http://rawstory.com/2009/12/sprint-manager-half-police-surveillance-requests-include-text-messaging/
Sprint manager: ‘Half’ of all police surveillance includes text messaging

By Stephen C. Webster
Saturday, December 5th, 2009 -- 3:37 pm
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According to a graduate student's research into the spying policies of major U.S. telecommunications companies, at a recent security conference a Sprint surveillance manager told a group of onlookers that half of all police requests include the target's text messages.

Half of millions -- including some 8 million automated, web-based requests for GPS location, all in just over a year's time.

The revelation was made by Indiana University grad Christopher Soghoian, as part of his PhD dissertation published Dec. 1, 2009.

He attributes the stunning number to Paul Taylor, an Electronic Surveillance Manager with Sprint Nextel, who was speaking recently at the Washington, D.C. International Securities Systems conference, otherwise known as ISS World.

Mind Your Tweets: The CIA Social Networking Surveillance System by Tom Burghardt

Global Research, October 27, 2009
Antifascist Calling... - 2009-10-24

That social networking sites and applications such as Facebook, Twitter and their competitors can facilitate communication and information sharing amongst diverse groups and individuals is by now a cliché.

It should come as no surprise then, that the secret state and the capitalist grifters whom they serve, have zeroed-in on the explosive growth of these technologies. One can be certain however, securocrats aren't tweeting their restaurant preferences or finalizing plans for after work drinks.

No, researchers on both sides of the Atlantic are busy as proverbial bees building a "total information" surveillance system, one that will, so they hope, provide police and security agencies with what they euphemistically call "actionable intelligence."

Build the Perfect Panopticon, Win Fabulous Prizes!

The Electronic Frontier Foundation has launched a "Surveillance Self-Defense" website to educate the public about what the US govt. might be doing to surveil you, and what you can do about it.

Obama voted for the warrantless wiretapping/Telco immunity bill, and seems to be completely disinterested in investigating the Bush Administration's admitted criminal actions.

https://ssd.eff.org/

Pre-9/11 warrantless wiretapping (thanks to George Washington for collecting these links):
http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2007/10/nsa-asked-for-p.html
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=abIV0cO64zJE
http://rawstory.com/news/2007/ATT_engineer_says_Bush_Administration_sought_1216.html

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5i4sj03-Gb3HZUn9lqMmn4QKH30mwD96KADA00
Court rejects Obama bid to stop wiretapping suit
By DEVLIN BARRETT – 20 hours ago

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Obama administration has lost its argument that a potential threat to national security should stop a lawsuit challenging the government's warrantless wiretapping program.

A federal appeals court in San Francisco on Friday rejected the Justice Department's request for an emergency stay in a case involving a defunct Islamic charity.

Yet government lawyers signaled they would continue fighting to keep the information secret, setting up a new showdown between the courts and the White House over national security.

In the aftermath of the September 11 attacks, the White House launched a massive program to spy on millions of Americans, best-selling author James Bamford has claimed in his latest book, The Shadow Factory: The Ultra-Secret NSA from 9/11 to the Eavesdropping on America.

Bamford is a celebrated journalist who writes about US intelligence agencies.

According to the author, the National Security Agency (NSA) was tasked with monitoring 'billions of private hard-line, cell, and wireless telephone conversations; text, e-mail and instant Internet messages; Web-page histories, faxes, and computer hard drives'.

The two largest American telecom companies AT&T and Verizon collaborated with the NSA, assisting the federal government in eavesdropping on their customers.

Bamford maintains that the bugging of the entire two networks, 'carrying billions of American communications every day', were handed to two companies founded in Israel.

Verint and Narus, the two Israeli corporations, are 'super intrusive -- conducting mass surveillance on both international and domestic communications 24/7,' and sifting traffic at 'key Internet gateways' around the US, Bamford claims.

F.B.I. Says It Obtained Reporters’ Phone Records
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/09/washington/09inquire.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

By THE NEW YORK TIMES
Published: August 8, 2008
WASHINGTON — The Federal Bureau of Investigation said Friday that it had improperly obtained the phone records of reporters for The New York Times and The Washington Post in the newspapers’ Indonesia bureaus in 2004.

Robert S. Mueller III, director of the F.B.I., disclosed the episode in a phone call to Bill Keller, the executive editor of The Times, and apologized for it. He also spoke with Leonard Downie Jr., the executive editor of The Washington Post, to apologize.

F.B.I. officials said the incident came to light as part of the continuing review by the Justice Department inspector general’s office into the bureau’s improper collection of telephone records through “emergency” records demands issued to phone providers.

The records were apparently sought as part of a terrorism investigation, but the F.B.I. did not explain what was being investigated or why the reporters’ phone records were considered relevant.