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U.S. FEDERAL, LOCAL POLICE BYPASSED SUBPOENAS, GOT PHONE DATA FROM BROKERS

Numerous federal and local law enforcement agencies have bypassed subpoenas and warrants designed to protect civil liberties and gathered Americans' personal telephone records from private-sector data brokers.

These brokers, many of whom advertise aggressively on the Internet, have gotten into customer accounts online, tricked phone companies into revealing information and even acknowledged that their practices violate laws, according to documents gathered by congressional investigators and provided to The Associated Press.

The law enforcement agencies include offices in the Homeland Security Department and Justice Department - including the FBI and U.S. Marshal's Service - and municipal police departments in California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia and Utah. Experts believe hundreds of other departments frequently use such services.

"We are requesting any and all information you have regarding the above cell phone account and the account holder ... including account activity and the account holder's address," Ana Bueno, a police investigator in Redwood City, Calif., wrote in October to PDJ Investigations of Granbury, Texas.

An agent in Denver for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Anna Wells, sent a similar request on March 31 on Homeland Security stationery: "I am looking for all available subscriber information for the following phone number," Wells wrote to a corporate alias used by PDJ.

Congressional investigators estimated the U.S. government spent $30 million last year buying personal data from private brokers. But that number likely understates the breadth of transactions, since brokers said they rarely charge law enforcement agencies any price.

PDJ said it always provided help to police for free. "Agencies from all across the country took advantage of it," said PDJ's lawyer, Larry Slade of Los Angeles.

A lawmaker who has investigated the industry said Monday he was concerned by the practices of data brokers.

"We know law enforcement has used this because it is easily obtained and you can gather a lot of information very quickly," said Rep. Ed Whitfield, R-Ky., head of the House Energy and Commerce investigations subcommittee. The panel expects to conduct hearings this week.

Whitfield said data companies will relentlessly pursue a target's personal information. "They will impersonate and use everything available that they have to convince the person who has the information to share it with them, and it's shocking how successful they are," Whitfield said. "They can basically obtain any information about anybody on any subject."

The congressman said laws on the subject are vague: "There's a good chance there are some laws being broken, but it's not really clear precisely which laws."

James Bearden, a Texas lawyer who represents four such data brokers, compared the companies' activities to the National Security Agency, which reportedly compiles the phone records of ordinary Americans.

"The government is doing exactly what these people are accused of doing," Bearden said. "These people are being demonized. These are people who are partners with law enforcement on a regular basis."

The police agencies told AP they used the data brokers because it was quicker and easier than subpoenas, and their lawyers believe their actions were lawful. Some agencies, such as Immigrations and Customs Enforcement, instructed agents to stop the practice after congressional inquiries.

The U.S. Marshal's Service told AP it was examining its policies but compared services offered by data brokers to Web sites providing public telephone numbers nationally.

None of the police agencies interviewed by AP said they researched these data brokers to determine how they secretly gather sensitive information like names associated with unlisted numbers, records of phone calls, e-mail aliases - even tracing a person's location using their cellular phone signal.

"If it's on the Internet and it's been commended to us, we wouldn't do a full-scale investigation," Marshal's Service spokesman David Turner said. "We don't knowingly go into any source that would be illegal. We were not aware, I'm fairly certain, what technique was used by these subscriber services."

At Immigration and Customs Enforcement, spokesman Dean Boyd said agents did not pay for phone records and sought approval from U.S. prosecutors before making requests. Their goal was "to more quickly identify and filter out phone numbers that were unrelated to their investigations," Boyd said.

Targets of the police interest include alleged marijuana smugglers, car thieves, armed thugs and others. The data services also are enormously popular among banks and other lenders, private detectives and suspicious spouses. Customers included:

- -A U.S. Labor Department employee who used her government e-mail address and phone number to buy two months of personal cellular phone records of a woman in New Jersey.

- -A buyer who received credit card information about the father of murder victim Jon Benet Ramsey.

- -A buyer who obtained 20 printed pages of phone calls by pro basketball player Damon Jones of the Cleveland Cavaliers.

The athlete was "shocked to learn somebody had obtained this information," said Mark Termini, his lawyer and agent in Cleveland. "When a person or agency is able to obtain by fraudulent means a person's personal information, that is something that should be prohibited by law."

PDJ's lawyer said no one at the company violated laws, but he acknowledged, "I'm not sure that every law enforcement agency in the country would agree with that analysis."

Many of the executives summoned to testify before Congress this week were expected to invoke their Fifth Amendment rights against self- incrimination and to decline to answer questions.

Slade said no one at PDJ impersonated customers to steal personal information, a practice known within the industry as pretexting.

"This was farmed out to private investigators," Slade said. "They had written agreements with their vendors, making sure the vendors were acquiring the information in legal ways."

Privacy advocates bristled over data brokers gathering records for police without subpoenas.

"This is pernicious, an end run around the Fourth Amendment," said Marc Rotenberg, head of the Washington-based Electronic Privacy Information Center, a leading privacy group that has sought tougher federal regulation of data brokers. "The government is encouraging unlawful conduct; it's not smart on the law enforcement side to be making use of information obtained improperly."

A federal agent who ordered phone records without subpoenas about a half-dozen times recently said he learned about the service from FBI investigators and was told this was a method to obtain phone subscriber information quicker than with a subpoena.

The agent, who spoke only on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to speak with reporters, said he and colleagues use data brokers "when he have the need to act fairly quickly" because getting a subpoena can involve lengthy waits.

Waiting for a phone company's response to a subpoena can take several days or up to 45 days, said police supervisor Eric Stasiak of Redwood City, Calif. In some cases, a request to a data broker yields answers in just a few hours, Stasiak said.

Legal experts said law enforcement agencies would be permitted to use illegally obtained information from private parties without violating the Fourth Amendment's protection against unlawful search and seizure, as long as police did not encourage any crimes to be committed.

"If law enforcement is encouraging people in the private sector to commit a crime in getting these records that would be problematic," said Mark Levin, a former top Justice Department official under President Reagan. "If, on the other hand, they are asking data brokers if they have any public information on any given phone numbers that should be fine."

Levin said he nonetheless would have advised federal agents to use the practice only when it was a matter of urgency or national security and otherwise to stick to a legally bulletproof method like subpoenas for everyday cases.

Congress subpoenaed thousands of documents from data brokers describing how they collected telephone records by impersonating customers.

"I was shot down four times," Michele Yontef complained in an e-mail in July 2005 to a colleague. "I keep getting northwestern call center and they just must have had an operator meeting about pretext as every operator is clued in."

Yontef, who relayed another request for phone call records as early as February, was among those ordered to appear at this week's hearing.

Another company years ago even acknowledged breaking the law.

"We must break various rules of law in acquiring all the information we achieve for you," Touch Tone Information Inc. of Denver wrote to a law firm in 1998 that was seeking records of calls made on a calling card.

The FBI's top lawyers told agents as early as 2001 they can gather private information about Americans from data brokers, even information gleaned from mortgage applications and credit reports, which normally would be off-limits to the government under the U.S. Fair Credit Reporting Act.

FBI lawyers rationalized that even though data brokers may have obtained financial information, agents could still use the information because brokers were not acting as a consumer-reporting agency but rather as a data warehouse.

The FBI said it relies only on well-respected data brokers and expects agents to abide by the law. "The FBI can only collect and retain data available from commercial databases in strict compliance with applicable federal law," spokesman Mike Kortan said Monday.

2006 The Gainesville Sun
Contact: [email protected]
Website: http://www.sunone.com/
_

This has been going on for a looong time.....they don't actually listen to your phone calls...just so WHO you are calling and WHEN....it's amazing that we have to follow certain procedures but the government can do whatever they want...

Hypothetically speaking....lets say we used these procedures to prevent a terrorist attack that would've killed lets say just 1 person...do you think its worth it or not????

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Originally Posted by Pothead4204life

Hypothetically speaking....lets say we used these procedures to prevent a terrorist attack that would've killed lets say just 1 person...do you think its worth it or not????

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That mentality is from the 1950's. That argument does not work today we are smarter then that. I assume then you must subscribe with the notions that "If you have done nothing wrong then you have nothing to fear", so let the police come into your home with out warrant and have a look around anytime they want.

Then there is the other one..."The police charge you with a crime so you must be guilty!" "Why would they charge you if you were innocent, so by reason you must be guilty". "The police don't pick on innocent people."

Police don't break the law they enforce it! (Donâ??t read about those guards at that prison who shot it out with the feds as they came to bust them the other day. Just because they trades sex with inmates for favors and drugs it must have been ok because they are criminals and they have no rights. Plus "Police don't break the law they enforce it!"

Ya that was the mentality in the 50's & early 60's and was bullshit back then and is still bullshit today. (funny we were at war then too)

FoM from cannabisnews.com said this to me about the exact same subject yesterday.

"I'll tell you a little story. Once upon a time we had this beautiful country that most people loved. It wasn't perfect but it still made people feel proud. Fast forward to now and it's all gone. No one loves what this country has become and they wonder how it happened. Slowly and methodically those in power made laws to control us like countries that we use to go to war with for being oppressive. We have become the enemy."

Sorry Pothead4204life but that argument is still full of shit!! Now you go ahead and vote for Bush's policy again. Then you can sleep at night and feel safe (until they put on their list, but hey The police don't pick on innocent people because Police don't break the law they enforce it)

Quote:

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Ya that was the mentality in the 50's & early 60's and was bullshit back then and is still bullshit today. (funny we were at war then too)

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It seems we are repeating history to me.
I've been thinking alot about how the government is acting how they used to back then.

One more thing Pothead4204life - "The Constitution is not a fucking technicality"

I bet you think the framers of our Constitution were soft on crime too hu?

Just because in the first 10 amendments to the Constitution the first 4 are dedicated to protect the rights of persons accused.

They were much smarter then the politicans we have today that's for sure.

1st of all Iam not a Bush Backer
2nd...I agree to everything you said...I posted a Hypothetical question to see everyones responses...refer back to my 1st post:thumbsup:

I agree pothead4204life...you are OK, Zandor get's fired about this stuff. sometimes clarification get's blurred in post translation. Good start to the Bulletin Board...

I call it Neo-McCarthyism...peace...Yeah, the next thing you know, they will be interning movie producers...

I agree...there needs to be Probable cause in order to seize any type of records...No one should be above the law...

As far as people gettin busted (Marijuana growing) i don't think we have to worry about via the phone records....yet...

I would be more worried about law enforcement doing a little search on this forum and seeing pics of people who ADMIT growing marijuana...all they need is your IP address to find you.....and a warrant can easily be attained...this is a public forum..meaning..you have NO right of Privacy....

pothead4204life- I don't have a problem dude I just fell very strong about this issue and felt I needed have my say. I have faced that Hypothetical situations for years and it's always the same story and starts with the work "IF, could of, should of, would of" and that is not a sane argument to me.

I believe it's better to free 10 guilty people then to impression one innocent person. That is why our justice system is Guilty until proven innocent no matter what they say thatâ??s how it is.

Ipâ??s are not viewable to the public and they require a warrant to obtain as far as I know. We may still even have free speech too but you never know what the Supreme Court may change that too if Chaney has his way.

Saturday, June 24, 2006 LAGUNA BEACH, Calif. - The driver was sober. The bird that crashed through the windshield of his car might have been flying under the influence.
A California brown pelican probably was intoxicated by a naturally occurring toxin found in algae blooms when she hit the car on the Pacific Coast Highway in Orange County Thursday, wildlife officials said.
The driver was startled, but not hurt. The pelican needed surgery for a broken foot, and also had a gash on its pouch.
"She's hanging in there," said Lisa Birkle, assistant wildlife director at the Wetlands and Wildlife Care Center in Huntington Beach.
Though toxicology tests take several weeks, the odd bird behavior was likely the result of poisoning from domoic acid, which has been found in the ocean in the area, Birkle said.
Pelicans have excellent eyesight and are unlikely to fly into cars when sober, Birkle said.
The center has received 16 calls of strange bird behavior in the past week, and was holding three other birds found disoriented and wandering through yards and streets.
Domoic acid poisoning was the most likely cause of a 1961 invasion of thousands of frantic seabirds in Northern California that inspired Alfred Hitchcock's film "The Birds."
Those birds flew into buildings and pecked several humans.

This is so typical of the waste of taxpayer dollars to bust a guy who was entrapped...paid just so they wouldn't bust his 'ol lady and child...What a bunch of 'FUCKWADS' (sorry about the language) peace

Cheech and Chong were the first comedians to make fun of the stoner culture of the '60s and '70s -- the people who smoked marijuana

Kevin Griffin,
Vancouver Sun

On one level, A.K.A. Tommy Chong is a straightforward documentary about the prosecution, arrest and imprisonment of comedian Tommy Chong for selling pipes used to smoke marijuana. On another, it is an indictment of the U.S. federal justice system for abusing the law for its own political agenda by deliberately targeting Chong.

Tommy Chong became a household name in the 1960s and '70s as part of of the comedy duo Cheech & Chong. As a kind of Abbott and Costello for the counter culture, Cheech and Chong were the first comedians to make fun of stoner culture -- the people who smoked marijuana. They released six comedy albums and seven films, many of which involved the two comedians playing stoned characters on the run from inept police officers such as Sgt. Stedenko.

Although the duo eventually split and went their own ways, Chong kept doing comedy routines with his wife Shelby. Chong was also involved in his son's company Nice Dreams Enterprises which made bongs and water pipes -- many of which were used to smoke marijuana -- and sold them over the Internet.

Pennsylvania prohibits the sale of drug paraphernalia. As a recorded phone call in A.K.A. Tommy Chong shows, Nice Dreams wouldn't ship to Pennsylvania despite the repeated pleas of one insistent customer. In what Chong described as entrapment by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency, a man from the Pennsylvania company travelled to the west coast, ordered $5,000 worth of bongs, and then left the goods in the warehouse in California. He then pleaded to have them shipped to Pennsylvania, which the company did eight months later.

According to Josh Gilbert's documentary, if the U.S. federal administration had been interested in protecting Americans from the evils of dope they would have warned drug paraphernalia retailers that a rarely enforced law was going to be enforced. That would have given everyone a chance to change their behaviour. But they didn't do that.

Instead, DEA officials -- and a Fox News crew -- showed up at Chong's home one morning. They also raided the company's warehouse, taking computers, cash and bongs.

U.S. federal law so favours the prosecution, according to the documentary, that plea bargains are the only way to save yourself from long prison terms. Even though he had only a tenuous relationship with Nice Dreams, Chong pleaded guilty to stop federal officials from seeking two-year prison terms for his wife and his son Paris. In court, prosecutors argued that Chong should do jail time for making movies that glorified drug use. They also cited a comment Chong made in an interview that referred to the U.S. administration's bogus justification for the invasion of Iraq: "The only weapons of mass destruction they found so far were my bongs."

He was fined $20,000 and had to forfeit $103,000. In addition, Chong was sentenced to nine months in a minimum-security federal prison, one of the few in Operation Pipe Dream who went to prison. The entire operation cost the U.S. federal government $12 million.

With the U.S. government about to invade Iraq and start the second Gulf War when charges against him were announced, Chong says that what the federal government did amounted to "a pre-emptive strike against the hippies and the anti-war movement.

"I do have a voice and my voice is against the Vietnam War -- every war," Chong, 68, said in a phone interview. "I just automatically took my stance. I said my view on the radio a few times and they just said: 'Take him down.' "

Chong said that he believes officials in the George W. Bush administration were surprised that he had never been arrested until Operation Pipe Dream, which was sanctioned by then-U.S. attorney-general John Ashcroft.

"They had no idea that I'm as articulate as I am and that I'm an actor. I was playing a role. I discovered a character and was entertaining people with my character," he said from Los Angeles. "Unfortunately, it did not fit in in with Bush's view of the world so they had to take me down. I became an enemy."

They say the best revenge is living well and Chong is doing just that. He's got a book coming out in August with a title that recalls the I Ching, the ancient Chinese Book of Changes. Called I Chong: Meditations from the Joint, it's an autobiography about the time he spent in jail.

Since his conviction, his career has taken off. He's now more popular than ever.

A.K.A. Tommy Chong has its Canadian theatrical debut at the VanCity Theatre in the Vancouver International Film Centre at Davie and Seymour. It runs from Friday, July 7 to Thursday, July 13.

Bikers really didn't defy officials...This headline is
mis-leading. Actually the town welcomed the Biker rally, but could not afford to sanction the event due to the high costs of funding security. read on

Bikers Defy Officials, Rally in Calif.
Saturday, July 1, 2006

HOLLISTER, Calif. - Thousands of bikers roared into the town made famous by Marlon Brando's 1953 film "The Wild One" on Saturday, defying a city council decision to cancel one of the country's most celebrated motorcycle rallies.

The bikers cruised Hollister's streets on personalized choppers, racing bikes and tricked-out Harley-Davidsons. One man rode with goggle-sporting dog in a sidecar.
"We're the taxpayers. We're not hoodlums," said Jack Stout, 51, of Gilroy, who has logged more than 40,000 miles on his 2003 Harley-Davidson Superglide.

The Hollister Independence Rally has been a summer destination for bikers for decades, much like the Sturgis rally in South Dakota. But earlier this year, the City Council voted to cancel the July Fourth weekend event,
saying it was too expensive and too dangerous.

Bikers showed up anyway, though in smaller numbers.
Police Capt. Bob Brooks estimated 5,000 people attended Saturday normally the most popular day of the rally - compared to 15,000 to 20,000 in previous years.
"They'll never stop it. It's been going since the '40s," said Tony Morris, 53, who rode in on his Harley-Davidson Road King from the San Francisco area.

Hollister, about 50 miles south of San Jose, is normally a quiet city home to boutiques and mom-and-pop restaurants. But this weekend it was full of bikers riding custom cycles, many worth tens of thousands of dollars.

City council member Monica Johnson said officials knew when they the event in February that bikers would come anyway, so they devised a contingency plan. The city spent $150,000 on extra police patrols this year, compared to the $700,000 it would've spent if it sanctioned the event, she said. "It wasn't about, we don't want them to be here at all. It was about,
city couldn't afford to have a rally," Johnson said.

Bikers said they were disappointed the city didn't sanction the event, but it wouldn't deter crowds. Hollister has attracted motorcyclists since published an article on a brawl that is credited with inspiring the Brando movie about a renegade biker gang that invades a small town.
The city's decision angered business owners. Many hung signs in windows welcoming bikers and offering specials on bottled water, pizza and beer.
Bikers were organizing a petition drive to make the rally a city-sanctioned event. Johnson said the council would consider the idea for next year.
"We want the public to see exactly what the biker community thinks of this town and how nonviolent (the rally) is," said Marlon Moss, executive director of the Hollister Rally Commission. Moss said the rally should be legitimate because independent-minded bikers would continue to attend out of tradition.
"Even though there's not an event," he said, "the biker community knows the history and they show up."

How about that. they left out Daytona and Myrtle Beach...2 big longstanding Traditonal Biker Rallys.
peace latewood

So, read on beyond comments below the article...There are several more Stories below. Enjoy:) Latewood

Don't forget; If you run across a legitimate news Story of interest, Post it, for All to enjoy. peace:thumbsup: