Police bypass warrants and subpoenas, obtain personal data from brokers

Commentary 1: Congressional investigators estimated the U.S. government spent $30 million last year buying personal data from private brokers.

But that number likely understates the breadth of transactions, since brokers said they rarely charge law enforcement agencies.

Commentary 2 by Helen & Harry Highwater:

"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."

by Ted Bridis and John Solomon, Associated Press

June 21, 2006

Federal and local police across the country -- as well as some of the nation's best-known companies -- have been gathering Americans' phone records from private data brokers without subpoenas or warrants.

Private data brokers who covertly gather these records on behalf of banks, bail bondsmen and even federal and local police are bracing for intensive scrutiny by Congress. Legal experts and privacy advocates said police reliance on private vendors who commit such acts raises civil liberties questions.

Those using data brokers include agencies of the Homeland Security and Justice departments -- including the FBI and U.S. Marshal's Service -- and municipal police departments in California, Florida, Georgia and Utah. Experts believe hundreds of other departments frequently use such services.

"We are requesting any and all information you have regarding the above cell phone account and the account holder ... including account activity and the account holder's address," Ana Bueno, a police investigator in Redwood City, Calif., wrote in October to PDJ Investigations of Granbury, Texas.

An agent in Denver for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Anna Wells, sent a similar request on March 31 on Homeland Security stationery: "I am looking for all available subscriber information for the following phone number," Wells wrote to a corporate alias used by PDJ.

Congressional investigators estimated the U.S. government spent $30 million last year buying personal data from private brokers. But that number likely understates the breadth of transactions, since brokers said they rarely charge law enforcement agencies.

These brokers, many of whom market aggressively on the Internet, have tricked telephone carriers into revealing private customer information and broken into online accounts, sometimes by guessing passwords that were the names of pets, according to documents obtained by The Associated Press.

"She has two pets, one named Rainbow and the other is Max," wrote a private detective, Donnie Tidmore of Waco, Texas, in September in e-mail to a data broker, PDJ Investigations of Granbury, Texas. The detective wanted lists of cellular calls and the Social Security number of a Virgin Mobile USA subscriber for a case. Tidmore didn't return a phone message from the AP late Tuesday.

Sensitive to public unease over disclosures of private phone records in the murky industry, U.S. lawmakers pledged oversight hearings starting Wednesday to investigate which laws, if any, might have been violated:

• Did customers, who included police agencies, lenders, collection firms and suspicious spouses, break laws when they sought records of someone's private telephone calls?

• Did data brokers commit crimes when they provided the information for a price?

• Did contractors working with brokers violate laws by calling telephone companies and impersonating customers to trick carriers into revealing private billing information?

• Did leading telephone companies break laws by not protecting customer information more vigorously?

A lawmaker who has investigated the industry said he was concerned about data brokers. "There's a good chance there are some laws being broken, but it's not really clear precisely which laws," said Rep. Ed Whitfield, R-Ky., head of the House Energy and Commerce investigations subcommittee.

Documents gathered by Whitfield's committee show data brokers use trickery, impersonation and even technology to try to gather Americans' phone records. "They can basically obtain any information about anybody on any subject," Whitfield said.

Lawyers for the data brokers said the companies are innocent, that brokers protected themselves by requiring their contract workers to sign statements promising to obey the law.

"While it may be distasteful for many, there was no bright-line law that prohibited this," said James Bearden, a Texas lawyer who represents four such data brokers and was expected to attend this week's congressional inquiry.

He likened the companies' activities to the National Security Agency, which reportedly compiles the phone records of ordinary Americans. "The government is doing exactly what these people are accused of doing," Bearden said. "These people are being demonized. These are people who are partners with law enforcement on a regular basis."

Many of the executives summoned to testify were expected to decline to answer questions, invoking their Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.

PDJ's lawyer, Larry Slade, said he was confident no one at the company violated laws, but he acknowledged, "I'm not sure that every law enforcement agency in the country would agree with that analysis."

Documents turned over under subpoena to congressional investigators provide an unprecedented glimpse into how the industry operates. They show some of America's most famous corporate names -- from automakers to insurers to banks -- purchasing information on private citizens, often to track down delinquent customers.

Two such companies, Wells Fargo & Co. and State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Co., said they have since ended relationships with data broker companies.

Obfuscation was the norm in an underground industry where lies are a way of doing business.

A California private investigator, Jay Rosenzweig, told the AP his detective firm occasionally worked with PDJ only to deliver a subpoena or record a witness statement. He said PDJ never gathered telephone records. "They don't do any of that work," Rosenzweig said.

But internal PDJ e-mails show Rosenzweig sought cellular telephone records of at least two people as recently as March. PDJ complained to Rosenzweig days later that operators at Verizon Wireless were being uncooperative. "Sorry we cannot get this one," a PDJ employee wrote to Rosenzweig, who replied, "Thanks."

After AP described the documents to Rosenzweig contradicting his statements, Rosenzweig said: "I don't know what to tell you. I don't want to get into this. I never broke any laws."