Has the Feinstein article proven they do store actual content of phone calls or what?

[grantcart]

6. I believe you have confused the order:

1) Get a connection to a specific number

2) Search the data base to try and establish a link

3) Notify the FBI which generates a warrant to retrieve content of any call

4) If a warrant is approved then they are authorized to gain access to the call.

It is previously established public knowledge that NSA captures and warehouses 1.7 billion communications a day

http://projects.washingtonpost.com/top-secret-america/articles/a-hidden-world-growing-beyond-control/3/

But improvements have been overtaken by volume at the ODNI, as the increased flow of intelligence data overwhelms the system's ability to analyze and use it. Every day, collection systems at the National Security Agency intercept and store 1.7 billion e-mails, phone calls and other types of communications.

The Senator is saying that the calls (made in the US, I assume) are protected by the same protections that are established for wire taps. If that is true then it would be fine but and here is the big but, there needs to be unshakeable accountability and transparency, but that is a big but, not impossible but there needs to be multiple points of check and counter check by the bureaucracy and another check and counter check by Congress.

Assuming that passes muster there is another aspect of Congressional supervision that I think is overlooked. Assuming that privacy and legal protections are in place and maintained there still exists a significant question of cost and efficacy. I have had to much direct expenditure of millions of dollars of government money to not suspect that even when legal and protected many of these programs must have substantial questions of efficacy and cost.

We continue to purchase military hardware that is unlikely to be used in the 21st century, and this despite that these expenditures are not secret. I suspect that many of these intelligence operations fall into the same pattern, initially have had some success but continue to expand and become part of the architecture long past the time that they are still useful.

For example why I think that there may be value in identifying these non attached (throwaway) phones so that they can identify who is talking to each other and when, I seriously doubt that there is much substance in the calls themselves. Al Queda knows that they are being listened to so I would expect that the average call to be something like this:

Did you hear Mustapha had another son?

No, how much did he weigh?

Eight pounds and four ounces.

Praise be to Allah!


And that message will have passed a one time reference in code that is of little value.

So the one thing that I would like to see added to the conversation, beyond the privacy and legal questions, is a completely separate review on the efficacy and cost of these programs. Perhaps all operations have to start with a 4 year sunset provision and that a separate Congressional committee has to certify that the program involved is 1) effective and 2) worth the cost.