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AT&T Secretly Selling Customers Data to Law Enforcement
Key Excerpts from Article on Website of San Francisco Chronicle (San Francisco's leading newspaper)
Posted: October 31st, 2016
http://www.sfgate.com/entertainment/the-wrap/article/AT-T-Se...
AT&T runs a secret program called Project Hemisphere that that searches millions and millions of call records and analyzes cellular data to help law enforcement spy on Americans, according to documents obtained by The Daily Beast. Police use the data to solve crimes by monitoring if specific cellular towers in the vicinity of wrongdoings picked up a known suspects cell phone. The surveillance project comes to light as the company is on the verge of acquiring Time Warner in one of the biggest media mergers in memory. Law enforcement agencies pay from $100,000 to over $1 million a year for Hemisphere access. Back in 2013, The New York Times called Hemisphere a partnership between AT&T and the government, but Daily Beast says its actually a product AT&T developed, marketed, and sold at a cost of millions of dollars per year to taxpayers. No warrant is required to access Hemisphere, but it does require a promise not to publicly disclose Hemisphere. AT&T owns significant shares in both the landline and cell phone space, which allows the company to possess information that is used by at least 28 intelligence centers. Documents show that AT&T wants to keep Hemisphere a secret, but suspects and anyone charged with a crime have the right to know the evidence against them. The Government agency agrees not to use the data as evidence in any judicial or administrative proceedings unless there is no other available and admissible probative evidence, documents obtained by the Beast said.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on corporate corruption and the disappearance of privacy.