Posted on 05/28/2006 9:59:32 AM PDT by Perdogg
I would think NSA has some super-hackers, wouldn't you?
You can look at numbers only, without looking at the names. When you see number A connecting to number B in a certain country many times just before a terrorist attack, you might then ask for a warrant to see whose numbers they are.
Your computers would be looking at what numbers connect to where and when for patterns.
For instance, if CGM's number connected to another number 10 times that night after 11PM, that is suspicious, even though we don't know who the number belongs to yet.
Of course, we probably think it's her pimp.... :-)
If it turnes out the law has been broken, then I'm all for prosecution.
That's the whole point... the telcos are being ripped / sued for providing numbers only... not names... just from and to numbers..
If you have the numbers, there are tons of reverse directories from which to get the names...
They don't need the telcos to monitor the numbers.
Agreed.
There are some people in this country who are so stupid that they think the feds are sitting there listening to their telephone calls to cousin Mary about next week's pot luck, Jane's call to her sister-in-law about Billy's new braces, and Jack's call to his doctor about his hemorrhoids. The numerics of such an undertaking render the notion completely impossible.
I'm a small, low-intrusion government-type, but one thing the constitution charges the CIC and the executive branch with is national security. I WANT them to know - no, make that "EXPECT" them to know WHO the terrorists are calling, and who they, in turn, are calling.
The left is so hypocritical on this subject. They want the government to know where and how we earn every penny that comes into our pockets, but they have a major stroke because the government has a record of the domestic phone numbers called by foreign terrorists and who they call. It's beyond absurd. They should be more conserned about the automatic dial recorded telemarketers than this silliness.
Now we're getting somewhere...
If they don't need the telcos to monitor numbers and they can use criss cross directories to get the names and addresses...
Why the big stink against the telcos for providing "private" information to the NSA?
You got me, there.
Anyway, it's always been legal to investigate phone records if the authorities could show "reasonable suspicion" to a judge.
Any agent worth a nickel can probably come up with "reasonable suspicion" on anybody.
Here's another one for you... If the NSA doesn't need the telcos to collect all from and to numbers on all calls originating or teminating in the U.S.
How does the NSA get them?
I don't think it's ever been a secret that the NSA can monitor communications of all sorts, including phone calls.
Exactly how they do that has never been clear.
This NSA phone eavesdropping argument goes way back, too.
I have no doubt that had the NSA been interested, they could have recorded CGM's cell phone calls that night.
That creates a problem, though. If you reveal info that you could only have gotten a certain way, you reveal that you can do certain things and that you are doing them.
My herding skills aren't quite what they should be... but we got there...
Good point...
I still doubt the USA Today story, though.
And the problem I referenced doesn't really apply, since it's fairly well known that the NSA has the capability, and that NSA has used it on occasion.
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