FBI Cast A Wide Net For Phone Records

(CBS/AP)  FBI demands to telecommunications companies went beyond requesting phone records of customers under suspicion to include analyses of their broader patterns of communication with others as well, newly obtained documents show.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation used national security letters to request information on the wider "community of interest" linked to individuals under suspicion, according to the documents.

The data-mining technique can lay bare phone and e-mail links that tie together otherwise indiscernible networks of individuals. Law enforcement officials value that sort of data as a means of identifying a suspect's potential conspirators. Privacy advocates say it can ensnare people with no tie to illegal or suspicious activity.

The "community of interest" requests were included in more than 2,500 pages of FBI documents the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a watchdog group, obtained through the Freedom of Information Act. The New York Times first reported on the requests in a story posted to its Web site Saturday.

Marcia Hofmann, a lawyer for the group, told the Times, "This whole concept of tracking someone's community of interest is not part of any established F.B.I. authority. It's being defined by the F.B.I. And when it's left up to the F.B.I. to decide what information is relevant to their investigations, they can vacuum up almost anything they want."

The FBI letters use boilerplate language to request companies provide calling records for redacted lists of telephone numbers, citing "exigent circumstances." An Aug. 9, 2005, letter and others from that year also include the following: "Additionally, please provide a community of interest for the telephone numbers in the attached list."

Earlier this year, the Justice Department's inspector general uncovered 700 cases in which FBI agents obtained telephone records through such "exigent letters," which asserted that grand jury subpoenas had been requested for the data when in fact such subpoenas never had been sought. The FBI eliminated use of the letters earlier this year.

The FBI recently stopped asking for "community of interest" data, amid broader questions about the bureau's aggressive use of national security letters, government officials told The Times.

A federal judge struck down a key part of the USA Patriot Act anti-terrorism laws on Thursday, saying the FBI must justify to a court the need for secrecy if the orders to hand over phone and e-mail records will last longer than a reasonable and brief period of time.

[toolmangler-2009]

The majority of the world are liars who need to be lied to.
Posted by zootallures2 at 01:01 PM : Sep 09, 2007


Zooty! how many people use that name? I think you are a group of (students, activists, terrorist, or some government (whos?) agency posting misinformation or running tests on public perception or whatever. It is my perception that you are one of the liars in the world but someday I will find you out and thats no lie.

[secundus2]

Dear Socrates392,

Don''t hope for any American''s arrest and torture because of data mining. Just show in court that data mining has led to false arrest and torture, then you''ll have a case.

BTW, the Consitutional guarantee is only a guarantee against "unreasonable" searches. Whenever Congress approves a surveillance program, the courts are likely to extend some (but not complete) consideration to the reasonableness of the legislation, since the House and Senate comprise our elected representatives and they''ve discussed the need for such programs before approving them.

[lastdance2]

Wal-Mart is also involved ! ! !
Using their own surveillance equipment to track people.through image, video, debit card and credit card purchases.

Then compiling that information, and giving that information to : The FBI

The FBI has yet to explain : Why former CIA operatives are now - Carrying credentials Identifying themselves as FBI investigators.
Why is it that CIA operatives - Need to disguise themselves as FBI investigators ? ? ?

FBI Director : Mueller - will not give a Name for - This echelon of the FBI.
Bush- will not give a Name for - This echelon of the FBI.

Hitler - Had a name for - His own Federal Secret Police.
He called them : The Gestapo and The SS.

Every FBI - Employee should feel Profoundly -
Honored and Privileged - To be a part of this -
Secret Echelon of the FBI.

Every FBI - Employee should feel Particularly proud -
To be Identified with - And in the Direct Image of
The Nazi Gestapo and The Nazi SS

The Federal drug - Smuggling operations
The Federal drug - Manufacturing operations
The Federal drug - Money-laundering operations
Criminal wiretaps and Criminal surveillance techniques
The Child S*e*x Operations
The Intimidation and Blackmail operations

Every Child in America - Should Want to grow up -
To be - In the Direct Image of : The FBI Employee

Lastdance

[afmca]

The Gestapo and the KGB would be proud of their brethren is the supposed home of the free. Thak you President Bush for taking a bunch of half-baked Islamic terrorists and using them to destroy the Constitution and create a police state.

[glossypan]

Will the 26 percenters still favor a massive unaccountable federal police bureaucracy and an Imperial Presidency when Hillary assumes control of the executive branch?

[Krazcarl]

After Hoover do you think that you can trust the FBI?All they do is get convicted criminal have them rat someone out. On the upside there not monitering folks like they did in the 70''s at least that''s what they want us to believe. But seriously when is the last time you heard of the FBI doing anything that they were not turned onto and making list of most wanted.

[socrates392]

Privacy advocates say that innocent people can be ensnared. Do they mean ensnared temporarily as suspects and then cleared because they ARE innocent?

Posted by secundus2 at 12:56 PM : Sep 09, 2007

I hope you get picked up by accident and taken to one of those secret CIA prison''s in Syria and tortured for a weeks. Maybe then you''d change your thinking about this issue. I''m sure they figure out you were innocent eventually after attaching electrodes to your testes!

[zootallures2]

The majority of the world are liars who need to be lied to. Would it make a difference if Bush told you the truth? You would all be to blame and you wouldn''t like that either. Iraqis didn''t seem to have any problem using chemical weapons against Iran but have a fit about the US occupying them. What goes around... You shot down Iran''s passenger jets, and Iraq shot down yours, or you did it yourself because you thought that''s what it was. Keep "being bad"... you''ll see!

[secundus2]

If Americans want government to "connect the dots" and find terrorists before they strike, data-mining techniques will be the price we pay. The German CDU (through Scauebele, the Interior Minister) is proposing computer monitoring in light of the most recent plot there. So,yes, privacy (if you ever thought computers were private) is being diminished.

Privacy advocates say that innocent people can be ensnared. Do they mean ensnared temporarily as suspects and then cleared because they ARE innocent? I''d be more alarmed if these same privacy advocates dealt less in vague categories ("innocent people") and hypotheses ("can be ensnared") and took even one case to court and showed me that Mr. John Doe had actually been harmed. Then the practice would be stopped, but apparently there is no such test case. An unfocused fear of some potential damage is not likely to equal "standing" in Federal Court, so fear-mongering takes the place of legal challenges from these advocates.

[sharncedar]

If the North American Union is for real ... (blah blah) .. all in all I''''m looking forward to it.

Posted by hypnotoad72 at 11:38 AM : Sep 09, 2007


There isn''t going to be a North American union, or you would hear the liars an dwater carriers for Bilderberg out there spinning it right now, you know the outlying waanbes like Joe Biden who are close enough to the inside to hear the plots but can''t keep their mouths shut.

You are going to get what you got now - Mexico gets to keep Mexico, and it gets the US too. You see the difference, my gullible friend? NAU means we all share - what we have now means the corporations play one "nation" against another to brulaize both. They LOVE divide and conquer, they are not going to put us together, for example what if the Teamsters organized the Mexican truckers? That would defeat the whole recent plan to intimidate and destroy the truckers, to keep them in fear and hunger and subjected to the hate of the rich.

The Mexican truckers are used to break the American truckers, the American poor right wing is used to intimidate and frighten the Hispanic servants, the Hispanic servants are used to cut wages and living standards for the American poor, and so on. Divide and conquer, every man''s hand is set against every other, except the oligarchy which is living it up.