New Data Dump Shows Feds Massively Increased Spying On Who You're Talking To

from the well,-of-course dept

While the feds absolutely hate to reveal this kind of info, due to successful legal action by the ACLU, the Justice Department was forced to reveal information on how often they monitor electronic communications of Americans without a warrant -- using what's known as "pen register" and "trap and trace." This kind of surveillance isn't over the actual communications (that's left up to the NSA, apparently), but rather just the info on who contacted whom. For various reasons, such information is considered obtainable without needing a warrant. Not surprisingly, the data shows a rather massive increase in such surveillance by the Justice Department. The numbers are quite incredible:

In fact, more people were subjected to pen register and trap and trace surveillance in the past two years than in the entire previous decade.

And yet, whenever anyone suggests that maybe, just maybe, there should be a little bit of oversight on these kinds of things to prevent abuse, law enforcement freaks out. Perhaps that's really because they know they're widely abusing the ability to spy on communications, and they don't want to have to admit it. The fact that it took a lawsuit just to get this information (which is required by law) to be released really says something about the state of surveillance by the federal government. And what it says is not good at all.

Filed Under: doj, pen register, spying, surveillance, trap and trace
Companies: aclu