Intel Officials' Claims That NSA Couldn't Access Majority Of Cellphone Records Apparently Bogus

from the misrepresenting-the-haul dept

The recent Snowden documents published by the New York Times and ProPublica confirm the close relationship between AT&T and the NSA, which would explain the deafening silence the company issued in response to the first few months of leaks. (Such "partnerships" likely exist with Verizon and other providers, although nothing has been directly confirmed by leaked documents, and such partnerships may have done a bit of "dissolving" shortly after the leaks began.)

But the documents also highlighted the difference between what NSA officials claimed they were getting and what they were actually getting from telcos. In early 2014, officials claimed they were only obtaining between 20-30% of domestic call records. According to unnamed "current and former officials," the explosion of cellphone use was leaving the NSA's bulk collection programs in the dust.

These documents show there's a huge discrepancy between the unofficial "official" statements and the NSA's actual capabilities, as the ACLU's Kade Crockford points out.

The New York Times reports on documents disclosed by former NSA contractor and whistleblower Edward Snowden:

"In 2011, AT&T began handing over 1.1 billion domestic cellphone calling records a day to the N.S.A. after “a push to get this flow operational prior to the 10th anniversary of 9/11,” according to an internal agency newsletter. This revelation is striking because after Mr. Snowden disclosed the program of collecting the records of Americans’ phone calls, intelligence officials told reporters that, for technical reasons, it consisted mostly of landline phone records."

I must quibble a bit with the New York Times excellent reporting here, only to suggest that what's "striking" about the discrepancy between what journalists reported and the truth isn't the fact that the NSA would lie to journalists. What's striking is that journalists continue to print official, often anonymous claims about government surveillance programs without a shred of evidence that those claims are true.
This has long been the problem with journalists' reliance on "unnamed government sources." Without a name to attach the statement to, no one can be held accountable for lying to the American public. While many sources would not comment at all without the protection of anonymity, the statements issued are seldom questioned by entities with an obligation to challenge anonymous assertions.

On the other hand, emptywheel's Marcy Wheeler points out these claims may have an element of truth, but only because Snowden's leaks and problematic cell location data (which isn't specifically covered by Section 215) was preventing the agency from collecting all it wanted to, or perhaps all it used to.
We know from the Congressional notice AT&T was willing to strip [location data]. For a lot of reasons, it’s likely Verizon was unwilling to strip it.

This is one of the possible explanations I’ve posited for why NSA wasn’t getting cell data from Verizon, because any provider is only obliged to give business records they already have on hand, and it would be fairly easy to claim stripping the cell location data made it a new business record.

Which is another important piece of evidence for the case made against AT&T in the story. They were willing to play with records they were handing over to the government in ways not required by the law.

Though who knows if that remain(ed) the case? To get to the 30% figure quoted in all the pieces claiming NSA wasn’t getting cell data, you’d probably have to have AT&T excluded as well. So maybe after the Snowden releases, they, too, refused to do things they weren’t required to do by law...
So, it could very well be that the NSA wasn't getting all the cell records it wanted to, making these claims mostly factual. But the Wall Street Journal and New York Times both attribute quotes to "former officials" as well, which would include officials in place prior to the Snowden leaks. If the leaks resulted in a sudden reluctance to provide these records, it would only have occurred after June 2013. The questionable statements were made in the first few months of 2014. That's not much of a gap, especially if former officials are speaking from their personal experience.

Maybe the NSA was only getting 20-30% of what it was seeking. Or maybe it only wanted to give that impression. Nothing about the statements reflect a sudden downturn in collections. Instead, they portray it as an ongoing problem. The underlying issue is the secrecy of surveillance programs, which leads to statements that can't be confirmed (or refuted) until evidence is provided. And these officials aren't going to hand out this info. It has to come from whistleblowers and leakers. The government can skate by on lies and misperceptions, especially when national security is involved.

Hide this

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.

Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.

While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team

Filed Under: lies, metadata, mobile phones, nsa, partnership, phone records, section 215, surveillance
Companies: at&t


Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread


  1. identicon
    TMC, 17 Aug 2015 @ 1:58pm

    Perhaps "Intel", when capitalized, isn't the best way to refer to "intelligence"?

    link to this | view in thread ]

  2. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 17 Aug 2015 @ 2:26pm

    Re:

    Yep, was totes expecting something else!

    link to this | view in thread ]

  3. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 17 Aug 2015 @ 2:39pm

    ...journalists continue to print official, often anonymous claims about government surveillance programs without a shred of evidence that those claims are true...

    That sounds like tabloid "reporting", not journalism.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  4. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 17 Aug 2015 @ 4:57pm

    The problem with named government sources is that you can only speak to them on prison visiting days.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  5. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 17 Aug 2015 @ 5:06pm

    Re:

    Sounds like a lot of MSM to me. Light on details, heavy on speculation.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  6. icon
    Wyrm (profile), 17 Aug 2015 @ 6:28pm

    Re:

    Sounds like something a french comedian said a while ago...
    "Journalists don't believe in politician's lies, but they repeat them nonetheless. It's worse."

    link to this | view in thread ]

  7. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 17 Aug 2015 @ 6:55pm

    If the government wants people to trust them, lies and evasion is not the way to do so.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  8. identicon
    pixelation, 17 Aug 2015 @ 7:40pm

    Corporate whores

    "Such "partnerships" likely exist with Verizon and other providers"

    You can bet your ass that most major corporations will drop trow in a second for the NSA and FBI. What do they have to lose?

    link to this | view in thread ]

  9. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 17 Aug 2015 @ 8:23pm

    the whole dam government seems to be corrupt only a mater of time before the people decide to start cleaning house.

    Which side will most pick I wonder to stand on

    link to this | view in thread ]

  10. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 17 Aug 2015 @ 8:50pm

    NSA is domestic spying gone rogue.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  11. icon
    vdeogmer (profile), 21 Aug 2015 @ 9:50am

    Re:

    I took some time trying to parse what Intel had to do with cellphone records, thought they were too busy making processors.

    link to this | view in thread ]


Follow Techdirt
Essential Reading
Techdirt Deals
Report this ad  |  Hide Techdirt ads
Techdirt Insider Discord

The latest chatter on the Techdirt Insider Discord channel...

Loading...
Recent Stories

This site, like most other sites on the web, uses cookies. For more information, see our privacy policy. Got it
Close

Email This

This feature is only available to registered users. Register or sign in to use it.