Edward Snowden exposes National Security Agency domestic surveillance

Revealed: NSA collecting phone records of millions of Americans daily

mod note: thread title changed as requested by OP from National Security Agency collecting phone records of millions of Verizon customers

Exclusive: Top secret court order requiring Verizon to hand over all call data shows scale of domestic surveillance under Obama

Read the court order in full here

By Glenn Greenwald

The National Security Agency is currently collecting the telephone records of millions of US customers of Verizon, one of America's largest telecoms providers, under a top secret court order issued in April.

The order, a copy of which has been obtained by the Guardian, requires Verizon on an "ongoing, daily basis" to give the NSA information on all telephone calls in its systems, both within the US and between the US and other countries.

The document shows for the first time that under the Obama administration the communication records of millions of US citizens are being collected indiscriminately and in bulk – regardless of whether they are suspected of any wrongdoing.

The secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (Fisa) granted the order to the FBI on April 25, giving the government unlimited authority to obtain the data for a specified three-month period ending on July 19.

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. The contents of the conversation itself are not covered.

The disclosure is likely to reignite longstanding debates in the US over the proper extent of the government's domestic spying powers.

Under the Bush administration, officials in security agencies had disclosed to reporters the large-scale collection of call records data by the NSA, but this is the first time significant and top-secret documents have revealed the continuation of the practice on a massive scale under President Obama.

The unlimited nature of the records being handed over to the NSA is extremely unusual. Fisa court orders typically direct the production of records pertaining to a specific named target who is suspected of being an agent of a terrorist group or foreign state, or a finite set of individually named targets.

The Guardian approached the National Security Agency, the White House and the Department of Justice for comment in advance of publication on Wednesday. All declined. The agencies were also offered the opportunity to raise specific security concerns regarding the publication of the court order.

The court order expressly bars Verizon from disclosing to the public either the existence of the FBI's request for its customers' records, or the court order itself.

"We decline comment," said Ed McFadden, a Washington-based Verizon spokesman.

Continued at www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/06/nsa-phone-records-verizon-court-order

Mirrored at www.businessinsider.com/nsa-collecting-phone-records-of-americans-2013-6

Fuck

Presumably this was issued 4-12-2013, based on the declassification date. There must have been some credible threat to provoke this.

The Boston Marathon bombings happened 4-15-2013. Maybe that's what the threat was pointing toward.

U.S. Is Secretly Collecting Records of Verizon Calls

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration is secretly carrying out a domestic surveillance program under which it is collecting business communications records involving Americans under a hotly debated section of the Patriot Act, according to a highly classified court order disclosed on Wednesday night.

The order, signed by Judge Roger Vinson of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court in April, directs a Verizon Communications subsidiary, Verizon Business Network Services, to turn over “on an ongoing daily basis” to the National Security Agency all call logs “between the United States and abroad” or “wholly within the United States, including local telephone calls.”


more:
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/06/us/us-secretly-collecting-logs-of-business-calls.html

Not really. This just seems to be the next step in a long line of slow steady encroachments, and nowhere have the intelligence services demonstrated the need for it.

grose

Is the "American Way" now bending over and letting the government rape you?

The rest of the world used to admire Americans for their ballsiness. Since 9/11 the US is a laughingstock, at best.

Is the "American Way" now bending over and letting the government rape you?

The rest of the world used to admire Americans for their ballsiness. Since 9/11 the US is a laughingstock, at best.

You are justifying the unjustifiable. What we are seeing is the end of civil rights.

Only if the public remain in relative apathy about it. Do not fear the government; instead, make them fear you.

Feel safe yet?

Big brother is watching you fap.

fify

If the government wants all of our phone records, internet records, bank account info, etc. then citizens should have access to same thing for every single government employee. Full public records. They tell us we have nothing to fear if we have nothing to hide. Works both ways, mate. And, oh, I don't buy the argument that "national security" will be threatened if that happens. An out-of-control government is a national security problem too. Governments are supposed to govern with the consent of the governed, not just lord over everybody.

Good luck with that... mate.

There's only one way to "vote out" a government, and the secrecy is way too entrenched for a simple change of administration to solve it. The same players remain, year after year, behind the scenes.

this is bull shit and unconstitutional i'm leave Verizon now
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/06/nsa-phone-records-verizon-court-order

[Thumbs up]
If all Verizon clients did as you do, they'd haveto change their tune one way or another.

Meanwhile, if Verizon is providing that information to the NSA, how many other telecoms are following suit?

Mod: request /merge:
https://whyweprotest.net/community/...ords-of-millions-of-verizon-customers.111435/

Mods have to report to mods. Lulz.

How does the infrastructure work in the US? Is the core infrastructure owned by a small number of companies who then lease it out? So if, say, Verizon were such a company and they leased out to FakeTelecomCompany wouldn’t FakeTelecomCompany’s customers get caught in the dragnet? Would FakeTelecomCompany even be aware of the order and the dragnet in that case?

Just asking for curiosity, and I don’t know enough about the US situation to know if these questions even make sense.

it's more of large company's controlling all

I saw this while watching the news today.
This is just insanity.

OK, wait a minute...

So Americans pay TWICE for the privilege of being surveilled: once to their phone company, and the second to their government... ? That's like paying to get raped from both ends simultaneously.

I guess some people will go for just about anything, so long as they can lie down while taking it.

Fair enough. Nevertheless it is worthwhile to keep pointing out the hypocrisy of governments spying on their own citizens (whom governments are meant to serve, not just rule over) while making it illegal for citizens to know as much about government officials as these same officials know about the citizens. It's not healthy for people to be apathetic about government intrusion getting more and more pervasive.

NSA whistleblowers say agency casts wide net, Verizon order is part of ‘routine’ - The Washington Post

The Associated Press

Former employees of the National Security Agency say the publishing of a court order asking Verizon to hand over all its phone calling records for a three-month period opens a new window on an operation that has been in place for years and involves all major U.S. phone companies.

“You can bet it’s all the other carriers, not just Verizon,” said Kirk Wiebe, a former analyst with the NSA. Weibe left the agency after the attacks of 9/11 in disgust, he says, over what he believes is a chronic failure to analyze large amounts of data effectively and with proper privacy protections.

www.washingtonpost.com/business/technology/nsa-whistleblowers-say-agency-casts-wide-net-verizon-order-is-part-of-routine/2013/06/06/6bc26bf2-cee3-11e2-8573-3baeea6a2647_story.html

NSA has direct access to tech giants' systems for user data, secret files reveal - The Guardian

By Glenn Greenwald and Ewen MacAskill

- Top secret PRISM program claims direct access to servers of firms including Google, Facebook and Apple

- Companies deny any knowledge of program in operation since 2007

www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/06/us-tech-giants-nsa-data

The government is spying US Verizon users - Abine Online Privacy

By Sarah Downey

A huge privacy story broke today on The Guardian, revealing that the FBI and NSA are collecting all call information from Verizon users in the US. This is blanket surveillance that affects everyone, regardless of whether they’re suspected of any wrongdoing. Odds are extremely high that this is happening for other wireless providers too.

Almost all of these orders contain a gag order, which means that no one can talk about the order, despite the massive privacy violations it enables. The only reason we know about this one is because someone leaked it to The Guardian (read the full order here). In this case, Verizon couldn’t say anything about it; they just had to comply. Even US Senators couldn’t talk about it to the public; they could only hint at the privacy abuses going on.

The order requires “ongoing, daily” access to all call detail records for US Verizon users, whether they’re calling others in the US or people outside the country. The only calls exempt are those from foreigners to other foreigners.

What do they get? Enough to draw a detailed picture of who you called and where you were at the time:

• Your phone number
• The number of the person you’re calling
• Location data
• Unique identifiers, like your International Mobile Subscriber Identity number
• Phone calling card numbers
• Time and duration of all calls

Continued at www.abine.com/blog/2013/the-government-is-spying-us-verizon-users/

Thank god for whistle-blowers

Obama Administration Releases Nation’s Phone Records To Public

‘We Are Making Every Effort To Be Transparent,’ Says President

WASHINGTON — On the heels of reports that the National Security Agency has secretly been amassing the private telephone records of Verizon’s more than 120 million customers, President Barack Obama announced Thursday that his administration is releasing the entire country’s phone records to the public in an effort to handle the situation with complete transparency.

“Honesty and openness have always been the hallmarks of my presidency, which is why I believe that everybody should have free access to this essential information,” the president said at a press conference, encouraging the public to visit a newly created online database containing the time, duration, and location of every wireless and landline phone call made by all 315 million Americans.

“We — all of us — are laying our cards on the table here. Now, everyone in the country will know who’s calling whom, and when, and how often, and for how long. My administration doesn’t have any secrets, and from now on, neither will you.”

Obama noted that, for the sake of national security, personal emails, consumer reports, and medical histories will remain the exclusive property of the federal government.

www.theonion.com/articles/obama-administration-releases-nations-phone-record,32712/

View attachment Verizon%26%23039%3Bs+%26quot%3BShare+Everything%26

Most people aren't even aware that there is a problem, you tell them the gov. is corrupt and they laugh and say you're crazy. More and more people are slowly waking up to the fact we are back under a tyrannical dictator just like the one that caused America to be created in the first place. This is a county that was founded for justice and equality for all. They kill, enslave and lie to us. They go to other countries and tell them what they can and can't do and when they get pissed, the government starts calling them terrorist to get the American people to back them up for going over there and bombing the shit out of the place. Obama is tearing our constitution apart by the seams, and writing his own. For his own policies and agendas.

http://reason.com/archives/2012/08/09/gazillions

Exactly!

Yes......and Rand Paul ought to know.

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_...nment_surveillance_of_phone_calls_should.html

They ALL will do it sooner or later; they will be forced to by the government.

1984 has arrived... just twenty-nine years late.

He said "gazillions" of instances of illegal intrusions on our privacy after being briefed on this last year. I don't understand your comment. What ought he to know?