Big Brother is listening
How the heck did this happen? From Wired magazine: Five police agencies in Hampton Roads have been compiling a massive database of telephone records under the aegis of the Hampton Roads Telephone Analysis Sharing Network. The localities include Hampton, Newport News, Norfolk, Chesapeake and Suffolk. Writes Wired:
The effort is being led in part by the Peninsula Narcotics Enforcement Task Force, which is responsible for a “telephone analysis room” in the city of Hampton, where the database is maintained.
The unusual and secretive database contains telecom customer subscriber information; records about individual phone calls, such as the numbers dialed, the time the calls were made and their duration; as well as the contents of seized mobile devices. The information is collected and shared among police agencies to enhance analysis and law enforcement intelligence.
Rob Poggenklass, a staff attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union of Virginia said:
The database runs afoul of a privacy law in Virginia known as the Government Data Collection and Dissemination Practices Act, designed to curb the overcollection and misuse of digital personal information by state and local agencies.
He points to an interpretation of that law issued last year by Virginia’s attorney general in reference to controversial automated license-plate readers that police departments nationwide have adopted enthusiastically in recent years.
Maybe there’s an innocent explanation for this. Maybe it marks a scary expansion of police power. One way or the other, we need a full airing of what’s going on.
–JAB
