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Bush Bids to Clear 'Spying' Static
NY Post ^
| May 12, 2006
| NILES LATHEM
Posted on 05/12/2006 2:54:36 AM PDT by SUSSA
May 12, 2006 -- WASHINGTON - President Bush yesterday denied that government spooks are "mining or trolling through the personal lives" of Americans, amid an uproar over revelations that the National Security Agency maintains massive databases of Americans' telephone calls.
(snip)
The allegations first surfaced in a little-noticed class-action lawsuit. It was filed against AT&T in San Francisco in January by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a privacy group.
The complaint provides stunning detail about secret rooms in the company's nerve centers where mysterious equipment has been installed by NSA to tap into fiber-optic "nodes."
The lawsuit charges that AT&T gave the NSA direct access to its database code named "Hawkeye" - as well as a search engine called Daytona - that contains "call-detail records." These records detail every phone call that passes through its system - who made the call, to where, how long they spoke and the names of each subscriber.
At its headquarters in Fort Meade, Md., the NSA is using sophisticated software known as data mining or link analysis to sift through the massive amounts of data to detect patterns of suspicious activity to identify possible terror networks. If, for example, Osama bin Laden or any other well-known terrorist were to place a phone call from Pakistan to a phone number in Brooklyn, calls to and from the number in Brooklyn would be tracked - and numbers that connect to the Brooklyn number would also be traced, a military intelligence official told The Post.
niles.lathem@nypost.com
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Crime/Corruption; Culture/Society; Government; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: bush; nsa; spying
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To: philman_36
To: DustyMoment
And I'm posting the owner of the web site's comments about how so many freepers are making every single thread about immigration. If you don't like it, take it up with him.
22
posted on
05/12/2006 5:24:14 AM PDT
by
Peach
To: SUSSA
Interesting observation from Fred Grandy on
WMAL this morning. He said that in light of the recent poll which shows that the majority of Americans are not bothered by these programs (given the realities of 9/11), then it shows that the Democrats, who think they are in the mainstream, are quite the opposite.
23
posted on
05/12/2006 5:25:33 AM PDT
by
COBOL2Java
(Freedom isn't free, but the men and women of the military will pay most of your share)
To: DustyMoment
????? All I was doing was trying to make the point that trhere are bigger issues than this that Bush should focus on.There ISN'T any issue bigger than the Jihad war. Yes - it's much more important than illegal Mexicans.
Yes, I know some illegals are committing crimes, but when they start killing Americans by the thousands en masse - THEN they may be an issue as big as the war on terror.
24
posted on
05/12/2006 5:29:13 AM PDT
by
Tokra
(I think I'll retire to Bedlam.)
To: Echo Talon; backhoe
I was hoping you would have a ready made list of links and info available and you'd throw the info out for viewing.
Sorry to bother you backhoe, I imagine you're busy, but do you have something quick and easy on Echelon available for folks?
To: COBOL2Java
...during the Clinton administration.
Wasn't that a Democrat administration?
Aren't the Democrats now brayng the loudest?
To: philman_36
Take a look at this from 1999
here
To: philman_36
To: coconutt2000
Glad Tony Snow is there to address this media made frenzy.
29
posted on
05/12/2006 5:34:27 AM PDT
by
mware
(Americans in armchairs doing the job of the media.)
To: philman_36; Peach
I imagine you're busy, but do you have something quick and easy on Echelon available for folks?Trying to catch the dog & shoo Wifey out the door... or was that catch Wifey & shoo dog?
Hattip: Peach!
2 posted on
05/12/2006 8:12:51 AM EDT by
Peach
30
posted on
05/12/2006 5:35:12 AM PDT
by
backhoe
(-30-)
To: Echo Talon
For being so "hot and bothered" I sure haven't heard much from the ACLU about it.
To: philman_36
To: backhoe
To: philman_36
34
posted on
05/12/2006 5:40:49 AM PDT
by
backhoe
(-30-)
To: COBOL2Java
Yeah, a majority of Americans weren't worried about Filegate, Carnivore, or Echelon either. Democrats are out of touch this time Republicans were last time. It is truly pathetic.
I'm constantly reminded of a prophetic statement made by a FReeper when we had the rally on the Capital steps. I think it was in 1998. He and I were trying to enlighten a drug-warrior on the errors of his thinking. Nothing was getting through to the poor soul.
Any way, since we were not getting through to the poor misguided soul this FReeper dismissed him by saying; If you really like the war on drugs, just wait until they start the war on terror, youll love that.
The guy left and I said to this gentleman; Youre right about that!
And He said; All they need is the right excuse.
You may know that FReeper. He is none other than Jim Robinson.
35
posted on
05/12/2006 6:04:34 AM PDT
by
SUSSA
To: Tokra
Yes - it's much more important than illegal Mexicans.
If we were not devoting so much resources to dealing with illegal aliens we would have more money to spend on national security. :)
36
posted on
05/12/2006 6:11:14 AM PDT
by
P-40
To: backhoe
Hi, backhoe. I always like it better when my husband grabs me and shoos the dog :-)
37
posted on
05/12/2006 7:31:51 AM PDT
by
Peach
To: Peach; philman_36
Hi, backhoe. I always like it better when my husband grabs me and shoos the dog :-)Around here, you have to grab what you can...
I found a little more at Atlas Shrugs:
Pamela-
This is one post that I hope all your readers send to everybody they know. It's well-reasoned, absolutely accurate and not written in a strident tone that will turn off reasonable liberal skeptics. It just sounds like one adult setting the facts out for other adults:
I am stunned by the lunatics elected by the uninformed (thank the media) scream bloody murder about the latest NSA canard. The 12th imam is on his way (at least ah-mad-mini-me seems to think so), the worldwide Islamic extremist movement means to take us out, and Hitler part II is playing with nuclear weaponry. To better understand the latest phone kerfuffle, Ben wrote the following ;
Traffic Analysis
As a public service, I thought I would shed some light on what it is the NSA is doing with all those phone records. Its not what the media implies it is. For starters, what they are not doing: NSA analysts are not sitting at their consoles with their headphones listening to your conversation. They dont know about your mistress, how smart your son is, who Emily is going out with, your dinner plans, why you hate your boss, and they dont care. They dont have the time to bother because:
1) They have phone records, not taped conversations.
2) Even if they had conversations, they wouldnt have a fraction of the analysts needed to listen to more than a tiny, tiny subset of conversations, and they cannot waste their time on your personal issues.
In fact, they dont even know what number you called, when, and where. Yes, this information exists, but buried inside machines. No one knows it, just as a librarian does not know a fact merely because it exists in a book on a shelf in a library. And this information will stay buried, unknown, secure and personal unless something very unusual turns up.
So here is what is being done: traffic analysis. This is an arcane art-science, in which the analyst, or more precisely, in this case, the algorithms designed by analysts, glean information not from the conversations themselves, but from the patterns those communications generate in time and space. Some of it is obvious and self evident: you can tell the difference in communications patterns between passing information and coordinating an activity, because the coordination conversations will have short return messages initiated by the non-node elements, while information is generally passed to a node from only one element, and then distributed to a larger group by the node.
After 9-11, a lot of people talked about connecting the dots. This is connecting the dots. This is using a computer to pluck patterns out of the virtual information space in which people communicate, without actually monitoring the information itself. Of course, should a particular pattern be red flagged by an algorithm, it could lead to actual monitoring.
In a New Century kind of way, its not unlike scanning the airspace for signs of enemy bombers- something taken for granted back in the Cold War but inappropriate today, now that we have an enemy that doesnt bother to maintain old fashioned conventional air forces. Today we have to scan information space for signs of enemy activity.
Exactly what can be gained from traffic analysis is highly classified for obvious reasons. Any enemy, aware that certain communications patterns meant certain things to analysts, would make an effort to change patterns, or send false positives to the analysts. The New York Times is aware of this too, and so would make every effort to get this information to terrorist groups and help them thwart intelligence analysts.
The people railing against this are still living with September 10th Mentalities. Ive heard it over and over; its Wrong to gather intelligence unless there is a clear sign of law breaking. On 9-11, some of those hijackers hadnt actually committed a felony UNTIL they took over the planes- what dots, then, were we supposed to connect? Traffic Analysis is dot connection at work. It is not wiretapping, it is not eavesdropping. No personal information comes into contact with another human being unless it is part of a very suspicious pattern.
Thanks Ben.
In other words, STFU already and start fighting the real war. BTW, most Americans agree.
38
posted on
05/12/2006 1:10:54 PM PDT
by
backhoe
(-30-)
To: backhoe
That was a great read. The people who would scream the loudest if there was another attack because we didn't connect the dots are screaming now because we're trying to connect the dots. We just can't win.
39
posted on
05/12/2006 1:37:47 PM PDT
by
Peach
To: Peach
That was a great read. The people who would scream the loudest if there was another attack because we didn't connect the dots are screaming now because we're trying to connect the dots. We just can't win.It drives me crazy- the West is locked in a death struggle ( no second-place winner ) with a fanatic, implacable enemy. If they win, "civil rights" will be a taboo whispered in the dark, in private.
Rush said it best today- "It's like saying NSA can't be allowed to read a telephone book."
40
posted on
05/12/2006 4:42:50 PM PDT
by
backhoe
(-30-)
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