AT&T 10-30-2016

30, October 2016                              AT&T 

New details are emerging from investigations conducted by the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the Daily Beast regarding AT&T decades long spying activities on Americans.

The activity, called, Project Hemisphere, captures Americans private calls, text messages, and chats and sells the information to authorities investigating everything from the war on drugs to Medicaid fraud.

The information passes through AT &T giant telecommunication infrastructure. Some of the records date back to 1987. Sheriffs and police departments each pay upward of $1 million a year for access to the call records.  No warrants are needed. This comes at a critical time when AT & T is seeking government approval for its $85 billion takeover of Time Warner.

AT&T activities are extremely troubling. The massive trove of customers’ call records should be sacrosanct, protected from the peering eyes of ‘Big Brother’.

If such information is deemed necessary in the pursuit of law enforcement, warrants should be issued to ensure proper legal oversight.  American has a long history of gross abuse of law enforcement agencies harking back to the dreaded years of FBI Director, Edgar Hoover.