NSA Won’t Collect Phone Location Data

[upnorth]

Content source

https://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2019/11/18/nsa-wont-collect-phone-location-data-promises-us-government/

US intelligence agencies won’t harvest US residents’ geolocation data in future investigations, revealed the US government this month. In fact, it hasn’t done so since last summer.

The last 18 months have seen significant changes to the US’s collection of phone location data. Since 1994, law enforcement agencies in the US had been able to access court records thanks to an amendment to the 1996 Stored Communications Act. Under this legislation, a judge could give prosecutors access if they could justify that call records were relevant and material to an ongoing investigation. That all changed in a lawsuit brought by Tim Carpenter, who was convicted in 2011 after federal prosecutors trawled location cell phone data, tying his phone to the time and location of several robberies. Carpenter sued in appeals court, claiming that the trawling violated his Fourth Amendment rights. He lost on appeal, but then the case went to the Supreme Court, which ruled in his favour in a 5-4 vote. That decision stopped the warrantless collection of phone location data by police and federal law enforcement, but what about for the intelligence community?

In 2001, section 215 of the USA PATRIOT Act amended Title V, Section 501 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), allowing intelligence agencies to collect metadata on calls (known as call detail records, or CDRs) which it stores in repositories and secure networks. The NSA can query the metadata when it has reasonable suspicion that the call could be associated with foreign terrorist organizations. Section 215 is on the Congressional agenda right now because it is set to expire under the 2015 US Freedom Act, which was created to preserve the CDR program in a constrained form. Unless Congress renews Section 215 it will cease to exist on 15 December 2019.

 

[blackice]

At least not ‘legally’

 

[Threadripper]

At least not ‘legally’

Spot on. Mass surveillance, what they call "bulk collection", has already been ruled unconstitutional and illegal. They don't care, haven't stopped and likely won't stop.

 

[Venustus]

it will be "under the covers" harvesting...In other words plausible deniability!

 

[oldschool]

it will be "under the covers" harvesting...In other words plausible deniability!

Indeed, the "Nobody told me", "Not my job" & "I forgot" defense!

 

[CHEF-KOCH]

I watch the NSA and (other agencies) since 1992 and I'm pretty sure just because one program is been shutdown now, it doesn't mean they not started other programs under other codenames and other jurisdiction. Keep in mind that the NSA works together with other agencies, so they can get the data anyway, just over other [exit nodes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_backbone).

I'm also not worried about the stuff you hear, I would be more worried about the stuff you don't hear because that is typically the stuff for "nightmares".