{"id":2124,"date":"2013-11-12T17:41:59","date_gmt":"2013-11-12T17:41:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ncjolt.org\/?p=2124"},"modified":"2020-06-04T20:53:58","modified_gmt":"2020-06-04T20:53:58","slug":"att-sells-phone-records-to-the-cia-insisting-its-lawful","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/blogs\/att-sells-phone-records-to-the-cia-insisting-its-lawful\/","title":{"rendered":"AT&T Sells Phone Records to the CIA, Insisting it\u2019s Lawful"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tuesday, November 12, 2013, by Kelly Morris
\nThe Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is to pay AT&T more than $10 million a year for call data. The deal was brokered in order to assist the CIA with foreign counterterrorism investigation, according to a report last week in the New York Times<\/a>, and will give the CIA access to international phone records placed through AT&T\u2019s system, which includes information on Americans.
\nAT&T has a huge archive of phone calls, both foreign and domestic, that go through its network. AT&T\u2019s archive includes records beyond those of just its own customers. Per the agreement, the CIA is to provide AT&T with phone numbers of suspected overseas terrorists, and the company will search its database and supply any records of calls that may help identify foreign associates. Most of the calls will be foreign-to-foreign calls, but some may include information on domestic numbers.
\nThe disclosures by AT&T are said to be voluntary, rather than under subpoenas or court orders compelling them to participate. AT&T stated that such payments from governments are routine for lawful data, but insisted that it \u201cdo[es] not comment<\/a> on questions concerning national security.\u201d
\nThis report comes on the heels of the former intelligence contractor Edward Snowden\u2019s explosive data collection leaks<\/a> regarding the National Security Agency (NSA)\u2019s digital spying. According to the initial report in The Guardian<\/i>, under a court order issued in April, Verizon is required to give the NSA information on all telephone calls in its systems, including the numbers of both parties on the call, the location data, and the time and duration of the calls. This data was supposedly collected in bulk and failed to discriminate between innocent and guilty parties.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat need to act without delay is often best met when the CIA has developed its own capabilities to lawfully acquire necessary foreign intelligence information. . . .\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The CIA\u2019s deal with AT&T will likely duplicate some of the NSA\u2019s data-collection programs, and while neither the CIA nor AT&T would confirm the program, an anonymous intelligence official provided a possible explanation that mirrors the reasoning behind NSA\u2019s data collection efforts. The official told the Times<\/i>, \u201cThat need to act without delay is often best met when the CIA has developed its own capabilities to lawfully acquire necessary foreign intelligence information,\u201d suggesting that the agency\u2019s functionality would be impaired by a requirement that it wait for a third party or legal order in order to obtain this information.
\nBecause the CIA is not allowed to conduct domestic surveillance<\/a> to spy on Americans, per Executive Order 12333<\/a>, the numbers of American callers who place calls overseas will be masked.\u00a0Lawyers reviewing the program concluded that the partial censoring satisfied the restrictions on CIA domestic surveillance activities, citing a statutory exception to privacy laws<\/a> covering \u201cthe acquisition by the United States government of foreign intelligence information from international or foreign communications.\u201d However, the CIA may coordinate with the FBI to use an administrative subpoena to have AT&T remove the initial censoring.
\nThe CIA\u2019s spokesman insists that the agency\u2019s intelligence collection activities are \u201csubject to extensive oversight\u201d from multiple areas of government. Considering that AT&T has a history<\/a> of aiding the government in surveillance, using methods just shy of lawful, its statements of legitimacy (while declining to confirm the deal with the CIA) fail to inspire confidence in telephone-using Americans.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tuesday, November 12, 2013, by Kelly Morris The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is to pay AT&T more than $10 million a year for call data. The deal was brokered in order to assist the CIA with foreign counterterrorism investigation, according to a report last week in the New York Times, and will give the CIA …<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[51],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2124"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2124"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2124\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7544,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2124\/revisions\/7544"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2124"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2124"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2124"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}