If You're A Verizon Customer, Your Phone Calls Aren't As Private As You Think They Are - Shelly Palmer

Since April 25 and running through July 19 Verizon has been giving the National Security Agency NSA daily information on all calls both domestic and international First reported by The Guardian this transference of data comes after a quottop secret court order issued in AprilquotSo what exactly is Verizon handing over after you call your mom to wish her a Happy Mother39s Day Both of your phone numbers are logged as is your quotlocation data call duration unique identifiers and the time and duration of all callsquot It39s your calls39 metadata data that describes other data the information that describes your call It39s exactly what the US Government or anyone for that matter needs to figure out who you are talking to how frequently you talk to them and from where The fact that your conversations39 contents are not covered logged or reported should give you no comfort the metadata paints a remarkably accurate picture of your communications And in the presence of other data call content can be inferredA History of a Lack of PrivacyThis sort of logging isn39t without precedent In 2006 USA Today published a report that the NSA had quotbeen secretly collecting the phone call records of tens of millions of Americans using data provided by ATampampT Verizon and BellSouthquot and quotusing the data to analyze calling patterns in an effort to detect terrorist activityquotThe Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court FISC order which The Guardian has posted in its entirety shows that quotfor the first time that under the Obama administration the communication records of millions of US citizens are being collected indiscriminately and in bulk amp8211 regardless of whether they are suspected of any wrongdoingquot This was something we saw under President Bush39s administration as officials in security agencies shared the extent to which the NSA collected call recordsThe Guardian39s report was published on Wednesday and still poses a number of questions Are other wireless providers sharing information as well Have they already done so Are they going to in the future What does this mean for the future or privacy There are a lot of questions right now and not many answers All government agencies contacted by The Guardian declined to commentSo How Did This HappenA highly classified court approved the request The decision was a legal interpretation of the Patriot Act 2001 But what39s frightening is that the court39s interpretation of the Patriot Act is itself classified which means we have no idea how the court views the Patriot Act An article on Bloomberg explains Section 215 of the Patriot Act says the government can order turnover of quotany tangible thingsquot for an investigation to protect against international terrorism or clandestine spying provided only that the activities under investigation aren39t solely protected by the First Amendment Read narrowly this language might require that information requested be shown to be important or necessary to the investigation Read widely it would include essentially anything even slightly relevant which is to say everything Like metadata for every call every day and every second in the US While we don39t know exactly how this classified court views the Patriot Act the breadth of the data collection indicates that the court views it in the broadest possible sense That same Bloomberg article further examines why this is so scary and antithetical to the concept of democracy but it strays a bit from the focus of online privacy and more so into the realm of politicsJOIN MEDIA VILLAGE THE NEW SOCIAL KNOWLEDGE NETWORK FROM MYERS MEDIA BUSINESS NETWORK CLICK HERE TO JOINAnother Step Down the Privacy Rabbit HoleBetween this report the possibility of having any of our emails older than 180 days read any government agency that requests it and Microsoft39s Xbox One providing gamers with more privacy concerns than anticipation for new games we need to start an earnest dialog about security and privacy in a connected worldThe order granted to the FBI by the secret FISC quotgiving the government unlimited authority to obtain the data for a specified threemonth period ending on July 19quot The fact that there39s no cap on the number of records that Verizon will hand over to the NSA along with the broad nature of the request collecting data from everyone rather than only individuals suspected of terrorism or other crimes is not only unusual amp8211 it39s scarySome people like Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid D amp8211 Nevada say this isn39t a big deal Reid says that this was a routine request made under congressionallyapproved laws quotRight now I think everyone should just calm down and understand that this isn39t anything that is brand new it39s been going on for some seven years and we have tried to often to try to make it better and work and we will continue to do thatquot Senator Saxby Chambliss R amp8211 Georgia vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee agreed with Reid and said quotthis is nothing particularly newquotWe Have Politicians On Our SideSimilar to Senator Patrick Leahy fight to repeal the Electronic Communications Privacy Act there are representatives in Washington fighting for our privacy Representative Jim Sensenbrenner R amp8211 Wisconsin who was one of the authors of the Patriot Act said in a letter he wrote to Attorney General Eric Holder last Thursday saying he was quotextremely disturbed by what appears to be an overbroad interpretation of the Actquot Sensenbrenner defends the Patriot Act but also has quotalways worried about potential abusesquotTwo senators on the Senate Intelligence Committee Ron Wyden D amp8211 Oregon and Mark Udall D amp8211 Colorado appear in the newlypublished court order crying out against the quotthe scope of the Obama administration39s surveillance activitiesquot Their main point of contention is about the quotbusiness recordsquot provision of the Patriot Act arguing in a letter to Attorney General Holder last year that quotthere is now a significant gap between what most Americans think the law allows and what the government secretly claims the law allowsquot criticizing the Obama administration39s interpretation of that sectionThe Guardian says that for the past two years Wyden and Udall have been quotstridently advising the public that the US government is relying on 39secret legal interpretations39 to claim surveillance powers so broad that the American public would be 39stunned39 to learn of the kind of domestic spying being conductedquotConsider us stunnedShelly Palmer is Fox 5 New York39s Onair Tech Expert WNYWTV and the host of Fox Television39s monthly show Shelly Palmer Digital Living He also hosts United Stations Radio Network39s Shelly Palmer Digital Living Daily a daily syndicated radio report that features insightful commentary and a unique insiders take on the biggest stories in technology media and entertainment He is Managing Director of Advanced Media Ventures Group LLC an industryleading advisory and business development firm and a member of the Executive Committee of the National Academy of Television Arts ampamp Sciences the organization that bestows the coveted Emmyamp174 Awards Palmer is the author of Television Disrupted The Transition from Network to Networked TV 2nd Edition York House Press 2008 the seminal book about the technological economic and sociological forces that are changing everything Overcoming The Digital Divide How to use Social Media and Digital Tools to Reinvent Yourself and Your Career York House Press 2011 and Digital Wisdom Thought Leadership for a Connected World York House Press 2013 For more information visit shellypalmercomRead all Shelly39s MediaBizBloggers commentaries at Shelly Palmer ReportCheck us out on Facebook at MediaBizBloggerscomFollow our Twitter updates MediaBizBloggerThe opinions and points of view expressed in this commentary are exclusively the views of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of MediaBizBloggerscom management or associated bloggers MediaBizBloggers is an open thought leadership platform and readers may share their comments and opinions in response to all commentariesPhoto courtesy of httpwwwfreedigitalphotosnet

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If You're A Verizon Customer, Your Phone Calls Aren't As Private As You Think They Are - Shelly Palmer

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