VA Suicide Hotline Makes Veterans Wait

[From article]

An Air Force veteran says he was repeatedly put on hold by the Veterans Suicide Hotline, as he was forced to listen to machine recordings and get re-directed as he sat there “desperately needing someone to talk to” on Saturday night.
Ted Koran says the only reason he’s still alive today is because of the 60 rescue animals he cares for, WFTS-TV reports. The Air Force veteran first reached out to the James Haley VA Center in Tampa, where a recording told him the 800 number for the suicide hotline. He says was initially put on hold for 10 minutes, before hanging up and redialing the number two more times.
“I went to the only place that I knew and that I had available to me, the VA,” Koran told WFTS. “I had to sit there patiently, in emotional distress, in tears, wanting to give up, desperately needing someone to talk to.”
“I was missing my wife,” he said.

[. . .]

More than 1,000 veterans contact that hotline every day. According to Veterans Affairs data released earlier this year, 22 veterans take their own life every day, or about every 65 minutes.
The Veterans Crisis Hotline was first established by the VA in 2007, at which point it averaged 60 calls a day on four phone lines with personnel. However today, 52 operators field more than 1,000 calls each day, and say they can’t keep up with growing calls for help from veterans. A Scripps investigation recently uncovered that calls to the veterans’ hotline often overload the system, forcing the veterans to be put on hold as calls are rerouted to other call centers.
One veteran showed WFTS a recording in which he was put on hold for 36 minutes.

http://tampa.cbslocal.com/2015/04/14/air-force-vet-says-veterans-suicide-hotline-placed-him-on-hold-repeatedly/

Air Force Vet Says Veterans Suicide Hotline Placed Him On Hold Repeatedly
CBS New Tampa FL
April 14, 2015 9:19 AM

Benjamin Fearnow

Justice Department Kept Secret Telephone Database

[From article]
The Justice Department secretly kept a database of U.S. calls to and from foreign countries for more than a decade, according to a new court filing and officials familiar with the program.
The revelation of another secret government database storing records of Americans’ calls came in a filing Thursday in the case of a man accused of conspiring to unlawfully export electronic goods to Iran.
A Drug Enforcement Administration official said in the three-page filing that the agency has long used administrative subpoenas—not federal court orders—to collect the metadata of U.S. calls to and from foreign countries “that were determined to have a demonstrated nexus to international drug trafficking and related criminal activities.’’
The document doesn’t identify the countries or say how many countries were involved.
The program began in the 1990s, according to people familiar with its operation, and was shut down in August of 2013, amid reports about the DEA gathering phone records in other ways.
A Justice Department official said the database was deleted and hasn’t been searched since 2013, and said the DEA is no longer collecting bulk telephone records from U.S. phone companies.

http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2015/01/16/justice-department-kept-secret-telephone-database/

12:47 pm ET
Jan 16, 2015
Justice Department Kept Secret Telephone Database
By DEVLIN BARRETT

Police Using Hacking Techniques to Watch Civilians

[From article]
Drawing on a cache of leaked documents and months of forensic work, two reports about the private Italian firm Hacking Team expose a global network of malicious software implants operated by police and spy agencies in dozens of countries.
[. . .]
Those precautions haven't prevented copies of Hacking Team's malicious software from being used to target more than 30 activists and journalists, according to a tally maintained by Citizen Lab, a research group based at the University of Toronto's Munk School of Global Affairs.
Citizen Lab's report provided an unusual level of insight into how the malware operates, showing how devices can be compromised through booby-trapped emails or infected USB sticks, or even pushed onto handsets by a pliant telephone company.
[. . .]
"The victim's got almost no chances of figuring out that their iPhone is infected," said Kaspersky malware expert Sergey Golovanov, who investigated the rogue program for his firm.

http://news.yahoo.com/eyes-experts-reveal-police-hacking-155438514.html;_ylt=AwrBJR6_tKlTmmkA5w_QtDMD

Eyes on you: Experts reveal police hacking methods
Who's watching the watchers? Experts expose wide spying abilities of law enforcement hackers

By Raphael Satter

Associated Press
June 24, 2014

Report: Government Recording All Phone Conversations

Secretive agencies are likely recording all digital communications, from phone calls to emails to chat records

[From article]
He reiterated those statements again on CNN on Thursday night, adding that 'all digital communications in the past' are recorded and saved.
He stressed that no digital communication was secure.
[. . .]
The Guardian noted that such practices have been hinted at before, such as when AT&T engineer Mark Klein revealed that the company had helped build a special network for the National Security Agency to have total access to all data about telephone calls.
And Democratic Senators Ron Wyden and Mark Udall have said for years that the public would be 'stunned' to learn the lengths its government went to to monitor them.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2319789/ALL-phone-calls-US-recorded-accessible-government-claims-FBI-agent.html

ALL phone calls in the US are recorded and accessible to the government, claims former FBI agent
By DAILY MAIL REPORTER
PUBLISHED: 09:32 EST, 5 May 2013 | UPDATED: 09:32 EST, 5 May 2013

Free Google Business phone 411

Free Google Business phone 411

Google 1-800-goog411
This is not for residential info

Here's a number worth putting in your cell phone, or your home phone speed dial: 1-800-goog411. This is an awesome service from Google, and it's free -- great when you are on the road.
Don't waste your money on information calls to a business and don't waste your time manually dialing the number. I am driving along in my car and I need to call the golf course and I don't know the number. I hit the speed dial for information that I have programmed.
The voice at the other end says, "City & State." I say, " Garland , Texas ." He says, "Business, Name or Type of Service." I say, Firewheel Golf Course." He says, "Connecting" and Firewheel answers the phone. How great is that? This is nationwide and it is absolutely free!
Click on the link below and watch the short clip for a quick demonstration.
http://www.google.com/goog411/
--
Roy Bercaw - Editor
ENOUGH ROOM