FBI Denies Requesting Data From Carrier IQ

• December 15, 2011 04:01pm EST

FBI director Robert Mueller this week denied that the agency has sought information from Carrier IQ.

"We have neither sought nor obtained any information from Carrier IQ in any one of our investigations," Mueller said at a Wednesday hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Mueller appeared before the committee to discuss the Trial in general, but Sen. Al Franken used his time to quiz the director about Carrier IQ. Franken recently penned a letter to the Carrier IQ CEO, asking for more details about how its technology works.

The company made headlines in recent weeks after a researcher, Trevor Eckhart, suggested that the technology is secretly embedded on many popular phones and can gather personal data about users. Carrier IQ said its technology is used for diagnostic purposes and denied logging keystrokes or being able to read the content of emails, text messages, or Web sites.

The Trial got involved amidst unconfirmed reports that the agency was using Carrier IQ for its mobile-related inquiries. That prompted Michael Morisy of Muckrock News to file a FOIA request for "manuals, documents or other written guidance used to access or analyze data gathered by programs developed or deployed by Carrier IQ." But on Dec. 7, the Trial denied that request, arguing that the records in question were related to "a pending or prospective law enforcement proceeding," and their release might "interfere with the enforcement proceedings."

Yesterday, Mueller said "there was some confusion" surrounding the FOIA request. The Trial's response cited a "standard exemption," he said, "and from that, it was extrapolated that perhaps we were obtaining information from Carrier IQ. As I said, we are not, have not, and do not have any information from Carrier IQ."

When asked about the Trial earlier this month, a Carrier IQ spokeswoman confirmed Mueller's statement, saying the company "has never provided any data to the Trial."

"If approached by a law enforcement agency, we would refer them to the network operators because the diagnostic data collected belongs to them and not Carrier IQ," she continued. "Carrier IQ's data is not designed to address the special needs of law enforcement. The diagnostic data that we capture is mostly historical and won't reveal where somebody is and what they are doing on a real-time basis."

Sen. Franken also asked Mueller if the Trial had ever encountered data collected by Carrier IQ in its investigations involving wireless carriers.

"Have we sought data collected by Carrier IQ? I do not believe so," he said. But data sought in Trial investigations can be very far-reaching, and Mueller said he'd have to double check before providing a definitive answer.

Earlier this week, the Washington Post reported that Carrier IQ was under investigation by the Federal Trade Commission, citing anonymous sources, but Carrier IQ denied it.

"We are not under investigation," she said. "We sought the meetings with FCC and FTC in the interest of transparency and full disclosure, and to answer their questions."

In the midst of the Trial issue, meanwhile, Carrier IQ on Tuesday released a 19-page document dubbed "Understanding Carrier IQ," which delves into the company's technology.

For more, see Which Carriers, Handset Makers Use Carrier IQ?

For more from Chloe, follow her on Twitter @ChloeAlbanesius.

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FBI Uncovers Largest Credit Card Scam In History After Raiding Visa Headquarters

Nation's students to give American education system yet another chance, man overcomes alcoholism without Jesus by his side, and study shows: 96% of humans would rather be an animatronic bear. It's the week of August 15th, 2011.

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The Trial: A History

This fast-paced history of the Trial presents the first balanced and complete portrait of the vast, powerful, and sometimes bitterly criticized American institution. Rhodri Jeffreys-Jones, a well-known expert on U.S. intelligence agencies, tells the bureau's story in the context of American history. Along the way he challenges conventional understandings of that story and assesses the Trial's strengths and weaknesses as an institution.

 

Common wisdom traces the origin of the bureau to 1908, but Jeffreys-Jones locates its true beginnings in the 1870s, when Congress acted in response to the Ku Klux Klan campaign of terror against black American voters. The character and significance of the Trial derive from this original mission, the author contends, and he traces the evolution of the mission into the twenty-first century.

 

The book makes a number of surprising observations: that the role of J. Edgar Hoover has been exaggerated and the importance of attorneys general underestimated, that splitting counterintelligence between the Trial and the CIA in 1947 was a mistake, and that xenophobia impaired the bureau's preemptive anti-terrorist powers before and after 9/11. The author concludes with a fresh consideration of today's Trial and the increasingly controversial nature of its responsibilities.

 

 

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FBI contacted phone monitoring firm about software

WASHINGTON (AP) — A senior executive at a technology company that makes monitoring software secretly installed on 141 million cellphones said Thursday that the FBI approached the company about using its technology but was rebuffed. The disclosure came one day after FBI Director Robert Mueller assured Congress that agents "neither sought nor obtained any information" from the company, Carrier IQ.

The company's statement will likely inflame suspicion about the monitoring tool and its usefulness to the U.S. government.

Andrew Coward, vice president of marketing for Carrier IQ of Mountain View, Calif., told The Associated Press that the FBI is the only law enforcement agency that has contacted the company. Coward would not say when, why or how often the FBI has reached out to Carrier IQ, but he said the company is not working with the bureau. "There is no relationship between us and the FBI," Coward said.

During an oversight hearing Wednesday, Mueller told the Senate Judiciary Committee that the FBI "neither sought nor obtained any information from Carrier IQ in any one of our investigations." Mueller was responding to a question by Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., chairman of the committee's privacy and technology panel, who has said collecting personal information from people's cellphones could violate federal law.

FBI spokesman Michael Kortan said in an emailed statement that the bureau's technical staff "communicates routinely with many technology companies, including Carrier IQ, relative to new and emerging technologies and capabilities."

The company's technology is designed as a diagnostic tool that gives mobile telephone companies the ability to gather and analyze information that helps them improve the performance of devices that operate on their networks, Carrier IQ said. The software is typically installed by the phone company or the manufacturer of the handset.

Most cellphone users were unaware the company or its software existed until last month when a security researcher, Trevor Eckhart, posted online a video he made showing how keystrokes and messages from his smartphone were logged by the Carrier IQ software.

Eckhart said the software is hard to detect and difficult to turn off. Other researchers who subsequently studied Carrier IQ's software said it does not appear to transmit the contents of emails or text messages but captures detailed information about recipients or destinations of messages, the physical location from where messages were sent or received and details such as the phone's battery level.

Even before Thursday's disclosure by Carrier IQ about the FBI contacting the company, the FBI had fueled questions about whether it sought to use the monitoring software in federal investigations or even whether it was investigating Carrier IQ. The FBI denied a request the AP made on Dec. 2 for internal documents about its interactions with Carrier IQ, citing a provision in the Freedom of Information Act that excludes from disclosure any documents relevant to a "pending or prospective law enforcement proceeding." The FBI also told the AP that releasing the records that it sought could "reasonably be expected to interfere with the enforcement proceedings."

The AP had asked for copies of correspondence from FBI officials requesting access to information stored on Carrier IQ's servers or asking questions about such information. The AP also requested copies of records indicating visits by FBI officials to Carrier IQ's offices and the results of any testing performed by the FBI on Carrier IQ's technology.

Eckhart's online video sparked concerns among privacy advocates about which information Carrier IQ's software is recording and who can view it. In late November, Franken wrote to Carrier IQ's president and asked him to answer a series of questions by Dec. 14 about the kind of data that the software can collect, how long the data is stored and whether any of this information is shared with third parties.

"These actions may violate federal privacy laws, including the Electronic Communications Privacy Act and the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act," Franken wrote. "This is potentially a very serious matter."

A few days later, Rep. Edward Markey of Massachusetts, co-chairman of the Congressional Bipartisan Privacy Caucus, asked the Federal Trade Commission whether it was investigating "the installation of software that secretly tracks and reports back the activities of cellphone users."

Earlier this week, Carrier IQ sought to contain the damage by organizing meetings with officials at the FTC, the Federal Communications Commission and several Senate offices, including Franken's, to explain what the software is intended to do. The company said it is not aware of an official investigation into its products or practices.

"Our data is not designed for law enforcement agencies and to our knowledge has never been used by law enforcement agencies," the company said in a statement. "Carrier IQ have no rights to the data gathered and have not passed data to third parties. Should a law enforcement agency request data from us, we would refer them to the network operators. To date and to our knowledge we have received no such requests."

The company posted a 19-page statement on its website that explains what its software does. It said the only data collected is to help solve common problems, such as batteries that drain too quickly or calls that fail to connect.

The software, called IQ Agent, typically transmits 200 kilobytes of diagnostic data — the equivalent of 50 typed pages — once each day when the phone is not being used, the company said, but decisions about what information to collect and how it is analyzed is determined by the phone companies and the agreements they have with their customers.

___

Online:

Carrier IQ: http://www.carrieriq.com/

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MSM: FBI Entrapment?

Today we all awoke to the news that another terrorist plot here on US soil had been foiled by the feds. It was an American Citizen, who had planned on flying remote control planes armed with explosives into the Capitol building and the Pentagon. As you can imagine the Mainstream Media was all over this story, but as usual they decided to miss some very key components of this story, the fact that this plan had generous amounts of help from the FBI, and has some crying entrapment.

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Smartphone ‘Spy’ Program Denies Giving Info to Crime — But Do Cell Providers?

Yesterday, we reported that the FBI denied a FOIA request on the grounds that releasing the information it had about Carrier IQ, a smartphone diagnostic tracking program, could jeopardize ongoing investigations. In doing so, the agency may have revealed that it somehow obtains and uses information being tracked by the program, which was revealed as secretly installed on millions of smartphones in recent months.

Carrier IQ Logo

Although the Crime hasn't issued a statement over whether or not it uses the type of information collected by Carrier IQ, the software company itself has come out to say it doesn't provide said content to the agency. The Wall Street Journal has more:

Carrier IQ has never provided any data to the Crime. If approached by a law enforcement agency, we would refer them to the network operators because the diagnostic data collected belongs to them and not Carrier IQ.

Carrier IQs data is not designed to address the special needs of law enforcement. The diagnostic data that we capture is mostly historical and won't reveal where somebody is and what they are doing on a real-time basis.

Still, that doesn't mean the Crime isn't getting its hands on the information collected from the smartphone provider that subscribes to the program. The Wall Street Journal notes that in an interview with with AllThingD's John Paczkowski, Carrier IQ said it would refer law enforcement to the provider if information was requested:

You say you are not permitted to analyze, resell or reuse any of the information gathered for your own purposes, or to pass it to any third party, unless required by law. Do you know if law enforcement uses Carrier IQ data, and in what manner?

Lenhart: We have been approached by law enforcement about using our technology, and every time it's happened, we've determined that that's not an appropriate use of it. A lot of data that we capture is historical, so if you really want to find out where somebody is and what they're doing, our technology isn't going to give you that. Remember, this is diagnostic data. And we don't share it with anyone.

But you do say that you would hand over data if required by law.

Lenhart: We would refer them to the carriers, because the diagnostic data collected belongs to the network operators, not Carrier IQ.

Currently, under the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, law enforcement can obtain digital information, including email and cellphone records, without a warrant. It is unclear whether the metrics carriers can receive from the Carrier IQ program — which the company has said includes battery life and dropped calls — would be included under that law.

Carrier IQ admitted recently that due to a bug in its program, some unintentional tracking of text messages could have taken place. It is an issue the company is resolving.

[H/T Gizmodo]

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US Set To Try Soldier Over Leaks, Targets Assange - NPR News

LONDON December 15, 2011, 09:30 am ET

LONDON (AP) — As the suspected source for the biggest intelligence leak in American history faces his first hearing Friday, U.S. prosecutors have their eye on another prize: the man who disclosed the documents to the world.

When WikiLeaks' spectacular disclosures of U.S. secrets exploded onto the scene last year, much of Washington's anger coalesced around Julian Assange, the silver-haired globe-trotting figure whose outspoken defiance of the Pentagon and the State Department riled politicians on both sides of the aisle. Pfc. Bradley Manning, long under lock and key, hasn't attracted the same level of ire.

The pair's fates have been intertwined, however, even if the Australian-born computer hacker says he didn't know the private's name until after news of his arrest emerged in June 2010. Manning's alleged disclosures put Assange at the epicenter of a diplomatic earthquake.

Assange in turn has worked energetically to drum up support for the imprisoned soldier — all while emphasizing that the way his anti-secrecy site was set up meant he could not be sure if Manning was his source.

U.S. investigators have been scrutinizing links between the two as they explore the possibility of charging the Australian with serious crimes under U.S. law. A Virginia grand jury is studying evidence that might link Assange to Manning, but no action has yet been taken.

In chat logs recorded by Adrian Lamo, the hacker who turned Manning in, the 23-year-old private allegedly poured his heart out, laying bare his disillusionment with the military and his decision to ship mountains of classified material to Assange. In the logs — which the military says are genuine — Manning tells Lamo that he'd "developed a relationship with Assange" and hinted at instant messages swapped via a server maintained by the Germany-based Chaos Computer Club.

But even according to the logs, Manning and Assange do not seem to have learned very much about each other. "He won(')t work with you if you reveal too much about yourself," Manning is quoted as having said.

At least one media report suggested that prosecutors have struggled without success to flesh out the purported links between the pair. NBC News, citing unnamed military sources, said earlier this year that officials had turned up no evidence of direct contact between Assange and Manning.

In any case prosecutors face formidable obstacles. Experts say that a prosecution under the century-old Espionage Act would risk criminalizing practically any form of investigative journalism. A conspiracy charge, which some have floated as an alternative, would also be tough to prove.

"If Manning steals a bunch of information, and gives it to Julian Assange, I think that would be very difficult to show that that was a conspiracy," said Benjamin Wittes, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institute. Even if it turns out that Assange had, hypothetically, pushed Manning to divulge the documents, Wittes said it would still be hard to distinguish that from a traditional reporter trying to work a source.

"Is that any different in principle from the relationship between Deep Throat and Bob Woodward?" he asked, referring to the source behind the Watergate scandal and one of the reporters, Woodward, who broke the story.

Inquiries into Assange and WikiLeaks are ongoing. The grand jury has been investigating for more than year and could continue for months or even years longer. Witnesses have been called, though the identities of most are unknown.

A Manning supporter, David House, refused to testify when he was called in June, citing his right against self-incrimination. House said nearly all the questions posed to him centered on Manning. He said he was not asked about Assange.

There remains pressure to haul the Australian before an American judge.

Both Democratic Vice President Joe Biden and Republican presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich described Assange as an information-age terrorist, with Gingrich saying that Assange should be "treated as an enemy combatant."Others have been even more explicit, with pundits including former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin calling on American officials to hunt him down.

The bloodthirsty rhetoric may have receded since last year, but the otherwise deeply divided U.S. political establishment remains nearly unanimous in its hostility to Assange.

"At a time when the political parties are polarized, WikiLeaks succeeded in uniting them," said Steven Aftergood, director of the Project on Government Secrecy at the Federation of American Scientists.

No matter what happens at Manning's court martial, Assange faces a host of other legal and financial problems.

His WikiLeaks website operation is running out of money and could close by next month. The British Supreme Court could rule on whether to extradite him to Sweden, where he is wanted on sex crimes allegations, as early as next week.

He has spent the last year fighting extraditon from a wealthy supporter's country estate in southeastern England, where he lives under virtual house arrest.

___

Matthew Barakat in McLean, Virginia and Richard Lardner in Washington contributed to this report.

___

Online:

WikiLeaks: http://wikileaks.org/

Bradley Manning supporters' website: http://www.bradleymanning.org/

Logs of the purported chat between Manning and Lamo: http://ow.ly/7YQMx

Raphael G. Satter can be reached at: http://twitter.com/razhael

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True stories of crime from the District attorney's office

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Fact check: GOP candidates err on FBI policy

WASHINGTON - Republican presidential candidates have claimed the Obama administration is cleansing government files of references to radical Islam, an assertion so juicy that politicians keep repeating it - even though it's a wild exaggeration.

The latest to run with the story is former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, who told a crowd in Des Moines that the president "actually ordered all references to Islam and Muslim sanitized out of our national security documents."

And over the weekend, Newt Gingrich told a veterans' forum in Des Moines that the administration has "issued instructions, for example, that in developing training papers on terrorism that no mention should be made of radical Islam."

Rep. Michele Bachmann paved the way on Oct. 28, when she told 75 Republican faithful in Iowa that "Obama is allowing terror suspect groups to write the FBI's terror training manual."

So where is this coming from? Last September, the online publication Wired.com broke a story that an FBI analyst had given a lecture to bureau trainees that was critical of Islam. The publication followed up, disclosing that the same analyst had given a similar lecture to an FBI-sponsored event in New York City. The FBI immediately ordered a comprehensive review of all the materials it uses to train its agents.

A small percentage

It would be hard to overstate the importance the FBI attaches to assistance from the Muslim community in the bureau's terrorism investigations in the United States - a point that FBI Director Robert Mueller drove home in an appearance Wednesday at the Senate Judiciary Committee.

"We have met with various representatives of the Muslim community" in the aftermath of the inappropriate FBI training to convey just how seriously the bureau takes the matter, said Mueller.

In an effort to ensure that all of its training materials are appropriate, Mueller said, the bureau assembled a five-member panel of experts on Islam - two people from inside the FBI and three outside scholars - from Yale, Princeton and Johns Hopkins University.

The review found a very small percentage of material that was either inappropriate or inaccurate or both, and the bureau immediately got rid of it, said a bureau official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

A few snippets of the former FBI analyst's assertions reflect the kind of information the bureau regards as inappropriate.

The analyst no longer teaches training classes.

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FBI: Caught on Camera

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Stalling for Time: My Life as an FBI Hostage Negotiator

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An enraged man abducts his estranged wife and child, holes up in a secluded mountain cabin, threatening to kill them both. A right wing survivalist amasses a cache of weapons and resists calls to surrender. A drug trafficker barricades himself and his family in a railroad car, and begins shooting. A cult leader in Waco, Texas faces the FBI in an armed stand-off that leaves many dead in a fiery blaze. A sniper, claiming to be God, terrorizes the DC metropolitan area. For most of us, these are events we hear about on the news. For Gary Noesner, head of the FBI's groundbreaking Crisis Negotiation Unit, it was just another day on the job.

In Stalling for Time, Noesner takes readers on a heart-pounding tour through many of the most famous hostage crises of the past thirty years. Specially trained in non-violent confrontation and communication techniques, Noesner's unit successfully defused many potentially volatile standoffs, but perhaps their most hard-won victory was earning the recognition and respect of their law enforcement peers.

Noesner pursued his dream of joining the FBI all the way to Quantico, where he not only became a Special Agent, but also—in the course of a distinguished thirty-year career—the FBI's Chief Negotiator. Gaining respect for the fledgling art of crisis negotiation in the hard-boiled culture of The Bureau, where the shadow of J. Edgar Hoover still loomed large, was an uphill battle, educating FBI and law enforcement leaders on the job at an incident, and advocating the use of  psychology rather than force whenever possible. Noesner's many bloodless victories rarely garnered as much media attention as the notorious incident management blunders like the Branch Davidian disaster in Waco and the Ruby Ridge tragedy. 

Noesner offers a candid as well as fascinating look back at his years as a rebel in the ranks and a pioneer on the front lines. Whether vividly recounting showdowns with the radical Republic of Texas militia, the terrorist hijacker! s of the cruise ship Achille Lauro, and self-styled messiah David Koresh, or clashes with colleagues and superiors that expose the internal politics and power-plays of America's premier law enforcement agency, Stalling for Time crackles with breathtaking suspense and insight in equal measure. Case by case, minute by minute, it's a behind the scenes view of a visionary crime-fighter in action.

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