Documents prove FBI has national eavesdropping program
that tracks IMs, emails and cell phones
FBI also spies on home soil for military, documents show
Much information acquired without court order
by John Byrne
The Raw Story (April 08 2008)
The Federal Bureau of Investigation has been routinely monitoring the e-mails, instant messages and cell phone calls of suspects across the United States - and has done so, in many cases, without the approval of a court.
Documents released under the Freedom of Information Act and given to the Washington Post - which stuck the story (see below) on page three - show that the FBI's massive dragnet, connected to the backends of telecommunications carriers, "allows authorized FBI agents and analysts, with point-and-click ease, to receive e-mails, instant messages, cellphone calls and other communications that tell them not only what a suspect is saying, but where he is and where he has been, depending on the wording of a court order or a government directive", the Post says.
But agents don't need a court order to track the senders and recipients names, or how long calls or email exchanges lasted. These can be obtained simply by showing it's "relevant" to a probe.
Raw Story has placed a request to the Electronic Frontier Foundation for the new documents, and will post them upon receipt.
Some transactional data is obtained using National Security Letters. The Justice Department says use of these letters has risen from 8,500 in 2000 to 47,000 in 2005, according to the Post.
Last week, the American Civil Liberties Union released letters showing that the Pentagon is using the FBI to skirt legal restrictions on domestic surveillance (see below).
Documents show the FBI has obtained the private records of Americans' Internet service providers, financial institutions and telephone companies, for the military, according to more than 1,000 Pentagon documents reviewed by the ACLU - also using National Security Letters, without a court order.
The new revelations show definitively that telecommunications companies can "with the click of a mouse, instantly transfer key data along a computer circuit to an FBI technology office in Quantico" upon request.
A telecom whistleblower, in an affidavit, has said he helped maintain a high-speed DS-3 digital line referred to in house as the "Quantico circuit", which allowed an outside organization "unfettered" access to the the carrier's wireless network.
The network he's speaking of? Verizon.
Verizon denies the allegations vaguely, saying "no government agency has open access to the company's networks through electronic circuits".
The Justice Department downplayed the new documents.
A spokesman told the Post that the US is asking only for "information at the beginning and end of a communication, and for information "reasonably available" by the network.
The FBI's budget for says the collection system increased from $30 million in 2007 to $40 million in 2008, the paper said.
http://rawstory.com/news/2008/FBI_linked_to_national_eavesdropping_program_0408.html
_____________________________
FBI Data Transfers Via Telecoms Questioned
by Ellen Nakashima
Washington Post Staff Writer
washingtonpost.com (April 08 2008), page A03
When FBI investigators probing New York prostitution rings, Boston organized crime or potential terrorist plots anywhere want access to a suspect's telephone contacts, technicians at a telecommunications carrier served with a government order can, with the click of a mouse, instantly transfer key data along a computer circuit to an FBI technology office in Quantico.
The circuits - little-known electronic connections between telecom firms and FBI monitoring personnel around the country - are used to tell the government who is calling whom, along with the time and duration of a conversation and even the locations of those involved.
Recently, three Democrats on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, including Chairman John D Dingell (Michigan), sent a letter to colleagues citing privacy concerns over one of the Quantico circuits and demanding more information about it. Anxieties about whether such electronic links are too intrusive form a backdrop to the continuing congressional debate over modifications to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which governs federal surveillance.
Since a 1994 law required telecoms to build electronic interception capabilities into their systems, the FBI has created a network of links between the nation's largest telephone and Internet firms and about forty FBI offices and Quantico, according to interviews and documents describing the agency's Digital Collection System. The documents were obtained under the Freedom of Information Act by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a nonprofit advocacy group in San Francisco that specializes in digital-rights issues.
The bureau says its budget for the collection system increased from $30 million in 2007 to $40 million in 2008. Information lawfully collected by the FBI from telecom firms can be shared with law enforcement and intelligence-gathering partners, including the National Security Agency and the CIA. Likewise, under guidelines approved by the attorney general or a court, some intercept data gathered by intelligence agencies can be shared with law enforcement agencies.
"When you're building something like this deeply into the telecommunications infrastructure, when it becomes so technically easy to do, the only thing that stands between legitimate use and abuse is the complete honesty of the persons and agencies using it and the ability to have independent oversight over the system's use", said Lauren Weinstein, a communications systems engineer and co-founder of People for Internet Responsibility, a group that studies Web issues. "It's who watches the listeners".
Different versions of the system are used for criminal wiretaps and for foreign intelligence investigations inside the United States. But each allows authorized FBI agents and analysts, with point-and-click ease, to receive e-mails, instant messages, cellphone calls and other communications that tell them not only what a suspect is saying, but where he is and where he has been, depending on the wording of a court order or a government directive. Most of the wiretapping is done at field offices.
Wiretaps to obtain the content of a phone call or an e-mail must be authorized by a court upon a showing of probable cause. But "transactional data" about a communication - from whom, to whom, how long it lasted - can be obtained by simply showing that it is relevant to an official probe, including through an administrative subpoena known as a national security letter (NSL). According to the Justice Department's inspector general, the number of NSLs issued by the FBI soared from 8,500 in 2000 to 47,000 in 2005.
The administration has proposed expanding the types of data it can get from telecom carriers under the 1994 Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act, so FBI agents can gain faster and more detailed access to information sent by wireless devices that reveals where a person is in real time. The Federal Communications Commission is weighing the request.
"Court-authorized electronic surveillance is a critical tool in pursuing both criminal and terrorist subjects", FBI spokesman Richard Kolko said.
A Justice Department spokesman said the government is asking only for information at the beginning and end of a communication, and for information "reasonably available" in a carrier's network.
Al Gidari, a telecom industry lawyer at Perkins Coie in Seattle who handles wiretap orders for companies, said government officials now "have to rely on a human being at a telecom calling up every fifteen minutes to send law enforcement the data".
He added: "What they want is an automatic feed, continuously. So you're checking the weather on your mobile device or making a call", and the device would transmit location data automatically. "It's full tracking capability. It's a scary proposition."
In an affidavit circulated on Capitol Hill, security consultant Babak Pasdar alleged that a telecom carrier he had worked for maintained a high-speed DS-3 digital line that co-workers referred to as "the Quantico Circuit". He said it allowed a third party "unfettered" access to the carrier's wireless network, including billing records and customer data transmitted wirelessly.
He was hired to upgrade network security for Verizon in 2003; sources other than Pasdar said the carrier in his affidavit is Verizon.
Dingell and his colleagues said House members should be given access to information to help them evaluate Pasdar's allegations.
FBI officials said a circuit of the type described by Pasdar does not exist. All telecom circuits at Quantico are one-way, from the carrier, said Anthony Di Clemente, section chief of the FBI operational technology division. He also said any transmissions of data to Quantico are strictly pursuant to court orders.
Records, including who sent and received communications, the duration and the time, are kept for evidentiary purposes and to support applications to extend wiretap orders, he said.
Verizon spokesman Peter Thonis said no government agency has open access to the company's networks through electronic circuits.
Copyright (c) 2008 The Washington Post Company
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/07/AR2008040702364_pf.html
_____________________________
Documents show Pentagon now using FBI to spy on Americans
ACLU obtains documents after suit over National Security Letters
Associated Press (April 02 2008)
The military is using the FBI to skirt legal restrictions on domestic surveillance to obtain private records of Americans' Internet service providers, financial institutions and telephone companies, according to Pentagon documents.
The American Civil Liberties Union expressed outrage at the new revelations, based its conclusion on a review of more than 1,000 documents turned over by the Defense Department after it sued the agency last year for documents related to national security letters, or NSLs, investigative tools used to compel businesses to turn over customer information without a judge's order or grand jury subpoena.
"Newly unredacted documents released today reveal that the Department of Defense is using the FBI to circumvent legal limits on its own NSL power", said the ACLU, whose lawsuit was filed in Manhattan federal court.
ACLU lawyer Melissa Goodman said the documents the civil rights group studied "make us incredibly concerned". She said it would be understandable if the military relied on help from the FBI on joint investigations, but not when the FBI was not involved in a probe.
The FBI referred requests for comment Tuesday to the Defense Department. A department spokesman, Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Patrick Ryder, said in an e-mail that the department had made "focused, limited and judicious" use of the letters since Congress extended the capability to investigatory entities other than the FBI in 2001.
He said the department had acted legally in using a necessary investigatory tool and noted that "unusual financial activity of people affiliated with DoD can be an indication of potential espionage or terrorist-related activity".
Ryder said the information in the ACLU claims came in part from an internal review of DoD's use of the letters.
"We have since developed training and provided it to the services for their use", he said.
He said that there was no law requiring it to track use of the letters but that the department had decided it was in its best interest to do so.
Goodman, a staff attorney with the ACLU National Security Project, said the military is allowed to demand financial and credit records in certain instances but does not have the authority to get e-mail and phone records or lists of Web sites that people have visited. That is the kind of information that the FBI can get by using a national security letter, she said.
"That's why we're particularly concerned. The DoD may be accessing the kinds of records they are not allowed to get", she said.
Goodman also noted that legal limits are placed on the Defense Department "because the military doing domestic investigations tends to make us leery".
In other allegations, the ACLU said:
* The Navy's use of the letters to demand domestic records has increased significantly since the September 11 attacks.
* The military wrongly claimed its use of the letters was limited to investigating only Defense Department employees.
* The Defense Department has not kept track of how many national security letters the military issues or what information it obtained through the orders.
* The military provided misleading information to Congress and silenced letter recipients from speaking out about the records requests.
Goodman said Congress should provide stricter guidelines and meaningful oversight of how the military and FBI make national security letter requests.
"Any government agency's ability to demand these kinds of personal, financial or Internet records in the United States is an intrusive surveillance power", she said.
Pentagon expected to close Rumsfeld-sparked spy office
"The Pentagon is expected to shut a controversial intelligence office that has drawn fire from lawmakers and civil liberties groups who charge that it was part of an effort by the Defense Department to expand into domestic spying", the New York Times reports Wednesday. "The move, government officials say, is part of a broad effort under Defense Secretary Robert M Gates to review, overhaul and, in some cases, dismantle an intelligence architecture built by his predecessor, Donald H Rumsfeld".
"The intelligence unit, called the Counterintelligence Field Activity office, was created by Mr Rumsfeld after the September 11 2001, terrorist attacks as part of an effort to counter the operations of foreign intelligence services and terror groups inside the United States and abroad", the Times adds. "Yet the office, whose size and budget is classified, came under fierce criticism in 2005 after it was disclosed that it was managing a database that included information about antiwar protests planned at churches, schools and Quaker meeting halls".
http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Documents_show_Pentagon_now_using_FBI_0402.html
Bill Totten http://www.ashisuto.co.jp/english/index.html
FBI also spies on home soil for military, documents show
Much information acquired without court order
by John Byrne
The Raw Story (April 08 2008)
The Federal Bureau of Investigation has been routinely monitoring the e-mails, instant messages and cell phone calls of suspects across the United States - and has done so, in many cases, without the approval of a court.
Documents released under the Freedom of Information Act and given to the Washington Post - which stuck the story (see below) on page three - show that the FBI's massive dragnet, connected to the backends of telecommunications carriers, "allows authorized FBI agents and analysts, with point-and-click ease, to receive e-mails, instant messages, cellphone calls and other communications that tell them not only what a suspect is saying, but where he is and where he has been, depending on the wording of a court order or a government directive", the Post says.
But agents don't need a court order to track the senders and recipients names, or how long calls or email exchanges lasted. These can be obtained simply by showing it's "relevant" to a probe.
Raw Story has placed a request to the Electronic Frontier Foundation for the new documents, and will post them upon receipt.
Some transactional data is obtained using National Security Letters. The Justice Department says use of these letters has risen from 8,500 in 2000 to 47,000 in 2005, according to the Post.
Last week, the American Civil Liberties Union released letters showing that the Pentagon is using the FBI to skirt legal restrictions on domestic surveillance (see below).
Documents show the FBI has obtained the private records of Americans' Internet service providers, financial institutions and telephone companies, for the military, according to more than 1,000 Pentagon documents reviewed by the ACLU - also using National Security Letters, without a court order.
The new revelations show definitively that telecommunications companies can "with the click of a mouse, instantly transfer key data along a computer circuit to an FBI technology office in Quantico" upon request.
A telecom whistleblower, in an affidavit, has said he helped maintain a high-speed DS-3 digital line referred to in house as the "Quantico circuit", which allowed an outside organization "unfettered" access to the the carrier's wireless network.
The network he's speaking of? Verizon.
Verizon denies the allegations vaguely, saying "no government agency has open access to the company's networks through electronic circuits".
The Justice Department downplayed the new documents.
A spokesman told the Post that the US is asking only for "information at the beginning and end of a communication, and for information "reasonably available" by the network.
The FBI's budget for says the collection system increased from $30 million in 2007 to $40 million in 2008, the paper said.
http://rawstory.com/news/2008/FBI_linked_to_national_eavesdropping_program_0408.html
_____________________________
FBI Data Transfers Via Telecoms Questioned
by Ellen Nakashima
Washington Post Staff Writer
washingtonpost.com (April 08 2008), page A03
When FBI investigators probing New York prostitution rings, Boston organized crime or potential terrorist plots anywhere want access to a suspect's telephone contacts, technicians at a telecommunications carrier served with a government order can, with the click of a mouse, instantly transfer key data along a computer circuit to an FBI technology office in Quantico.
The circuits - little-known electronic connections between telecom firms and FBI monitoring personnel around the country - are used to tell the government who is calling whom, along with the time and duration of a conversation and even the locations of those involved.
Recently, three Democrats on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, including Chairman John D Dingell (Michigan), sent a letter to colleagues citing privacy concerns over one of the Quantico circuits and demanding more information about it. Anxieties about whether such electronic links are too intrusive form a backdrop to the continuing congressional debate over modifications to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which governs federal surveillance.
Since a 1994 law required telecoms to build electronic interception capabilities into their systems, the FBI has created a network of links between the nation's largest telephone and Internet firms and about forty FBI offices and Quantico, according to interviews and documents describing the agency's Digital Collection System. The documents were obtained under the Freedom of Information Act by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a nonprofit advocacy group in San Francisco that specializes in digital-rights issues.
The bureau says its budget for the collection system increased from $30 million in 2007 to $40 million in 2008. Information lawfully collected by the FBI from telecom firms can be shared with law enforcement and intelligence-gathering partners, including the National Security Agency and the CIA. Likewise, under guidelines approved by the attorney general or a court, some intercept data gathered by intelligence agencies can be shared with law enforcement agencies.
"When you're building something like this deeply into the telecommunications infrastructure, when it becomes so technically easy to do, the only thing that stands between legitimate use and abuse is the complete honesty of the persons and agencies using it and the ability to have independent oversight over the system's use", said Lauren Weinstein, a communications systems engineer and co-founder of People for Internet Responsibility, a group that studies Web issues. "It's who watches the listeners".
Different versions of the system are used for criminal wiretaps and for foreign intelligence investigations inside the United States. But each allows authorized FBI agents and analysts, with point-and-click ease, to receive e-mails, instant messages, cellphone calls and other communications that tell them not only what a suspect is saying, but where he is and where he has been, depending on the wording of a court order or a government directive. Most of the wiretapping is done at field offices.
Wiretaps to obtain the content of a phone call or an e-mail must be authorized by a court upon a showing of probable cause. But "transactional data" about a communication - from whom, to whom, how long it lasted - can be obtained by simply showing that it is relevant to an official probe, including through an administrative subpoena known as a national security letter (NSL). According to the Justice Department's inspector general, the number of NSLs issued by the FBI soared from 8,500 in 2000 to 47,000 in 2005.
The administration has proposed expanding the types of data it can get from telecom carriers under the 1994 Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act, so FBI agents can gain faster and more detailed access to information sent by wireless devices that reveals where a person is in real time. The Federal Communications Commission is weighing the request.
"Court-authorized electronic surveillance is a critical tool in pursuing both criminal and terrorist subjects", FBI spokesman Richard Kolko said.
A Justice Department spokesman said the government is asking only for information at the beginning and end of a communication, and for information "reasonably available" in a carrier's network.
Al Gidari, a telecom industry lawyer at Perkins Coie in Seattle who handles wiretap orders for companies, said government officials now "have to rely on a human being at a telecom calling up every fifteen minutes to send law enforcement the data".
He added: "What they want is an automatic feed, continuously. So you're checking the weather on your mobile device or making a call", and the device would transmit location data automatically. "It's full tracking capability. It's a scary proposition."
In an affidavit circulated on Capitol Hill, security consultant Babak Pasdar alleged that a telecom carrier he had worked for maintained a high-speed DS-3 digital line that co-workers referred to as "the Quantico Circuit". He said it allowed a third party "unfettered" access to the carrier's wireless network, including billing records and customer data transmitted wirelessly.
He was hired to upgrade network security for Verizon in 2003; sources other than Pasdar said the carrier in his affidavit is Verizon.
Dingell and his colleagues said House members should be given access to information to help them evaluate Pasdar's allegations.
FBI officials said a circuit of the type described by Pasdar does not exist. All telecom circuits at Quantico are one-way, from the carrier, said Anthony Di Clemente, section chief of the FBI operational technology division. He also said any transmissions of data to Quantico are strictly pursuant to court orders.
Records, including who sent and received communications, the duration and the time, are kept for evidentiary purposes and to support applications to extend wiretap orders, he said.
Verizon spokesman Peter Thonis said no government agency has open access to the company's networks through electronic circuits.
Copyright (c) 2008 The Washington Post Company
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/07/AR2008040702364_pf.html
_____________________________
Documents show Pentagon now using FBI to spy on Americans
ACLU obtains documents after suit over National Security Letters
Associated Press (April 02 2008)
The military is using the FBI to skirt legal restrictions on domestic surveillance to obtain private records of Americans' Internet service providers, financial institutions and telephone companies, according to Pentagon documents.
The American Civil Liberties Union expressed outrage at the new revelations, based its conclusion on a review of more than 1,000 documents turned over by the Defense Department after it sued the agency last year for documents related to national security letters, or NSLs, investigative tools used to compel businesses to turn over customer information without a judge's order or grand jury subpoena.
"Newly unredacted documents released today reveal that the Department of Defense is using the FBI to circumvent legal limits on its own NSL power", said the ACLU, whose lawsuit was filed in Manhattan federal court.
ACLU lawyer Melissa Goodman said the documents the civil rights group studied "make us incredibly concerned". She said it would be understandable if the military relied on help from the FBI on joint investigations, but not when the FBI was not involved in a probe.
The FBI referred requests for comment Tuesday to the Defense Department. A department spokesman, Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Patrick Ryder, said in an e-mail that the department had made "focused, limited and judicious" use of the letters since Congress extended the capability to investigatory entities other than the FBI in 2001.
He said the department had acted legally in using a necessary investigatory tool and noted that "unusual financial activity of people affiliated with DoD can be an indication of potential espionage or terrorist-related activity".
Ryder said the information in the ACLU claims came in part from an internal review of DoD's use of the letters.
"We have since developed training and provided it to the services for their use", he said.
He said that there was no law requiring it to track use of the letters but that the department had decided it was in its best interest to do so.
Goodman, a staff attorney with the ACLU National Security Project, said the military is allowed to demand financial and credit records in certain instances but does not have the authority to get e-mail and phone records or lists of Web sites that people have visited. That is the kind of information that the FBI can get by using a national security letter, she said.
"That's why we're particularly concerned. The DoD may be accessing the kinds of records they are not allowed to get", she said.
Goodman also noted that legal limits are placed on the Defense Department "because the military doing domestic investigations tends to make us leery".
In other allegations, the ACLU said:
* The Navy's use of the letters to demand domestic records has increased significantly since the September 11 attacks.
* The military wrongly claimed its use of the letters was limited to investigating only Defense Department employees.
* The Defense Department has not kept track of how many national security letters the military issues or what information it obtained through the orders.
* The military provided misleading information to Congress and silenced letter recipients from speaking out about the records requests.
Goodman said Congress should provide stricter guidelines and meaningful oversight of how the military and FBI make national security letter requests.
"Any government agency's ability to demand these kinds of personal, financial or Internet records in the United States is an intrusive surveillance power", she said.
Pentagon expected to close Rumsfeld-sparked spy office
"The Pentagon is expected to shut a controversial intelligence office that has drawn fire from lawmakers and civil liberties groups who charge that it was part of an effort by the Defense Department to expand into domestic spying", the New York Times reports Wednesday. "The move, government officials say, is part of a broad effort under Defense Secretary Robert M Gates to review, overhaul and, in some cases, dismantle an intelligence architecture built by his predecessor, Donald H Rumsfeld".
"The intelligence unit, called the Counterintelligence Field Activity office, was created by Mr Rumsfeld after the September 11 2001, terrorist attacks as part of an effort to counter the operations of foreign intelligence services and terror groups inside the United States and abroad", the Times adds. "Yet the office, whose size and budget is classified, came under fierce criticism in 2005 after it was disclosed that it was managing a database that included information about antiwar protests planned at churches, schools and Quaker meeting halls".
http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Documents_show_Pentagon_now_using_FBI_0402.html
Bill Totten http://www.ashisuto.co.jp/english/index.html
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