Posted on 05/11/2006 12:30:13 PM PDT by demlosers
Washington is agog today with the disclosure that appeared in USA Today that Verizon, AT&T and Bell South have been providing domestic phone call information to the National Security Agency on millions of residential and business phone calls made by Americans.
It’s all part of the spy agency’s quest to create a huge database of caller information it could data mine in order to find patterns that might reveal terrorist communications. But it has raised enormous privacy concerns in the minds of many.
The USA Today report, coming after last year’s disclosure in the New York Times of the NSA’s warrantless electronic surveillance of phone calls it deems to be connected to terrorism ginned up the debate over how far is too far in the Bush administration’s efforts to protect the American people from al Qaeda and other terrorists.
The newspaper’s disclosure modified a lot of plans today. President Bush, on his way to give a commencement address in Biloxi, Miss., stopped in the White House’s Diplomatic Reception Room to deliver a brief statement to the press.
By the way, the president’s rapid response was remarkable. When other bad news has hit, say Dubai Ports World or the initial revelations of the NSA surveillance last December, there was a noticeable lag which allowed White House critics to define the debate.
The president’s quickness before today might be attributable to Tony Snow, the new press secretary. Or it could be that the White House is so nervous about the president’s ever lower poll ratings that he and his advisors felt he had to speak and quickly.
PRESIDENT BUSH: After September the 11th, I vowed to the American people that our government would do everything within the law to protect them against another terrorist attack. As part of this effort, I authorized
(Excerpt) Read more at newsblogs.chicagotribune.com ...
I understand it just fine. I work with marketing databases for a living and understand what is being done far better than the average bear.
What happened is the fedgov asked for phone records they have no business having, and telecom companies handed over data they had no business handing over. There is no probable cause in the entire calling list for Verizon.
This sort of stuff could be done for PhD dissertations or studies in a number of different fields with absolutely no problem or issue of privacy.
A PhD candidate does not have the power to arrest and imprison people.
Do any of those provide information on who has called whom?
They have NO BUSINESS having that data in the first place, and the phone companies had no business giving it to them. It is telling that Qwest refused and the feds did not resort to legal action to pressure them, as they did with Google to get search data.
Agree. Credit card companies have far more personal information on Americans than the NSA does.
Funny how government can only encroach on civil liberties when a Republican is in the White House. Just like the premise that only white people can be racists.
No search? Compiling a list of my private phone calls is NO SEARCH?
Here's a copy of the Bill of Rights, since you are low on toilet paper.
If you are not calling Osama and his boys, you have nothing to worry about.
What happened is the fedgov asked for phone records they have no business having, and telecom companies handed over data they had no business handing over.
You should sue the telecom companies then and see how far you get.
Ho hum, slow news day?
In their continual effort to undermine Bush and the War on Terror, we now have the latest "leak" of programs designed to seek out and neutralize our enemies here at home.
Dims really want power back bad to actually try to make us lose another war.
No, your response shows just how far down the slippery slope some former conservatives have slid. If Clinton did this, you would be all over it.
You should sue the telecom companies then and see how far you get.
Oh, I won't sue them. I will change companies.
Funny, I never saw that caveat in the Bill of Rights. I must re-read it sometime.
What is being searched?
Quoting the party line does you no good with me, Ace.
You were presenting apples to support oranges. I suspect you know that. Try to hold your hysteria for matters you are correct about.
Investigators don't believe calls are being listened to, but the data about who is calling whom and when is plenty valuable in itself. An internal Amdocs memo to senior company executives suggests just how Amdocs generated call records could be used. "Widespread data mining techniques and algorithms.... combining both the properties of the customer (e.g., credit rating) and properties of the specific 'behavior.'" Specific behavior, such as who the customers are calling.
The Amdocs memo says the system should be used to prevent phone fraud. But U.S. counterintelligence analysts say it could also be used to spy through the phone system. Fox News has learned that the N.S.A has held numerous classified conferences to warn the F.B.I. and C.I.A. how Amdocs records could be used. At one NSA briefing, a diagram by the Argon national lab was used to show that if the phone records are not secure, major security breaches are possible.
From Fox News 13 December 2001. Link http://www.rense.com/general18/isr2.htm
My calls, you maroon. What if the FBI entered my home without a warrant and without probable cause and took my phone and logged the numbers I had logged on my caller ID. Would you be so apologizing for them for that?
Gawd, what have you people become that you cannot understand basic rights any longer?
I also have a collection of American phone numbers, it's called a phone book.
They have the numbers but don't even know who owns them.
Do you have records of calls?
That's the kind of utterly brainless and irrelevant talking point we saw during the Clinton years. It's frightening that conservatives are using such now.
-PJ
But what if it isn't people with good intentions. Suppose you had been a friend of Ken Starr's? What could have happened to you.
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