Report: NSA Secretly Collecting Phone Records Of All U.S. Verizon Calls

Do you use Verizon? Why?

The National Security Administration is secretly collecting phone record information for all calls on the Verizon network. “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,” reports The Guardian, which broke the story of the top-secret project after it obtained record of a court order mandating Verizon hand over the information.

The contents of the call are not recorded and it is also not known whether Verizon is the only cell-phone carrier complying with the massive spying project. The court order concerns all calls to, from, and within the United States.

With this so-called “metadata,” the government knows “the identity of every person with whom an individual communicates electronically, how long they spoke, and their location at the time of the communication,” explains the Guardian.

The Senate’s tech-savviest member, Ron Wyden (CrunchGov Grade: A), has been discretely warning citizens of these kinds of secretive government projects. “There is now a significant gap between what most Americans think the law allows and what the government secretly claims the law allows,” wrote Wyden and Senator Mark Udall to embattled Attorney Eric Holder.

The order apparently draws from a 2001 Bush-era provision in the Patriot Act (50 USC section 1861). The revelation dovetails similar exposes on massive government spying projects, including one project to combine federal datasets and look for patterns on anything which could be related to terrorism.

Late last year, I wrote about a few actual harms that citizens should be worried about from these types of big-data spying programs. Blackmailing citizens critical of the government seemed like a distant hypothetical, until we learned that the IRS was auditing Tea Party groups and journalists were being wiretapped. Nefarious actors inside the government like to abuse national security programs for political ends, and that should make us all (even more) suspect of government spying.

Some government secrecy is necessary for national security purposes. But it’s justified based on our trust that the information will be used with care. With every passing scandal, the justification for these types of programs becomes more and more questionable.

Either way, this is a massive PR disaster for Verizon. While it’s true that AT&T had it’s own spying scandal, misery still loves company. It’s in Verizon’s interest to somehow implicate other carriers in the spying program. If Verizon is, indeed, not the only carrier, I suspect we’ll be finding out in the near future.

Once again, Democrat Senator Ron Wyden is leading the charge for freedom. Kudos, Senator Wyden! More here:

http://techcrunch.com/2013/06/05/rep...6pLid%3D323952

snick

Maybe all of these southern and western states' Babbit-like business recruiters can give tax and rent breaks to middle eastern terrorist organizations in order for them to start up branch offices.

The administration needs the phone records of millions of American citizens; but has zero interest in knowing the whereabouts of 15,000 foreign visitors who skipped out on visas while in the US.

http://www.eccie.net/showthread.php?t=757522

Can you hear me now?

Why are you picking on Verizon? They are complying with a court order that forced them to turn over the records.

http://www.cnn.com/2013/06/06/politi...html?hpt=hp_t2

The other phone companies have to do it, too. Not just Verizon.

I'm surprised this is only coming out now. The Patriot Act has given the government huge increased reach in powers to collect data on all of us. It's been around for over a decade now...

Anyways, it's always a fine balance we walk between freedom and security.

Well, it can't be only Verizon. I'm sure it's every mobile carrier and landline service as well. War on terrorism and all that. Let the quacking begin.

begin my Texas ass

when has it stopped?

the origin of phone tracking started long ago, and suddenly the bitchers just woke up?

funny in a sad sort of way

Take it easy COG is Old takes him a while

big difference what the Obama administration is doing; under Bush it was just international phone calls......under Obama Americans are under domestic surveillance.

Ignorance is bliss, Whirlie . .and you've got to be the most blissful SOB I've ever seen!

It's gotta hurt to face the facts that Obama is worse than Bush when it comes to privacy and civil rights !

BTW, I think Bush was an awful president.

The Obama NSA spying on Americans specifically targeted Americans, NOT foreigners !

"The order specifically states that only data regarding calls originating in America are to be handed over, not those between foreigners."


“In many ways it’s even more troubling than [Bush era] warrantless wiretapping, in part because the program is purely domestic,” says Alex Abdo, a staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union’s National Security Project.”

http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygree...ot-foreigners/