Verizon says it received over 321,000 legal orders for user data in 2013 | Hacker News Reader

Verizon says it received over 321,000 legal orders for user data in 2013

arstechnica.com

73 pointsnacs12 comments

Are they reimbursed for these? If so how much? I am curious if its a money making process for them or if the costs are just rolled into "the cost of doing business"

Still the numbers are beyond phenomenal, bordering on insane. Just how does one go about validating that all these request are remotely legal, let alone how does one go about generating so many requests!

Yes the providers usually have a contract based fee that they charge for each one.

This article ( http://www.cbsnews.com/news/verizon-att-get-most-bucks-from-... ) is for wiretap fees but has this info: "AT&T, for example, imposes a $325 "activation fee" for each wiretap and $10 a day to maintain it. Smaller carriers Cricket and U.S. Cellular charge only about $250 per wiretap. But snoop on a Verizon customer? That costs the government $775 for the first month and $500 each month after that".

According to this ( http://www.cnbc.com/id/101178369 ) article: "The C.I.A. is paying AT&T more than $10 million a year to assist with overseas counterterrorism investigations by exploiting the company's vast database of phone records, which includes Americans' international calls".

So yes I'm sure assisting government agencies in this way is quite profitable.

Having worked at one of these carriers I can tell you that everyone there trips over themselves to help out law enforcement. Everyone is constantly thinking up new ways to help, particularly if it's a service they can charge for or some data they can sell. You can be a part-time meter maid in Cracker Barrel, Arkansas and if you know which number to call you will get pretty much any data on any number you want. There was some bespoke software where the cell numbers of undercover law enforcement are not returned from searches but otherwise the data is voluntarily shared because really the government contracts for cellphones from every vendor are so big who would jeopardize them?

When they get a big public backlash about a thing like this the company's lawyers pop in and remind you of the policies, demand to see that you are following them, etc. but no change occurs.

321k for one carrier (that were reported) meaning a conservative total would be ~1 million requests. 2013 census reports that there are 8 states with populations of 1 mil or less.

So out of the 321,000 orders how many caught a suspected terrorist or foiled a terrorist plot?

To be fair...

some of these could be just cops targeting suspected criminals who have nothing to do with terrorism. Also, I suspect a very large number may just be divorce cases or civil proceedings.

They don't ALL have to be tied to terrorism necessarily.

Ahh that makes sense then. I thought it was referring to the FISA court orders from the NSA, not orders from all agencies.

One every 2 minutes.

It's more than one every other minute only for ONE company!

I can't even fathom how many there must be if you throw in Microsoft, Google, Yahoo, AT&T, Sprint, and countless others.

Assuming each of these were for different persons, that amount of request would already amount to about 1/1000 of US population.

Given that Verizon isn't the only telecom operator in the US, the percentage of people under surveillance is quite significant.

And I assume this is only non-secret requests, we've heard news about such requests that are accompanied by a gag order which probably wouldn't end up in transparency reports.

I don't have hard information here, but I suspect the number is far lower. Each one of these requests is likely for a very small time period; keeping a single individual under surveillance likely takes a large number of requests.

Furthermore, the vast majority of these requests are subpoenas (161K) which can be issued in divorce proceedings or legal tussles over car accidents (was the driver texting?) among other uses.

From the article: 6000 pen register or trap and trace orders (real time info of who called whom). And (drumroll, please): 1000 to 2000 National Security Letters.

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