Justice Department documents released
today by the ACLU reveal that federal law enforcement agencies are
increasingly monitoring Americans’ electronic communications, and doing
so without warrants, sufficient oversight, or meaningful accountability. The documents, handed over by the government only after months of litigation,
are the attorney general’s 2010 and 2011 reports on the use of “pen
register” and “trap and trace” surveillance powers. The reports show a
dramatic increase in the use of these surveillance tools, which are used
to gather information about telephone, email, and other Internet
communications. The revelations underscore the importance of regulating
and overseeing the government’s surveillance power. (Our original Freedom of Information Act request and our legal complaint are online.) Pen register and trap and trace devices are powerfully invasive surveillance tools that were, twenty years ago,
physical devices that attached to telephone lines in order to covertly
record the incoming and outgoing numbers dialed. Today, no special
equipment is required to record this information, as interception
capabilities are built into phone companies’ call-routing hardware. Pen register and trap and trace devices now generally refer to the surveillance of information about—rather
than the contents of—communications. Pen registers capture outgoing
data, while trap and trace devices capture incoming data. This still
includes the phone numbers of incoming and outgoing telephone calls and
the time, date, and length of those calls. But the government now also
uses this authority to intercept the “to” and “from” addresses of email
messages, records about instant message conversations, non-content data
associated with social networking identities, and at least some
information about the websites that you visit (it isn't entirely clear
where the government draws the line between the content of a
communication and information about a communication when it comes to the
addresses of websites).
Electronic Surveillance Is Sharply on the Rise
The reports that we received document an enormous increase in the
Justice Department’s use of pen register and trap and trace
surveillance. As the chart below shows, between 2009 and 2011 the
combined number of original orders for pen registers and trap and trace
devices used to spy on phones increased by 60%, from 23,535 in 2009 to
37,616 in 2011.
During that same time period, the number of people whose telephones
were the subject of pen register and trap and trace surveillance more
than tripled. In fact, more people were subjected to pen register and
trap and trace surveillance in the past two years than in the entire
previous decade.
During the past two years, there has also been an increase in the
number of pen register and trap and trace orders targeting email and
network communications data. While this type of Internet surveillance
tool remains relatively rare, its use is increasing exponentially. The
number of authorizations the Justice Department received to use these
devices on individuals’ email and network data increased 361% between
2009 and 2011.
The sharp increase in the use of pen register and trap and trace
orders is the latest example of the skyrocketing spying on Americans’
electronic communications. Earlier this year, the New York Times reported
that cellphone carriers received 1.3 million demands for subscriber
information in 2011 alone. And an ACLU public records project revealed that police departments around the country large and small engage in cell phone location tracking...more
Issues of concern to people who live in the west: property rights, water rights, endangered species, livestock grazing, energy production, wilderness and western agriculture. Plus a few items on western history, western literature and the sport of rodeo... Frank DuBois served as the NM Secretary of Agriculture from 1988 to 2003. DuBois is a former legislative assistant to a U.S. Senator, a Deputy Assistant Secretary of Interior, and is the founder of the DuBois Rodeo Scholarship.
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