Someone may be listening

 

In the United States, phone companies don’t record conversations, but they do keep a running log of every number you call, how often you call it, and the duration of the call. Many Internet service providers engage in data monitoring, watching data packets zip in and out of your house, sniffing each one for signs of kiddie porn or illegal movie downloads.

Phone companies and ISPs are required by law to help law enforcement agencies listen in on your telephone conversations and monitor your Internet traffic. Technically, they’re supposed to ask for a warrant—which are granted surprisingly rarely—but some government agencies are too impatient to wait, and some phone companies are pussies when a badge gets flashed in their face.

Back in 2001, the National Security Agency approached several telecommunications companies including AT&T and Verizon and demanded call records and unfettered access to their systems. In the movies, some tough young executive at one of the world’s largest and most powerful telecommunications corporations would have gotten right up in the NSA’s face and told them to stick their Presidential Executive Order where the sun don’t shine and come back with a warrant. In real life, AT&T invited them in and gave them their own office in a posh San Francisco building so they didn’t have to listen to all that illegally acquired intelligence back in the stuffy old NSA building.

What’s funny about this is that the NSA has a special secret court just for getting warrants to listen in on people’s phone calls. They don’t even have to tell the tight-lipped Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court until after they install a tap. They have three days to get a warrant, but in the case of the largest wiretapping effort in the history of the galaxy, they never bothered. For three years they just went ahead and listened.

No one knows exactly what or how much information the NSA collected—that’s still top secret. It’s been claimed that valuable intelligence was gained. The terrorists didn’t win after all, and we’re told that the NSA’s hunger for information is at least partly to thank for that. But no one’s ever given us any examples.

The reason the NSA didn’t bother to go to the FISC is because most courts, even the double-secret spy court, don’t like to give out warrants. Wiretaps are invasive and labor-intensive to monitor. They violate the privacy not only of criminals and foreign agents but any innocent people they might call. To get a warrant, an agency, even a scary one like the NSA, has to show a compelling reason to take what is considered a drastic step. In the case of monitoring everything every AT&T customer gets up to, “We think the terrorists might have iPhones” is not a compelling reason.

Does the controversy over the NSA’s illegal wiretapping program mean they’ve stopped doing it? Well, as with everything the NSA does, there’s no way of knowing. They are quite sneaky and smarter than most people. The phone companies would certainly be a little gun-shy about helping out a warrantless program again, given all the lawsuits they face in the wake of the last one. But then again, who do you think intimidates them more, the government that regulates their industry or a bunch of disorganized people who think texting while driving is a totally sane idea?