Verizon phone sevice users will have information about all their phone
calls turned over to U.S. authorities, according to a federal court
order, such as location data and how long a call lasts.
The National Security Agency is gathering telephone records of all
Verizon customers — who number in the tens of millions — in the U.S., a
bombshell report revealed Wednesday.The top-secret court order, obtained by the Guardian newspaper, requires the carrier to hand over information regarding phone calls — which does not include actual conversations — on an “ongoing, daily basis” to the FBI.
Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
The FBI is collecting the telephone records of all of Verizon's customers. The data being surrendered pertains to 'communications between the United States and abroad; or wholly within the United States, including local telephone calls,' a federal court order said.
The order, signed by Florida federal Judge Roger Vinson, went into effect April 25 and extends until July 19.
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The National Security Agency, headquartered in Fort Meade, Md., is gathering telephone records of all of Verizon U.S. customers, who number in the tens of millions. But it's not the first time. In 2006, the NSA started compiling “the largest database ever assembled” of call information provided by carriers like AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth, according to USA Today.
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A federal court order obtained by the Guardian newspaper requires Verizon to hand over information about all telephone calls within the U.S. and between the U.S. and other countries on an “ongoing, daily basis.”
The order does not address in any way whether the callers are suspected of wrongdoing. There also is no indication of whether the order is a renewal of an ongoing practice, or if other phone carriers follow the same procedure.
The federal court order requiring Verizon to turn over information about all of its customers’ phone calls was granted April 25 and lasts until July 19.
The leaked document provoked widespread outrage, including from at least one prominent citizen, on social media.
Information that a federal court order requires Verizon to surrender includes the numbers of both parties on the call and other identifiers.
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A U.S. judge granted the feds’ request to obtain all kinds of data about Verizon customers’calls. But at least the conversations themselves aren’t included.
The order cites the business records provision of the Patriot Act.
Paul Sakuma /AP
Verizon stores like this one in Mountain View, Calif., might find themselves less busy as consumers find out that the company is handing over data about all of its customers' phone calls to federal authorities.
That provision allows the government to seize a broad range of records with the approval of the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court — including banking, library and phone records — without having to declare whether the information is related to terrorism.
A spokesman for Verizon, which reportedly has more than 70 million customers, would not comment on the ongoing data dump.
This is not the first time the immense scale of the government’s surveillance capabilities has come into view.
In 2006, USA Today reported that the NSA was compiling “the largest database ever assembled” of call information provided by carriers like AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth.
The information, the paper reported, was used in algorithms that processed the vast amount of information and singled out patterns of caller behavior that indicated possible links to terrorism.
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