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AT&T gives DEA 26 years of phone call records to wage war on drugs

arstechnica.com

11–20 of 211 posts

Re: AT&T gives DEA 26 years of phone call records to wage war on drugs

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Interesting. At first glance, this feels wrong, but thinking about it more, the only significant issue I really have with it is that it seems strange for the DEA to be allowed to issue its own warrants.

...and for there to be a war on drugs in the first place. Eliminate the fundamentals, and there should be no issues at all, really.

s/Drugs/Terror

Re: AT&T gives DEA 26 years of phone call records to wage war on drugs

#12
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post #3

Interesting. At first glance, this feels wrong, but thinking about it more, the only significant issue I really have with it is that it seems strange for the DEA to be allowed to issue its own warrants.

Somehow I doubt the database detailing the history of subpoenas is as accurate as the one containing all the phone records. Is there anything like the FISA court for these subpoenas? I couldn't find any kind of checks on their power.

The DEA uses "administrative subpoenas", which they are allowed to unilaterally issue for anything relevant to an investigation.

Here's an older article on them: http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/08/administrative-subp...

Re: AT&T gives DEA 26 years of phone call records to wage war on drugs

#13

So AT&T kept records for 26 years and counting. Information that includes location of caller. I am very happy drug dealers were caught, but 26 years? There is some serious potential for abuse.

I was at a different telecom a couple years back and legal handed down a ruling that we couldn't keep things beyond two years, even though we were research instead of billing. Research was the last group at the company to have to delete all that stuff, and we only had space for five years anyway, and even that was stripped down to 10% of its original data. However the researchers felt very safe in assuming that since the government has all of the data reflected off the antenna base station switches through its own network, there's no way they're deleting anything.

It's weird that at&t had to give them that data, unless you assume that up til now they had access to the nsa's copy and now the justice department says they have to have their own.

Re: AT&T gives DEA 26 years of phone call records to wage war on drugs

#16
Now it makes me wonder what the turnover rate will be once all those drug dealers learn that AT&T is bad for their business. I wonder if anyone is even measuring those stats to know.

This is by far not free and I really wonder what AT&T is getting out of the deal. They're devoting a small but significant amount of internal resources for what? Does the DEA overlook their transgressions or just the CEO? I have a hard time believing that AT&T would do this "out of the kindness of their hearts." I wonder now that this is exposed and the real costs of this project will come to bare if they'll keep it up. They certainly have enough money to throw at it, though.

Re: AT&T gives DEA 26 years of phone call records to wage war on drugs

#17

So AT&T kept records for 26 years and counting. Information that includes location of caller. I am very happy drug dealers were caught, but 26 years? There is some serious potential for abuse.

Just read article in depth and found two more significant "features". First one - database build by AT&T can identify if target individual uses multiple phones (So if say I was engineer Joe and wanted to get sell private cell number(s) for Angelina Jolie how much would you pay?). Second - they can identify if you switched to a new number. Even if you threw out your phone. (So speaking of numbers, how much would you pay for a yearly subscription previously offered 'product'). Seriously if AT&T doing this, there is no reason to believe that other providers do not.

Re: AT&T gives DEA 26 years of phone call records to wage war on drugs

#18

Now it makes me wonder what the turnover rate will be once all those drug dealers learn that AT&T is bad for their business. I wonder if anyone is even measuring those stats to know. This is by far not free and I really wonder what AT&T is getting out of the deal. They're devoting a small but significant amount of internal resources for what? Does the DEA overlook their transgressions or just the CEO? I have a hard t…

I would assume that the DEA is paying AT&T whatever they ask, so it's hardly charity. (I wonder if AT&T tacks on mystery fees to the government like they do with consumers.)

Re: AT&T gives DEA 26 years of phone call records to wage war on drugs

#19
This, the Parallel Construction story, and the Patriot act having been principally used for the War on Drugs than terror... has made me consider that the War on Drugs may actually be more dangerous to Liberty than the war on terror.

No doubt it's basic premise, that putting a substance into one's own body is a "crime", is a pernicious lie.

The War on Terror's pernicious lie is twofold: Terrorism isn't a crime, and thus isn't subject to any laws, that this war is eternal, and the whole world is a battlefield.

Certainly in practical effects the Drug war is worse: Minorities whose communities are regularly raided by soldiers, depopulated, and placed into our glorious, humane prison system with the highest incarceration rate in the world, than stripped of voting rights and essentially blackballed from employment afterwards, would think surely so...

My natural tendency has so far been to see the war on Terror as worse, this may be me I, like many HNers with dissident political opinions, am more likely to see myself as an actual target in the War on Terror. That, and being an Orwell fan...

Re: AT&T gives DEA 26 years of phone call records to wage war on drugs

#20

Now it makes me wonder what the turnover rate will be once all those drug dealers learn that AT&T is bad for their business. I wonder if anyone is even measuring those stats to know. This is by far not free and I really wonder what AT&T is getting out of the deal. They're devoting a small but significant amount of internal resources for what? Does the DEA overlook their transgressions or just the CEO? I have a hard t…

A: The information AT&T is handing over covers far more than just their own subscribers. They're also providing wholesale information, so even if you're not an AT&T subscriber, your provider might eventually buy from AT&T, and they'll get the call detail record for some of your calls anyways.

B: Is it known that the other major providers are not in on this just like AT&T?

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