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

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

#51

Post by smsm42 »

joering2 wrote: post #8

Interesting to note here is that the ATT _gave_ those records "on its own", versus being subpoena via DEA by a judge, something that 99% of judges in their sound mind would have never ever ever agreed on, even in today's world. I had a hard time believing that ATT would have done something like this out of their own free will, as they would have never done anything that could undermine their sales and bottom line (po…

I wouldn't be so sure AT&T didn't do it entirely on its own. In our crony capitalism times, being friends with the Big Government is a very good strategy for Big Business. Lobbying is the most profitable investment known to man. If giving records to DEA means access to juicy government contracts or a nice regulation that ensures the interests of AT&T are properly protected - then bottom line comes out nicely. That provided anybody besides a handful of geeks would actually care - after all, you'd never do something as vile and disgusting as sell merchandise that the government does not approve, right? So you have nothing to fear and there's no reason for concern at all.

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

#52

Post by lutusp »

mpyne wrote: post #45
MichaelGG wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're saying every low-end phone has GPS active, then gets and transmits a fix for every phone call?

Even without GPS, the cell phone position can often be triangulated by the tower itself. That even has a compelling public safety justification (911 calls) so it wouldn't surprise me if phone companies were already doing that as a matter of course.

> Even without GPS, the cell phone position can often be triangulated by the tower itself.

Towers, not tower. With two towers receiving a cell phone's signal, the phone can be located along a line, with three towers, it can be located as a point -- not as accurate as GPS, but reasonably accurate.

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3278/2867853394_7703d6c99f.jp...

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

#53

Post by jlgreco »

pyre wrote: post #48
danielsju6 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like you need to read-up on the prohibition and what making alcohol illegal did to our country.

Were alcoholics robbing people for money to feed their habit during Prohibition?

Of course there were. Even today there are alcoholic bums that will mug you for booze money. You don't really think they are all crack or smack fiends, do you? Heroin withdrawal can make you wish you were dead, alcohol withdrawal can make you dead.

More troubling however is community-consuming gang violence. The sort that we see today and the sort that we saw during prohibition.

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

#54

Post by kordless »

MichaelGG wrote: post #20
w0rd-driven wrote: post #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 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?

And moreover, calls to non-AT&T mobile users are in there. That means you are in there if someone called you from AT&T and/or you called them on AT&T. With a bit of legwork, you could reasonably infer phone number changes on non-AT&T networks given the same people on AT&T and you kept calling each other after your number change.

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

#55

Post by toyg »

mpyne wrote: post #46
jivatmanx wrote: post #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 th…

And now you know why David Simon was one of the few people speaking up about why PRISM wasn't really a big deal, as he has seen firsthand the effect of the War of Drugs on minorities through his work on The Wire . If the government should have the power to do these types of investigations (and the people keep voting people in who are 'Tough on Crime' so apparently they feel the government should have that power...),…

> as he has seen firsthand the effect of the War of Drugs on minorities through his work on The Wire

Or rather through his 16 years as journalist on the police beat at the Baltimore Sun, from which he got enough material to write 3 books and 3 TV series, including The Wire.

It's really weird how TV just outshines everything else as soon as it gets in the picture. Simon will forever be "the guy who wrote The Wire", like he was a barista in Hollywood who just sat down at the kitchen table one day and made up all of it in his head and then proceeded to film it for TV.

(And no, I don't agree with him on the subject: the fact that evils come in different forms and shapes doesn't mean we should ignore one or the other.)

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

#56

Post by chimeracoder »

genwin wrote: post #41
PavlovsCat wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's because caffeine is legal and therefore dirt cheap.

If crack was dirt cheap, people would still rob to get the money for it, because they couldn't hold down a decent job while using it.

That's simply not true.

I don't have any stats for crack cocaine, but look up the effectiveness of diacetylmorphine maintenance programs in Switzerland and the UK - these are government-run programs in which heroin users are given access to pure, unadulterated heroin so that they can have steady day jobs.

Spoiler: These programs have been proven time and again to be effective in reducing crime.

Crack cocaine is biochemically identical to powder cocaine (the main difference is the means of ingestion, not the chemical compound). And I can assure you that many cocaine users hold very steady, very high-paying jobs (in certain industries more than others).

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

#57

Post by jlgreco »

mpyne wrote: post #46
jivatmanx wrote: post #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 th…

And now you know why David Simon was one of the few people speaking up about why PRISM wasn't really a big deal, as he has seen firsthand the effect of the War of Drugs on minorities through his work on The Wire . If the government should have the power to do these types of investigations (and the people keep voting people in who are 'Tough on Crime' so apparently they feel the government should have that power...),…

The jump from "The War on Drugs is worse than PRISM" to "PRISM really isn't a big deal" is rather large...

"If the government should have the power to do these types of investigations..." See, they obviously shouldn't. Justifying PRISM because the DEA is doing something that they shouldn't is silly. Both deserve criticism, and we should not curtail criticism of PRISM just because the War on Drugs isn't getting nearly the criticism it deserves.

David Simon's complaint is just "hipster outrage" bullshit: "I was upset at something before it was cool!" It is just the flipside of the people who get frustrated with recent attention to surveillance because "Of course this is going on, haven't you heard of Room 641A? I've been talking about this for years! Grrr, I am upset that I am no longer unique for my suspicions."

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

#58

Post by __alexs »

genwin wrote: post #43
danielsju6 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like you need to read-up on the prohibition and what making alcohol illegal did to our country.

It's a question of what does more harm than good. The vast majority of people who drink alcohol can still be sober at work. Whereas a crack addict will tend to be high all day, unable to work, thus needing to rob to feed their addiction.

Crack is unusually addictive but many people maintain casual cocaine habits for years on end. Both of these drugs have the same classification, and the same penalties in most of the world.

Crack is also particularly bad for your health outside of just being extremely addictive. If it wasn't a Class A drug people would rapidly end up in treatment for it anyway.

Ultimately there's hardly any actual science involved in the War on Drugs, just as there wasn't during prohibition.

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

#59

Post by rdl »

I think a total boycott of ATT would be a good start, since it appears ATT actually was out in front of Verizon and T-Mobile and Sprint on this. I'd probably trust T-Mobile and Sprint more than either ATT or Sprint based on corporate history, too. Still totally untrustworthy, but there probably is a difference.

It's getting to the point where a good alternative to how cellphones work might be worthwhile, to keep location data more confidential. A broadcast "ping", and then some form of tunneled return connection, rather than routine registration with location.

Doing it all in a way which doesn't touch PSTN and thus doesn't call under a sane interpretation of CALEA, plus a provider willing to challenge the constitutionality of CALEA and at minimum require full warrants for all cooperation, probably would be a good deal better, too.

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

#60

Post by smsm42 »

TrainedMonkey wrote: post #7

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 wouldn't be so happy about that either. What you call "drug dealers" is people who sell merchandise which the government disapproves. I can remember a lot of things that government disapproved in the past that you wouldn't probably agree with - from beer to black men walking free. So I see no particular reason for happiness here, especially knowing that 50% of drug arrests are marijuana arrests, and that many of those caught are probably some poor losers who sold somebody a couple of packets of marijuana. And who knows what government would ban in 26 years? Sugary sodas? Fatty hamburgers? Purses with wrong embroidery (http://is.gd/m9lqaC)?
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