We all act sort of jaded about this kind of thing but, admit it, when you find out it's happening, it's always more than a little shocking:
A little-known surveillance program tracks more than a trillion domestic phone records within the United States each year, according to a letter WIRED obtained that was sent by US senator Ron Wyden to the Department of Justice (DOJ) on Sunday, challenging the program's legality.
The surveillance program was known as "Data Analytical Services" ...
... and it has for over a decade allowed the government to analyze phone data of millions of people, regardless of criminal status, including victims, without any additional warrant or anything like that.
How have we not known about this?
The program doesn't just target those who have been in contact with criminals under investigation, but anyone those people may have been in contact with as well. So it basically treats you as a suspect even if you're merely adjacent to someone who actually committed a crime.
It's run with the help of AT&T, and records show that the White House has given $6 million in funding to this program which uses AT&T towers to track people who use their towers.
According to Sen. Wyden:
The scale of the data available to and routinely searched for the benefit of law enforcement under the Hemisphere Project is stunning in its scope.
The program reportedly "takes advantage of numerous 'loopholes' in federal privacy law," including its being run directly out of the White House, which allegedly "means it is exempt from rules requiring assessments of its privacy impacts."
So your private calls can apparently be subject to limitless surveillance, without oversight, indefinitely.
I'd like more answers, please. Right now.
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