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posted by martyb on Wednesday October 26 2016, @01:37PM   Printer-friendly
from the data-wants-to-be...-sold? dept.

Even after the gravesite was discovered and McStay's DNA was found inside Merritt's vehicle, police were far from pinning the quadruple homicide on him.

Until they turned to Project Hemisphere.

Hemisphere is a secretive program run by AT&T that searches trillions of call records and analyzes cellular data to determine where a target is located, with whom he speaks, and potentially why.

"Merritt was in a position to access the cellular telephone tower northeast of the McStay family gravesite on February 6th, 2010, two days after the family disappeared," an affidavit for his girlfriend's call records reports Hemisphere finding (PDF). Merritt was arrested almost a year to the date after the McStay family's remains were discovered, and is awaiting trial for the murders.

In 2013, Hemisphere was revealed by The New York Times and described only within a Powerpoint presentation made by the Drug Enforcement Administration. The Times described it as a "partnership" between AT&T and the U.S. government; the Justice Department said it was an essential, and prudently deployed, counter-narcotics tool.

However, AT&T's own documentation—reported here by The Daily Beast for the first time—shows Hemisphere was used far beyond the war on drugs to include everything from investigations of homicide to Medicaid fraud.

Hemisphere isn't a "partnership" but rather a product AT&T developed, marketed, and sold at a cost of millions of dollars per year to taxpayers. No warrant is required to make use of the company's massive trove of data, according to AT&T documents, only a promise from law enforcement to not disclose Hemisphere if an investigation using it becomes public.

So, AT&T's one stipulation is a pinky swear with law enforcement that their program won't cause them public embarrassment.


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  • (Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Wednesday October 26 2016, @08:32PM

    by LoRdTAW (3755) on Wednesday October 26 2016, @08:32PM (#419132) Journal

    They are all three letters:
    NSA
    CIA
    ATT
    TMS

    HFS! (Holy fuckin shit!)

    Starting Score:    1  point
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  

    Total Score:   2  
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 26 2016, @10:54PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 26 2016, @10:54PM (#419194)

    USA

    • (Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Wednesday October 26 2016, @11:21PM

      by LoRdTAW (3755) on Wednesday October 26 2016, @11:21PM (#419199) Journal

      It's a conspiracy!

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 27 2016, @12:11AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 27 2016, @12:11AM (#419210)

        OMG

        • (Score: 2) by Gaaark on Thursday October 27 2016, @01:51AM

          by Gaaark (41) on Thursday October 27 2016, @01:51AM (#419241) Journal

          WTF? TMI!

          --
          --- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 27 2016, @02:26AM

            by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 27 2016, @02:26AM (#419253)

            WTF? TMI!

            M-O-U-S-E