NSA Call Data Channel (CDC) Monitoring

On 11 May 2006 USA Today reported that the National Security Agency had secretly collected the phone call records of millions of Americans, using data from three of the nation's biggest phone service providers. The National Security Agency used information provided by AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth, which were reported to be working under contract with the NSA. The three companies provide local and wireless phone service to more than 200 million customers in the US.
The newspaper said it learned from sources familiar with the program that the NSA does not listen or record actual phone conversations, but uses the data to analyze the calling patterns of ordinary Americans in order to detect possible terrorist activities. Under Section 222 of the U.S. Communications Act passed in 1934 and amended in 1996, telephone companies are prohibited from giving out information regarding their customers' calling habits.
The law around wiretaps has grown up around a legal distinction between Content and Identifying Information with a legal history based in the postal system. The outside of a letter identifies the recipient, the sender, the place where the letter was posted and the time. Obtaining this “Identification” information requires a lower legal standard than the “Content” of the mail – the letter inside the envelope.
In March 2004 the Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA) and the Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Solutions (ATIS) jointly published the TIA Standard/ATIS Committee T1 Trial Use Standard, "Lawfully Authorized Electronic Surveillance" J-STD-025-B. This standard defines the interfaces between a telecommunications service provider (TSP) and a law enforcement agency (LEA) to assist the LEA in conducting lawfully authorized electronic surveillance. The purpose of this standard is to facilitate a TSP's compliance with the assistance capability requirements defined in Section 103 of the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA).
J-STD-025-B defines services and features to support Lawfully Authorized Electronic Surveillance (LAES) and the interfaces to deliver intercepted communications and communication-identifying information to an LEA when authorized. The document also defines a protocol for delivering specific information elements to LEAs. Compliance with this standard satisfies the "safe harbor" provisions of Section 107 of CALEA and helps ensure efficient and industry-wide implementation of the assistance capability requirements. ( know more at )