How long have you assumed your phone line's were insecure?

[NNN0LHI]

For me it has been since the 1970s.

[orpupilofnature57]

1. Nov.8th 2000

[lame54]

6. I've heard that recording

[randome]

2. According to the report on records handed over by Verizon, no conversations are being recorded.

Only phone numbers are furnished.

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[hobbit709]

7. The two best ways to tell a lie.

1. Tell the truth but in a way no one believes it
2. Tell the truth, but not all of it.

[randome]

12. So Greenwald is telling the lie?

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[hobbit709]

32. More like Verizon.

[Aerows]

22. I doubt it stops there

and I seriously doubt it stops with Verizon. I'd bet a bag full of money to a bag full of doughnuts that AT&T and others are also doing this.

They are just reporting Verizon because that's one that they found out. If somebody under investigation even calls you with a wrong number, that's enough to get your records seized, and you haven't even done anything wrong except have a phone.

How in the hell is that legal? It's a bunch of guilt by association (and under even the most tenuous circumstances) that isn't there to catch "terrorists". It's there to exploit the populous. If you don't think people aren't getting blackmailed because of things heard on their phone lines, you are far more naive than I am.

[randome]

23. They are not recording conversations. Only phone number data is being furnished.

Maybe some other nefarious governmental agency is recording conversations but I doubt it except for specific circumstances.

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[Aerows]

25. Yeah, I've heard that before

If a pizza delivery guy gets a call from someone under surveillance, that pizza delivery guy who is minding his own business, doing his job, can get his phone records pulled. If there is the slightest suspicion, I have absolutely no doubt it goes further than that.

The potential for abuse is humongous, and probably is already being abused. Suspect someone is having an affair? Get a dirty phone to call them, use that as the impetus to pull their phone records and find out who they are talking to. Do you think that there is NO ONE dirty enough to do that? I'd venture to guess there are plenty of people already abusing it.

And that's just one example - with only phone records. But we already know that many conversations are recorded, and the potential for exploitation and abuse is massive.

[RKP5637]

37. Yep! We see abuse all the time ... there is absolutely no way it

suddenly stops with phones. I am curious what's behind all of this ... is there actually that much of a legitimate threat? And why that specific time line. I agree with your other post ... I bet this goes on all of the time. And I bet it's far more easy to capture full conversations than we are led to believe. And some will definitely abuse the system for whatever reason. And we all really don't have enough information to know WTF is really going on.

[Aerows]

38. Having everyone's privacy taken away

to me is a much bigger legitimate threat than any of the supposed threats it's "designed" to "protect" us against.

[RKP5637]

41. I don't like it ... it makes me feel I am no longer part of the US, like

I am some kind of whatever guilty by default and TPTB must catch me in some act. It is, to say the least, a creepy feeling. They also want to take away all anonymity on the internet.

[Zorra]

42. +1. "the potential for exploitation and abuse is massive" nt

[leveymg]

31. What does 2+2=? Put this together with the NSA signal diverter found at the AT&T hub in SF

a few years ago, as detailed in the EFF lawsuit, Hepting v. AT&T. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hepting_v._AT%26T

Then there's the enormous NSA server farm in Utah due to open in September that will have the capacity to store all phone, email, and other electronic data collected in the US. See, http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/03/ff_nsadatacenter/

In answer to the original OP's question, please see, http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/10/11/396856/-Court-Papers-NSA-Wiretapping-The-Program-Started-Before-9-11

[Historic NY]

44. Its a "Pen Register"...

its an old investigative tool and it doesn't record conversations. Of course its been used for decades and its definition was expanded under the Patriot Act. You have an assigned phone number from the phone company and you use it to call other phone numbers. It now expanded to apply to IP's and other internet connection numbers.....

If anyone thinks the numbers you got were private then the bridge in Brooklyn is for sale. Wireless communication has just made it easier.

[Fumesucker]

3. Grew up on a party line, *everybody* listened in

That would have been late fifties to early sixties.

[Cirque du So-What]

8. I had one of those too

Living in a small town, it was just assumed that every busybody on the party line - on either end - was listening in.

[FSogol]

21. Same here. My parents had a semi-private line until they broke up the Ma Bell. n/t

[catbyte]

27. I remember those! Our busybody neighbor & party line gossip Mary Nielsen, RIP, used to listen in all

the time. My mom & dad would tell outrageous lies just because they knew she was listening in. Ah, the good old days!

[Cirque du So-What]

4. Yep. The '70s.

Even though a warrant was required for a wiretap back then, I always assumed that, if law enforcement or some anti-espionage federal agency wanted to listen to phone conversations, they wouldn't let a little technicality like a warrant get in their way.

[99Forever]

5. Yep, same here.

Always assumed they were listening. It's what they do.

[notadmblnd]

9. forever

Remember party lines? I grew up assuming someone was listening in on conversations.

[Atman]

10. 70's.

As long as I've been old enough to use the phone. It was always assume "they" were listening. But in this era, people simply don't expect any privacy at all. Their whole lives are documented on FB anyway.

[BlueToTheBone]

11. In the late 60s

I always attribute weird noises and clicks on the line to being listened in on...like I have such fascinating conversations.

[Phentex]

13. Forever

but never felt like I was worth eavesdropping.

[aristocles]

14. Since the mid-1960's

[aristocles]

15. One impetus for the development of drum disks for the old mainframes

Was to store all the data the gummit was collecting on citizens. This started in the late 1950's.

[Buzz Clik]

16. Since I understand the concept. Probably mid 60s.

[madrchsod]

17. the 60`s

never talk on a phone about stuff that could go wrong.

[graham4anything]

18. The day I heard Bobby/Jack Kennedy authorized the wiretapping of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

as for cell phones

well, sitting in a restaurant, I can hear the entire conversation of every single other person in the place,
and some have their phone volume so loud, I can hear the other person too.

Why would anyone assume otherwise?

Not to mention, almost everyone (not me) posts every single bit of personal info on facebook and zucky admits to harvesting
and giving the info out, yet liberals all over use it.

I lived in apartment buildings in NYC. Where neighbors put their ear to the walls and listen
and where at anytime during the day, the bed creaks and anyone can hear it.

[bemildred]

19. Yep, Nixon. nt

[kentauros]

20. Since the 1980s.

That's when I went from being a mere listener of a Pacifica station to being a volunteer.

[woodsprite]

24. Agree, I'm 50 and I was going to say 'ever since I was aware of govt'. n/t

[Javaman]

26. As long as there have been "telephones" of one kind or another.

once upon a time, we had to rent the phones from the phone company. As long as that phone wasn't mine, I always thought they could do whatever they wanted.

Then our mode of communication moved eventually to cell phones, which, during whatever contract period, we were "paying off the phone". And since the phone technically wasn't mine, I again, always thought they were tapping the lines.

The whole idea that we all somehow believed that whatever government entity or privately owned company were all above the boards, to me was and is such a naive idea.

It's been long known that the government had been working with the phone companies to tap lines for years. Only back then they told us that they would get a "warrant" to give it the guise of responsibility.

And we all believed them.

Read anything about J. Edgar Hoover and you will see that is farthest from the truth.

Sometimes we would all like to believe that our government and whatever companies involved would act responsible, but as I get older I have come to realize that's just a lie we all have been telling ourselves to allow us to sleep at night.

The real truth, about anything our government does in conjunction with various corporations, if it were ever told us, we would, as a nation, either rise up and dismantle our current form of government or, more than likely, continue to act as if nothing happened just so we can have a break from our daily psychological beatings from the mass propaganda we ingest daily.

the victory gin still flows plentiful and we continue to believe it's still 100% real, but in reality, it's been watered down for very a long time.

[whistler162]

28. Since the first switchboard operator

Sat down at her switchboard.

[Javaman]

45. My mom worked for the NY Telephone Company back in the 1940's...

she used to listen to all the celebrity phone calls...as did the other operators as well.

[kentuck]

29. Since people had "party lines"..

and any neighbor could pick up the phone and listen to your conversation. There was never any privacy.

[freeplessinseattle]

30. Ever since I started smoking the MJ lol

My friends and I came up with silly code words for amounts, etc. One guy would just say in a mock stage whisper"The eagle has landed. The eggs are in the nest".

Now that it's legal here we've been feeling more lacksadasial, and laughing at our previous subterfuge. Yet, while I doubt the Feds would bother with a small personal use amount, I could see the MMJ shops being targets. Just because.

[bunnies]

33. since the first time I heard someone elses conversation...

on a cordless phone in the 80's when I was a teenager.

[Savannahmann]

34. Every now and then for laughs

I send the text of the fourth amendment to another of my email addresses encrypted with the Enigma Machine. Childish I know, but it makes me laugh knowing that someone is illegally snatching my email because it is encrypted, and then decrypting it to find the Constitution says they shouldn't be doing that.

As for phone calls? I know we are being monitored and tracked in a way that George Orwell said would happen. What is surprising is how happy everyone is about being monitored and tracked. George had no idea how far the phrase "What do you have to hide?" would get everyone in line.

[cynatnite]

35. I'm surprised that people are surprised by this...

I've felt that if the government wanted to know what you're talking about, they can and there's nothing anyone can do about it. Look at the Bush administrations warrantless wiretapping. That should've told everyone nothing you say is private.

[Downwinder]

36. Since the 1960s when Uncle Sam needed me.

Actually I knew the party lines in the 1940s were insecure.

Then in the 1950s I found that I could break into conversations by fiddling with the dial and confuse the switches.

[rurallib]

39. late '80s when I was on city council

we have a local independent phone company so it would not be hard to tap.

[gvstn]

40. My own conspiracy theory

Is that ever since your phone conversations started being bounced off satellites rather than exclusively traveling through wires on the ground they have been fair game. The government may have needed a wiretap when phone signals stayed on the ground but now anything in the air is fair game--and all phone signals probably spend some time in the air.

t

[Paladin]

43. For decades.

If the technology is out there, it's pretty naïve to believe that the government isn't using it in some form or fashion....

[morningfog]

46. That is irrelevant to the question of whether what has been done is right and proper.