F.B.I. Data Mining Reached Beyond Initial Targets
WASHINGTON — The F.B.I. cast a much wider net in its terrorism investigations than it has previously acknowledged by relying on telecommunications companies to analyze phone-call patterns of the associates of Americans who had come under suspicion, according to newly obtained bureau records.
The documents indicate that the Federal Bureau of Investigation used secret demands for records to obtain data not only on individuals it saw as targets but also details on their “community of interest” - the network of people that the target was in contact with. The bureau stopped the practice early this year in part because of broader questions raised about its aggressive use of the records demands, which are known as national security letters, officials said.
The community of interest data sought by the F.B.I. is central to a data-mining technique intelligence officials call link analysis. Since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, American counterterrorism officials have turned more frequently to the technique, using communications patterns and other data to identify suspects who may not have any other known links to extremists.
The concept has strong government proponents who see it as a vital tool in predicting and preventing attacks, and it is also thought to have helped the National Security Agency identify targets for its domestic eavesdropping program. But privacy advocates, civil rights leaders and even some counterterrorism officials warn that link analysis can be misused to establish tenuous links to people who have no real connection to terrorism but may be drawn into an investigation nonetheless.
Typically, community of interest data might include an analysis of which people the targets called most frequently, how long they generally talked and at what times of day, sudden fluctuations in activity, geographic regions that were called, and other data, law enforcement and industry officials said.
The F.B.I. declined to say exactly what data had been turned over. It was limited to people and phone numbers “once removed” from the actual target of the national security letters, said a government official who spoke on condition of anonymity because of a continuing review by the Justice Department.
The bureau had declined to discuss any aspect of the community of interest requests because it said the issue was part of an investigation by the Justice Department inspector general’s office into national security letters. An initial review in March by the inspector general found widespread violations in the F.B.I.’s use of the letters, but did not mention the use of community of interest data.
On Saturday, in response to the posting of the article on the Web site of The New York Times, Mike Kortan, a spokesman for the F.B.I., said “it is important to emphasize” that community of interest data is “no longer being used pending the development of an appropriate oversight and approval policy, was used infrequently, and was never used for e-mail communications.”
The scope of the demands for information could be seen in an August 2005 letter seeking the call records for particular phone numbers under suspicion. The letter closed by saying: “Additionally, please provide a community of interest for the telephone numbers in the attached list.”
The requests for such data showed up a dozen times, using nearly identical language, in records from one six-month period in 2005 obtained by a nonprofit advocacy group, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit that it brought against the government. The F.B.I. recently turned over 2,500 pages of documents to the group. The boilerplate language suggests the requests may have been used in many of more than 700 emergency or “exigent” national security letters. Earlier this year, the bureau banned the use of the exigent letters because they had never been authorized by law.
The reason for the suspension is unclear, but it appears to have been set off in part by the questions raised by the inspector general’s initial review into abuses in the use of national security letters. The official said the F.B.I. itself was examining the use of the community of interest requests to get a better understanding of how and when they were used, but he added that they appeared to have been used in a relatively small percentage of the tens of thousand of the records requests each year. “In an exigent circumstance, that’s information that may be relevant to an investigation,” the official said.
A federal judge in Manhattan last week struck down parts of the USA Patriot Act that had authorized the F.B.I.’s use of the national security letters, saying that some provisions violated the First Amendment and the constitutional separation of powers guarantee. In many cases, the target of a national security letter whose records are being sought is not necessarily the actual subject of a terrorism investigation and may not be suspected at all. Under the Patriot Act, the F.B.I. must assert only that the records gathered through the letter are considered relevant to a terrorism investigation.
Some legal analysts and privacy advocates suggested that the disclosure of the F.B.I.’s collection of community of interest records offered another example of the bureau exceeding the substantial powers already granted it by Congress.
“This whole concept of tracking someone’s community of interest is not part of any established F.B.I. authority,” said Marcia Hofmann, a lawyer for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which provided the records from its lawsuit to The New York Times. “It’s being defined by the F.B.I. And when it’s left up to the F.B.I. to decide what information is relevant to their investigations, they can vacuum up almost anything they want.”
Matt Blaze, a professor of computer and information science at the University of Pennsylvania and a former researcher for AT&T, said the telecommunications companies could have easily provided the F.B.I. with the type of network analysis data it was seeking because they themselves had developed it over many years, often using sophisticated software like a program called Analyst’s Notebook.
“This sort of analysis of calling patterns and who the communities of interests are is the sort of things telephone companies are doing anyway because it’s central to their businesses for marketing or optimizing the network or detecting fraud,” said Professor Blaze, who has worked with the F.B.I. on technology issues.
Such “analysis is extremely powerful and very revealing because you get these linkages between people that wouldn’t be otherwise clear, sometimes even more important than the content itself” of phone calls and e-mail messages, he said. “But it’s also very invasive. There’s always going to be a certain amount of noise,” with data collected on people who have no real links to suspicious activity, he said.
Officials at other American intelligence agencies, like the National Security Agency and the Central Intelligence Agency, have explored using link analysis to trace patterns of communications sometimes two, three or four people removed from the original targets, current and former intelligence officials said. But critics assert that the further the links are taken, the less valuable the information proves to be.
Some privacy advocates said they were troubled by what they saw as the F.B.I.’s over-reliance on technology at the expense of traditional investigative techniques that rely on clearer evidence of wrongdoing.
“Getting a computer to spit out a hundred names doesn’t have any meaning if you don’t know what you’re looking for,” said Michael German, a former F.B.I. agent who is now a lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union. “If they’re telling the telephone company, ‘You do the investigation and tell us what you find,’ the relevance to the investigation is being determined by someone outside the F.B.I.”
Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company
“Getting a computer to spit out a hundred names doesn’t have any meaning if you don’t know what you’re looking for,” said Michael German, a former F.B.I. agent who is now a lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union. “If they’re telling the telephone company, ‘You do the investigation and tell us what you find,’ the relevance to the investigation is being determined by someone outside the F.B.I.”
Yeah, no kidding! My answering machine leaves a message in my native language (English) and someone from a foreign country left me a message which I couldn’t decipher because English is the only language I speak. Though I have Spanish speaking friends with relatives outside the country, the message that was left on my voicemail was not Spanish but a language I have never heard.
In short, someone from another country obviously dialed a wrong number and left me a message. Or, it could have been a set-up to have an excuse to wiretap the line (mine) of anti-war advocate.
You decide. I no longer put anything past this corporate-controlled government!
And a sampling of 10% of FBI National Security Letters showed over a thousand were “incorrectly” used to gather info and quash free speech. That comes out to over 10,000, assuming the sampling is accurate.
Did you feel that? All of America shrugging their shoulders at the same time?
Dial one wrong digit, get one wrong number, and you, too, could find yourself on a no-fly, do not employ, or disappearance list and never know why.
Ein volk, ein fuehrer, ein vaterland! Sieg Heil!
We lost a generation to stamp out this crap in Europe. Who is going to stamp it out here if we don’t?
The US Government has become the enemy of its own people. Perhaps if good Americans would stop following orders and do what is right, Americans might have a chance of gaining democracy in the USA.
The needs of 3000 corporations destroyed Chile for a generation when on September 11, 1973, they began the war against the democracy of Salvador Allende’s government. Families lost 30,000-40,000 killed and torture ruled the day.
The needs of 3000 corporations are biting the hands that feed them by destroying the American worker and the American family.
This September 11th, let us come together to denounce again the actions of American exploitation at home and abroad. Let’s end poverty in the USA by supporting workers and worker’s rights
EVERYTHING is connected. Except for the enlightened ones, there is nothing in the universe that is not connected to everything else. NOTHING! The problem arises when we think of ourselves as separate and do so much damage to keep up the illusion of difference. Every major spiritual tradition has a version of this teaching. If that’s not your bag, how about the expression “Six Degrees of Separation.:
How sad that so many across the world live in the delusion of difference. And under the further delusion that difference matters.
All beings are connected - every human being is tied to both Mr. Cheney and to the Dalai Lama - because we are human beings. We are tied, too, to that Universal Love /Joy / Happiness /Compassion and Universal Fear / Hatred /Pain - because every human being has the capacity to feel them (a capacity more developed in some than others). And all human beings are connected to all animal beings and all plant beings and all divine beings.
Not one thing is separate from any other thing. The most powerful database in the world can’t prove it, or disprove it, or track it.
Maybe if we’d stop trying to track the differences and concentrate on our alike-ness, the world would be a lot gentler place for everyone to live.
I think that we are witnessing an attempt by both the Reps and Dems to slowly but surely turn this country into a militarized, authoritarian and democratic (in name only) impire. Chalmers Johnson, in his latest book “Nemesis” said that we can have a democracy or we can have an empire but we cannot have them both at the same time. Democratic populations do not accept the financial costs and loss of liberties necessary to maintain empires. Knowing this makes more sense of the recent passing of the enabling laws (wiretapping) by the Democrats than the silly notion that they do not have any spine. To paraphrase Chomsky: Everyone makes mistakes but when a group of very intelligent people keep making the same “stupid mistakes” over and over again it then becomes not a series of mistakes but an alternate plan with ulterior motives.The Dems know what they’re doing. They just don’t give a damn whether you like it or not. They know that in reality the public is the one that is spineless.
The War on Democracy
http://www.guardian.co.uk/video/page/0,,2150097,00.html
aremagen September 9th, 2007 8:13 pm
“To paraphrase Chomsky: Everyone makes mistakes but when a group of very intelligent people keep making the same “stupid mistakes” over and over again it then becomes not a series of mistakes but an alternate plan with ulterior motives.”
Yes, but one must be able to connect the dots instead of listening to and swallowing the same repetitive and boring “national security” rhetoric to arrive at this conclusion.
Perhaps this may explain some of what is going on.
http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_stephen__070811_whatever_happened_to.htm
I do not see it turning around unless we can replace the two backed beast with actual political parties that represent We the People.
Take a stab at who this refers to, and where this comes from:
“He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
[b]He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.[/b]
[b]He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.[/b]
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For protecting them (military/police/blackwater), by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.”
and this isn’t the entire thing.
What the heck, we still have our teevee. What more do we need?
iowairish
EVERYTHING is connected. Except for the enlightened ones, there is nothing in the universe that is not connected to everything else. NOTHING! The problem arises when we think of ourselves as separate and do so much damage to keep up the illusion of difference. Every major spiritual tradition has a version of this teaching. If that’s not your bag, how about the expression “Six Degrees of Separation.:
How sad that so many across the world live in the delusion of difference. And under the further delusion that difference matters.
All beings are connected - every human being is tied to both Mr. Cheney and to the Dalai Lama - because we are human beings. We are tied, too, to that Universal Love /Joy / Happiness /Compassion and Universal Fear / Hatred /Pain - because every human being has the capacity to feel them (a capacity more developed in some than others). And all human beings are connected to all animal beings and all plant beings and all divine beings.
Not one thing is separate from any other thing. The most powerful database in the world can’t prove it, or disprove it, or track it.
Maybe if we’d stop trying to track the differences and concentrate on our alike-ness, the world would be a lot gentler place for everyone to live.
Well said. Thank you
Why are people like iowaiirish being allowed to repeat the same Pollyanish statements that if we just all love each other everything will be OK! Or is he just writing in order to occupy a space that might be filled by someone who has a grasp on reality?
iowairish, a profound point!A delusion keeps us in denial. We have never have been separate from our Source. We are never separate from each other. If there are only six degrees in separation, how close are we with almost four billion souls. We have never really been separate from all of the brothers and sisters we have on countless planets throughout our galaxies. We have never been separate from any creature of our planet. Nor separate from our Sun and our Moon; not separate from any leaf, or blade of grass, or flower that blossoms in our garden. We have forgotten, that is all, and in our pain and in our judgment of who you are, we have closed down. We have forgotten that who we are is God/Goddess, smelling the rose of the vibrancy and excitement of this dimension of reality.
iowairish - This is so comforting! I’ll just sit here awhile and contemplate my navel. That will let me build a fantasy world where all is sweetness and light. But hey - that’s been done already, hasn’t it? The problem is in the translation to the real world. Got to be quick about it - before someone blows you up.
and mastershake - I’ll take a stab - I think (but may be wrong) it’s from the Declaration of Independence, written by a man who would be turning in his grave right now.
I had a chance over the weekend to do a little analysis on an interesting dynamic here. Right-wing radio and syndication (Limbaugh, Drudge Report, etc.) has an interesting habit with regard to the Bill of Rights and this whole topic: free speech, censorship, privacy, civil liberties, etc.
Whereas with regard to the Second Ammendment, they make no bones that the NRA is your friend (while the Left’s corporate sponsors would have it dismantled), they right’s corporate sponsors have to difuse, divert & dilute the angers of its listeners away from any organized resistance. Their propaganda technique is to tend to the anger and suspicion of these mining programs among the “angry white man” demographic, but they leave him at a doorstep of confusion, suspicion, anger and cynicism. The ACLU or EFF, for instance, are not to be trusted.
A brilliant propaganda ploy, but it seems to have largely ended with the Baby Boomers.
Well now’s a good time to get an alias.
Soon we’ll be drawing symbols in the sand to see if it’s ok to talk to each other.
I don’t think so. While mining and building lists is a “good start”, it’s not translated to anything real yet. Indeed, some of the most successful businesses around today require an unprecedented amount of tolerance of free speech (Google, social networking sites, blogs, etc.). The ONLY ONLY ONLY thing we’ll have to worry about with this data mining at this stage is whether it’s a bluff to scare people into censoring themselves — like McCarthyism before it.
Once they open the camps and put people inside, the jig will be up. But until then, we are to assume it’s a bluff — and exercise our free speech like there’s no tomorrow. Far worse than being jailed as a free-thinker is to be scared like sheep into COWARDICE. That’s probably what they’re really banking on.
Maybe society sort of lays out like this: for every 100 sheep there’s a sociopathic wolf. For every 10,000 sheep there’s a free-thinker. For every 1,000 free-thinkers, 999 of them will shut-up.
Suspects for which there is no crime, except the crime committed by the United States government.
I hope everybody commenting here is reading Naomi Klein’s *The Shock Doctrine* — or, at least, the excerpts featured at *The Guardian*. Here’s the link to the excerpt relevant to this NYT article:
http://books.guardian.co.uk/shockdoctrine/story/0,,2165953,00.html
The background reading provided by *The Guardian* is also excellent.