Not long ago we ran a series of articles about Carrier IQ and how they were recording way too much information (keystrokes, web searches, etc.) from user’s smartphones. I held back putting on the tin-foil hat and raising the conspiracy theorist’s flag by broaching the idea that the type of information being gathered by Carrier IQ would be a gold mine for government agencies to “keep tabs” on the public.

As it turns out, I wasn’t the only one who had thoughts along those lines. A government transparency group called MuckRock not only went there, they filed a Freedom of Information Act request to see if any agencies were working with Carrier IQ.

They got a hit.

The FBI responded to the FoIA request with the following statement:

“The material you requested is located in an investigative file which is exempt from disclosure…”

Whoa! Not only does that confirm that the FBI is working with Carrier IQ, but they are using the data in at least one active investigation.

So, either the FBI is actively investigating Carrier IQ (which I don’t think is likely), or they’re using Carrier IQ data to investigate people who have Carrier IQ bits on their phones.

Is anyone else getting a 1984-esque impression? Maybe that tin-foil hat wasn’t such a bad idea after all.

Source: MuckRock