[R-G] [BillTottenWeblog] Documents prove FBI has national eavesdropping program ...

[Bill Totten]

... that tracks IMs, emails and cell phones

FBI also spies on home soil for military, documents show

Much information acquired without court order

by John Byrne

The Raw Story (April 08 2008)


The Federal Bureau of Investigation has been routinely monitoring the
e-mails, instant messages and cell phone calls of suspects across the
United States - and has done so, in many cases, without the approval of
a court.

Documents released under the Freedom of Information Act and given to the
Washington Post - which stuck the story (see below) on page three - show
that the FBI's massive dragnet, connected to the backends of
telecommunications carriers, "allows authorized FBI agents and analysts,
with point-and-click ease, to receive e-mails, instant messages,
cellphone calls and other communications that tell them not only what a
suspect is saying, but where he is and where he has been, depending on
the wording of a court order or a government directive", the Post says.

But agents don't need a court order to track the senders and recipients
names, or how long calls or email exchanges lasted. These can be
obtained simply by showing it's "relevant" to a probe.

RAW STORY has placed a request to the Electronic Frontier Foundation for
the new documents, and will post them upon receipt.

Some transactional data is obtained using National Security Letters. The
Justice Department says use of these letters has risen from 8,500 in
2000 to 47,000 in 2005, according to the Post.

Last week, the American Civil Liberties Union released letters showing
that the Pentagon is using the FBI to skirt legal restrictions on
domestic surveillance (see below).

Documents show the FBI has obtained the private records of Americans'
Internet service providers, financial institutions and telephone
companies, for the military, according to more than 1,000 Pentagon
documents reviewed by the ACLU - also using National Security Letters,
without a court order.

The new revelations show definitively that telecommunications companies
can "with the click of a mouse, instantly transfer key data along a
computer circuit to an FBI technology office in Quantico" upon request.

A telecom whistleblower, in an affidavit, has said he helped maintain a
high-speed DS-3 digital line referred to in house as the "Quantico
circuit", which allowed an outside organization "unfettered" access to
the the carrier's wireless network.

The network he's speaking of? Verizon.

Verizon denies the allegations vaguely, saying "no government agency has
open access to the company's networks through electronic circuits".

The Justice Department downplayed the new documents.

A spokesman told the Post that the US is asking only for "information at
the beginning and end of a communication, and for information
"reasonably available" by the network.

The FBI's budget for says the collection system increased from $30
million in 2007 to $40 million in 2008, the paper said.

http://rawstory.com/news/2008/FBI_linked_to_national_eavesdropping_program_0408.html

_____________________________

FBI Data Transfers Via Telecoms Questioned

by Ellen Nakashima

Washington Post Staff Writer

washingtonpost.com (April 08 2008), page A03


When FBI investigators probing New York prostitution rings, Boston
organized crime or potential terrorist plots anywhere want access to a
suspect's telephone contacts, technicians at a telecommunications
carrier served with a government order can, with the click of a mouse,
instantly transfer key data along a computer circuit to an FBI
technology office in Quantico.

The circuits - little-known electronic connections between telecom firms
and FBI monitoring personnel around the country - are used to tell the
government who is calling whom, along with the time and duration of a
conversation and even the locations of those involved.

Recently, three Democrats on the House Energy and Commerce Committee,
including Chairman John D Dingell (Michigan), sent a letter to
colleagues citing privacy concerns over one of the Quantico circuits and
demanding more information about it. Anxieties about whether such
electronic links are too intrusive form a backdrop to the continuing
congressional debate over modifications to the Foreign Intelligence
Surveillance Act, which governs federal surveillance.

Since a 1994 law required telecoms to build electronic interception
capabilities into their systems, the FBI has created a network of links
between the nation's largest telephone and Internet firms and about
forty FBI offices and Quantico, according to interviews and documents
describing the agency's Digital Collection System. The documents were
obtained under the Freedom of Information Act by the Electronic Frontier
Foundation, a nonprofit advocacy group in San Francisco that specializes
in digital-rights issues.

The bureau says its budget for the collection system increased from $30
million in 2007 to $40 million in 2008. Information lawfully collected
by the FBI from telecom firms can be shared with law enforcement and
intelligence-gathering partners, including the National Security Agency
and the CIA. Likewise, under guidelines approved by the attorney general
or a court, some intercept data gathered by intelligence agencies can be
shared with law enforcement agencies.

"When you're building something like this deeply into the
telecommunications infrastructure, when it becomes so technically easy
to do, the only thing that stands between legitimate use and abuse is
the complete honesty of the persons and agencies using it and the
ability to have independent oversight over the system's use", said
Lauren Weinstein, a communications systems engineer and co-founder of
People for Internet Responsibility, a group that studies Web issues.
"It's who watches the listeners".

Different versions of the system are used for criminal wiretaps and for
foreign intelligence investigations inside the United States. But each
allows authorized FBI agents and analysts, with point-and-click ease, to
receive e-mails, instant messages, cellphone calls and other
communications that tell them not only what a suspect is saying, but
where he is and where he has been, depending on the wording of a court
order or a government directive. Most of the wiretapping is done at
field offices.

Wiretaps to obtain the content of a phone call or an e-mail must be
authorized by a court upon a showing of probable cause. But
"transactional data" about a communication - from whom, to whom, how
long it lasted - can be obtained by simply showing that it is relevant
to an official probe, including through an administrative subpoena known
as a national security letter (NSL). According to the Justice
Department's inspector general, the number of NSLs issued by the FBI
soared from 8,500 in 2000 to 47,000 in 2005.

The administration has proposed expanding the types of data it can get
from telecom carriers under the 1994 Communications Assistance for Law
Enforcement Act, so FBI agents can gain faster and more detailed access
to information sent by wireless devices that reveals where a person is
in real time. The Federal Communications Commission is weighing the request.

"Court-authorized electronic surveillance is a critical tool in pursuing
both criminal and terrorist subjects", FBI spokesman Richard Kolko said.

A Justice Department spokesman said the government is asking only for
information at the beginning and end of a communication, and for
information "reasonably available" in a carrier's network.

Al Gidari, a telecom industry lawyer at Perkins Coie in Seattle who
handles wiretap orders for companies, said government officials now
"have to rely on a human being at a telecom calling up every fifteen
minutes to send law enforcement the data".

He added: "What they want is an automatic feed, continuously. So you're
checking the weather on your mobile device or making a call", and the
device would transmit location data automatically. "It's full tracking
capability. It's a scary proposition."

In an affidavit circulated on Capitol Hill, security consultant Babak
Pasdar alleged that a telecom carrier he had worked for maintained a
high-speed DS-3 digital line that co-workers referred to as "the
Quantico Circuit". He said it allowed a third party "unfettered" access
to the carrier's wireless network, including billing records and
customer data transmitted wirelessly.

He was hired to upgrade network security for Verizon in 2003; sources
other than Pasdar said the carrier in his affidavit is Verizon.

Dingell and his colleagues said House members should be given access to
information to help them evaluate Pasdar's allegations.

FBI officials said a circuit of the type described by Pasdar does not
exist. All telecom circuits at Quantico are one-way, from the carrier,
said Anthony Di Clemente, section chief of the FBI operational
technology division. He also said any transmissions of data to Quantico
are strictly pursuant to court orders.

Records, including who sent and received communications, the duration
and the time, are kept for evidentiary purposes and to support
applications to extend wiretap orders, he said.

Verizon spokesman Peter Thonis said no government agency has open access
to the company's networks through electronic circuits.

Copyright (c) 2008 The Washington Post Company

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/07/AR2008040702364_pf.html

_____________________________

Documents show Pentagon now using FBI to spy on Americans

ACLU obtains documents after suit over National Security Letters

Associated Press (April 02 2008)


The military is using the FBI to skirt legal restrictions on domestic
surveillance to obtain private records of Americans' Internet service
providers, financial institutions and telephone companies, according to
Pentagon documents.

The American Civil Liberties Union expressed outrage at the new
revelations, based its conclusion on a review of more than 1,000
documents turned over by the Defense Department after it sued the agency
last year for documents related to national security letters, or NSLs,
investigative tools used to compel businesses to turn over customer
information without a judge's order or grand jury subpoena.

"Newly unredacted documents released today reveal that the Department of
Defense is using the FBI to circumvent legal limits on its own NSL
power", said the ACLU, whose lawsuit was filed in Manhattan federal court.

ACLU lawyer Melissa Goodman said the documents the civil rights group
studied "make us incredibly concerned". She said it would be
understandable if the military relied on help from the FBI on joint
investigations, but not when the FBI was not involved in a probe.

The FBI referred requests for comment Tuesday to the Defense Department.
A department spokesman, Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Patrick Ryder, said
in an e-mail that the department had made "focused, limited and
judicious" use of the letters since Congress extended the capability to
investigatory entities other than the FBI in 2001.

He said the department had acted legally in using a necessary
investigatory tool and noted that "unusual financial activity of people
affiliated with DoD can be an indication of potential espionage or
terrorist-related activity".

Ryder said the information in the ACLU claims came in part from an
internal review of DoD's use of the letters.

"We have since developed training and provided it to the services for
their use", he said.

He said that there was no law requiring it to track use of the letters
but that the department had decided it was in its best interest to do so.

Goodman, a staff attorney with the ACLU National Security Project, said
the military is allowed to demand financial and credit records in
certain instances but does not have the authority to get e-mail and
phone records or lists of Web sites that people have visited. That is
the kind of information that the FBI can get by using a national
security letter, she said.

"That's why we're particularly concerned. The DoD may be accessing the
kinds of records they are not allowed to get", she said.

Goodman also noted that legal limits are placed on the Defense
Department "because the military doing domestic investigations tends to
make us leery".

In other allegations, the ACLU said:

* The Navy's use of the letters to demand domestic records has increased
significantly since the September 11 attacks.

* The military wrongly claimed its use of the letters was limited to
investigating only Defense Department employees.

* The Defense Department has not kept track of how many national
security letters the military issues or what information it obtained
through the orders.

* The military provided misleading information to Congress and silenced
letter recipients from speaking out about the records requests.

Goodman said Congress should provide stricter guidelines and meaningful
oversight of how the military and FBI make national security letter
requests.

"Any government agency's ability to demand these kinds of personal,
financial or Internet records in the United States is an intrusive
surveillance power", she said.

Pentagon expected to close Rumsfeld-sparked spy office

"The Pentagon is expected to shut a controversial intelligence office
that has drawn fire from lawmakers and civil liberties groups who charge
that it was part of an effort by the Defense Department to expand into
domestic spying", the New York Times reports Wednesday. "The move,
government officials say, is part of a broad effort under Defense
Secretary Robert M Gates to review, overhaul and, in some cases,
dismantle an intelligence architecture built by his predecessor, Donald
H Rumsfeld".

"The intelligence unit, called the Counterintelligence Field Activity
office, was created by Mr Rumsfeld after the September 11 2001,
terrorist attacks as part of an effort to counter the operations of
foreign intelligence services and terror groups inside the United States
and abroad", the Times adds. "Yet the office, whose size and budget is
classified, came under fierce criticism in 2005 after it was disclosed
that it was managing a database that included information about antiwar
protests planned at churches, schools and Quaker meeting halls".

http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Documents_show_Pentagon_now_using_FBI_0402.html

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