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Buy Anybodys Phone Records Online, Even the FBI's

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posted on Jan, 7 2006 @ 07:10 PM
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Chicago Sun Times ran an article discribing a web site that you can use to purchase anyones phone records for about $110. Chicago detectives, and even the FBI's phone records are not exempt. Anyone with money can purchase them. They even sold a Canadian Officials phone records to a journalist.



To test the service, the FBI paid Locatecell.com $160 to buy the records for an agent's cell phone and received the list within three hours, the police bulletin said.


LocateCell.com sells Cell phone or Landline phone records online. Just email them a phone number, your credit card number. They will send you incoming or outgoing calls, even throw in the length of the calls.

Can you believe it? I don't do anything illegal, but I sure dont like the idea that anyone can do this.



posted on Jan, 7 2006 @ 07:12 PM
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How does it work? How can it be legal?



posted on Jan, 7 2006 @ 07:24 PM
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Looks like the Washington Post did an article on this back in July '05.



Federal law expressly prohibits pretexting for financial data -- which at one time was a primary means of stealing credit card and other account information -- but does not cover telephone records, which are covered by a patchwork of state and federal laws governing access to personal information.


Say, I just had a thought. I wonder if this is how the NSA was getting their info?



posted on Jan, 7 2006 @ 10:45 PM
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Not only does this endanger National Security, but I personally don't like it. I’m sure getting a federal court order to shut this website down should not be too difficult?



posted on Jan, 7 2006 @ 11:55 PM
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I don't like it either! But I'm afraid that it would take more than stopping one website.


Washinton Post Article
There are probably 100 such sites known to security officials at Verizon Wireless that offer to sell phone records, said Jeffrey Nelson, a company spokesman.

Apparently the FTC could care less. It seems that there is no legistlation covering this. Which tells me there is probably big money behind it.


Washington Post Article
The FTC views pretexting as a deceptive practice even without a specific ban on its use for telephone records, Winston said.

But he said the agency has never taken such a case to court and does not know how widespread the problem is. He said the FTC must focus its resources on the practices of data thieves that can cause the most damage to large numbers of consumers, such as financial fraud



posted on Jan, 8 2006 @ 12:29 AM
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That's absurd, he's worried about finical fraud when a FBI agent phone records can be bough by anyone with 160$?
There defiantly needs to be legislation about this, and it shouldn‘t be from the state government, there should be federal legislation. I really hope that someone sues and take to court one of the companies to set a precedent that this is illegal.

[edit on 8-1-2006 by WestPoint23]



posted on Jan, 8 2006 @ 01:42 AM
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Absurd is the correct word. Heck even the police have to get a court order to get your phone records.

I found another article detailing how the Canadian Privacy Commisioner was handed a stack of papers which listed all her phone calls from her private residence, and her government issued Blackberry. She was shocked.

But to date it appears that only EPIC, and one Senator are trying to do anything about it. Although Verizon did go after one company, they settled out of court.

This needs to be dealt with on a much larger scale IMHO.



posted on Jan, 8 2006 @ 02:04 PM
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OMG you have to be kidding right?

Ive checked this in my country of residence and luckily the service seems to be not available here due to a law based on protecting private information, only the actual named person on the account could access this phew!

However if I was in the US it would worry me greatly, they can access land lines as well as mobiles, blueberry etc:



Find active working non-published number at any physical address.





You provide the nonpublished land based phone number, we send the name and address associated to it.


Source

Surely this is not right? people who choose anynominity due to privacy is one thing, but some people dont get listed due to risk to their wellbeing, such as an abusive ex partner, or maybe giving evidence in court. This is wrong!

What I want to know is though if they provided a FBI agents info and a politicians, well who Knows Rumsfields, Bush's and Cheeneys Nos? would love to have a look at them


Regards

Elf



posted on Jan, 8 2006 @ 02:41 PM
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can you really do that
nice

but i bet you cant bye the most Secret Phone records. thos are deleted for ever



posted on Jan, 8 2006 @ 05:59 PM
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WOW. Excellent find.

I don't mind the government listening in to my overseas
telephone calls. I understand checking them for national
security reasons. However, I DO mind lay people butting
into my business. This could be very bad for people with
dangerous ex-spouses etc. etc. etc.

NOT GOOD!



posted on Jan, 8 2006 @ 06:26 PM
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Surely this is not right? people who choose anynominity due to privacy is one thing, but some people dont get listed due to risk to their wellbeing, such as an abusive ex partner, or maybe giving evidence in court. This is wrong!


I think you guys are misunderstanding. If our hypothetical violent partner already knows the physical address, then knowing the unlisted phone number is immaterial. If the phone number is unlisted and the violent partner doesn't know the physical address, they aren't going to be able to get squat.

If you don't have a phone number or an address to input, you aren't going to get any records, plain and simple. People in the witness protection program work under assumed identities, so that's not a factor unless the hound is wise to the new identity of the rabbit, in which case a simple search will reveal their job location, telephone number, liscense number, etc..

If you know the residence or the phone #, you can get someone's outgoing calls list, but that's really just scratching the surface. In fact, this particular invasion of privacy we're discussing is really pretty minor compared to some of the other ones currently being exploited by fraud investigators, bail bondsmen, PIs, etc..

With the advent of the internet, research on people, places, and things got a whole lot easier. It takes maybe 30 minutes to produce a full profile on someone, assuming you have something to get started on, a name, a last known location, a relative, or a liscense #, anything really. Sometimes it can take much less time, on the order of 3 or 4 minutes, sometimes it takes much longer (people who are actively avoiding detection).

Anyway, I agree this could compromise an investigation or facilitate blackmail or something, but the ability to do those things was already in place, has been for some time.



posted on Jan, 15 2006 @ 01:39 PM
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It is noteable that a blogger used one of these companies to obtain General Wesley Clark's phone records for $90.00, and posted a redacted version on his blog.

Now Cingular has gone after them in court, and succeded in obtaining a temporary restraining order.

Amazing world.



posted on Feb, 3 2006 @ 09:01 AM
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WASHINGTON -- Two of the nation's top regulators urged lawmakers today to ban the sale of consumer telephone information by not only online brokers but also by telephone companies.

The comments by Federal Communications Commission Chairman Kevin Martin and Federal Trade Commissioner Jon Liebowitz came during a House Energy and Commerce hearing probing the source of black-market telephone data, including call records and location of the calls, for sale over the Internet.

Feds say: Ban All Sales of Phone Records


Do you think this will go anywhere? Or will the phone lobbyists kill it before it gets started?



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