe from the gov'men' snoopin on yah

That's because you don't know anything about guns.

 SilverMK2 wrote:

 Hordini wrote:

 SilverMK2 wrote:
I hear if you have a gun it keeps you safe from the gov'men' snoopin on yah

That's because you don't know anything about guns.

Somewhat taking the piss

 Hordini wrote:

 SilverMK2 wrote:

 Hordini wrote:

 SilverMK2 wrote:
I hear if you have a gun it keeps you safe from the gov'men' snoopin on yah

That's because you don't know anything about guns.

Somewhat taking the piss

I was just somewhat taking it back. You have to admit you left yourself wide open for it.

 SilverMK2 wrote:

 Hordini wrote:

 SilverMK2 wrote:

 Hordini wrote:

 SilverMK2 wrote:
I hear if you have a gun it keeps you safe from the gov'men' snoopin on yah

That's because you don't know anything about guns.

Somewhat taking the piss

I was just somewhat taking it back. You have to admit you left yourself wide open for it.

If only i had a gun, then i would have been safe from your jibes!

 d-usa wrote:
If you are posting from your Verizon phone you won't be able to keep your gun!

 Seaward wrote:
I've got Verizon. I've also got a Persian friend I'm going to start calling and talking about the raven flying at midnight.

 KalashnikovMarine wrote:
The thrush knocks twice

US telecom smartphone wars, AT&T vs. Verizon
The marketshare of mobile network providers in the US, based on Q4 2011 data, is divided mostly between Verizon (31.5% marketshare), AT&T (26.9%), Sprint (10.5%) and T-Mobile (9.5%), with Tracfone (7.1%), Sprint Prepaid (5.1%), Metropcs (3.2%), US Cellular (2.1% and Cricket (1.9%) also making some headway.
When looking specifically at smartphone mobile carriers, AT&T leads in the US with 33.5% marketshare, based on Q4 2011 data, followed by Verizon (30.5% marketshare) which grew by 3.7% from 2010 thanks to the release of the Verizon iPhone.
Aside from Verizon releasing the iPhone, in 2011 on their network, Sprint also followed suit which helped bring its smartphone mobile network provider marketshare to 13.7% in the US and left T-Mobile with a 11.3% marketshare.

 whembly wrote:
Otherwise, we're left feeling that the naked contempt this current administration has shown for the privacy rights of its political enemies... is it any wonder why anyone would think that this might been an attempt by the administration to go after their political adversaries?

The White House has sought to justify its surveillance of millions of Americans' phone records as anger grows over revelations that a secret court order gives the National Security Agency blanket authority to collect call data from a major phone carrier.

Politicians and civil liberties campaigners described the disclosures, revealed by the Guardian on Wednesday, as the most sweeping intrusion into private data they had ever seen by the US government.

But the Obama administration, while declining to comment on the specific order, said the practice was "a critical tool in protecting the nation from terrorist threats to the United States".

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.

The disclosure has reignited longstanding debates in the US over the proper extent of the government's domestic spying powers.

Under the Bush administration, officials in security agencies had disclosed to reporters the large-scale collection of call records data by the NSA, but this is the first time significant and top-secret documents have revealed the continuation of the practice under President Obama.

The White House stressed that orders such as the one disclosed by the Guardian would only cover data about the calls rather than their content. A senior administration official said: "Information of the sort described in the Guardian article has been a critical tool in protecting the nation from terrorist threats to the United States, as it allows counter-terrorism 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.

"As we have publicly stated before, all three branches of government are involved in reviewing and authorising intelligence collection under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Congress passed that act and is regularly and fully briefed on how it is used, and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court authorises such collection. There is a robust legal regime in place governing all activities conducted pursuant to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act."

The administration stressed that the court order obtained by the Guardian relates to call data, and does not allow the government to listen in to anyone's calls.

However, in 2013, such metadata can provide authorities with vast knowledge about a caller's identity. Particularly when cross-checked against other public records, the metadata can reveal someone's name, address, driver's licence, credit history, social security number and more. Government analysts would be able to work out whether the relationship between two people was ongoing, occasional or a one-off.

"From a civil liberties perspective, the program could hardly be any more alarming. It's a program in which some untold number of innocent people have been put under the constant surveillance of government agents," said Jameel Jaffer, American Civil Liberties Union deputy legal director. "It is beyond Orwellian, and it provides further evidence of the extent to which basic democratic rights are being surrendered in secret to the demands of unaccountable intelligence agencies."

The order names Verizon Business Services, a division of Verizon Communications. In its first-quarter earnings report, published in April, Verizon Communications listed about 10 million commercial lines out of a total of 121 million customers. The court order does not specify what type of lines are being tracked. It is not clear whether any additional orders exist to cover Verizon's wireless and residential customers, or those of other phone carriers.

Fisa court orders typically direct the production of records pertaining to a specific, named target suspected of being an agent of a terrorist group or foreign state, or a finite set of individually named targets. The unlimited nature of the records being handed over to the NSA is extremely unusual.

The Verizon order expressly bars the company from disclosing to the public either the existence of the FBI's request for its customers' records, or the court order itself. "We decline comment," said Ed McFadden, a Washington-based Verizon spokesman said on Wednesday.

News of the order brought swift condemnation from senior US politicians. Former vice-president Al Gore described the "secret blanket surveillance" as "obscenely outrageous". "In [the] digital era, privacy must be a priority," he said.

The court order appears to explain the numerous cryptic public warnings by two US senators, Mark Udall and Ron Wyden, about the scope of the Obama administration's surveillance activities.

For about two years, the two Democrats have been stridently advising the public that the US government is relying on "secret legal interpretations" to claim surveillance powers so broad that the American public would be "stunned" to learn of the kind of domestic spying being conducted.

Udall, a member of the Senate intelligence committee, said on Wednesday night: "While I cannot corroborate the details of this particular report, this sort of widescale surveillance should concern all of us and is the kind of government overreach I've said Americans would find shocking."

The Center for Constitutional Rights said in a statement that the secret court order was unprecedented. "As far as we know this order from the Fisa court is the broadest surveillance order to ever have been issued: it requires no level of suspicion and applies to all Verizon [business services] subscribers anywhere in the US.

"The Patriot Act's incredibly broad surveillance provision purportedly authorizes an order of this sort, though its constitutionality is in question and several senators have complained about it."

Mark Rumold, a lawyer with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, said: "This is confirmation of what we've long feared, that the NSA has been tracking the calling patterns of the entire country. We hope more than anything else that the government will allow a judge to decide whether this is constitutional, and we can finally put an end to this practice."

Howard Wolfson, a deputy mayor of New York, described the revelations as "a shocking report that really exploded overnight".

"A lot of people are waking up now and I think they will be horrified," he said. "It is not just the civil libertarian wings of the Republican and Democratic parties; I think most Americans will be really surprised that their government is having access to all of the phone calls they make."

"I don't think the administration's response [so far] is anywhere near adequate. I think you will see a lot of questions being asked in the coming days."

Oregon senator Jeff Merkley said: "This type of secret bulk data collection is an outrageous breach of Americans' privacy. Can the FBI or the NSA really claim that they need data scooped up on tens of millions of Americans?"

When does mass data collection get personal? When it comes to the contents of our communications – what we say on the phone, or in emails – most people agree that's private information, and so does US law and the constitution. But when it comes to who we speak to, and where we were when we did it, matters get far hazier.

That clash has been highlighted by a top secret court order obtained by the Guardian, which reveals the large-scale collection by the NSA of the call records of millions of Verizon customers, daily, since April.

The court order doesn't allow the NSA to collect any information whatsoever on the contents of phone calls, or even to obtain any names or addresses of customers.

What's covered instead is known as "metadata": the phone number of every caller and recipient; the unique serial number of the phones involved; the time and duration of each phone call; and potentially the location of each of the participants when the call happened.

All of this information is being collected on millions of calls every day – every conversation taking place within the US, or between the US and a foreign country is collected.

The government has long argued that this information isn't private or personal. It is, they say, the equivalent of looking at the envelope of a letter: what's written on the outside is simple, functional information that's essentially already public.

That forms the basis of collection: because it's not personal information, but rather "transactional" or "business" data, there's no need to show probable cause to collect it. Collection is also helped by the fact this information is already disclosed by callers to their carriers – because your phone number is shared with your provider, you're not treating it as private.

But that is not a view shared by privacy advocates. Groups such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation say that by knowing who an individual speaks to, and when, and for how long, intelligence agencies can build up a detailed picture of that person, their social network, and more. Collecting information on where people are during the calls colours in that picture even further.

One recent case that highlights this tension is the recent subpoenas of the call records of Associated Press journalists, which led to clashes between the media and the White House over what was widely seen as intrusion into a free press.

The information collected on the AP was telephony metadata: precisely what the court order against Verizon shows is being collected by the NSA on millions of Americans every day.

Gary Pruitt, the president of the Associated Press, set forth how monitoring even these "envelopes" could become a serious intrusion: "These records potentially reveal communications with confidential sources across all of the newsgathering activities undertaken by the AP during a two-month period, provide a road map to AP's newsgathering operations, and disclose information about AP's activities and operations that the government has no conceivable right to know."

The view on whether such "transactional" data is personal, and how intrusive it can be, is also being tested in the appellate courts, and the supreme court is likely to see more cases on the issue in the near future.

Discussing the use of GPS data collected from mobile phones, an appellate court noted that even location information on its own could reveal a person's secrets: "A person who knows all of another's travels can deduce whether he is a weekly churchgoer, a heavy drinker, a regular at the gym, an unfaithful husband, an outpatient receiving medical treatment, an associate of particular individuals or political groups," it read, "and not just one such fact about a person, but all such facts."

The primary purpose of large-scale databases such as the NSA's call records is generally said to be data-mining: rather than examining individuals, algorithms are used to find patterns of unusual activity that may mark terrorism or criminal conspiracies.

However, collection and storage of this information gives government a power it's previously lacked: easy and retroactive surveillance.

If authorities become interested in an individual at a later stage, and obtain their number, officials can look back through the data and gather their movements, social network, and more – possibly for several years (although the secret court order only allows for three months of data collection).

In essence, you're being watched; the government just doesn't know your name while it's doing it.

Until now, such actions have been kept a tightly guarded and classified secret, speculated upon, suspected, and occasionally disclosed by sources, but never proven by documents.

Now the confirmation is in the open, the American public have the opportunity to decide which definition of private information they prefer: that of the privacy advocates, or that of the NSA and White House.

 whembly wrote:
One thing I don't understand is that why now? What prompted them to do this? Was it the Boston Bombers?

If they can't justify it very well, then it's very concerning.

Otherwise, we're in amidst the still-exploding IRS scandal, the DOJ AP/FoxNews snooping scandal, and the invasive DOJ James Rosen spying scandal...not to mention the continuing distrust of government fostered by the stonewalling, lies, and obstruction at the heart of the Benghazi, Fast and Furious national security debacles.

Is it possible that the Obama NSA program has a legitimate counterterrorism/national security objective? I hope they can explain themselves adequately.

Otherwise, we're left feeling that the naked contempt this current administration has shown for the privacy rights of its political enemies... is it any wonder why anyone would think that this might been an attempt by the administration to go after their political adversaries?

 Frazzled wrote:
There is a substantial difference between MI6 - I mean the NSA - and the FBI. I have no problem if the spyboys collect every phone call, text, and email on the planet in surveillance of spies and terrorists.

However, to use that against US citizens for tax or criminal purposes requires a warrant granted by a judge and probable cause of a crime being committed. Except for Fox News of course, because they are Evil with an E.