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Possible All-Access Channel for Illegal FBI Surveillance |
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Several Democratic members of the House are concerned that the government may have “unfettered” access to a major telecom carrier’s wireless network through little-known electronic circuits that intercept and transmit data to the FBI.
Background from the WashPo this morning:
Since a 1994 law required telecoms to build electronic interception capabilities into their systems, the FBI has created a network of links between the nation’s largest telephone and Internet firms and about 40 FBI offices and Quantico, according to interviews and documents describing the agency’s Digital Collection System….
Different versions of the system are used for criminal wiretaps and for foreign intelligence investigations inside the United States. But each allows authorized FBI agents and analysts, with point-and-click ease, to receive e-mails, instant messages, cellphone calls and other communications that tell them not only what a suspect is saying, but where he is and where he has been, depending on the wording of a court order or a government directive…
Wiretaps to obtain the content of a phone call or an e-mail must be authorized by a court upon a showing of probable cause. But “transactional data” about a communication — from whom, to whom, how long it lasted — can be obtained by simply showing that it is relevant to an official probe, including through an administrative subpoena known as a national security letter (NSL)…
So while the debate over retroactive immunity continues, we should note that telecom carriers are supposed to wait for proper government authorization before transmitting data to the FBI over these circuits.
But a few Democrats on the House Energy and Commerce Committee (led by Chairman John D. Dingell of Michigan) are concerned that one circuit — linked directly to FBI monitoring offices in (the spookily-named town of) Quantico, VA — may be being used without such authorization. They are responding to an affidavit circulated among members of Congress, in which a consultant once hired to upgrade network security for one of the nation’s major telecom carriers (thought to be Verizon) states that the company he worked for kept a so-called “Quantico Circuit” that allowed FBI agents to access key data themselves — in other words, without showing anyone at the carrier a court order or NSL.
Both Verizon and the FBI deny this, maintaining that all circuits to the FBI are “one-way, from the carrier” and “pursuant to court orders.”
Of course, this isn’t the first time a whistleblower has described such an unmitigated channel of government electronic surveillance — two years ago a former AT&T employee turned over documents to media sources detailing a secret broad-sweeping agreement between AT&T and the government for illegal information sharing.
As we’ve previously noted, at least a few members of the Democratic leadership seem to mercifully grasp the implications of this sort of illegal corporate-government collusion for their constituents, and are holding out against the White House’s attempts to grant telecoms retroactive immunity for their role. I commend Dingell & co for demanding more information about the nature and extent of the possible Quantico circuit — though we must all keep watch that they and their thus-far treacherous colleagues in the Senate continue to press for answers.
