Wiretapping Firm Says Telecom Providers Could Be Handing Over More Data Than Authorized

Wiretapping e-mails and phone calls has always been a contentious law enforcement tactic. But now surveillance is becoming more of a legal minefield than ever in the United States, thanks to a clash between European and American eavesdropping regulations—and some telecom firms could be handing over data on suspects without court authorization.

That’s according to a company that plays a significant but little-known role monitoring communications for agencies like the FBI, the DEA, and the Department of Homeland Security. Subsentio, based out of Centennial (CO), provides telecommunication companies with an outsourced wiretap service—fitting surveillance “probe” equipment into their network infrastructure and then handling spy requests on their behalf. Subsentio won’t say who its customers are, but it claims it deals with major national and international communication firms in the United States and is responsible for “millions of subscribers” across mobile and broadband networks. Subsentio’s surveillance equipment was tailored for U.S. laws, so it provides only the data requested by the applicable court order. But Subsentio President Steve Bock said that some of the surveillance technology used by carriers in the United States to pass communications data to the authorities was built instead to European standards. This means it can’t properly differentiate between pen register metadata requests and so-called “Title III” content surveillance orders. Consequently, “service providers could be delivering content that has not been authorized by the court,” said Bock.