[IP] C.I.A. Is Said to Pay AT&T for Call Data

[Eugen Leitl]

----- Forwarded message from Dave Farber <dave@farber.net> -----

Date: Thu, 7 Nov 2013 05:52:03 -0500
From: Dave Farber <dave@farber.net>
To: ip <ip@listbox.com>
Subject: [IP] C.I.A. Is Said to Pay AT&T for Call Data
Message-ID: <CAKx4trit6huM2PGQ6mXDPiDMLt6MneNG6oH2W46sZ_vb6687KQ@mail.gmail.com>
Reply-To: dave@farber.net

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: *Dewayne Hendricks*
Date: Thursday, November 7, 2013
Subject: [Dewayne-Net] C.I.A. Is Said to Pay AT&T for Call Data
To: Multiple recipients of Dewayne-Net <dewayne-net@warpspeed.com>


November 7, 2013
C.I.A. Is Said to Pay AT&T for Call Data
By CHARLIE SAVAGE
<
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/07/us/cia-is-said-to-pay-att-for-call-data.html
>

WASHINGTON — 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 onNational
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 prohibited from spying on the domestic activities of
Americans, the agency imposes privacy safeguards 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.

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.

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.”

The C.I.A. program appears to duplicate work performed by the N.S.A. But a
senior American intelligence official, while declining to address whether
the AT&T alliance exists, suggested that it would be rational for the
C.I.A. to have its own program to check calling patterns linked to overseas
terrorism suspects.

With on-the-ground operatives abroad seeking to disrupt terrorist
activities in “time-sensitive threat situations,” the official said, the
C.I.A. requires “a certain speed, agility and tactical responsiveness that
differs” from that of other agencies. “That need to act without delay is
often best met when C.I.A. has developed its own capabilities to lawfully
acquire necessary foreign intelligence information,” the official said.

Since June, when documents leaked by the former N.S.A. contractor Edward J.
Snowden began to surface, an international debate has erupted over the
scope of N.S.A. surveillance and the agency’s relationships with American
companies that operate networks or provide Internet communications
services. Many of the companies have protested that they are legally
compelled to cooperate. The AT&T-C.I.A. arrangement illustrates that such
activities are not limited to the N.S.A., and that cooperation sometimes is
voluntary.

While officials in Washington are discussing whether to rein in the N.S.A.
on American soil, governments in Europe are demanding more transparency
from the companies and threatening greater restraints. AT&T is exploring a
purchase of Vodafone, a European cellphone service provider, and European
regulators and politicians have vowed to intensely scrutinize such a deal.

[snip]

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