Green Energy
Chicago Tribune:
DEA using vast AT&T database: New York Times report
(Reuters) - U.S. law enforcement officials investigating drug crimes have had access, using subpoenas, to a large AT&T Inc database that contains the records of phone calls dating back to 1987, according to a New York Times report.
The report, published on Sunday, said under the 6-year-old program, the government pays telecommunications giant AT&T to place employees in drug-fighting units around the country. The employees sit with Drug Enforcement Administration agents and local detectives and supply them with the phone data, it said.
The "Hemisphere Project" covers call data for any carrier that uses an AT&T switch, the newspaper reported, citing training slides with the logo of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy.
Federal authorities told the newspaper that the project, which has been useful in finding criminals who frequently discard cellphones to avoid detection, used investigative techniques that have been employed in criminal cases for decades and created no new privacy issues.
A representative for the Justice Department was not immediately available for comment.
Mark Siegel, a spokesman for AT&T, said on Monday that while the company cannot comment on any particular matter, "we, like all other companies, must respond to valid subpoenas issued by law enforcement."
American Civil Liberties Union attorney Alex Abdo said on Monday the program is "very troubling from a privacy perspective."
"The government has easy access to decades' worth of information on millions of Americans," said Abdo, who is with the ACLU's national security project.
Reuters reported last month that the National Security Agency supplies the DEA with intelligence information used to make non-terrorism cases against American citizens.
Reuters cited internal documents that show how DEA's Special Operations Division funnels information from overseas NSA intercepts, domestic wiretaps, informants and a large DEA database of telephone records to authorities nationwide to help them launch criminal investigations of Americans.
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Green Energy
And the NATIONAL SECURITY interest here is. . .?
Chicago Tribune:
DEA using vast AT&T database: New York Times report
(Reuters) - U.S. law enforcement officials investigating drug crimes have had access, using subpoenas, to a large AT&T Inc database that contains the records of phone calls dating back to 1987, according to a New York Times report.
The report, published on Sunday, said under the 6-year-old program, the government pays telecommunications giant AT&T to place employees in drug-fighting units around the country. The employees sit with Drug Enforcement Administration agents and local detectives and supply them with the phone data, it said.
The "Hemisphere Project" covers call data for any carrier that uses an AT&T switch, the newspaper reported, citing training slides with the logo of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy.
Federal authorities told the newspaper that the project, which has been useful in finding criminals who frequently discard cellphones to avoid detection, used investigative techniques that have been employed in criminal cases for decades and created no new privacy issues.
A representative for the Justice Department was not immediately available for comment.
Mark Siegel, a spokesman for AT&T, said on Monday that while the company cannot comment on any particular matter, "we, like all other companies, must respond to valid subpoenas issued by law enforcement."
American Civil Liberties Union attorney Alex Abdo said on Monday the program is "very troubling from a privacy perspective."
"The government has easy access to decades' worth of information on millions of Americans," said Abdo, who is with the ACLU's national security project.
Reuters reported last month that the National Security Agency supplies the DEA with intelligence information used to make non-terrorism cases against American citizens.
Reuters cited internal documents that show how DEA's Special Operations Division funnels information from overseas NSA intercepts, domestic wiretaps, informants and a large DEA database of telephone records to authorities nationwide to help them launch criminal investigations of Americans.
- Secret Court Approves Classified Rule Change On How Fbi Can Use Nsa Data
Secret court approves classified rule change on how FBI can use NSA data On Tuesday, The Guardian reported that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has changed its rules regarding how it redacts Americans’ information when it takes international...
- Dea And Atf Keep Record On License Plates Of Gun Show Attendee
From Guns: According to emails obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union, federal authorities planned to monitor gun show parking lots with automatic license plate readers. The insight comes from a damning report released by the ACLU this week...
-
CNSNews: Obama’s Economic ‘Stimulus’ Gave $10 Million to ATF Project Gunrunner (CNSNews.com) – President Barack Obama’s economic stimulus act allocated $10 million to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) for a program...
-
New York Times: Police Are Using Phone Tracking as a Routine Tool By ERIC LICHTBLAUWASHINGTON — Law enforcement tracking of cellphones, once the province mainly of federal agents, has become a powerful and widely used surveillance tool for local police...
- Feds, States Expanding Citizen Dna Collections
More Good News Newsmax: Feds, States Expanding Citizen DNA Collections Monday, April 20, 2009 8:03 AM US federal and state law enforcement agencies are dramatically expanding their collection of DNA, including in their databases not only people convicted...