FBI Seeks To Pay Telecoms For Data
$5 Million a Year Sought for Firms To Keep Databases
By Ellen Nakashima
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, July 25, 2007; A07
The FBI wants to pay the major telecommunications companies to retain
their
customers' Internet and phone call information for at least two years
for
the agency's use in counterterrorism investigations and is asking
Congress
for $5 million a year to defray the cost, according to FBI officials and
budget documents.
The FBI would not have direct access to the records. It would need to
present a subpoena or an administrative warrant, known as a national
security letter, to obtain the information that the companies would
keep in
a database, officials said.
"We have never asked for the ability to have direct access to or to
'data
mine' telephone company databases," said John Miller, the FBI's
assistant
director for public affairs. "The budget request simply seeks to
absorb the
cost to the service provider of developing an efficient electronic
system
for them to retain and deliver the information after it is legally
requested."
The proposal has raised concerns by civil libertarians who point to
telecom
companies' alleged involvement in the government's domestic surveillance
program and to a recent Justice Department inspector general's report
on FBI
abuse of national security letters. In one case, a senior FBI official
signed the letters without including the required proof that they were
linked to FBI counterterrorism or espionage investigations.
The report also disclosed that the bureau was issuing "exigent letters,"
telling telephone companies that the bureau needed information
immediately
and would follow up with subpoenas later. In many cases, agents did not
follow up. Moreover, Inspector General Glenn A. Fine found, there was no
legal basis to compel the disclosure of information using such letters.
The proposal "is circumventing the law by paying companies to do
something
the FBI couldn't do itself legally," said Michael German, American Civil
Liberties Union policy counsel on national security. "Going around the
Fourth Amendment by paying private companies to hoard our phone
records is
outrageous."
Mark J. Zwillinger, a Washington lawyer who represents Internet service
providers, said companies have no "business reason" to keep the data.
Moreover, he said he did not think telecom companies "are in the
business of
becoming the investigative arm for the government, keeping data just
so the
government can get access to it. That's really what the government is
asking
for: 'Keep data on hundreds of millions of users just in case we need
to get
data for 15 individuals.' "
Last year, according to industry sources, U.S. Attorney General
Alberto R.
Gonzales and FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III urged telecom
providers to
keep subscriber information and network data for two years.
Legislation is
pending in Congress that would require companies to keep the data.
What type
and for how long would be up to the attorney general.
The administration is also attempting to win immunity for telecom
companies
from criminal and civil liability for any role in the surveillance
program.
Telecoms have been providing data legally to the government and then
charging for it, said a government official not authorized to speak
publicly
about the matter and who spoke on condition of anonymity. The cost is
about
$1.8 million a year since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the official
said.
The idea now, the official said, is to have the telecom companies
create and
maintain databases of phone and Internet records so that when they
receive a
subpoena or national security letter, they can deliver the information
expeditiously in electronic form.
Zwillinger, an Internet and data protection expert with Sonnenschein
Nath
& Rosenthal and a former federal prosecutor, said that merely
retaining
the records creates "a very attractive trove" of data that can be
subpoenaed
by other entities, such as lawyers in divorce proceedings or other civil
litigation.
The FBI's proposal to pay companies for the records was reported
previously
by ABC News.
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