CIA is paying AT&T more than $10 million a year to spy on users call data
The C.I.A. is paying AT&T more than $10 million a year to assist with overseas counterterrorism investigations by exploiting the company’s vast database of phone records, which includes Americans’ international calls, according to government officials.
The cooperation is conducted under a voluntary contract, not under subpoenas or court orders compelling the company to participate, according to the officials. The C.I.A. supplies phone numbers of overseas terrorism suspects, and AT&T searches its database and provides records of calls that may help identify foreign associates, the officials said. The company has a huge archive of data on phone calls, both foreign and domestic, that were handled by its network equipment, not just those of its own customers.
The program adds a new dimension to the debate over government spying and the privacy of communications records, which has been focused on National Security Agency programs in recent months. The disclosure sheds further light on the ties between intelligence officials and communications service providers. And it shows how agencies beyond the N.S.A. use metadata — logs of the date, duration and phone numbers involved in a call, but not the content — to analyze links between people through programs regulated by an inconsistent patchwork of legal standards, procedures and oversight.
Because the C.I.A. is (allegedly) prohibited from spying on the domestic activities of Americans, the agency imposes privacy safeguards (trying not to laugh) on the program, said the officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity because it is classified. Most of the call logs provided by AT&T involve foreign-to-foreign calls, but when the company produces records of international calls with one end in the United States, it does not disclose the identity of the Americans and “masks” several digits of their phone numbers, the officials said. (What a crock of B/S we're to believe the CIA isn't spying on Americans because some anonymous officials said so? What a great piece of reporting by the NY Times!)
Still, the agency can refer such masked numbers to the F.B.I., which can issue an administrative subpoena requiring AT&T to provide the uncensored data. The bureau handles any domestic investigation, but sometimes shares with the C.I.A. the information about the American participant in those calls, the officials said. (So the CIA works with the FBI but not the NSA really? The public isn't that stupid)
Dean Boyd, a spokesman for the C.I.A., declined to confirm the program. But he said the agency’s intelligence collection activities were lawful and “subject to extensive oversight.”
“The C.I.A. protects the nation and upholds privacy rights of Americans by ensuring that its intelligence collection activities are focused on acquiring foreign intelligence and counterintelligence in accordance with U.S. laws,” he said. “The C.I.A. is expressly forbidden from undertaking intelligence collection activities inside the United States ‘for the purpose of acquiring information concerning the domestic activities of U.S. persons,’ and the C.I.A. does not do so.”
Mark Siegel, an AT&T spokesman, said: “We value our customers’ privacy and work hard to protect it by ensuring compliance with the law in all respects. We do not comment on questions concerning national security.” http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/07/us/cia-is-said-to-pay-att-for-call-data.html?pagewanted=all&_r=1&#!
Judge found no jurisdiction to determine whether AT&T and other companies are overcharging for government wiretaps:
A federal judge found no jurisdiction to determine whether AT&T and other telecommunications companies are overcharging for government wiretaps.
Under the Communications Assistance to Law Enforcement Agencies Act, AT&T, Verizon, Qwest, and Sprint Nextel were required to provide the government with electronic surveillance of their customers in exchange for only "reasonable expenses," according to complaint.
Former New York Deputy Attorney General John Prather claimed, however, that the companies "fraudulently overcharged 'the Federal government as well as various State and City governments' for electronic surveillance services" in violation of CALEA.
Prather claimed to have "observed eavesdropping charges increase tenfold after CALEA despite changes in technology that should have made it easier for Telecoms to provide wiretaps, and believed that the Telecoms were overcharging for wiretaps."
In 2004, Prather included his claims in an affidavit attached to the New York Attorney General's official comment to the Federal Communications Commission regarding CALEA, but the federal government allegedly took no action on the situation. As a result, Prather brought suit against the defendants for defrauding the government under the False Claims Act.
The FCA permits a private citizen to sue on behalf of the government if they are the "original source of the information" at issue and had disclosed the information to the government voluntarily prior to filing suit.
In their motion to dismiss, the telecoms argued that Prather was not "original source of the information" because he did not have firsthand knowledge of the alleged fraud and he failed to disclose the information voluntarily.
U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer threw out Prather's suit Monday.
Although Prather was involved in reviewing the "telecoms' fee schedules, occasionally reviewing invoices for wiretap provisioning, setting departmental investigation budgets, and participating in upgrades to his department's statewide eavesdropping network," Breyer found that his allegations were "little more than conjecture."
"Observing increased pricing over a twenty-year period does not equate to knowledge of fraud," the 13-page opinion states.
Judge Breyer also sided with the defendants and ruled Prather's disclosure of possible fraud was not in accordance with the FCA because he was required to report fraud as part of his job duties.
http://www.courthousenews.com/2013/11/07/att.pdf
Spy Funding Fiscal Year 2014:
To authorize appropriations for fiscal year 2014 for intelligence and intelligence-related activities of the United States Government and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the Central Intelligence AgencyRetirement and Disability System, and for other purposes.
http://cryptome.org/2013/11/spy-funds-fy2014.pdf
CIA and the New York Times are still lying to us:
“A Cruel and Shocking Act” by former New York Times investigative reporter Philip Shenon has been soaking up most of the media spotlight in recent days. The book proclaims itself to be a “secret history of the Kennedy assassination.” Based largely on interviews with Warren Commission staff lawyers, the book reveals how the investigation was immediately taken over by the very government agencies — the CIA, FBI and Secret Service — that had the most to hide when it came to the assassination. The other new book, “History Will Prove Us Right,” was written by Howard Willens, a Warren Commission lawyer who refused to speak with Shenon. As suggested by the title — which is taken from a defiant statement by the commission chairman, Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren – Willens’ book is a stubborn defense of the report that he helped produce. But ironically, after grinding one’s way through Willens’ serviceably written but highly revealing story, a reader can only come to the same conclusion that Shenon’s sexier expose’ demands – namely, that the Warren Report was the result of massive political cunning and investigative fraud.
After elaborating on the many ways that the Warren Commission’s work was sabotaged by President Johnson, FBI chief J. Edgar Hoover (who immediately took charge of the investigation), former CIA director Allen Dulles (who conveniently got himself appointed to the commission), Treasury chief C. Douglas Dillon (who oversaw the Secret Service) and other Washington power players, the books seem to arrive at the same baffling conclusion as the deeply compromised Warren Report – i.e., that Oswald did it.
Shenon spotlights these intriguing bits of information:
After returning home from his grim duties, Dr. James Humes, the Navy pathologist in charge of the Kennedy autopsy at the Bethesda Naval Hospital, burned his original autopsy report in the fireplace in his family room. Humes’ superior officer was so concerned that the pathologist himself might be eliminated by the plotters who killed JFK that he ordered Humes to be escorted home that night.
Arlen Specter, the Warren Commission lawyer (and future U.S. senator), first presented his soon-to-be infamous single bullet theory to Chief Justice Warren while the two men were standing at the sixth-floor window of the Texas Book Depository where the mediocre marksman Oswald allegedly committed his historic crime. After listening silently to Specter explain the magical trajectory of Oswald’s bullet, Warren simply turned on his heel and walked away without saying a word. Warren – a distinguished chief justice with a monumental record on civil rights – had resisted serving on the presidential commission. He knew that his duty was not to find the truth, but to suppress dangerous evidence that – as LBJ had warned him – might lead to World War III. Still, it must have dismayed the 73-year-old jurist to see how his historic report (and his reputation) would be tied to a patently absurd ballistics theory.
In the years following the Warren Report’s release, several of the commissioners and staff members distanced themselves from their own report and publicly criticized the manifold deceptions of the agencies on which they had relied, namely the FBI and CIA. Among those who suffered grave doubts was lawyer David Slawson, the man who had been the Warren Commission’s lead investigator into whether JFK was the victim of a conspiracy. In 1975 Slawson aired his criticisms to the New York Times, attacking the CIA for withholding vital information from the commission and calling for a new JFK investigation. Within days of the story breaking in the Times, Slawson received a strange and threatening phone call from James Angleton, the spectral CIA counterintelligence chief.
Angleton – who had not only closely monitored Oswald for several years before Dallas, but later took charge of the agency’s investigation into the alleged assassin – adopted a decidedly sinister tone during his call with Slawson, making it clear to the lawyer that he would be wise to remain “a friend of the CIA.” Slawson and his wife were deeply unnerved by the call. He thought the message was clear: “Keep your mouth shut.”
http://www.salon.com/2013/11/06/the_jfk_assassination_we_still_dont_know_what_happened/