But it's only Metadata

[Bonobo]

http://obotomy.blogspot.jp/2013/06/but-its-only-metadata.html

The Electronic Frontier Foundation has an ongoing lawsuit in pursuit of a FOIA request of a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) ruling that held NSA's data gathering violates the 4th amendment. Obama is just plain lying when he maintains that the courts and congress act as a check on NSA. The entire congress has not been briefed on the Verizon phone records dragnet nor has it been advised about the latest intrusion into privacy, Prism. Members of the intelligence committees in both houses may be briefed but they are forbidden to share information even when they oppose an NSA/FBI action.
Worse yet when a FISC court holds an action to be unconstitutional the decision is classified and not available to the public. This is the nature of EFF's suit. Show us the court decision. Secret courts and secret decisions do little to safeguard anyone except the perpetrators of abuse from criminal and civil liability. If, as the administration claims, no one is listening to your conversation why should you worry. EFF gives these examples;

What they are trying to say is that disclosure of metadata—the details about phone calls, without the actual voice—isn't a big deal, not something for Americans to get upset about if the government knows. Let's take a closer look at what they are saying:

-They know you rang a phone sex service at 2:24 am and spoke for 18 minutes. But they don't know what you talked about.

-They know you called the suicide prevention hotline from the Golden Gate Bridge. But the topic of the call remains a secret.

-They know you spoke with an HIV testing service, then your doctor, then your health insurance company in the same hour. But they don't know what was discussed.

-They know you received a call from the local NRA office while it was having a campaign against gun legislation, and then called your senators and congressional representatives immediately after. But the content of those calls remains safe from government intrusion.

-They know you called a gynecologist, spoke for a half hour, and then called the local Planned Parenthood's number later that day. But nobody knows what you spoke about.

[ohheckyeah]

1. I don't know whether the truth

of this should make me laugh or cry.

[uponit7771]

2. The "entire" congress doesn't get briefed on a lot of things. That is out and out winger\fudr meme..

...rest is conjecture

Phone meta data hasn't been the customers since 1979

The delayed outrage from the blogger on this issue is well noted and this TOO shall pass

[Bonobo]

3. Nothing delayed about the outrage.

What is the conjecture?

What is the meme you refer to?

Sounds like you're just throwing out terms to try to muddy the water.

Your post is tired, stretched and meaningless.

[uponit7771]

4. Again, meta data has NOT been the customers since 1979...outrage at someone getting a warrant to..

...mine it IS delayed outrage.

The winger\fudr meme is the sophistic "all of congress" in regards to who was briefed as it's well known that not ALL of congress gets briefed on EVERYTHING.

You're unwillingness to google some terms doesn't mean the words I posted are meaningless.

What is meaningless is ANOTHER non "scandal" about not a damn thang...........................................again

[Life Long Dem]

6. Key bullshit

"The entire congress has not been briefed on the Verizon phone records dragnet nor has it been advised about the latest intrusion into privacy, Prism. "

The entire congress talk is bullshit. Similar to we didn't have enough hearings on such and such scandal because we didn't hear from every single person out there.

[uponit7771]

7. +1

[Egalitarian Thug]

18. Perhaps you can inform all of the ignorant fools just what is the expiration date on objections

to blatant criminality?

[sweetloukillbot]

5. No they don't know "YOU" called those numbers

Names addresses and financial info are not provided and cannot be accessed without a separate warrant. That's clearly stated in the leaked document - it even gives the relevant law that prevents them from obtaining the additional information. This is just 555-555-5555 called 444-444-4444 for 10 minutes from a location near cellphone tower 12345.

[woo me with science]

9. Bullshit.

They have phone numbers.

The point is that the government has no business collecting and storing this information at all.

[Jesus Malverde]

8. You make it CALL based, much of the metadata is LOCATION information,

Your phone was seen at an abortion clinic.

Your phone was seen at a Hillary for President 2010 meeting.

Your phone was seen near the phone of two other code pink members.

Did you really visit the occupy camp?

Whenever your mobile phone accesses a cell tower, it broadcasts it's location for anyone who has access to the "meta data" of your phone.

[sweetloukillbot]

10. Then they just need to get another warrant to find out who you are n/t

[cliffordu]

11. So: can you quote a creditable source

Or are you gonna conjecture off all over DU as per usual?

Just askin'.

[MADem]

15. I think this article has a pretty good breakdown of what happened over the last couple of days.

http://thedailybanter.com/2013/06/nsa-story-falling-apart-under-scrutiny-key-facts-turning-out-to-be-inaccurate/

[JoeyT]

20. That's an entirely different story.

This OP is about cell phone data. What you linked to was about data mining ISPs and such.

[JDPriestly]

12. Thanks. You have made the danger in this program very clear.

This is Big Brother and 1984 has come and gone.

[LovingA2andMI]

13. This one needs to be K/R~~ Up HIGH!!

Thanks for this post!!

[MADem]

14. If you called a gynecologist and spoke for a half hour, you probably had a friend on the front desk

and were chit chatting with that person, not dealing with a medical issue.

I don't know any doctors who keep any patients on the phone for more than ten minutes...! And that includes heart surgeons!

[ReRe]

17. I do...

...they put you on hold 2 or 3 times...

[MADem]

23. My experience is that they say they'll call you back...and then they don't. nt

[ReRe]

16. Anyone. I repeat, ANYONE who disbelieves....

K&R

.... what has boiled to the surface needs to get a grip and do some reading. Get every book that James Bamford has written and start in, today. This may all seem like old news to most of us here, but the greater American public does not know. And they might not even know how to comprehend it. And still, we have people on DU who are denying the magnitude of what has come to the surface. The MSM can't cast this off as "conspiracy theories." Well, they can and they probably will. Let's see what happens this week.

[a2liberal]

21. It's absolutely amazing

how easily people here are buying into government denials now that they've figured out that's the best way to go (versus the initial true outrage over the leak). It's like our entire society lacks critical thinking skills. Easier to just believe what you want to believe I bet nobody here would be believing the denials if it were the exact same situation under the Bush administration, but when you want to believe that Obama wouldn't do it that makes it much easier to not question denials.

[ReRe]

22. The rose-colored glasses do need to come off. n/t

[OnyxCollie]

19. The details are in the metadata.

From March 2008:

http://www.themediaconsortium.com/reporting/wp-content/uploads/2008/03/affidavit-bp-final.pdf

My name is Babak Pasdar, President and CEO of Bat Blue Corporation. I have given this affidavit to
Thomas Devine, who has identified himself as the legal director of the Government Accountability
Project, without any threats, inducements or coercion.

I have been a technologist in the computer and computer security industry for the past nineteen years
and am a "Certified Ethical Hacker" (E-Commerce Consultants International Council.) I have worked
with many enterprise organizations, telecommunications carriers, as well as small and medium sized
organizations in consulting, designing, implementing, troubleshooting, and managing security systems.
This statement is to make a record ofmy concerns about the privacy implications for our society from
what I personally witnessed at a major telecommunications carrier, as summarized below.

What I know:

• I know I saw a circuit that everyone called the "Quantico Circuit."

• I know that all other sites had store numbers or affiliate numbers. The "Quantico Circuit" was
the only site being migrated that had such a unique name.

• I know that it was a third party connecting to the client's network via the "Quantico Circuit."

• I know everyone was uncomfortable talking about it.

• I know that connecting a third party to your network core with no access control is against all
standard security protocols, and would fail almost any compliance standard.

• 1 know that I was a trusted resource. During the project, I at all times had access and control
over the communications to the most sensitive of the organization's systems. This included
their sales applications, billing systems, text messaging and mobile internet access, including email
and web. I even had a client badge for entry to the building and access to facilities.

• I know the client had Network VCRs situated at various locations throughout their data centers.
These devices collected and recorded all network communications and had the capacity to store
them for days, possibly weeks.

• I know that many of the organization's branch offices and affiliate systems did not have that
unfettered access, because I instituted the controls.

What is likely, based on normal industry practice:

• A third party had access to one or more systems within the organization.

• The third party could connect to one or more of the client's systems. This would include the
billing system, fraud detection system, text messaging, web applications. Moreover, Internet
communications between a mobile phone and other Internet systems may be accessed.

• The client could connect to one or more of the third party's systems.

• The client's Data and Cell networks are interconnected.

• It is unlikely that any logging was enabled for any access to the Quantico circuit, because the
client's technical experts suggested that this was not enabled. They were tentative in even
discussing the subject. Even if logging was enabled the logging system was so inappropriately
sized that it was useless.

What is possible due to consistency with known facts but for which I don't have proof:

• The third party may be able to access the billing system to find information on a particular
person. This information may include their billing address, phone number(s), as well as the
numbers and information of other people on their plan. Other information could also include
any previous numbers that the person or others on their plan called, and the outside numbers
who have called the people on the plan.

• The third party may be able to identify the Electronic Security Number (ESN) of the plan
member's phones. This is a unique identifier that distinguishes each mobile device on the
carrier's network.

• With the ESN information and access to the fraud detection systems, a third party can locate or
track any particular mobile device. The person's call patterns and location can be trended and
analyzed.

• With the ESN, the third party could tap into any and all data being transmitted from any
particular mobile device. This would include Internet usage, e-mails, web, file transfers, text
messages and access to any remote applications.

• It also would be possible in real-time to tap into any conversation on any mobile phone
supported by the carrier at any point.

• It would be possible for the third party to access the Network VCR devices and collect a variety
of information en masse. The Network VCR collects all communications between two systems
indiscriminately. It would then archive this information making it available for retrieval on demand.
The third party could access the Network VCR systems and collect all data
communications for single mobile device such as text messaging, Internet access, e-mail, web
access, etc. over some period of minutes, hours, days or weeks. The same can be done for
communications of multiple, many or even all mobile devices for some period of minutes,
hours, days or weeks.

• Even if the client did not provide specific login and access for the third party to one or more of
their systems, without any access controls it is possible for the third party to leverage
vulnerabilities to "compromise" the client systems and obtain control or collect sensitive
information.

Russell Tice Confirms Everything We’ve Surmised About Bush’s Illegal Wiretap Program
http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2009/01/21/russell-tice-confirms-everything-weve-surmised-about-bushs-illegal-wiretap-program/

First, Tice’s description of the program confirms everything we have surmised about the program. The program:

Established the means to collect all American communications
Analyzed meta-data to select a smaller subset of communications to tap further
Conducted human analysis of those messages
That is, the Bush administration used meta-data (things like length of phone call that have nothing to do with terrorism) to pick which communications to actually open and read, and then they opened and read them.

~snip~

And of course, everyone’s communications–everyone’s–were included in the totality of communications that might be tapped.

Including–especially–journalists. We knew that both Christiane Amanpour and Lawrence Wright’s communications were tapped. Well, apparently so were every other journalists’.

Tice figured out that they were getting journalists’ communications when he realized that they were separating out all the journalists’ communications–but then ensuring that those communications were still collected 24/7.

Speaking of monitoring journalists...

DOJ's secret subpoena of AP phone records broader than initially revealed
http://openchannel.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/05/20/18377209-dojs-secret-subpoena-of-ap-phone-records-broader-than-initially-revealed?lite

The Justice Department’s secret subpoena for AP phone records included the seizure of records for five reporters' cellphones and three home phones as well as two fax lines, a lawyer for the news organization tells NBC News.


David Schulz, the chief lawyer for the AP, said the subpoenas also covered the records for 21 phone lines in five AP office lines -- including one for a dead phone line at office in Washington that had been shut down six years ago. The phone lines at four other offices – where 100 reporters worked — were also covered by the subpoenas, Schulz said.

~snip~

Schultz said the subpoena for a Washington phone line that had been shut down years ago raises questions about assertions by Deputy Attorney General James Cole, in a letter last week, that the subpoenas were narrowly crafted and only issued after a "comprehensive investigation" that included over 550 interviews and reviewing tens of thousands of documents.

~snip~

Schultz confirmed that the subpoenas for the phone records were secretly issued to Verizon, which turned them over to the Justice Department without any initial notice to AP. On May 10, Justice notified AP of the subpoenas in a one-sentence letter, citing department guidelines that require such notice for media phone records after 90 days.