World News | Forum | UK News | USA News | Global News | Political News | Sci-Tech News | War & Terrorism News | Sports News | Multimedia | Set Homepage
Forum
Latest News
RINF Forum
Translate: Translate to EnglishÜbersetzen Sie zum Deutsch/GermanПереведите к русскому/RussianΜεταφράστε στα ελληνικά/GreekVertaal aan het Nederlands/Dutchترجمة الى العربية/Arabic中文翻译/Chinese Traditional中文翻译/Chinese Simplified한국어에게 번역하십시오/Korean日本語に翻訳しなさい /JapaneseTraduza ao Português/PortugueseTraduca ad Italiano/ItalianTraduisez au Français/FrenchTraduzca al Español/Spanish

Mobile Phone Number Moving Caused Feds to Wiretap Wrong American

Saturday, June 14th, 2008

wiretap.jpgBy Ryan Singel | In poring through the latest round of documents the FBI turned over to the Electronic Frontier Foundation about how the FBI legally plugs into the nation’s telephone system, THREAT LEVEL discovered that the nation’s secret spy court repeatedly questioned the FBI in 2005 and 2006 about whether the Bureau was exceeding its wiretap authority. 

But there were other fine eavesdropping nuggets in those pages, including info on when the FBI learned to wiretap VOIP calls, how number portability messed with FBI taps, and a moment of candor from an FBI technician about how the FBI’s wiretapping software could work with the NSA’s warrantless wiretapping program.

For instance,  the FBI accidentally listened in on one innocent American phone conversations due to a hack a phone company used to let people take port their phone numbers from one cell provider to another. At issue is a workaround used by CDMA providers, where a carrier assigns an alias number to a ported number in order to speed up switching at a user’s usual calling area. The workaround has the unfortunate side effect of occasionally reporting the alias — which could actually be a real person’s number — instead of the real caller to the FBI’s wiretapping software.

In the FBI’s own words, “due to misinformation in the call records, the unrelated subscriber was temporarily included in the investigation” and “this error has recently misled a few FBI investigations.

Secondly, in one message thread (.pdf) about moving offices in Manhattan and wiretapping the traditional wireline phone service in March 2006, one FBI employee who works for the FBI’s Operational Technology Division asks if the NSA still does warrantless wiretaps and suggests how the FBI’s equipment could be configured to deal with the lack of court orders.

Does the [redacted] do intercepts without court orders? I thought we act as a proxy for [redacted -- likely FISA]. That is, we serve the company the order for the [FISA] targets. If so there should not be a problem: the DCS-3000 can direct all FISA traffic to the [ redacted - likely DCS-5000 system]. If not, then we can segreagate the [redacted - likely NSA] traffic from our traffic by giving [redacted - likely the carriers] separate telephone numbers for [redacted - likely the NSA] and Bureau to deliver the CDC data. For example, [redacted - likely the NSA's] targets’ CDC data can be delivered to 212-[redacted phone number] the FBI’s target’s CDC data can be delivered to 212[redacted phone number].

In reply, an FBI agent from New York City wrote back:

It is my understanding that we do act as a proxy with delivering their orders. The [redacted] does that. However, they do a lot more surveillance than we do. I will get someone from the [redacted - likely NSA] down here when you guys come to set up the equipment for the DCS_3000 move.

A third message of interest note that  in June 2005, the FBI’s wiretapping software successfully collected foreign intelligence wiretaps on two separate VOIP subscribers (provider is redacted in the docs). The call records were delivered like any phone switch would, while the phone communication itself was snagged via a CALEA-like feature built-into Cisco CMTS routers, which delivered copies of the conversation to the FBI. That’s pretty significant since the Justice Department argued that this capability had to be mandated for VOIP companies, when it seems the feds were able to pull it off without design mandates.

That interception predated the extension of CALEA mandates to the internet and IP traffic generally. That mandate went into effect May 11, 2007, on what THREAT LEVEL dubbed “Wiretap the Internet Day.”


Have Your Say: Mobile Phone Number Moving Caused Feds to Wiretap Wrong American
Please read our posting guidelines before posting.
Alternatively you can discuss this report here.

RSS TrackBack URL


Related News

This entry was posted on Saturday, June 14th, 2008 at 2:05 pm and is filed under Science & Technology News, Surveillance, Civil Liberties & Human Rights News . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
HEY HUMAN! - YES you! - You do not have to be livestock - SO WAKE UP! Last post by StuartG @ 10:22 PM

Live comments as kid kills himself on live webcam Last post by loki @ 08:55 PM

US Special Forces counterinsurgency manual leaked Last post by loki @ 08:49 PM

Prophetic Signs that we are in the End Times Last post by Unregistered @ 06:55 PM

Marxism is GREEN! Part 1 Last post by Unregistered @ 06:33 PM

9/11 Truther Suspended From Bristol Green Party Last post by Unregistered @ 06:05 PM

Washington exploits Mumbai attack to promote "war on terror" Last post by Thinking Man's Idiot @ 05:39 PM

Icke. Conspiracy & Anti-Semitism Last post by Thinking Man's Idiot @ 05:05 PM

The Big Brother state - by stealth Last post by Unregistered @ 04:53 PM

Irish govt powers up electric vehicle drive Last post by Nostalgia @ 04:14 PM

Go to Forum | Latest Topics

Forum

Network This Report

These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.
  • del.icio.us
  • Technorati
  • Digg
  • StumbleUpon
  • Slashdot
  • Reddit
  • YahooMyWeb
  • Fark
  • Netscape
  • Furl

Email This Page To A Friend
Latest Headlines

RINF Advertising Archive
TOP NEWS DISCUSSIONS
LATEST NEWS DISCUSSIONS
LATEST FORUM TOPICS
Pentagon to deploy 20,000 troops on domestic "anti-terror" mission

Anti-ID Card Protesters Arrested

CCTV Judges Your Behaviour

George W. Bush Belongs in Prison

Kristol Calls On Bush To Pardon Torturers And Wiretappers, Reward Them With Medal Of Freedom

'Historic' UK climate laws ushered in

Taking liberties with information

Venezuelan Elections: The Media Response

Mike commented on:
Lindsey Williams Videos on the Oil/Energy ‘Crisis’
What Lindsey Williams is saying is true! Bottom Line is that the elete, the...
Continue Reading & Reply

Neal commented on:
Pentagon to deploy 20,000 troops on domestic “anti-terror” mission
BRILLIANT NEWS !!! Best news I’ve seen in 20 years. 300...
Continue Reading & Reply

shakeel commented on:
ID cards will give ‘false’ data
Dear Sir, or madam; I would like to ask about fingerprint. If someone asylum case in Eu...
Continue Reading & Reply

Dan commented on:
Anti-ID Card Protesters Arrested
WELL DONE
Continue Reading & Reply

Activism & Protest News | Business News | Civil & Human Rights News | Environmental News | Media News | Globalisation News | Web Development News
ADVERTISEMENTS
SITE MAPS
Web Desing & Hosting UK , USA, Europe

WOWEB - Web Design

FAST GATEWAY - Web Hosting

INFOTX - Web Hosting Guides and Resources


ASHLEY GUEST HOUSE - Morecambe Guest House


Skin up marijuana cannabis weed forum
Linux Web Hosting

Never Be Lied To Again!

Subliminal Secrets Exposed

Holographic Creation: Your Own Reality


Masonic Secrets Revealed


What You Aren't Supposed To Know


Conspiracy DVDs Cheap DVDs
Debt Consolidation
7/7 Activism News Afghanistan Alternative-Energy Art Barack Obama BBC Big-Brother Bilderberg Biometrics Bush CCTV Censorship CIA Climate-Change Cover-Up Cults Culture Database-State David-Hicks David-Ray-Griffin Debt Democrats Demos Drugs Education Entertainment Environmental News EU False-Flag FBI Fraud Free-Speech Freemasons G8 Global-News Global-News Globalization Guantanamo Health-News History ID-Cards Internet Iran Iraq Israel John McCain Law Marches Media News MI5 MI6 Microsoft Military MoD Money Music NASA Neocons New World Order NSA Oil Pakistan Podcast Police-State Political News Propaganda Reviews RFID RINF Rumsfeld Science Science & Technology News Secrecy Security Slavery Space Sports Spy Spying Stephen-Lendman Technology Terrorism Tony-Blair Torture TV UK-News UN USA- USA-News Video Voting war War & Terrorism News Warfare Web Development News White-House Wolfowitz World_News Yahoo
2003 - 2005 Archives | 2005 - 2007 Archives | 2007 - 2008 Archives | Current Archives | Past Version
About | DVD Store | Opinion | Reviews | Special Guests | Webmasters
The views expressed in the RINF news wire and newsletter are the sole responsibility of the author (s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the webmaster.
RINF.COM: Breaking News & Alternative Media is Copyleft - Copy & Distribute Freely. News Forum