In Reference to Domestic Surveillance from an INSIDERS PERSPECTIVE feel free to disagree.

[Drew Richards]

I lived through the covert domestic surveillance of the 60's and 70's...I didn't like it then and I don't like what I am hearing now...

You see, I have been in the Telco (35) and Internet (23) business for almost 35 years now...

For Telcos we have always been required by federal statute and international policy to maintain all data records for 10 years for subpoena purposes...I have no problem with that...

In the Internet services business we followed the telco policies since we truly grew out of Telephone Companies Services...but the policy was an un-written rule of 5 years to retain all data normally we kept 10 just in case...for subpoena purposes...I had no problem with that...

But you see, things changed, they changed dramatically and absolutely disgustingly...What once required justification and a valid subpoena from a federal agency targeting what they declared were INTERSTATE Felonies or Enemies of this County...it turned into the same damn thing that happened in the 60's... Nefarious government agencies, people and PRIVATE companies had access to this data to use in any way they saw fit...to include attacking their enemies, even if they were the AMERICAN CITIZENRY that just happen to disagree with their Government or not like your Company!

Back in around 1986 that changed...we started receiving detailed explicit subpoenas for everything from IP, number of connections, calls established, duration, all email, all ftp, all ssh...ect...what used to be under the EXCLUSIVE jurisdiction of the FBI and Federal subpoena via FISA, where there were actual federal judges on the FISA Panel...

(not anymore now FISA is a bunch of low functionary bureaucrats and private businesses deciding validity)

'''AND there was an explicit target and justification for requesting all of the detailed historical records...it turned into a god damn fishing expedition against hundreds of thousands of customers. What was most disgusting, is that now we were getting subpoenas from ALL SORTS of Agencies all the way down to local town cops...we cannot refuse a lawfully signed order by a judge but we sure as hell tried to object a few times until we were told..."would you prefer to just give us a link to your active servers and databases...we were able to refuse that until a new order came down in 1996 that "requested" no actually it demanded under penalty of Federal Investigation...that we grant access to our servers and databases to the FBI whenever they requested it.

THIS IS THE REALITY OF COVERT SURVEILLENCE...people...it has been going on a long time...What has NOT been going on is the fact that our Government prostituted out all of this Gathering, Collecting, Archiving and Analyzing to GOD DAMN Private Contractors!!!...ALL of this used to be under the purview of the NSA and the FBI...thank you fucking Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, George Bush and Dick head Cheney. and now sadly...President Barack Obama...

Because of this ROME/MERCENARY philosophy we once again, like Rome, have no real control anymore of our Government, our Institutions, our Monetary Policy and our Military...it has ALL been farmed out to Private Contractors who now have more god damn control than the ENTIRE Government! And they could give a damn about the Citizens of the United States, because after all....their bottom line is WEALTH, POWER AND CONTROL...NOT TO BUILD A PERFECT UNION...

You can fucking cry all you want that it is not that bad, I am telling you it is way beyond bad...it is the end of Our Country of WE THE PEOPLE...we are NOT IN CONTROL of our destiny's through the power of the VOTE anymore...WE ARE NOT IN CONTROL through our ELECTED REPRESENTATIVES either! THE PRIVATE CORPORATIONS ARE IN CONTROL AND THEY NEVER RELINQUISH POWER WITHOUT Dismantling and BLOODSHED!

PLEASE I BEG YOU...THINK again of what transpired during the 60's and 70's, and what we had to go through to stop the Government, the Military Industrial Complex and the Private Corporations running the show... War, Rationing, Racial, Sexual and Monetary Inequality...THINK! ....Apply it to what is happening today...THINK!

How much faster we could have ended wars, gained civil rights and sexual equality if we did NOT have to do it through civil disobedience to our government and its PRIVATE tentacles...PUT These things into your mind and THINK AGAIN on what I have told you happened before and is happening again...and tell me HOW, HOW do we change it through normal democratic processes...) It takes my breath away to see us come full circle again in the short span of 50 years...

Prizm? LOL thats just the latest incarnation of the "Collection Process"...that doesn't even list the other 3 parts to the equation...nor does it tell you that PRIVATE CONTRACTORS actually OWN The collected data and can manipulate and do what they please with it...what can the Government do? They already relinquished control of the projects to outsiders...

By the way just as a side note...There was a program I believe it is declassified now called...DEEP BLUE...back in the 50's, 60s-70's run out of the basement of Langley, VA it did the exact same thing, granted these were monster sized computers with no real computing power and we used 1 1/2 inch magnetic tapes for data storage and it only covered all data in and out of Washington, DC...I would still trust that more than anything now, because that at least was truly managed and controlled by the FBI and NSA.

I pray we can wrest control of our Government back from the Corporations without bloodshed and civil disobedience...but I highly doubt it, nor will I live long enough to see us reach a new age of a Government Of the People, By the People and For the People of the United States of America...I'm just too damn old and tired.

Agree, disagree I really don't give a damn, I have lived on the inside and the outside, I know what I am seeing and it is disgusting and most of all...it is UN-American and un-Democratic...these are the signs of PLUTOCRATIC Control...smell the fresh air and drink the clean water while you still don't have to pay for it...the next great resources war is coming an it won't be pretty, it will affect us all...

[nadinbrzezinski]

1. Thank you, we know what you wrote here as a primary source

and people should be troubled at the very least.

[malokvale77]

2. Yup

I especially agree with this part of your OP...

"I pray we can wrest control of our Government back from the Corporations without bloodshed and civil disobedience...but I highly doubt it, nor will I live long enough to see us reach a new age of a Government Of the People, By the People and For the People of the United States of America...I'm just too damn old and tired."

[Vinnie From Indy]

3. You mention one of the most troubling aspects of this issue

the fact that we have massive private corporations merging with the security state and that these mercenaries HAVE ALREADY started to sell these awesome powers for use by other private companies to attack and attempt to destroy Americans who are doing nothing more than exercising their 1st Amendment rights.

In addition, it appears that these mercs are also attempting to sell the fruits of these powers to despotic, foreign governments in the Middle East. How many dissidents and activists will end up tortured and murdered because of it?

These are two of the pressing issues to be discussed in my mind.

[Drew Richards]

4. I totally agree...that right there, lack of access control to the data is what is most troubling.

[Downwinder]

5. If you let me access your data, I will give you access to mine.

Privacy is gone on a global scale. What I have seen of the PowerPoint, it looks like a training or sales presentation.

[nashville_brook]

6. k and r

[MotherPetrie]

7. K&R

[WillyT]

8. HUGE K & R !!! - Thank You !!!

[G_j]

9. I sure hope people read this and

seriously consider the import of what you are saying!

[magellan]

10. Thank you very much for writing this

This afternoon I've been focusing on the law, but the corporate angle is also very important and mustn't be forgotten.

k&r

[L0oniX]

11. K & R

[humbled_opinion]

12. Yes outstanding info...

I just read an article today where the NSA admits that they have listened to phone calls, emails and text messages of unsuspecting U.S. citizens without appropriate warrants. Disgusting is an excellent word for it, disturbing too that this happening under a Democratic President, many refuse to want to hold him accountble for this breach of trust, and going against his own rhetoric. If we don't hole him accountable the rightwingers never will because they endorse this crap, and always have, the true set up now is that the next President regardless of party or principle, will enjoy these expanded powers over the citizenry courtesy of many who call themselves liberals...

Thanks for the post.

[timdog44]

13. I have had to walk a few things

about this whole situation. I have been spanked for some of my positions. I been instructed by some very patient teachers. But, I have been saying all along that this subcontracting of surveillance to the bottom feeders of the world, come some call mercenaries, is just beyond the pall. They are bought and paid for and they can be bought and paid for by anyone. I said in one post that for me, a biggy is patriotism. These scum bag mercenaries have not a patriotic cell in their bodies. I don't care if it is surveillance or paid for "armies" in Iraq or Afghanistan or where ever they are located. They have no scruples, morals, or a moral compass of any kind unless it points to $$$$$. I agree thoroughly with what you say. I just do not know what to do. Well I do, we need to elect some reps who don't sit on their collective asses and attend meetings instead of attending to their donors. Corporatism is the ruination of our country.

[jeff47]

14. Your story would be better if you didn't go off the rails by the 3rd paragraph.

For Telcos we have always been required by federal statute and international policy to maintain all data records for 10 years for subpoena purposes

Nope.

http://www.nbcnews.com/technology/how-long-do-wireless-carriers-keep-your-data-120367
Verizon: 1 year.
AT&T 5-7 years.
Sprint: 18-24 months.
TMobile: 5 years.

Golly...that looks a lot shorter than 10 years required by federal statue. Wait...

Federal Statute? Nope.

In the United States, Title 18 of the United States Code, Section 2703(f) states that: “A provider of wire or electronic communications services or a remote computing service, upon the request of a government entity, shall take all necessary steps to preserve records and other records in its possession pending the issuance of a court order or other process.”
(...)
The requirement for data preservation does not, however, require a service provider to collect data prospectively, nor does it permit the preservation of everything in a service provider’s systems – only the information that related to a specific investigation.

Meaning there is no blanket data retention requirement. Individual orders are required. And do those store the data for 10 years? Nope.

The law requires preservation for 90 days, renewable for another 90 day period.

The reason for the NSA's metadata program is that telecoms are not required to retain the data. So the NSA is.

[Drew Richards]

17. Well theres no point as usual listening to you. I live the life and still do

As a supervisror of an asterisk soft switch. As to your petty nit picking. I have worked for nearly every major telco over my work history so all i can say is you do not know a fuckin thing about telcos and internet. Perhaps i cant find the statute off hand i can say you little %()#@ that if you knew one damn person in the business that actually runs something like a nortel or lucent switch or a soft switch that they have...ALWAYS had to retain 10 years of records. In short if thats all you got, go crawl back under your rock.

[jeff47]

20. You can't blame federal law when that law doesn't exist.

If your particular telco or ISP stores the information, that's up to your telco. The law has no such requirement.

if you knew one damn person in the business that actually runs something like a nortel or lucent switch or a soft switch that they have...ALWAYS had to retain 10 years of records

Which is why the phone companies are storing information for 1-5 years.

Oh wait....that wouldn't make a bit of sense. How odd.

[Drew Richards]

21. Basically. Youre saying its right here written and everybody knows what is written is always

The absolute truth.


So you personaly know more than someone who has worked for telcos for 35 years...

Pathetic.

[Progressive dog]

32. And we'd believe an anonymous source on the internet over

the written laws that exist. Okay.

[jeff47]

37. Our laws are written down.

Thus "everyone does it" is not a sufficient argument when you're claiming it's a law.

So you personaly know more than someone who has worked for telcos for 35 years...

You are a random person on the Internet.

Would you just believe me if I claimed I was an astronaut? How 'bout if I claimed I was a super-spy for the CIA?

I can make any claim I feel like. To make that claim believable, I'd have to back that up with some sort of evidence.

You've made a claim, and want us to just believe you. You need to back your claim up for it to be believable.

[snooper2]

24. We don't keep them for 10 years, I work at a "large" CLEC

This includes all our 5ESS and DMS records along with our softswitches...last I remember we kept them for 7 but I'll have to ask the mediation folks again (98.43% sure)


You ever have issues using diversion inhibitor with blind transfers? Should have got an Acme, of course those cost money

[Drew Richards]

27. No but i have put the wrong patch on the ss7 and screwed up dips till i backed it off

I have worked for most major ilecs in the country and for 18 independent clecs in the south from nc to fla to texas and pacbell in wyoming.

I also built bgp peering points with 118 peers at mae east adds chicaco and mae west.

[snooper2]

28. That's nothing, I was at WorldCom when our Cascade frame relay network went tits up

Even found this old CNN article about it LOL (which has most of it wrong)

http://www.cnn.com/TECH/computing/9908/23/network.nono.idg/

Problem was every time we brought a new switch back online all the PVC tried to reroute for optimal paths causing the two more swtiches to crash. Over, and over, and over, We ended up taking about 60 HSSI links down on various clusters of switches around the country (mostly Dallas and Chicago) and gracefully bring everything back to life over a 20 hour period. slept in the NOC three days in a row.

Still a good switch though, Cascade found the bug due to a simple PRAM sync of a processor card.




But back to the point, no, the NSA can't at will capture the audio of any phone call at any time

[Drew Richards]

30. Lol omg i actually remember that. after that it was the death knell of cds we moved everything

To atm for fiber and hdlc for copper.

[Drew Richards]

31. True true. They would have to request a trap and then its up to them not us to monitor and record.

But then you already knew that

I think the key words are "at will"...it is possible, since i can open a channel to anyones active sip channel on my switch and listen in "monitor" the call...the problem is i would only know the origination and destination of the call...not who made the call.

You see what is now happening especially if you are an ilec or clec is that they have requested and been given access to certain switches and are doing blanket capturing of all build and teardown of calls and that includes a blanket capture of transmissions via g711 or g729. They even pull t38 from us... So they dont have listen in anymore... Now they just have to have a target phone number or even ip... and using something as simple a wireshark they can match, colate and then play back calls.


I do it all the time now to diagnose jitter, clipping and lost rtp packets.

What we of course do not do is capture and maintain the calls themselves that is up to them to do if they demand it.

We just maintain the cdr records.

[backscatter712]

35. *PLONK*

[RainDog]

15. k&r n/t

[Monkie]

16. ok, f-it, ive been spied on twice by government, first time when i was 9 years old

there you go, i might as well just give one of the reasons this makes me so angry.
the first time i was spied on by government i was 9 years old.
my crime? or my fathers crime?
his job gave him access to information about military technology, and future military technology.
and he was a bit of a hippie, he liked to sing and dance, he liked art, he liked poetry.
so our phone would make funny noises all the time.

[Catherina]

18. Thank you for writing this. I hope it gives people pause. Rec'd n/t

[cali]

19. now where are all the du deflectors, apologists and syncophants?

[Drew Richards]

22. They are already here look at 14 n/t

[woo me with science]

23. K&R

Thank you.

[felix_numinous]

25. Powerful well written post

-I think we need to hear more from honest witnesses from within the telecom and surveillance organizations.

Too many people around here who claim expertise write with a blind authoritarian allegiance that is very alienating and disruptive to discussions about this national (and international) challenge.

It's hard to detect just what is so threatening and insulting to any American, especially those on the 'left', to demand oversight of the shadow government. We know that some classification is necessary.

But this level of entrenched and enmeshed corruption has ruined the public trust--so it is UP TO THEM to prove to US that THEY are not corrupt, not the other way around.

[Drew Richards]

29. Well not sure most agree with me that i dont mind the collection...its the private companies

involved in the collection,storing, accessing and analyzing that just totally enrages me...it should be a pure government apparatus with massive control on every query request.

[cantbeserious]

26. Thank You - Excellent OP - Clearly Exposes How Pervasive And Insidious The Surveillance State Has Become

eom

[Progressive dog]

33. Since I have your permission to disagree, I disagree

I put as much credence to your claims as I would to any anonymous poster on the internet.

[backscatter712]

34. K&R! Am I off the mark when I call the NSA's systems "Google for Tyrants"? n/t

[JEB]

36. Seems accurate to me.

Instant leverage or smear material.