FBI, Telecoms Teamed to Breach Wiretap Laws

[kpete]

Source: Wired

FBI, Telecoms Teamed to Breach Wiretap Laws

The FBI and telecom companies collaborated to routinely violate federal wiretapping laws for four years, as agents got access to reporters’ and citizens’ phone records using fake emergency declarations or simply asking for them.

The Justice Department Inspector General’s internal audit, released Wednesday, harshly criticized how the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Communications Analysis Unit — a counterterrorism section founded after 9/11 — relied on so-called “exigent” letters to get carriers to turn over phone records immediately. The letters were a hangover from the investigation into the 9/11 attacks in New York and promised telecoms, falsely, that subpoenas would follow shortly.

“The FBI’s use of exigent letters and other informal requests for telephone toll billing records circumvented, and in many cases violated, the requirements of the Electronic Communications Protection Act statute,” according to the report, which was referencing a leading federal wiretap law.

“We found that a distinct lack of oversight and scrutiny by CAU managers, counterterrorism officials and FBI Office of General Counsel attorneys enabled the improper practice of obtaining ECPA-protected telephone records with the promise of future legal process to expand and proceed virtually unchecked for over 4 years,” the report found.




Read more: http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/01/fbi-att-verizon-violated-wiretapping-laws/

[earthboundmisfit]

1. And what will happen to them? Nothing, because:

(from further down in article)
"The Obama administration retroactively legalized the entire fiasco through a secret ruling from the Office of Legal Counsel nearly two weeks ago.

That’s the same office from which John Yoo blessed President George W. Bush’s torture techniques and warrantless wiretapping of Americans’ communications that crossed the border.

In the report’s final and heavily censored section, it discloses that the Office of Legal Counsel issued an opinion that it was legal for the FBI to obtain Americans’ phone records in the same manner that was harshly criticized by the inspector general’s report.

The inspector general also warned that the Office of Legal Counsel’s ruling needs to be considered by Congress."


:banghead:

[MisterP]

6. I predict that the usual flatterers and apologists will NOT show up:

because, if you read their posts, negative stories like this are not even on their radar; instead of reading and then answering negative stories about Fearless Leader, they are completely blind to such stories and criticize critics for "not seeing the good things" or "being uspet at not getting what you wanted and being unhappy with the speed of Change." this also neatly deflects criticism as a personal grudge or pathology.

[Iowa]

2. And, as usual, Obama leaps to the defense of these criminals...

"But in a surprise buried at the end of the 289-page report, the inspector general also reveals that the Obama administration issued a secret rule almost two weeks ago saying it was legal for the FBI to have skirted federal privacy protections."

Obama is the gift that just keeps on giving. Three more long years to go in our 12 year national nightmare.

[24601]

3. "Meet the new boss, same as the old boss..." So what's up with

President Obama Administration's double-secret probation ruling a few weeks ago, quoting from the article:

"But in a surprise buried at the end of the 289-page report, the inspector general also reveals that the Obama administration issued a secret rule almost two weeks ago saying it was legal for the FBI to have skirted federal privacy protections."

So was it legal, illegal or legal but just plain shitty?

And use "skirted" in the same sentence as the FBI and it brings up sick images of J. Edgar Hoover with hairy legs!

[gratuitous]

4. Gosh, nobody could have seen this coming!

Unfettered power to snoop on citizens vested in the FBI? And they abused that power? Who would ever have imagined such a thing?! But it's real nice that the Executive now apparently has arrogated to itself the ability to overturn the law. I wonder if that would survive judicial scrutiny? But who would challenge that?

[Solly Mack]

5. K/R

Good thing no one is above the law...

snort

[New Dawn]

7. Kick for truth.

[PSPS]

8. Indeed, U-bama is bush's third term.

[ArcticFox]

9. Jail them all

Everybody involved should be thrown in jail for a long time.

Of course, that will never happen. Instead, everyone involved will be given a position on the ground floor of the new American fascist state.

[OnyxCollie]

10. K&R. nt