• Records of users of federally subsidized phone service exposed

    By NBC News staff

    Federally subsidized phone service for the poor provides a crucial lifeline for many low-income Americans, but providers of the service appear to have put tens of thousands of users at risk of identity theft, according to a report published Monday.

    More than 170,000 records from two companies that provide the Lifeline service -- Oklahoma City-based TerraCom Inc. and its affiliate, YourTel America Inc. -- were posted online, a Scripps News investigation found. The records, from residents of at least 26 states, include Social Security numbers, dates of birth and information about participation in other government-assistance programs. Of those records, 343 were viewed by unknown individuals, an official for both companies acknowledged.

    Click here to read the full report.

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  • Bomb plot briefing may undercut DOJ's case for AP records seizure

    Manuel Balce Ceneta / AP file

    CIA Director John Brennan, shown testifying on Capitol Hill on April 11, testified he conducted a background briefing after the Associated Press reported the Yemen bomb plot in May 2012 to avoid "dangerous questions and speculation."

    By Michael Isikoff
    National Investigative Correspondent, NBC News

    A massive Justice Department investigation into the disclosure by the Associated Press of an ongoing covert operation against an al Qaeda suicide cell in Yemen -- a probe that included a sweeping  secret subpoena of the press association’s phone records  -- has been justified by U.S. officials on the grounds that the news organization “put the American people at risk.”

    But that assertion by Attorney General Eric Holder could be undermined by the White House’s decision to publicly comment about the operation at the time and reveal details beyond those in the original AP story, according to legal experts and counterterrorism officials.


    Within hours after the AP published its May 7, 2012 story, then-White House counterterrorism adviser John Brennan, currently the director of the CIA, held a background conference call in which he assured television network commentators that the bomb plot was never a threat to the American public or aviation safety.

    The reason, he said, is because intelligence officials had “inside control” over it.

    He later told the Senate Intelligence Committee that he conducted the briefing to avoid “dangerous questions and speculation” about the operation.

    Brennan’s account came after the AP reported what it called “an intelligence victory for the United States,” saying  intelligence officials had thwarted an “ambitious plot” by an al Qaeda affiliate in Yemen “to destroy a U.S. bound airliner” using a refined underwear bomb.  

    U.S. officials say that, when they were first contacted by the AP, they were concerned publication of the story would endanger the life of a British informant who had penetrated the group. AP executives say they agreed to hold their story until they were assured by government officials that “national security concerns had passed.”

    Brennan’s use of the phrase “inside control,” a detail not initially included in the AP story, quickly led U.S. news organizations to report that the plot had been foiled by an undercover informant.

    When asked about recent news of a subpoena of AP phone records, President Barack Obama explained Thursday that information leaks can put U.S. citizens at risk and that he makes '"no apologies" over being concerned about sensitive material.

    “The U.S. government is saying it never came close because they had insider information, insider control, which implies that they had somebody on the inside who wasn’t going to let it happen,” Richard Clarke, former White House counterterrorism adviser to Presidents George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush and who participated on the conference call with Brennan, said on ABC’s “Nightline” that evening.

    NBC’s Chief Justice Correspondent, Pete Williams, did further reporting for Nightly News the next night.  “It turns out that the bomber was actually an informant cooperating with intelligence services friendly to the United States,” Williams reported.

    Bolstering his reporting was an interview with Homeland Security Janet Napolitano.

    “I want to say that the device was always under control, and that no one in the Unites States was ever at risk because we did have control,” she said.

    “The administration’s background statements helped reporters put two and two together and ultimately led to the disclosure that did reveal the existence of an intelligence source,” said Michael Leiter, the former director the National Counter-Terrorism Center under Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama and now an NBC News counterterrorism analyst. “That’s not to say that the original leak didn’t also do damage and undermine operations.”

    Tommy Vietor, then chief national security spokesman for the White House, disputed the idea that Brennan disclosed sensitive details in his background briefing and said  it was “ridiculous” to equate Brennan’s use of the  phrase  “inside control” with having an “informant.”  

    U.S. officials acknowledge that, after they were contacted by the AP and told it was going to publish the story, they alerted British intelligence, which scrambled to extract the informant and his family from Yemen. But the leak infuriated British officials and strained relations between MI-6, the country’s intelligence service, and the CIA, officials say. Moreover, U.S. national security officials familiar with the matter said the real damage was done by the original leak to the AP because it revealed that the FBI had possession of the bomb. It also ended any chance of using the informant in the future. “They were going to keep him in there,” said the official.

    Still, the willingness of administration officials to publicly comment on the plot could undercut the Justice Department’s position if the AP decides to take any legal action challenging the secret subpoenas.

    “It complicates considerably the force of the argument that this disclosure seriously compromised national security,” said Floyd Abrams, a leading First Amendment lawyer who represented the New York Times in a historic legal  battle over its publication of the Pentagon Papers.

    In that case, Abrams noted, the Times successfully argued that much of what the Justice Department had argued was damaging in the papers had already been revealed in public statements by U.S. government officials.

    David Schulz, a lawyer for AP, said the news organization is “exploring all our  options” for  legal action to challenge the Justice Department’s secret subpoena for about two months of AP phone records on 20 separate telephone lines in an effort to identify the leaker.

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    Among those options, he said, were filing suit for a “declaratory judgment” that the subpoena had violated its reporters’ rights and a demand for a return of the phone records and an order that the Justice Department destroy all copies. In doing so, the AP may cite the comments by Brennan as evidence that the leak did not harm national security in the way that the Department of Justice has asserted, h said.

    “We were surprised by the attorney general’s comments yesterday about the potential security threat  from the leak under investigation,” Schulz said in an email to NBC News. “The president’s top national security advisor at the time said there was never a risk to air safety, and ‘no one in the United States was ever at risk.’ These shifting positions show the malleable nature of national security claims, and underscore the need for independent review by a judge when civil rights are infringed to protect against asserted security threats.”

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  • Authorities in US, Jamaica team up to tackle persistent phone scam

    By Talesha Reynolds and Lisa Myers
    NBC News

    MONTEGO BAY, Jamaica – The lead vehicle of a motorcade from the Jamaican lottery scam task force rushes through traffic and pulls up to a modest neighborhood of single-story homes. Armed officers jump out to stake out the perimeter and a U.S. special agent for Homeland Security investigations shows an NBC News team an extravagant (by Jamaican standards) three-story mansion jutting from the hillside.

    Multiple electric lines run into the home, which has security cameras, a gilded electronic gate and elaborate balconies. We’re told the owner is awaiting trial -- one of 109 Jamaicans charged so far under a cooperative effort between the U.S. and Jamaica to crack down on phone scams targeting elderly Americans in an effort known as Project JOLT.


    This is Jamaica’s way of letting Americans know that it knows it has a problem and is trying to do something about it.  Authorities say Jamaican scammers have become increasingly sophisticated, aggressive and successful at talking elderly Americans out of hundreds of millions of dollars.  In fact, so many Americans are falling for Jamaican scams that Jamaican officials claim it’s hurt their country’s reputation.

    “If we can't get it under control and hopefully eradicate it completely then it's going to have an impact on the legitimate businesses in Jamaica,” said Peter Bunting Jamaica’s Minister of National Security.

    This Caribbean island country is known for ocean breezes, hospitality and a laid back lifestyle. But  it also has a troubling side that is becoming familiar to some unlucky Americans.

    Jamaican con artists are defrauding mostly elderly targets by selling them a bogus dream.  Millions of dollars, new cars and homes won in lotteries and sweepstakes the seniors never entered, according to victims and law enforcement officials.

    Norman Breidenbaugh, 81, of Baltimore gave over $400,000 to lottery scammers who promised him millions in cash and a new car once he paid the taxes on the winnings.

    His hope was to have enough money to move his wife, Cindy, who was suffering from dementia, from a nursing facility back into their home.

    “I believe in the marriage vows I took, which were, you know, 'Til death do us part,’ So I was doing everything I could to get money to bring her home to take care of her,” he said.

    Even after she died in 2009, Breidenbaugh kept paying. Eventually, he lost his home and every penny he had. 

    Some of the callers identified themselves as agents from the Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Secret Service and the FBI, confirming his winnings and telling him he had to pay taxes or fees to receive the prizes.

    “They tell you that they're this, that and the other thing and you want to believe they're legitimate and it turns out they're scum,” Breidenbaugh said.

    His experience is not unique. The Federal Trade Commission reported 30,000 complaints related to Jamaican lottery scams in 2012. However, the number of actual victims is likely far higher. Those are only complaints from victims who knew where the calls originated from. The FTC estimates fewer than 10 percent of victims ever report the crime.

    Many elderly victims are ashamed of being duped. “Embarrassment is the scammers' greatest ally,” says Deputy Chief William King of York County Sheriff’s office in Maine.

    King’s first Jamaican scam case was in 2011.  Since then, he has spoken to hundreds of victims from around the country and has observed common threads -- intimidation, threats, harassment and manipulation.

    To those who question how anyone could fall for such a scam, King points to the island’s legitimate telemarketing outsourcing industry, which officials say may have been a breeding ground for early scammers.  “They're trained to get somebody on the telephone, to overcome objections, to create a fantasy,” he said.

    Once a victim is hooked, scammers call victims incessantly, dozens of times a day. When the senior tries to sever ties, swindlers often change the victim’s number without their knowledge so no one else can reach them.  They even use Google Earth to describe a senior’s neighborhood and frighten them into paying, authorities say.

    Some scammers use romance to reel in victims, feigning interest in lonely seniors, who pay, in part, to maintain the connection.

    The United States and Jamaica began working together to eradicate scamming last year.  In 2009, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the investigative arm of the Department of Homeland Security, formed the Joint Operations Linked to Telemarketing task force, or (JOLT). And last year, Jamaica formed the Major Organized Crime and Anti-corruption Task Force (MOCA), charged with investigating lottery scammers. 

    Jamaican authorities say that as they have cracked down on drug trafficking, more and more criminals have moved into scams for easy money.  The low barrier to entry makes it an appealing illicit endeavor, they say.  All you need is a phone, a computer and some phone numbers.

    Those phone numbers come from lead lists or what some scammers call “suckers” lists, originating from the United States and then sold in Jamaica.  So valuable are the lists that criminals are killing one another over them, authorities say. 

    Bunting, the Jamaican national security minister, estimates 40 to 50 percent of all criminal activity in St. James Parish, the center of scamming activity in the country, is related to the endeavor.  . 

    MOCA has made over 400 arrests, but only a quarter of those have resulted in charges. Where authorities cannot get convictions for scamming, they say they charge victims for any offense they can. The goal is to disrupt the activity.

    “If you recall, the infamous Al Capone in Chicago, was not sent to prison, and he did not die in prison, while serving time for bootlegging or other organized crime activities, said Assistant Commissioner of Police Carl Williams, the assistant police commissioner.  “He was charged and sentenced for tax evasion, so that's the same principle we take toward doing our enforcement.”

    Senator Susan Collins, R-Maine, ranking member of the Senate Special Committee on Aging, acknowledges that the new Jamaican administration is taking a stronger approach to combat scamming, but she says it is too little too late.

    “For years the Jamaican government turned a blind eye to this fraud,” Collins said. “Only recently has the Jamaican government, because of the threat to the reputation of the island as a vacation haven, taken any kind of action to try to crack down and stop these scams.”

    Jamaican officials have a difficult task:  They must also combat public opinion, because some Jamaicans don’t see scamming as a crime.

    “I think the one who give it should be blamed,” one resident told NBC News as he crossed Montego Bay’s bustling Sam Sharpe Square, “not the one who just make a little phone call.”  He called scamming “a smart thing to do.”

    Kim Nichols of Hermon, Maine, knows the operations are sophisticated.  She estimates her 77-year-old father, Bill, who did not want us to use his last name, gave Jamaican scammers over $85,000 in just six months.

    “I mean they're incredibly professional at what they do,” she said.  “I was amazed at how complicated and layered this scam is and how good at it they were unfortunately.”

    Nichols said her father, a retired airline pilot, seemed an unlikely candidate to fall for such a swindle.

    “He's just very careful with his money, so everyone was very surprised when this happened,” she said. 

    Her father said he had multiple callers hounding him at the same time,  some claiming to be IRS agents or Treasury agents.

    “It was hard to tell who was real and who was fictitious,” he lamented. “And I guess they all were in the final analysis of it. I'd say if they can fool me, they can fool anybody.”

    Breidenbaugh, the man who lost everything to the scammers, says there is only one way for seniors to protect themselves from becoming a victim.

    “Please don't talk to them,” he said. “Hang that damn phone up. Because if they get their fingers into you, they got you for good.”

    And U.S. and Jamaican officials both have one message for Americans:  If you haven't played the lottery, you didn't win the lottery.

    Lisa Myers is NBC News' senior investigative correspondent; Talesha Reynolds is a producer in the NBC News Washington Bureau.

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  • $41 for a 3-second voicemail? Troops sound off over waystation phones

    American soldiers claim that a phone company is charging them outrageous fees for making calls to their loved ones while heading to and from combat zones. NBC's senior investigative correspondent Lisa Myers reports.

    Is $41 a reasonable charge for a 3-second voicemail left by an American soldier on his way to Iraq?

    Not according to a lawsuit filed by a military couple accusing a U.S. company of gouging troops traveling to and from tours of duty in Afghanistan and Iraq.

    Watch the video above or click here to read the full story by NBC News senior investigative correspondent Lisa Myers.