Wiretaps Are Cut Over Unpaid Bills
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Telecommunications companies have repeatedly cut off FBI access to wiretaps of alleged terrorists and criminal suspects because the bureau did not pay its phone bills, according to the results of an audit released yesterday.
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Snooping and secrecy can help the government catch terrorists. But they also can also let government employees sniff around your private life without your even knowing about it.
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A $700,000 unpaid bill is paid enabling Zimbabwe's main internet satellite connection to be restored.
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'You phone bill is overdue' FBI wiretaps used to eavesdrop on suspected criminals have been repeatedly canceled by telephone companies because the bureau failed to pay their bills on time.â¦
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The FBI wants to pay the major telecommunications companies to retain their customers' Internet and phone call information for at least two years for the agency's use in counterterrorism investigations and is asking Congress for $5 million a year to defray the cost, according to FBI officials and...
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A Senate committee voted to approve subpoenas to the White House and Justice Department for warrantless wiretapping records. The administration has refused to provide many records to Congress about the spy program, and the vote portends a high-stakes showdown.
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(InfoWorld) - When the U.S. Congress adjourned in the early morning hours Saturday, it left a number of technology-related bills unfinished, including two bills addressingÂ fraudulent access to personal telephone records. Despite pressure from members of the House of Representatives Energy and Commerce Committee, the full House failed to act on the Prevention of Fraudulent Access to Phone Records Act. The law would have allowed the U.S. Federal Trade Commission to seek civil penalties against businesses that obtain personal data under false pretenses. The committee has been looking into privacy concerns related to so-called pretexting since early this year, but the issue came to a head last month, whenÂ Hewlett-Packard revealedÂ it had used questionable investigative techniques in the surveillance of board members, employees, and reporters. With pretexting, private investigators or identity thieves pretend to be customers of mobile phone carriers or other companies in order to gain access to personal records such as call logs. Congress still has more time to act on the pretexting legislation or six related bills this year, however. After a month-plus break allowing lawmakers to focus on the Nov. 7 election, Congress will return for a lame-duck session Nov. 9. Democrats last week complained that the House Republican leadership had held up the pretexting legislation, but Representative Joe Barton, a Texas Republican and Energy and Commerce chairman, said he'd continue to push for the legislation. Congress alsoÂ failed to pass a wide-ranging broadband billÂ that would replace local franchise rules with a national system for telecom providers launching Internet Protocol-based television services in competition with cable TV. And although U.S. President George Bush called on Congress to pass legislation authorizing a controversial National Security Agency (NSA)Â surveillance program, two bills making it easier for the government to conduct surveillance without court-ordered warrants also stalled. One piece of Internet-related legislation did pass early Saturday. The Senate passed a bill providing money for seaport security, and added to the bill was a provision prohibiting U.S. banks and credit-card companies from processing payments to online gambling sites. A group of professional poker players had asked Congress to reject the bill, but a group of House Republicans pushed for the legislation, saying offshore gambling sites were breaking U.S. gambling-control laws. Bush had called for legislation to authorize the NSA program, which has listened in on the electronic communications of U.S. residents without court-ordered warrants, as a way to head off multiple lawsuits targeting the program. He has argued the program is necessary to help keep U.S. residents safe from terrorism. The HouseÂ passed one surveillance bill, but the Senate failed to act. The House bill would allow federal law enforcement officials to spy on U.S. residents for up to 90 days without a court order in the period after a terrorist attack. The Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT), a civil liberties and privacy advocacy group, said it was happy to see the surveillance and broadband bills stall. Republicans supporting the surveillance bill were pushing it as a way to show they were focused on national security during the last weeks of the congressional campaign, said Nancy Libin, a staff counsel at CDT. "Now that they've gone home, I'm not sure what kind of priority it will be when they come back," she said. Several civil liberties groups had opposed the broadband bill as it lacked protections for so-called net neutrality. Net neutrality advocates want a law that would prohibit broadband providers from blocking or slowing service to Web sites offering competing content, and they have successfully halted the Senate version of the broadband bill, despiteÂ heavy lobbying from large broadband providers.
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A defeated amendment would have stripped immunity from companies that aided a wiretapping program.
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Broad spying powers temporarily approved by Congress in August appear likely to lapse this week after the White House and House Democrats produced no clear resolution.
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Counterfeiters who make $10 bills on printers could find the cops on their trail if tracking techniques pan out.
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Some of nation's the largest banks were customers of a Florida firm shut down this year for pretexting, or lying, to get personal information such as phone records, the same practice that Hewlett-Packard Co. executives will testify to Congress about today.
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The FBI, which has had trouble keeping track of its guns and laptops, also has a chronic problem paying its phone bills on time, according to audit results released yesterday.
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More than a thousand people who phoned in for assistance too often -- at least in the company's eyes -- find themselves suddenly cut off from wireless service.
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A Congressional inquiry into online data brokers has raised concerns that federal and local law enforcement may be skirting privacy laws to obtain calling records
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The U.S. Congress has wrapped up its work for the year by passing a bill that would make it illegal to obtain a person's phone records without permission.
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This week's top-level spying spat hits on a legal gray area that may require new laws to resolve.
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Federal and industry experts grapple with how to apply CALEA wiretap standards to something that lawmakers didn't anticipate 10 years ago -- voice over IP. Michael Grebb reports from Washington.