The Daily Beast notes that AT&T has found itself at the center of yet another surveillance scandal. Back in 2013 the New York Times reported that AT&T had developed, marketed and sold to law enforcement a service dubbed "Project Hemisphere." Project Hemisphere provided the DEA and other federal and state law enforcement real-time access to data on nearly every single call that touches the AT&T network. The report notes that this database went as far back as 1987, and well exceeds even the NSA's massive surveillance dragnets in some regards.
While the Times report stated the project was a necessary "partnership" between AT&T and the DEA, documents obtained by the Daily Beast indicate that the project is something notably different, and very profitable, for AT&T:
quote:
Hemisphere isn’t a “partnership” but rather a product AT&T developed, marketed, and sold at a cost of millions of dollars per year to taxpayers. No warrant is required to make use of the company’s massive trove of data, according to AT&T documents, only a promise from law enforcement to not disclose Hemisphere if an investigation using it becomes public.
Much like the company's relationship with the NSA, AT&T appears to have gone much further than was legally required in order to make its ongoing relationship with intelligence and law enforcement profitable, notes the report:
quote:
While telecommunications companies are legally obligated to hand over records, AT&T appears to have gone much further to make the enterprise profitable, according to ACLU technology policy analyst Christopher Soghoian."Companies have to give this data to law enforcement upon request, if they have it. AT&T doesn’t have to data-mine its database to help police come up with new numbers to investigate,” Soghoian said.
Granted AT&T has long been accused of not only cooperating with law enforcement and the surveillance sector, but actively providing advice how best to bypass
US privacy and wiretapping laws. The biggest, of course, came courtesy of AT&T employee turned whistleblower Mark Klein, who documented how AT&T was giving the NSA wholesale access to every shred of data that touched the AT&T network via live fiber splits via dedicated rooms at key AT&T central offices.
In this case, AT&T was making a profit on one end of the equation by charging law enforcement between $100,000 and $1 million annually to access the hemisphere program. On the other end of the line, AT&T until recently was busy charging its broadband customers a steep premium if they wanted to protect their "privacy."
The latest revelation of AT&T's ultra-cozy relationship with government and law enforcement comes as consumer advocates argue the company's latest $85 billion expansion plan could make a wide variety of anti-competitive and privacy issues that have long plagued AT&T notably worse.
Those interested can find a full copy of the leaked AT&T documents
here (pdf).