Verizon Responds To Freedom Of Information Request With Hundred Of Fully Redacted Pages

from the could-have-sworn-the-word-'information'-was-in-there-somewhere... dept

Verizon has learned plenty from its close relationship with government intelligence agencies. Its recent response to a FOIL (Freedom of Information Law) request in New York is almost completely composed of black ink. Full pages, three hundred of them, are redacted, with little more than headers and descriptions remaining.

As Elise Ackerman points out at Forbes, this might be a violation of the state's Freedom of Information law.

As the court ruled in a 1996 case known as Gould versus the New York City Police Department, the Freedom of Information Law imposes a broad duty on government to make records available. All government records are thus “presumptively open for public inspection” unless they fall into specific exemptions which must be “narrowly construed.”

The ruling continues: “In keeping with these settled principles, blanket exemptions for particular types of documents are inimical to the Freedom of Information Law’s policy of open government. Instead, to invoke one of the exemptions of section 87(2), the agency must articulate ‘particularized and specific justification’ for not disclosing requested documents.”

The documents are currently under review to see if the redacted information falls under protections governing trade secrets. It might. A large part of what's being sought here is information that many other telcos and wireless providers would find very interesting.

In September, a group of consumer advocates interceded in a proceeding Verizon had initiated with the New York Public Service Commission to shut down its traditional network, known as the “wireline” network. The advocates were interested in reviewing documents Verizon had filed with the commission about its wireline and wireless build-outs.

Under the state Freedom of Information Law, advocates requested that Verizon provide information about the actual costs and expenses associated with the repair, upkeep and maintenance of the traditional wireline network on the resort community of Fire Island. Among other things, advocates also wanted to know the location of any planned or active offering of Verizon’s wireless Voice Link service in other parts of New York.

Verizon has redacted almost everything requested. While its claims that this information would be extremely beneficial to its competitors are undoubtedly true, that's likely not the only motivation.

Ever since Hurricane Sandy, Verizon has been extremely reluctant to restore services to prior levels. Karl Bode at DSLreports has collected story after story detailing Verizon's efforts to dodge the demands of its paying customers.

Verizon has slowly been expanding the number of Sandy victims they're informing will never see their DSL lines repaired. Fire Island, New York residents who lost service during Sandy haven't had broadband service since last October, and only recently were told that these lines simply won't be repaired…

Instead of power-outage-resilient copper voice and DSL lines, users are pushed toward Verizon's Voice Link, which offers voice service over Verizon's wireless network -- but no data connectivity of any kind.

Before capitulating in September and offering FIOS service on Fire Island (where the most service was lost), Verizon used the damage caused by Hurricane Sandy as an out to switch users to the wireless service it (along with AT&T) would rather be selling anyway -- one with both data and voice caps.

Understandably, New York residents would like to know just how much it's costing Verizon to roll out FIOS, as well as how much it's receiving in insurance payouts compared to the cost of restoring service to its previous levels. Unfortunately, it seriously looks as though these groups will never get the answers they're seeking.

But it's not just costs and insurance details that Verizon's redacting. It's also other, less sensitive, information.

Among other documents, Verizon claimed as a “trade secret” a list of Voice Link deployments, a Voice Link leader’s guide and a document about overcoming customers’ objections to Voice Link and responding to requests to return to copper.

While this may be proprietary information, there's nothing in those documents that couldn't be disseminated with a small amount of redaction. But Verizon is in no hurry to make this info public, considering it would reveal the same talking points it deployed against those behind the FOIL request.

Richard Brodsky, the lawyer representing the many groups seeking this information, claims the data requested is vital to verifying Verizon's statements concerning its decision to not repair existing copper lines.

“We believe that Verizon has substantially misstated the economic realities of both the wireline and the wireless service in order to make the wireline service seem economically damaged,” Brodsky said. “And we believe that the wireless service that they want to substitute does not give telephone consumers what they are legally required to get and what they expect.” Specifically, Brodsky said, Voice Link, which continues to be offered to customers in parts of New York and New Jersey, is voice-only, when many customers need both voice and data services.

That Verizon has a vested interest in pushing people to a service that's cheaper to build out and maintain won't have any bearing on the commission's consideration of its "trade secrets" claim. Unfortunately, in order to prevent FOI laws from becoming tools for corporations to acquire information from their rivals, the commission will probably have to side with Verizon. Verizon knows this and has been busy using the "trade secret" clause as leverage to press the state to allow it to provide even less information in response to requests than it already does.

As it stands now, Verizon will probably be able to walk away from this request with its "trade secrets" intact, much to the detriment of those who suspect the service provider is simply exploiting Hurricane Sandy to push preferred services on customers who have no choice in the matter. This allows the company to both maximize its profits by routing existing customers to a higher margin (and lower utility) service and drastically cut its outlays by allowing it to walk away from repairing damaged lines.

Filed Under: foil, freedom of information, new york, redacted
Companies: verizon

Decades Of Failed Promises From Verizon: It Promises Fiber To Get Tax Breaks... Then Never Delivers

from the this-again? dept

A decade ago, we wrote about how Verizon had made an agreement in Pennsylvania in 1994 that it would wire up the state with fiber optic cables to every home in exchange for tax breaks equalling $2.1 billion. In exchange for such a massive tax break, Verizon promised that all homes and businesses would have access to 45Mbps symmetrical fiber by 2015. By 2004, the deal was that 50% of all homes were supposed to have that. In reality, 0% did, and some people started asking for their money back. That never happened, and it appeared that Verizon learned a valuable lesson: it can flat out lie to governments, promise 100% fiber coverage in exchange for subsidies, then not deliver, and no one will do a damn thing about it.

Because here we are about a decade later, and basically the same damn thing has happened in New York City. At least this time, Verizon actually had a fiber service to offer -- the well-known FiOS -- which it "promised" to cover 100% of NYC by 2014. Back when that was announced in 2008, Karl Bode at BroadbandReports correctly warned that you should take that promise with a large grain of salt, both because of Verizon's past failures to live up to promises, as well as the loopholes hidden in the agreement.

It looks like he was right on both accounts. As the account (linked above) at the Verge notes, the language actually is that Verizon just needs to "pass all households," which is interpreted loosely:

There were a lot of caveats in the contract, however. Verizon is only required to "pass all households," a vague term that means the fiber need to extend "to a point from which the building can be connected to the network." Verizon is not obligated to make that connection, however. As a result, the company is now claiming around 75 percent accessibility, even though the number of New Yorkers who can actually sign up for FiOS is probably much lower. A study by public advocate Bill de Blasio concluded that just 51 percent of households in New York have fiber access. The city and Verizon dispute these figures.

Verizon is blaming landlords, but as the Verge points out, when someone made a big stink on the radio recently about the lack of FiOS in his apartment, Verizon contacted him the very next day, and had service at his apartment within 3 weeks. The simple fact is that Verizon has been trying its damnest to get out of the wired business altogether. Back when Ivan Seidenberg was in charge, he made a giant bet on fiber, which is why Verizon became such a national leader in broadband with FiOS -- a service that people really seem to love. However, Wall Street has always hated it, because it's capital intensive, and Wall St. recognizes that without any real competition in the broadband space, Verizon can avoid investing in such infrastructure upgrades, and just swim in larger profits while America's broadband infrastructure suffers and falls further and further behind other countries. Once Seidenberg left, the beancounters quickly took over and looked for ways to stop all that investment. Why invest in the future if there are no competitors to push you to do so?

The fact that Verizon had made this big deal with NYC? Well, Verizon knows it doesn't need to care because it doesn't appear that the NYC government cares at all. The most telling part of the article at the Verge is this tidbit:

The city seems satisfied with how Verizon has held up its end of the bargain. When asked whether Verizon had met its contract obligations, the mayor’s office first asked The Verge what Verizon had said, then referred us to DOITT [the Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications], which actually has the contract. DOITT referred us to the mayor’s office. When told that the mayor wasn’t commenting, DOITT suggested we speak with Verizon. When pressed, a spokesperson said, "We just don’t have anything to add here."

Nice work, Verizon: you've fleeced yet another place.

Filed Under: broadband, fiber, nyc, promises, subsidies, tax breaks
Companies: verizon

FISA Court Rubber Stamps Continued Collection Of Metadata On Every Single Phone Call

from the because-it-can dept

This won't come as a huge surprise, I would imagine, but the telephony metadata dragnet collection that has to be renewed every few months "expired" today and was promptly reapproved by the FISA court, because "fuck you, that's why." That's not quite what they said, but consider it the bureaucratic-speak equivalent, coming from the Director of National Intelligence:

Previously on several occasions, the Director of National Intelligence declassified certain information about this telephony metadata collection program in order to provide the public with a more thorough and balanced understanding of the program. Consistent with his prior declassification decision and in light of the significant and continuing public interest in the telephony metadata collection program, DNI Clapper has decided to declassify and disclose publicly that the government filed an application with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court seeking renewal of the authority to collect telephony metadata in bulk, and that the court renewed that authority.

The administration is undertaking a declassification review of this most recent court order.

Of course, it's true that last month, the previous order rubber-stamping this approval was declassified and revealed. Even though the same thing has been rubber stamped every few months for at least the past seven years, this time there was an attempt at a full justification for why it made sense. Of course, since it was a one-sided situation, without any adversarial hearing or opinion, it allowed the FISA court to make up its own rules and completely contradict the Supreme Court (to whom it's supposed to listen). It seems highly doubtful that the eventual declassified version of this rubber stamp will be any different than the last one.

Of course, in the last three months, we've also learned that this program of collecting data on every phone call in the US has been necessary to stop precisely zero attacks in the US -- but it did apparently lead them to a taxi driver sending some money to some not very nice people in Somalia. And, because of that, the NSA gets to keep track of everyone's phone calls. As has been explained repeatedly, this seems to go against not just the spirit and intended purpose of the 4th Amendment, but the plain language of that same Amendment. But, the FISA court has earned its rubber stamp reputation for a reason, and apparently it's not about to give up on it.

Filed Under: business records, dragnet, fisa, fisa court, fisc, metadata, nsa, nsa surveillance, section 215
Companies: at&t, verizon

Same Day It's Revealed Verizon Has Never Challenged NSA, It Mocks Internet Companies For Doing So

from the poor-timing dept

We mentioned in our post about the newly declassified FISC ruling, explaining the secret interpretation of Section 215 of the Patriot Act that allows for bulk data collection of all phone records, that the FISC notes (in its own support) that telcos like Verizon and AT&T have chosen to never challenge the bulk collection orders:

To date, no holder of records who has received an Order to produce bulk telephony metadata has challenged the legality of such an Order. Indeed, no recipient of any Section 215 Order has challenged the legality of such an Order, despite the explicit statutory mechanism for doing so.

This is hardly a surprise. We'd already pointed out that, while the internet companies had been very vocal about the NSA surveillance efforts, there had been a deafening silence from the likes of Verizon and AT&T. In fact, it later came out that the telcos actually volunteered to share this information, and when the tech companies reached out to get them to sign onto a letter asking the government to be more transparent, AT&T and Verizon refused to sign on.

Given all of this, it's hard to imagine any worse timing than the very same day that the FISC ruling was unclassified for a Verizon exec to finally speak out on this. Specifically Verizon Enterprise Solutions president John Stratton decided to talk about this... by mocking Google, Yahoo and Microsoft for "grandstanding" on this issue, and to pretend that Verizon had to just shut up and hand over the records for the sake of national security.

"I appreciate that the consumer-centric IT firms that you referenced [Yahoo, Google, Microsoft] that it's important to grandstand a bit, and waive their arms and protest loudly so as not to offend the sensibility of their customers," Stratton said.

"This is a more important issue than that which is generated in a press release. This is a matter of national security."

Stratton said the larger issue that failed to be addressed in the actions of the companies is of keeping security and liberty in balance.

"There is another question that needs to be kept in the balance, which is a question of civil liberty and the rights of the individual citizen in the context of that broader set of protections that the government seeks to create in its society."

Of course, the internet companies have done more than issue press releases. Google, Yahoo and Microsoft are all currently suing the government concerning the gag order on Section 702 Orders. Yahoo fought back on a FISA Court order in 2008. Google is still in the process of fighting back against questionable National Security Letters, while Twitter, which turned down a request to be a part of the PRISM program has also fought hard against a so-called 2703(d) letter for info on its users.

And, yet, when faced with a much broader demand from the government, seeking info on every single phone call, neither AT&T nor Verizon lifted a finger in protest. And, contrary to Stratton's claims, as the FISC ruling makes clear, both AT&T and Verizon had a clear legal path to appeal to make sure that the privacy of their customers was being protected. But they didn't do that. And now Verizon wants to mock the internet companies? Stratton just couldn't help himself it seems:

Stratton said that as a company, Verizon follows the law, and those laws are set by governments.

"The laws are not set by Verizon, they are set by the governments in which we operate. I think its important for us to recognise that we participate in debate, as citizens, but as a company I have obligations that I am going to follow."

Again, one of those "obligations" is to protect the privacy of your customers, and as the court notes, Section 215 allows Verizon to challenge these orders and make sure they are appropriate. Verizon never did so. I agree that if it had challenged and then lost in court, Verizon would have had little recourse other than to hand over the info, but the facts remain that Verizon didn't even take that basic step. And now it mocks those who have, pretending that all they've done is send out press releases, when the evidence shows they've done what Verizon has refused to do: go to court, in an effort to protect the privacy of their users.

Then there's this laugher:

"This is not a question that will be answered by a telecom executive, this is not a question that will be answered by an IT executive. This is a question that must be answered by societies themselves.

"I believe this is a bigger issue, and press releases and fizzy statements don't get at the issue; it needs to be solved by society."

And just how is "society" supposed to answer that question when the whole program is kept secret from the American public? And part of that secrecy is because Verizon failed to do what it is allowed to do by law, and challenge the Section 215 bulk data collection orders?

Then he goes back to the bullshit talking points of the NSA:

"Verizon, like every communications company on the planet, operates in many jurisdictions, and our obligation in operating in those jurisdictions is to comply with the law in those places where we do business. So whether that be in the United States, in the United Kingdom, in Japan, whoever it is that we have a licence with to operate our business, we have these obligations," he said.

"As it relates to the NSA — as has been discussed, the information was conveyed under a very rigorous process that had oversight by all three branches of the United States government."

No, it was not a vigorous process, in large part because of Verizon's own failure to challenge the Section 215 orders it got. In that case, at least there would have been an adversarial hearing. There hasn't been one because Verizon failed to do so. There's a difference between just "complying with the law" and "rolling over and submitting" when the government comes to you with a bogus request, which even explains exactly how to challenge it in court. Verizon chose to roll over.

Already, we've seen that the vaunted "oversight by all three branches" is simply not true. It's been revealed that Congress was not aware of large parts of the program, in part because some NSA defenders purposely kept their colleagues in the dark. The judicial system -- the FISC -- has admitted that it relies on what the NSA tells it, in part because of the lack of any adversary in court. And, once again, Verizon could have been that adversary, but instead, made the conscious decision not to do so.

"Verizon is not unique in the world in terms of its need to comply with the laws of the countries in which it operates. These requirements that are put upon it by governments, duly elected governments, are something that we are very careful about, very thoughtful about, and we work vigorously to protect the privacy of our customers data."

A company that is "very careful" and "very thoughtful" and which works "vigorously to protect the privacy or our customer data" does not first volunteer to hand it over to the government, and then when given a broad order demanding every phone record choose to ignore the stated process by which it can challenge that order.

Perhaps this is why Verizon has been so quiet throughout all of this. When one of its execs opens his mouth, it just makes the company look worse.

Filed Under: challenges, fisc, john stratton, nsa, nsa surveillance, privacy, section 215
Companies: google, microsoft, twitter, verizon, yahoo

Latest Leak: NSA Can Spy On Almost Anything, Gets To Set Its Own Filters

from the and-another-shoe-drops dept

And, here we go again. This time, it's the WSJ journal with the scoop on NSA surveillance, and how the defenders of the NSA have been lying to us. Despite claims that the NSA was really only focused on foreign communications, the WSJ is reporting that it actually covers 75% of US internet traffic:

The National Security Agency—which possesses only limited legal authority to spy on U.S. citizens—has built a surveillance network that covers more Americans' Internet communications than officials have publicly disclosed, current and former officials say.

The system has the capacity to reach roughly 75% of all U.S. Internet traffic in the hunt for foreign intelligence, including a wide array of communications by foreigners and Americans. In some cases, it retains the written content of emails sent between citizens within the U.S. and also filters domestic phone calls made with Internet technology, these people say.

Basically, they're just revealing more details about the things that whistleblower Mark Klein revealed years ago: that the NSA has deals with the major telcos which scoop up a huge amount of internet traffic.

The programs, code-named Blarney, Fairview, Oakstar, Lithium and Stormbrew, among others, filter and gather information at major telecommunications companies. Blarney, for instance, was established with AT&T Inc., former officials say. AT&T declined to comment.

This filtering takes place at more than a dozen locations at major Internet junctions in the U.S., officials say.

The WSJ report is wrong on one account, though. It claims that people believed that the NSA's filtering actually happened "where undersea or other foreign cables enter the country" but that's not true. Mark Klein made it clear that the NSA had machines directly on AT&T's property.

And, of course, it will come as no surprise that these programs that work directly with telcos to tap into full internet traffic aren't just about metadata:

...this set of programs shows the NSA has the capability to track almost anything that happens online, so long as it is covered by a broad court order.

[....] Inevitably, officials say, some U.S. Internet communications are scanned and intercepted, including both "metadata" about communications, such as the "to" and "from" lines in an email, and the contents of the communications themselves.

This also shouldn't be a surprise. For all the talk of "metadata" it was always clear that the surveillance defenders were talking about this program only, which was the Patriot Act Section 215 "business records" program. But other programs, such as these listed above, were clearly about actual content as well.

While the report does note that some "minimization" happens, there is clearly widespread ability to abuse. The system works by having the NSA telling the telcos to only send over certain traffic covering "certain areas of interest" which the NSA then "briefly copies" and decides what to keep and what to dump. Again, this is consistent with earlier reports of the NSA searching all emails that go into and out of the US.

The latest report is, again, replete with NSA doublespeak. It claims that it's not "accessing" all of this traffic, because it asks the telcos to do some of the filtering for it. That's how it gets away with talking about "things we actually touch," even though its deals with the telcos basically mean they can access almost everything.

The WSJ further reports that, while most of the requests are targeted towards foreign communications, there are times when it's quite clear that requests are likely to cover domestic communications. Some telcos apparently push back, causing "friction", while others seem to comply with no qualms, though there is no indication of which telcos fall into which camp.

The report further confirms that this program is considered "legal" by the administration thanks to a broad interpretation of the FISA Amendments Act, giving the NSA the power to snoop on people "reasonably believed" to be outside the US, rather than requiring "probable cause" that they were "an agent of a foreign power." Also, there's this:

NSA has discretion on setting its filters, and the system relies significantly on self-policing. This can result in improper collection that continues for years.

The report also claims that it was one of these "mistakes" that resulted in three years of illegal collections (much greater than the "few months" that were revealed in last week's Washington Post article).

And now we wait for another bunch of carefully worded statements from NSA defenders...

Filed Under: abuses, americans, blarney, fairbiew, filters, lithium, nsa, nsa surveillance, oakstar, spying, stormbrew
Companies: at&t, cisco, juniper, narus, verizon

Verizon Lobbying Congress Over NSA Data Collection

from the but-of-course-they-are dept

The latest lobbying disclosure forms are out for lobbying efforts in the second quarter, and as Dave Maass points out, wouldn't you know, Verizon's lobbyist, Mike McKay disclosed that he was lobbying the House of Representatives on "NSA's data collection of of phone records." Now, there's no indication over what the argument being made was -- but it's notable in that while various tech companies have been quite vocal about the whole NSA situation, AT&T and Verizon have been deafeningly silent. If they were working Congress hard to protect consumers' privacy rights... wouldn't that be something they'd be talking about publicly?

Filed Under: data collection, lobbying, metadata, nsa, nsa surveillance, privacy
Companies: verizon

FISA Order To Verizon Expires Today, No One Wants To Say If It's Being Renewed

from the because-it-is dept

The very first of the Ed Snowden leaks was a FISA court order to Verizon, ordering it to hand over information on every single phone call, on an "ongoing, daily basis." That order expired on July 19, 2013. Today. It quickly came out that the FISA court has been approving nearly identical orders every 90 days for about seven years, though the defenders of the program like to use that "it's only for 90 days" excuse to suggest there's "oversight." Still, given that the existence of this effort is now actually public, plenty of people are wondering whether or not the FISA court issued the expected followup. Of course, no one who knows wants to say anything.

The Obama administration is refusing to say whether it will seek to renew a court order that permits the National Security Agency's bulk collection of phone records on millions of Verizon customers when it expires at the end of this week.

Officials declined to discuss what action they intend to take about the order at the center of the current surveillance scandal, which formally expires at 5pm Friday.

That's because it's almost certain that it's already been renewed and rubber stamped by the FISA court. The White House told Guardian reporters to ask the Justice Department. Guess where that went:

The White House referred queries to the Justice Department. "We have no announcement at this time," said Justice Department spokesman Brian Fallon. The NSA and office of the Director of National Intelligence did not respond to questions.

A spokesman for the Fisa court, Sheldon Snook, said the court "respectfully declines to comment".

In other words: please, please, go away and can we hope this story dies down by the time the next 90-day window rolls around?

Thankfully, some members of Congress have told the White House not to seek a renewal, but it seems unlikely that the White House will do anything, other than keep on sucking up all that data.

Filed Under: business records, fisa court, fisc, metadata, section 215, telcos
Companies: at&t, sprint, verizon

Telcos 'Volunteered' To Hand Over Data To NSA... And Got Over $100 Million For It

from the the-industrial-intelligence-complex dept

We've written a few times about the questionable nature of the "intelligence-industrial complex" in which various private companies are very tightly intertwined with the government's surveillance efforts, and are profiting handsomely from those efforts, giving everyone the incentive to play up bogus "threats" and to continually expand surveillance without oversight. Julian Sanchez has a great piece exploring some of the details on one of the more recent leaks from the Snowden files, involving the Inspector General's report looking into the original warrantless surveillance program called Stellar Wind (which was revealed years ago) by whistleblowers like Bill Binney, as well as the NY Times.

As Sanchez notes, while Stellar Wind had been talked about extensively, there were still many important details that hadn't been know that were revealed in this report, including that the program was much broader than originally reported, that President Bush almost certainly lied in public about the extent of the program, that the decision to spy on Americans came from Cheney's office (without consulting the NSA) and the actual numbers of people being spied on, both domestic and foreign (37,644 people, 3,018 of whom were Americans -- though that only counts the "targets" and not the many Americans they likely emailed with or called, whose communications were also intercepted).

But perhaps the most interesting is the role of the telcos. As Sanchez notes, it would appear that AT&T and Verizon actively "volunteered" to hand over data to the government... and then proceeded to make over $100 million dollars as the government paid for this "voluntary" dismantling of the privacy of their customers.

After the attacks of September 11, 2001—but before President Bush authorized the program that would become STELLAR WIND on October 4—two major telecommunications companies approached the NSA to volunteer their assistance. Though they’re identified only as “COMPANY A” and “COMPANY B” in the reports, experts agree that they are almost certainly AT&T and Verizon. One of them, COMPANY B, had even done some of its own freelance intelligence work: it told the NSA that it had “noticed odd patterns in domestic calling records surrounding the events of 11 September and offered call records and analysis."

Then again, perhaps “volunteer” isn’t quite the right word. The report tallies the costs of the program, which came to a bit more than $146 million over fiscal years 2002–2006. But only about $44 million of that went to the software and hardware infrastructure needed to sift through all that data. By far the biggest expense category—accounting for the other $102 million in outlays—was the “metadata and content” itself, an apparent reference to payments to the participating telecoms.

It remains telling that AT&T and Verizon have remained almost entirely silent about all of this, as various other companies mentioned in much more limited programs, have been pretty vocal about things.

Filed Under: data, intelligence industrial complex, nsa, nsa surveillance, privacy, telcos, volunteering
Companies: at&t, verizon

Feds Claim Phone Data It Scooped Up Doesn't Include Location Data, And Also [REDACTED]

from the well-that-clears-it-up dept

Soon after the NSA leaks came out, we pointed to a murder trial in which the lawyers for one of the defendants used the news that the NSA was collecting so much metadata on all mobile phone calls to seek discovery on the data concerning the defendant's mobile phone location information, in the belief that it would present evidence that he was nowhere near the crime. The feds had claimed, initially, that when they subpoenaed his phone carrier during the original case, MetroPCS, that the data had already been destroyed. However, the defendant, Terrance Brown, pointed out that according to the leaked information, the NSA was collecting all such data, so the federal government should already have the data. The court seemed intrigued by this argument, and ordered the government to reply with a very short turnaround.

The government's response, filed last week, is both interesting and useless. It starts out by claiming that the collected data does not include "cell-site location info," which was requested:

In his motion, the defendant primarily seeks to compel production of cell site location data, i.e., information about where a cellular telephone was geographically located at the time a call was made ("CSLI"), during July 2010 for Metro PCS cellular telephone number (786) 307-4240, based on public reporting about the collection of call data records under a classified order by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court ("FISC"). The information acquired under this program, however, did not include CSLI. Thus, the government does not possess the records the defendant seeks.

From there, there's a lot of [CLASSIFIED INFORMATION REDACTED] brackets, so it's unclear what else the government is saying to the judge. The filing does spend more time explaining why it needs to keep most of this discussion a secret. The claim that the business records request does not include CSLI is interesting, because it has long been assumed that such information was included in the metadata demanded under the FISC order. I'm wondering if the government is carefully parsing its words here, and a slightly different form of location data is included, rather than the specific "CSLI" data.

Later, in the non-redacted part of the filing, the DOJ pulls out the standard excuse from defenders of scooping up business records, that this isn't really surveillance since there is no expectation of privacy in 3rd party data:

Respectfully, the Government submits that Section 1806(f) is not the appropriate vehicle by which to respond to this Court's inquiries because the subject in question does not pertain to information obtained by electronic surveillance, as defined by FISA, but rather to records obtained through the "business records" authority of FISA.

Got that? You're not being spied on when the government hoovers up all that data on every single phone call, because it's just a "business record" not "electronic surveillance." Don't you feel more comfortable now?

Either way, people are pointing out that these kinds of requests, from defendants in federal trials, seeking data from these programs are likely to become a lot more common now that there's confirmation that such data exists.

Filed Under: business records, discovery, doj, evidence, nsa, nsa surveillance, surveillance, terrance brown
Companies: metropcs, verizon

Rep. Grayson: Let Me Tell The NSA: There Is No Threat To Our Nation When I Call My Mother

from the so-why-do-you-have-the-records? dept

So far, we've seen lots of Congressional Representatives falling over each other to attack Ed Snowden and Glenn Greenwald over the NSA surveillance efforts. A few have raised concerns, but if you want to see an elected official say what's on many of our minds, listen to Rep. Alan Grayson's speech about the NSA scooping up all phone records. He points out that the NSA is only supposed to be collecting foreign data, highlights how extreme it is that they're collecting all phone records and says that he's shocked this is happening.

Let's be clear about this. This appears to be an order, providing that our telephone companies turn over call records for every single telephone call, regardless of whether it's international or not. Now, if someone had come to me nine days ago and said, 'Congressman Grayson, do you think that the Defense Department is taking records of any telephone call that you make or I make?' I would say 'no, I have no reason to believe that. It would shock me if it were true.' Well it is true and it DOES SHOCK ME. Why should we have our personal telephone records, the records of who we call, when speak to them, how long we're talking... why should we have that turned over to the Defense Department?

What possible rationale could there be for that?

Well, I'll tell you what I think their rationale would be: "because somehow that makes us safer." Well, let me say to the NSA and the Defense Department: there is no threat to America when I speak to my mother.

It goes on, in much greater detail about why this is such a problem. He points out that the order "clearly violates the 4th Amendment," which is the first time I've seen a politician finally admit that. He highlights that there's no probable cause and no particularity, as required by the 4th Amendment. And, for those who immediately, like rote, spout out Smith v. Maryland and the third party doctrine, Grayson responds to that as well, calling those who make that argument a "farce," noting the differences in that case, which involved seizing a single record once, not all records all the time.

Towards the end of his speech, he notes that the intelligence agencies have a long history of abusing surveillance:

You know, this is not the first time we've had this problem. This is not the first time that the government has entered into surveillance on people without probable cause. Many of us remember that there was FBI surveillance of Dr. Martin Luther King, including wiretapping and bugging his personal conversations. I thought -- perhaps naively -- that we'd moved beyond that. And, in some sense, we have moved beyond that. Because now, they're doing it to everyone.

One could well say that we are reaching the point where Uncle Sam is Big Brother.

...though its proponents depict this is American as apple spy (sic?), this program is an anti-American program. We are not North Koreans. We don't live in Nazi Germany. We are Americans and we are human beings. And we deserve to have our privacy respected. I have no way to call my mother except to employ the services of Verizon or AT&T or some other phone company... that doesn't mean that it's okay with me for the government -- and specifically the Department of Defense -- to be getting information of every phone call I make to her. It's not okay with me.... and I know for most of the people listening today, it's not okay with you either.

As he concludes: "this has gone way too far."

Filed Under: 4th amendment, alan grayson, constitutionality, nsa, nsa surveillance, privacy
Companies: verizon