NSA has massive database of Americans' phone calls

[kainah]

The National Security Agency has been secretly collecting the phone call records of tens of millions of Americans, using data provided by AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth, people with direct knowledge of the arrangement told USA TODAY.

The NSA program reaches into homes and businesses across the nation by amassing information about the calls of ordinary Americans — most of whom aren't suspected of any crime. This program does not involve the NSA listening to or recording conversations. But the spy agency is using the data to analyze calling patterns in an effort to detect terrorist activity, sources said in separate interviews.

"It's the largest database ever assembled in the world," said one person, who, like the others who agreed to talk about the NSA's activities, declined to be identified by name or affiliation. The agency's goal is "to create a database of every call ever made" within the nation's borders, this person added.

For the customers of these companies, it means that the government has detailed records of calls they made — across town or across the country — to family members, co-workers, business contacts and others.

more........

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-05-10-nsa_x.htm?POE=NEWISVA

[Old and In the Way]

1. They'll never find any terrorists with it, but

it's a great tool to blackmail and eavesdrop on your political opponents.

[One Honest Guy]

2. Pretty much.

Anyone who has access to this database holds great power.

[bennywhale]

111. Knowledge is power

you're right.

Those in power seek ever more.

It has to be stopped, the slide towards this has started

[saigon68]

126. The elite disciplining the sheep

[Freedom_from_Chains]

164. I have said before, but I'll say again

Democrats should be less worried about who they are going to run for election and more worried about if there is going to be an election.

[bennywhale]

180. This creep of power is happening in all

western nations, and the problem with it is its incremental.. A little bit here a little bit there, 'only for security reasons of course' and before you know it ten years down the line we all wake up from our sleepwalking and we are in a living nightmare.

[Freedom_from_Chains]

194. You are correct but I think the time frame is a lot shorter than 10 years.

Look for a national disaster to happen within the next few months, most likely backed by Iran, in which Bush will have to declare martial law and of course suspend the elections. It just wouldn't be safe to hold them right now you know.

[bennywhale]

336. But only in your best

interests you understand. 'All good patriotic Americans understand the need for this, whats wrong with you?'

And then comes the historical revisionists. America is a Christian country we must impose these values to return to what we were.

When the founding fathers talked of internal threats they were actually referring to terrorists, kinda.

The constitution states that all citizens should be protected from oppression. Thats what i'm doing for you all by imposing marshall law.

Read Orwell's "Politics and the English Language". Bushco are using it as a manual.

"Political language is designed to make lies sound truthful, murder respectable and give the appearence of solidity to pure wind." Orwell

[Freedom_from_Chains]

339. Oh your right! I forgot, my bad, it'll never happen again comrade

er, I mean brother.

:) :toast: :nopity:

[lovuian]

20. Bingo

You find who is calling who no wonder Hillary said Bush was charming...

Did he see who was she calling???

[Julius Civitatus]

136. Remember, Gral. MICHAEL HAYDEN supervised this project

The same guy that will now (if not oppossed) control the CIA too.

Aren't you proud?

[IndyJones]

44. That's right. And I'm sure they've figured out how to change data to

their liking, too.

[leveymg]

85. Exactly. eom.

[Vitruvius]

98. And now you know why Bushco is handing the Internet to Verizon, AT&T,

Bell South, etc -- the same companies helping NSA and the Bush gang spy on Americans. A payback for services rendered -- and a way to allow these same companies to close down any freedom on the Internet as well...

[Bonobo]

127. Exactly correct!

[myrna minx]

129. Nice quid pro quo.

They never cease to amaze, do they?

[bennywhale]

110. More than that its about general control and

monitoring that all Western governments are sliding towards after 9/11. Those with power always seek more power. Since 9/11 checks and balances are less effective. Knowledge is power hence the knowledge they seek.

This needs some proper campaign of protes to stop it.

This is important and can't remain as a whinge on these pages. What is to be done?

[ArmchairMeme]

170. K & R

I agree they will never find any terrorists by tracking phone calls of Americans. If they have been doing it since 9/11 and haven't found any yet it is not serving them well.

I seem to remember that terrorists didn't use phones or banks but used a different method of communicating.

This phone tracking must have a different goal!

[KansDem]

240. Bush was warned about Osama...

In the traditional meeting between the out-going president and the in-coming president, Clinton told Bush that Osama and al Qaeda was the United States' number one security concern. Osama had also been credited with the bombing of the USS Cole.

Now, given these "heads up," why didn't Bush stop 9/11? Who was he spying on? He had already been spying on Americans prior to 9/11. Who was he spying on and why? It certainly wasn't Osama, or otherwise al Qaeda would have been stopped on 9/11. Or perhaps he did spy on Osama and the rest is LIHOP in order to enact the neo-Con fascist PNAC agenda.

[Old and In the Way]

242. If this doesn't convince the American people that 9/11 needs to be

re-investigated by an independent commission - not associated or picked by the prime suspects - nothing will.

9/11 is the root of all of their subsequent actions. If you were complicit in letting it happen and you were responsible for the wrongful deaths of 3,000 Americans, what actions would you take to avoid justice? When you are a sociopath and have control of the Executive Branch power, you can do quite a lot.

[roguevalley]

225. switch to QWest. They said no.

[greenman2]

281. my idea exactly.

I think we should ALL switch to Quest.

We got the powa :)

Brad
http://911review.org

[PassingFair]

315. I wouldn't be too hasty about switching to Qwest......

they're OWNED BY CARLYLE! Check it out:
http://www.carlyle.com/eng/industry/casestudy-758.html

[MikeStl]

329. ugh...

Really can't trust anyone. I wish you could get DSL through a tin can and string.

[lebkuchen]

237. The first "terrorists" released from Guantanamo after over a year

were septuagenarians.

I hope you're older, "In the way." Age might make a difference to the "compassionate" conservatives when Bush starts filling the internment camps.

[Old and In the Way]

243. Not that old.....the right combo of institutional knowledge and

motivation to keep this country free for my kids.

[Divine Discontent]

241. and that's the frickin point!!

they shouldn't HAVE this power, because it's not something they're authorized to have!


dammit we have to fight this NOW, call and write or we're nothing but cowards!





all designs and more, available at:
www.cafepress.com/warisprofitable <------ CHECK IT OUT!

[landonb1616]

335. I always wondered

I always wondered why the government was all about the National Do Not Call Registry, it wasn't good for big business, but it does link your name to all those phone numbers in that huge NSA database.

[Old and In the Way]

350. Wow....good point.

It's the only consumer oriented thing I can think this administration has done....that makes a lot of sense.

Welcome aboard! I'd be happy to start a thread and credit you on that observation!

[Robbien]

3. USAToday can know what NSA does, but the DOJ can not

What a crazy world.

[lovuian]

It is totally absurd!!!

:crazy: He is in such Big trouble

Polls in 27%...dive dive!!!

[jean]

192. * numbers take a licking but he's still ticking - doing whatever he damn

well pleases. The murderer loves to spit on authority and our laws, always has. Now, he's doing it in plain site of the entire world. Imagine the rush, for such a sick mind.

R-E-S-I-G-N!

[TomInTib]

4. If they are capturing every call, what do you think they are doing

with the Internet?

Every effing keystroke here, you can bet

[raggedcompany]

100. And why are they doing it? To scare us off, weaken us, make us feel

like we're being watched. Fuck them. Maybe they are capturing every keystroke, maybe they are compiling all these phone calls.

The point is to intimidate anti-war, anti-greed citizens. Speaking for myself, it won't work. They can eat shit, I'm not stopping.

[coalition_unwilling]

296. I always make a point of saying "Hey, NSA, are you listening?"

whenever I talk on the phone. I fantasize some low-paid G12 yokel thus having to listen in to my most banal of conversations with my wife and family.

Any person with even a passing familiarity about information theory could tell the NSA that its efforts in this data sweep will not bear t as much fruit as randomly listening in on conversations, since the "signal-to-noise" ratio becomes more prohibitive the more data (background noise) one has, i.e., it becomes progressivley more difficult to discern a signal from the background noise.

[genieroze]

259. You need a key logger for that, unless you mean monitoring groups

chat proggies and web sites. That they can do. Most spyware looks for key loggers and parents can install these to monitor their kids. I don't, I use a net nanny.

[TankLV]

278. They are - F.U.C.K. B.U.S.H. - is that clear enough NSA gestapo?

AND ALL REPUKES!

DID I MENTION I HATE WAR CRIMINAL BUSH*?

Make sure to get the spelling right this time, agent Mike!

It's a "K" not a "C"!

[Newsjock]

5. Here, let's pop some fresh popcorn

This is gonna get interesting.

Hark! What's that sound? Do I hear Chimpy's numbers hitting 28%?

[oldtime dfl_er]

12. how low can he go?

this is sickening.

http://www.cafepress.com/scarebaby/1094932

[Protagoras]

42. While there is almost nothing I want more than Chimp's Impeachment

It's a mistake to think that the NSA gathering this type of info on us began or will end with Shrub.

We have a much larger battle to fight on the electronic privacy front and most members of both parties in DC are not on our side here. There will always be a rationale that justifies tracking everything we do...reducing our privacy drip drip drip. Its a right that we are killing with a quick series of 1000 cuts and we must massively roll back what we have given up or lose it forever (at least for the rest of our lives).

[jaredt112]

152. Your right, the electronic privacy battle...

is a lot more important at this moment. I have not heard ONE person, left or right, that thinks that we should be monitored over the internet. Just another way for Congress to stick their nose in EVERYTHING you do. Total fucking bullshit. Thank you McCain-Feingold!

[emulatorloo]

6. kick and nominating n/t

[Roland99]

8. 5th and home page nomination!

[CoffeeCat]

7. Now.....

...would these nice NSA folks have records of me conversing with my coupon partners
about weekly sales and double coupons in my area?

If so, I'd like to turn myself into law enforcement immediately.

[Protagoras]

45. Actually its a bit more thorough than that

they know if you call Dem or Repug candidates, they know if you call planned parenthood. And if you have voice mail they know the code to access that. Maybe they never use it. But it seems like an amazing thing to grant them global access too. We must trust them a great deal.

er...

[Old and In the Way]

55. Or if you call your girlfriend or boyfriend or your bookie or your

massuesse or your dealer or a prosecutor, that'd be of interest. Lots of important information can be gained. If, by important, you can use this information to blackmail and/or ruin your political enemies or know the criminal cases being made against people in this administration.

We know they give a rat's ass about port security...why would we think they'd spend so much time and energy eavesdropping on everyone just to possibly find 1 or 2 terrorists? Republicans have lots of crimes that they need to cover, this tool can be mighty handy "heads up".

[Julius Civitatus]

134. My thoughts exactly!

How long do you think it would take this bunch to use this info for any purposes they want?

They have demonstrated that they think the laws don't apply to them. The question is, fro how long have they been using this info for political purposes.

:mad:

[serryjw]

112. BINGO! You won the prize!

It wouldn't be difficult to take these numbers, write a program to use in the political arena. They now know everything about what you do & whom you are doing it with. Every non prifit /527 is now under attack. Rove used to know where you worked, lived and worshipped. Now he knows what you believe and whom you support.

[leveymg]

143. And, if you're a person of interest, who you sleep with, where you are,

who you're hanging out with, what's being said. All courtesy of those little cell phones we all carry around with us.

If you plan to talk about anything you wouldn't say directly to the face of Gen. Michael Hayden or DHS Director Michael Chertoff, I suggest you leave your phone at home and go for a walk in the woods, just like the big boys do.

Personally, I want the bastards to know what I think of them. Here's my message: Hi, Mike and Mike. We're all going to come and arrest, try, convict, and imprison both of you, and all of your little henchmen. And, the copy you made of this message will be part of the evidence against you.

Don't hit that delete button, Mike and Mike, or try to destroy evidence. That sort of behavior just goes to establish your criminal intent.

You have a right to remain silent, that is, until we put you before a Grand Jury.B-) :grr: :kick: :hide: :yoiks:

[serryjw]

252. I say the same thing..let the SOB's

listen to anything I say. I am proud that they may find me a threat

[Ms. Toad]

341. Reporters conversing with their confidential sources,

Associates of folks suspected of being communist (for those who remember the McCarthy witch hunts)...no need to force suspects of naming names - all they have do do is pull up your phone records and see who you called or received calls from.

[progressivebydesign]

195. Yeah.. hope they enjoy knitting and talking about pets.. n/t

[Mr_Spock]

9. Looks like Osama won.

Thanks Bush you stupid fucking dupe :mad:

[Old and In the Way]

16. Yes, the terrorists hated us for our freedoms.

So Bush has been busy taking them away. Do I hear 25% popularity? This is going to be the straw that break's the elephant's back.

[Mr_Spock]

27. Hehe - I picked 25% in the poll here on DU!

I'll have to agree with you! :D

[rucky]

289. We have to take our freedoms away before they do!

It's the preemptive doctrine.

[DBoon]

18. No, it looks like the Soviet Union won the Cold War

nt

[Mr_Spock]

25. "neocon" is Russian for "stupid American"

Are we ever stupid!

[coalition_unwilling]

298. LMAO -- This is the way the empire ends, not with a bang but

with a whimper (with apologies to T.S. Eliot)

[AzDar]

104. THAT phrase should be our new Party slogan...

Would make a good bumper sticker, too.

[Mr_Spock]

135. Osama - 1, Bush - zero

:rofl:

Bush is a zero :rofl:

[NoSheep]

151. Osama and Bush are on the same team. THEY won.

[petgoat]

187. Osama and Bush on the same team?

You mean Osama was a CIA asset all along, even after the mujahideen kicked the
Soviets out of Afghanistan?

Is that why the CIA didn't kill him even though Clinton ordered them to?

Is that why CIA agent Larry Mitchell met with Osama in Dubai six weeks before 9/11
when Osama was the most wanted criminal in the world?

Is that why FBI informant Salem alowed the '93 WTC bombing to go forward?

Is that why the DOJ let Ali Mohammed go after he pleaded guilty to involvement
in al Qaeda's African embassy bombings?

Is that why Prince Turki al Faisal is now Saudi Ambassador to the USA after
having met with Osama in Dubai six weeks before 9/11?

[NoSheep]

203. You said it MUCH better than I could have!

He's the PNAC's ace in the hole.

[Mr_Spock]

206. Suppressing the populace is so much easier when your enemy is your friend!

Imagine if Republicans could stop trying to preserve power long enough to see what these neocon bastards are doing to our country.

Wake up sheeple!!

[Newsjock]

10. We've already lost the news cycle on this one

Note the time the story breaks -- just before midnight Eastern, so USA Today has the story essentially all to themselves tomorrow (as they probably should, I might add).

But this means that the Bush Crime Family et al. have all day tomorrow to start spinning this -- if not outright lying about it. So all of the next day's front pages (on Friday) will say things like "Bush defends surveillance" or "Bush denies surveillance" ... or maybe even "Pretty White Girl Missing / Also, Your Phone Calls Are Being Monitored, Page B14."

It's not our fault, but I think we're starting at a disadvantage here. I hope someone has the proper message discipline to shepherd this through tomorrow's difficult news cycle.

[SeveneightyWhoa]

39. How do they spin this?

"There are 10 million terrorists in the United States, and we're saving all of their conversations on our massive terrorist hard drive!"

[spinbaby]

117. Here's how they spin this

Heard it straight from the Freeper's mouth this morning:

"Well, they've been doing this since the Clinton years and Gore would have done it, too."

[rodeodance]

81. don't the polls say most Americans say this is OK?

[zanne]

99. I have a sinking feeling about this whole thing...

I think that every newspaper in the country today could have this as their headline (in 3-inch letters), and it wouldn't make any difference. This is how a totalitarian government works. The public's opinion doesn't matter. The polls have Bush at 31%. He doesn't care. I'm becoming convinced that even if we had rioting in the streets, they would be contained and it just wouldn't matter. This administration is the 800 lb. gorilla, looking down at us puny citizens and saying "So what are you gonna do about it, punks"?

[LiberteToujours]

236. That's what they want you to think

If there was continual rioting in the streets, the government would be _forced_ to do something about it. They would have to listen to the people or be overthrown -- the way it's meant to be. But they've convinced enough Americans that there's nothing they can do anyway, or that protesting is somehow supporting terrorism, so no one bothers trying anymore. How far can it go before enough is enough?

[zanne]

264. I hope you're right, Liberte Toujours.

But how would we overthrow this government. We have shotguns and they have nukes. Think about it.

[TankLV]

286. So did the former Soviet Union - look what happened to them.

The will of the people shall not be denied!

[bennywhale]

337. All it takes is for the people to act as one. Or at least

a majority. Thats why words are more powerful. If enough people are persuaded and act and think as one, thats it, half way to victory. Complete civil disobedience by 10s of millions, the government can't act.

[savemefromdumbya]

11. room for plenty of new Mexican workers at the NSA!

they'll need to hire a lot of people to analyse all those databases?

[InkAddict]

38. Pero, cuando los Mexicanos entran Los Estados Unidos

ellos no requerdan como hablar ingles. (Gimme a break, it's been awhile!)

Just for a kick, once upon a time, a bill collector called and I answered in Spanish that "No hablo ingles y (name)no esta en casa, y tal vez, tienen un número de teléfono incorrecto.

[oldtime dfl_er]

46. muy bien

yo comprendo!

http://www.cafepress.com/scarebaby/1094932

[savemefromdumbya]

137. LOL

what's LOL in Spanish?

[Lifelong Protester]

317. LOL in Spanish is...

REVA


(Rie en voz alta)

[DoYouEverWonder]

268. they don't give a shit about analyising the data

They're not interested in catching real terrorists.

No they need these records so that they can keep track of their political enemies, which at the moment is every one in the world that doesn't support them.

[jsamuel]

13. Not a surprise, support censure.

[Miss Chybil]

14. It says only Qwest has refused to participate in the operation. nt

[IndyJones]

29. I have Cox, too. How can we find out?

[Mojorabbit]

71. I just fired off an email to bellsouth

asking if it is true. Surely they wouldn't do something so unconstitutional...I said. If so I told them I'd have to reconsider being their customer. I am pissed off.

[Miss Chybil]

177. I'm going to call them. nt

[JCMach1]

15. Obscene and outrageous... the America we knew no longer exists

:grr:

[Old and In the Way]

19. It may come back with a vengence, JCMach1

I hope the pain and agony we've endured these past 5+ years will create a progressive consensus that'll drive a positive change in this country for decades to come. We are going to take this country back and this time the people who have committed crimes under the guise of government will be held accountable.

[InkAddict]

43. That's what they hoped in Iraq

before Americans killed their kids and our own!

[hootinholler]

54. Fucking-A right we will!

All those bastards in jail. preferably to the Hague

-Hoot

[JCMach1]

72. I hope you and pray you are right!

Until then, I remain in political (but voting) and economic exile...

Best part about that-- I make a hella lot more money than I ever did in the U.S. and not ONE PENNY has to go to support Bush's stolen government!

[rodeodance]

78. I do not know if anyone will ever be held accountable.

[wordpix]

157. one good idea: class action suit against telecoms for violating privacy

rights

[deadparrot]

17. But...but...but...if you haven't done anything wrong,

you shouldn't have anything to worry about.

Right?

Right!?

:eyes:

[Ezlivin]

146. Notice how that doesn't work with them - they NEVER open their files

or offices or explain what the hell they are doing behind closed doors.

They tell us we should fear nothing if we have nothing to hide.

But what about when the shoe is on the other foot?

Silence or obfuscation.

[progressivebydesign]

196. I admit I used to think that way.. stupid, I know.

I'd say 99% of us here at DU have done nothing wrong (statistically there has to be a few lawbreakers here somewhere).


Now I know that the FBI spies on Vegan groups, and peace groups, and seniors groups, and book groups. I know now that the NSA is up the skirt of all of us, even tho they have ZERO probable cause to do so.

Now I care. It's the principal of the thing. We're spending fucking billions to give Iraq democracy, supposedly, while we cut health programs, and reading programs, and homeless shelters, here at home. ANd.. ironically, we are losing OUR rights in our democracy. The Founding Fathers are spinning fast in their graves.

What a sad day in America. Land of the formerly free.

[Ms. Toad]

342. Tell that to all the innocent folks

snared in the McCarthy witch hunts. This lets them compile the same list of innocent "communists" and avoid all the messy threats to get targets to name names - it's all there in your call records

[Media_Lies_Daily]

21. "Tens of millions of Americans"? Not quite....it's ALL calls ever made.

[lovuian]

23. Thats us guys and gals!!!

we've been wiretapped its official!!!

I'm ticked off at my phone company!!!

[rodeodance]

79. Yes, acorrding this (below)--all domestic calls are included:

...The NSA's domestic program, as described by sources, is far more expansive than what the White House has acknowledged. Last year, Bush said he had authorized the NSA to eavesdrop — without warrants — on international calls and international e-mails of people suspected of having links to terrorists when one party to the communication is in the USA. Warrants have also not been used in the NSA's efforts to create a national call database.

In defending the previously disclosed program, Bush insisted that the NSA was focused exclusively on international calls. "In other words," Bush explained, "one end of the communication must be outside the United States."

As a result, domestic call records — those of calls that originate and terminate within U.S. borders — were believed to be private.

Sources, however, say that is not the case. With access to records of billions of domestic calls, the NSA has gained a secret window into the communications habits of millions of Americans. Customers' names, street addresses and other personal information are not being handed over as part of NSA's domestic program, the sources said. But the phone numbers the NSA collects can easily be cross-checked with other databases to obtain that information......

[wordpix]

156. I'd like some cross-checking of *'s phone nos. so his puppetmasters will

become public knowledge. Let's open this up via FOIA

[TankLV]

287. So, the REPUKE bush* is caught LYING again!

But will the MSM and our so-called Democratic Leaders even use the "L" word?

I have YET to hear it!

[jseankil]

186. I don't believe it's all calls.

And yes I know what the report says but I don't believe it's correct. We'll just have to wait and see, I'm just not going to take what this report says as fact.

[mccoyn]

211. Well, I'm going to take it as fact. -nt

[jseankil]

222. nm

nm

[SeveneightyWhoa]

229. I agree.

We should listen to whatever the Bush administration tells us instead. Good call.

[jseankil]

258. Why did you say that its ok to molest children?

Oh you didn't? Just like I didn't say we should listen to whatever the Bush admin.says.

Please don't put words into my mouth unless you expect the same kind of treatment. I gave an extream eample, hope you learn from it. Thanks.

[Media_Lies_Daily]

267. You're going to be wrong...the technology has existed for quite....

...some time to do keyword scanning of all communications. That technology allows the NSA to process all domestic phone calls, faxes, emails, cell phones, etc., and red-flag any communication containing certain key words. Then they lump all the red-flagged communications together and process them to see if any patterns emerge.

But, the problem still exists...they are scanning communications without proper legal authority, and/or warrants.

And once they're allowed to that, how long will it be before they begin to look closely at political opponents, or minorities, or anti-war demonstrators? How long will it be before people begin to "disappear" into the REX-84 camp system?

If allowed to continue, this is the beginning of a long slippery slope that will result in nothing good for the U. S.

[TankLV]

290. So, all the WORST allegations one could imagine of this gang or REPUKE

CRIMINALS has TURNED OUR TO BE TRUE, and you're still waiting and seeing and willing to give them the benifit of the doubt?!?!?!?!

YOU ARE PART OF THE FUCKING PROBLEM!

Shit or get off the pot - either suppor our calls for their heads, or GET OUT OF THE FUCKING WAY!

Clueless, simply clueless.

Oh, and - GET YOU HEAD OUT OF YOUR FUCKING ASS!

[MikeStl]

330. Why do they keep saying that

The article I saw says over 200 million...why do some of the reports keep saying tens of millions? That seems like downplaying it to me.

[CornField]

22. The shithead lied again

How many more lies will the American people stomach?

[lovuian]

24. Yes Bush denied wiretapping ordinary Americans

and he lied ...

[wordpix]

158. it's a daily occurrence now: dimson is thumbing his nose at us & Constitut

tion

[noel adamson]

26. This occurred under Hayden who is now hooking up with Mr. Death Squad ....

...John Negroponte the Uber Spook of the USA. He has only had one function in his past assignments as far as I know and that is setting up terrorist death squads. Everywhere he goes tortured and executed bodies start appearing, displayed for your terror pleasure in public places.

I don't think this association should ever be left out of any discussion on wiretapping and calling habit data collection by the NSA.

[Gregorian]

36. Hayden's talk on cspan was sickening.

He spoke as if everything they were doing was so legitimate.


Well, the good news is, this pushed Nixon over the edge.

[rodeodance]

80. The WH-at that time-put our a General to make declarative statements

that all was well. It was convince Americans and Congress-and it seems it worked.

[TankLV]

291. That's what happens when you bring back CRIMINALS and put them in charge!

What do we expect?!

[LibertyorDeath]

319. Very well said

and Welcome to DU!

[noel adamson]

327. Thank you Liberty

[jsamuel]

28. at DKos now

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/5/11/02649/0806

[lovuian]

31. Thanks jsamuel

no wonder they didn't ask the judges... it was massive...wiretapping of a nation??? under the guise of terrorism...

[GregD]

30. Does anyone have video of **

holding his fingers a couple inches apart and assuring everyone that it's a "limited program"?

[lovuian]

32. I hope they replay that clip over and over again

:rofl: I wonder if Fitzgerald was wiretapped???????????????????????????????????????????????????

[SeveneightyWhoa]

37. Hopefully Jon Stewart does.

I hope to see it on The Daily Show tomorrow night..

[NightOwwl]

33. NYTimes published this info back in December of 2005!

Spy Agency Mined Vast Data Trove, Officials Report
By ERIC LICHTBLAU and JAMES RISEN
Published: December 24, 2005

WASHINGTON, Dec. 23 - The National Security Agency has traced and analyzed large volumes of telephone and Internet communications flowing into and out of the United States as part of the eavesdropping program that President Bush approved after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks to hunt for evidence of terrorist activity, according to current and former government officials.

The volume of information harvested from telecommunication data and voice networks, without court-approved warrants, is much larger than the White House has acknowledged, the officials said. It was collected by tapping directly into some of the American telecommunication system's main arteries, they said.

As part of the program approved by President Bush for domestic surveillance without warrants, the N.S.A. has gained the cooperation of American telecommunications companies to obtain backdoor access to streams of domestic and international communications, the officials said.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/24/politics/24spy.html?ex=1293080400&en=016edb46b79bde83&ei=5090

Doesn't anyone else remember this?

[lovuian]

35. Large volumes = tens of millions

I think this is a bit more specific...

[NightOwwl]

40. If you know anything about data mining...

this is not a surprise.

(I don't mean you in particular...I'm using it in the generic sense.)

[KoKo]

49. Recording who and where folks call within the US is Big News....

The NYT's article makes it sound as if these calls were from folks here in US calling outside the country and vice-versa. That's how it was spun so that most folks would think they were exempt if they didn't call overseas.

This article shows it for what most of us here thought it was. It was ALL of us no matter WHERE we called.

I think that's the difference. Data Mining is not what this is ...it's really spying on who you call, when you call and where you call. Our telephone is not a computer. It's expected to be private.

I can see your case of it being "Data Mining" but most Americans don't think of their Telephones the way they would about going onto a website on their computer and having spy ware or data mining ware tracking their every move.

Who we call and how many times we call has always been considered PRIVATE.

[NightOwwl]

56. Oh, no question this is illegal.

Incredibly illegal. It disgusts me what they are doing.

[kestrel91316]

62. It's only actually, functionally illegal if they enforce the laws

pertaining to it. They won't of course. And Congress will do ABSOLUTELY NOTHING ABOUT IT.

[midnight]

116. Privacy is only for those in charge of running this country.

for the rest of us we must live with out it.

[rodeodance]

86. Yes, but this USA piece seems to actually say this data mining is going

on. Semms speculative in NTTimes peice (late Dec).

.....Bush administration officials declined to comment on Friday on the technical aspects of the operation and the N.S.A.'s use of broad searches to look for clues on terrorists. Because the program is highly classified, many details of how the N.S.A. is conducting it remain unknown, and members of Congress who have pressed for a full Congressional inquiry say they are eager to learn more about the program's operational details, as well as its legality.

Officials in the government and the telecommunications industry who have knowledge of parts of the program say the N.S.A. has sought to analyze communications patterns to glean clues from details like who is calling whom, how long a phone call lasts and what time of day it is made, and the origins and destinations of phone calls and e-mail messages. Calls to and from Afghanistan, for instance, are known to have been of particular interest to the N.S.A. since the Sept. 11 attacks, the officials said.

This so-called "pattern analysis" on calls within the United States would, in many circumstances, require a court warrant if the government wanted to trace who calls whom.

The use of similar data-mining operations by the Bush administration in other contexts has raised strong objections, most notably in connection with the Total Information Awareness system, developed by the Pentagon for tracking terror suspects, and the Department of Homeland Security's Capps program for screening airline passengers. Both programs were ultimately scrapped after public outcries over possible threats to privacy and civil liberties.......

[SeveneightyWhoa]

34. "Terrorist surveillance program", eh?

I wonder how long that talking point will hold up now.

[lovuian]

41. From the article Section 222 of the FCC in violation

Ma Bell's bedrock principle — protection of the customer — guided the company for decades, said Gene Kimmelman, senior public policy director of Consumers Union. "No court order, no customer information — period. That's how it was for decades," he said.

The concern for the customer was also based on law: Under Section 222 of the Communications Act, first passed in 1934, telephone companies are prohibited from giving out information regarding their customers' calling habits: whom a person calls, how often and what routes those calls take to reach their final destination. Inbound calls, as well as wireless calls, also are covered.

The financial penalties for violating Section 222, one of many privacy reinforcements that have been added to the law over the years, can be stiff. The Federal Communications Commission, the nation's top telecommunications regulatory agency, can levy fines of up to $130,000 per day per violation, with a cap of $1.325 million per violation. The FCC has no hard definition of "violation." In practice, that means a single "violation" could cover one customer or 1 million.

[wordpix]

178. good info, only problem is * makes up own laws so will not penalize tele-

coms for violations. No doubt he'll be saying these aren't violations and are in national security interest.

[Elidor]

47. This should come as a surprise

To no one. But it should inspire a fresh level of outrage over what these criminals are doing to us.

"Also unclear is whether the database has been used for other purposes."
More is left unsaid with that one sentence than is laid out with entire books.

[rodeodance]

105. it is really not a surprize and yes I do hope it inspire OUTRAGE ANEW>

[kster]

48. Its all a scare tactic and a joke

one day of calls from every American if they stayed on each call for one minute would be 298,711,860 minutes that means someone would have to sit there and listen for 298,711,860 minutes. Ok now I have to let the math people take it from here, how many years would it take them to listen to the conversations for just one day alone?

http://factfinder.census.gov/home/saff/main.html

[NightOwwl]

52. They aren't listening...they are collecting a record of all calls...

Then they take that data and analyze it to identify patterns or relationships.

It's still illegal as hell.

[Robbien]

53. The article said they aren't listening to them. They are making a database

to find patterns.

They will listen to the ones which fit the patterns. Of course they will always have the database handy if a person such as yourself ever becomes a person of interest.

Nice.

[Old and In the Way]

57. Keywords: Plame, Fitzgerald, Dean, DNC, the names of every

Congressional Democrat, their staffers and unfriendly journalists. That'd be the terrorists that concern them the most.

[kster]

61. Yep, the Dems and the Repugs that don't "toe the line" of the Neocons

are being spied on right now, everyone else is getting worried for nothing.

[kestrel91316]

63. Don't forget the senior MA senator (Kennedy). He's on the "No Fly" list.

[ReadTomPaine]

58. It's no joke - here's how it works:

The way this form of tapping works, they are monitoring pretty much everyone. Everyone from the Senate to the military, to you and me. It all goes into a data warehouse. Information that falls into predefined patterns are stored, organized and brought to the attention of the appropriate personnel, which is the point that actual humans enter the equation. They can then pull up the records later, as required, for whatever reason they need. Data that falls outside these patterns gets flushed from whatever caching mechanism they are using, although for some lucky people I'm sure every word has been faithfully preserved. This is why Bush has no use for FISA. FISA requires a target and a reason. I spoke about this a while back, when it first hit the news.

I find it fitting that Halliburton is listed as HAL on the NYSE.

[kster]

70. What will they do with the information

will they start arresting everyone? Will they put everyone in jail because they didn't say the right thing?

If I was able to charge people 3 bucks a gallon for gas, I wouldn't want to put any of them people behind bars, I would want them on the street buying gas, living their lives.

I wouldn't put the same people that are buying my gas for 3 bucks a gallon behind bars, it just doesn't make sense.

Thats why I believe this is a scare tactic and a joke.

[ReadTomPaine]

75. What will they do? Anything they want.

Jailtime isn't necessarily the goal here. Think about it. Want to find out what the political opposition is up to? Just make the proper query and listen to everything they say via phone, cell and email. Someone making waves in the news? A little retroactive scanning of their personal communications should dig up something of use in keeping them marginalized or quiet. Problems with uppity officers left over from the Clinton Administration? Easy as pie to keep tabs on those traitorous liberals and make sure potential troublemakers wind up working out of a closet in the Pentagon. Lawyers stirring trouble in a case effecting the GOP? Grab a steno pad and start listening to their legal strategy.

This is nothing new, it's basically the same fishing that was done under Hoover's corrupt FBI with the more limited tools of the time. Now that these tools are exponentially more powerful, so is the advantage gained by wielding them. What's more, this is SOP for Bush's political machine. The primary predictor of current and future behavior is past behavior, and this sort of abuse has been going on for years in whatever capacity they have been able to pursue it. With the power of this imperial presidency in their hands, it can be pursued to unlimited lengths and that's exactly what they have done.

The scope of the problem is a bit wider than you paint in your post. You assume this administration and those they represent are happy with the status quo. 3$ gasoline is just the tip of the iceberg here. An intimidated populace under intense surveillance is much more easily controlled, so the sky is the limit when it comes to corporate profits. Want to charge double that price? Sure thing. Who's going to stop them or speak out when they can scan your private life in intimate detail on a whim and then apply some of the laws in Patriot or elsewhere to have you silenced or ruined? This is not based on what people are willing to pay, but rather the maximum that can be extracted from them, whether they like it or not.

I've said this before, but if you want a vision of GOP's future for America, look at China. That's the republican wet dream for the future United States. Naked, raw greed and a labor pool happy to work for sweatshop wages. Factory owners who structure facilities like prisons. All forms of expression, media and communication monitored and screened by government censors. No environmental safeguards to speak of, and ultimate authority resting with a nepotistic single party government ruled by force. Coming soon, to a state near you.

[mccoyn]

122. Another important point is who is doing the filtering.

Any political action group, political party or organization has many people as part of their organization. Chances are at least one of them has some skeletons in the closet. With this database someone could dig up that information and use it to smear the group. Other groups, that agree with the person doing the digging, will look great by comparison.

[Vanje]

181. Joke?

Picture what the Swiftboaters would've done with a list of all the people that Kerry , his employees, his relatives. his friends, ever talked to by phone.

[Cameron27]

217. thank you

I'll be sending this info to my misguided, idiot/patriot family (in-laws). I thought I had reached max. capacity for outrage---and now THIS!!!

And yes, this is my first ever posting, a complete virgin in that area--gonna light up a cig. and have myself a lil' drink ...kidding

[ReadTomPaine]

218. Welcome to DU!

And hang in there. :)

[eppur_se_muova]

245. No PERSON listens to your calls. The data is computer processed.

The NSA probably has more supercomputers than any other institution in the world -- and they are usually running hardware that the rest of the world doesn't even see for five or even ten years, developed under special contract. Check out Bamford's books to get some idea of the scope and magnitude of NSA's SIGINT processing capabilities -- it's truly staggering, and you have to keep in mind that the information in those books was already out of date by the time Bamford got ahold of it.

I remember in "The Puzzle Palace" (1983) he said one room in Ft. Meade had something like NINE Crays in it -- at the time the Cray was a $25M machine, requiring about $2M/yr upkeep, and one of only two models of machine described as a supercomputer, which meant over 100 MFLOPS at the time. The machines available now are immensely more capable, and at lower price. As of April '05, there were four machines publicly acknowledged to exceed 50 TFLOPS, the fastest 280 TFLOPS. A 100 TFLOP machine would be one million times faster than the old Cray-1. It's worth noting that the Univerity of Indiana is acquiring a 20 TFLOP computer with over 1 petabyte of disk storage. If a state univ. can acquire that kind of hardware, just imagine what will fit into NSA's black budget.

http://top500.org has not been updated since April '05; usually they have the most authoritative list of top supercomputer sites, and interesting links to other computer info as well.

/spelling

[TankLV]

292. They aren't "listening" to all of it - just RECORDING all of it - to

listen and go thru in detail AT THEIR LEISURE.

But it's not "data mining"!

[lovuian]

50. Is it me or was NSA threatening QWest to give them the

data and records and QWest denied them... and yet NSA persisted... but the hero here is QWest didn't cave like ATT Bell and the others...

These companies shirked their duty to American customers who pay for their privacy...

[uppityperson]

51. Qwest didn't, thank you Qwest

[populistdriven]

59. There should be a website like thankyoustephencolbert

[Zynx]

60. All we have to prove is so much as one instance of domestic political

spying and this fucker can be impeached so fast that it will shock even me.

[kestrel91316]

66. He will never be impeached. Anybody who gets too close to doing it

will find there is a whole mess of "evidence" pointing toward their being in cahoots with Osama or Goldstein or whoever. They will be targeted for treason and threatened with the death penalty. Or maybe just have an unfortunate encounter with Bacillus anthracis.

Mark my words.

[Zynx]

67. Treason is nearly impossible to prove.

Offing a person in the middle of an investigation is too obvious as well. They don't have the balls for that.

[kestrel91316]

68. If the Bushies put their minds to it, and didn't care about little things

like TRUTH and HONESTY and ETHICS and THE CONSTITUTION, it would be extremely easy for them to fake a case of treason against anyone they wanted to.

We already know they only care about power and gaining wealth at the expense of others. They spit on the constitution and the rule of law.

[CountAllVotes]

174. what about all of the identity thefts?

They cannot explain why so many people have had their identity stolen via credit cards and debt cards being used, etc.

I kind of think *ding* *ding* *ding* ... I'm on to something here. I wonder if there is a correlation between those that have been victims of these various "acts" we've been hearing of recently and the NSA spying and database? Maybe this database is the actual culprit that has led to all of the abuse of the information and credit card information might I suggest?

It sure seems to be highly likely to me. It got leaked out by he who keeps this two-bit "database" and now every single person in America has had their identity stolen.

If you do not believe this, try checking out this website I stumbled upon ...

www.privateeye.com ... scary as hell and good fucking luck getting your name off of the god damn thing!!! :argh:

:kick:

[henslee]

301. wow. scary.

[magellan]

64. A reminder about when the domestic wiretapping really began

Bush Authorized Domestic Spying Before 9/11

By Jason Leopold
t r u t h o u t | Perspective

Friday 13 January 2006

The National Security Agency advised President Bush in early 2001 that it had been eavesdropping on Americans during the course of its work monitoring suspected terrorists and foreigners believed to have ties to terrorist groups, according to a declassified document.

The NSA's vast data-mining activities began shortly after Bush was sworn in as president and the document contradicts his assertion that the 9/11 attacks prompted him to take the unprecedented step of signing a secret executive order authorizing the NSA to monitor a select number of American citizens thought to have ties to terrorist groups.

In its "Transition 2001" report, the NSA said that the ever-changing world of global communication means that "American communication and targeted adversary communication will coexist."

"Make no mistake, NSA can and will perform its missions consistent with the Fourth Amendment and all applicable laws," the document says.

more....

So the whole story still isn't out, unless this has been debunked.

(The link at truthout to the declassified document isn't working, but I downloaded it at the time. It's a .pdf though.)

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

101. I wish you would pull this out as a new thread

This is an important fact and it gets lost here. They use 9/11, 9/11, 9/11 to justify everything that they do and it's how they sell it to gullible, trusting Americans.

Every single statement Bush has made about warrantless wiretapping and surveillance has been a lie. THIS IS AN OUTRAGE!!!

[crickets]

262. It is posted

Agreed, Phoebe, it is important. It's here in a separate thread but apparently not many people saw it. Only two people have recommended it so far. Could a few more people go over to K&R please?

[Oak2004]

248. Has anyone put together an info packet with all this stuff?

There's something of a myth that our congresscritters have all sorts of information that you and I do, and more, neatly organized and prepared for them.

The actual reality, as anyone who has ever lobbied can testify to, is that our representatives, even the good guys, are often woefully uninformed about a lot of issues. It is likely that some House members and Senators who would be our allies have no understanding of the timing here as well as many of the other details. In fact even if there are legislative hearings on this some day, don't assume that the committee will have relevant declassified documents that we already have.

There really is a high degree of ignorance among elected officials, not because they and their staff are stupid, but because there is so much information out there they have to sift through. A single individual armed with good information can sometimes make an astounding impact. I once ended the career of a corrupt appointee simply by passing a state rep. a news clipping of a lead story in the state's largest newspaper, a story that made the national nightly news at the time it occurred, which proved the appointee (who was testifying) had just told a whopper to the committee. The information was anything but secret, but if I had not been there to pass the rep. the article, no one would have put two and two together and spotted the very big lie.

If anyone knows of lobbying efforts which are bringing this information, in depth, to our elected representatives, then consider this post moot. But if it's not certain that they are getting this, we need to put together packets of information, with a summary of the salient points and a timeline, and get it to our congresscritters however which way we can (ideally to them or an appropriate staff member in person, or through a third party we know who can hand it to them or to a member of their staff).

[cfsteak]

65. Americalypse Now

This is it, Colonel Kurtz is in control , where's Captain Willard

[JDPriestly]

69. I'm an attorney. No one has the right to snoop on calls to and from

me and my clients. No one. This is especially troubling for criminal attorneys.

Besides, if they say 10,000,000 Americans, do really they mean 10,000,000 phones. Some phones have multiple users -- in fact many phones have multiple users. So, the 10,000,000 is actually 10,000,000 times X. Who knows how many users the X stands for.

[JCMach1]

73. Just think of the Black Budget BILLIONS NSA has been spending

on the supercomputers needed...

What a waste!!!

[mccoyn]

124. Computers are cheap.

It would only take millions to do this.

[JCMach1]

144. This would take massive storage and analysis....

[eppur_se_muova]

246. see post 245. IT people can tell you much more about it than I. nt

[JudyM]

280. Our tax dollars at work. Lovely. n/t

[Rainscents]

74. I wonder, if Comcast is on this list?

Comcast is very new with phone service, I believe it's less then 8 years in this business. I been with Comcast phone for 3 years now. First, Landline and now, digital cable phone line.

[wordpix]

232. how about Cablevision?

[rodeodance]

76. says the NSA prorgram is far more extension than WH acknowledges:

....The three telecommunications companies are working under contract with the NSA, which launched the program in 2001 shortly after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the sources said. The program is aimed at identifying and tracking suspected terrorists, they said.

The sources would talk only under a guarantee of anonymity because the NSA program is secret.

Air Force Gen. Michael Hayden, nominated Monday by President Bush to become the director of the CIA, headed the NSA from March 1999 to April 2005. In that post, Hayden would have overseen the agency's domestic call-tracking program. Hayden declined to comment about the program.

The NSA's domestic program, as described by sources, is far more expansive than what the White House has acknowledged. Last year, Bush said he had authorized the NSA to eavesdrop — without warrants — on international calls and international e-mails of people suspected of having links to terrorists when one party to the communication is in the USA. Warrants have also not been used in the NSA's efforts to create a national call database......

[rodeodance]

77. Sen Roberts would not confirm the existance of the program!

.....Last month, U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales alluded to that possibility. Appearing at a House Judiciary Committee hearing, Gonzales was asked whether he thought the White House has the legal authority to monitor domestic traffic without a warrant. Gonzales' reply: "I wouldn't rule it out." His comment marked the first time a Bush appointee publicly asserted that the White House might have that authority.

Similarities in programs

The domestic and international call-tracking programs have things in common, according to the sources. Both are being conducted without warrants and without the approval of the FISA court. The Bush administration has argued that FISA's procedures are too slow in some cases. Officials, including Gonzales, also make the case that the USA Patriot Act gives them broad authority to protect the safety of the nation's citizens.

The chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., would not confirm the existence of the program. In a statement, he said, "I can say generally, however, that our subcommittee has been fully briefed on all aspects of the Terrorist Surveillance Program. ... I remain convinced that the program authorized by the president is lawful and absolutely necessary to protect this nation from future attacks."

The chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Rep. Pete Hoekstra, R-Mich., declined to comment.......

[rodeodance]

82. What will Specter do now?

[autorank]

83. You know what scares the Hell out of people about this...

...their "private" naughty calls are recorded for posterity. I'll bet a couple of Franklins that this is the motivation for the most furious opposition. "Holy shit marge, they've got us on tape." Geez...

Whatever it takes to preserve our freedoms.

[rodeodance]

88. umm. will it dawn on people that this is happening?

[autorank]

155. haha, I think it dawned when the first NSA story came out.

I think it's responsible for some of the sharp decline in Bush support.
:sarcasm:
Therefore, naughty phone calls are, in a major way, responsible for the decline in
* popularity;).

In fact, if * is ousted, this type of activity can be said to have saved the planet!!!

[leveymg]

84. Knew about the AT&T cache, but the Bell South monitoring is news

Verizon is an AT&T spin-off.

[rodeodance]

87. So, Will Tony Snow have his first press confernce dealing with this?

[rodeodance]

89. Reuters:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/security_usa_phonecalls_dc;_ylt=AtXmfjssWX03ErNaXIr.MV.s0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTA2Z2szazkxBHNlYwN0bQ--

NSA has database of domestic US phone calls: report

59 minutes ago

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The agency in charge of a domestic spying program has been secretly collecting phone call records of tens of millions of Americans, including calls made within the United States, USA Today reported on Thursday.


It said the National Security Agency has been building up the database using records provided by three major phone companies -- AT&T Inc., Verizon Communications Inc. and BellSouth Corp. -- but that the program "does not involve the NSA listening to or recording conversations."

USA Today said its sources for the story were "people with direct knowledge of the arrangement," but it did not give their names or describe their affiliation.

The existence of an NSA eavesdropping program launched after the September 11 attacks was revealed in December.

[rodeodance]

90. k and Rec.

[rodeodance]

91. 4.7 stars

Average (77 votes)
4.7 stars

[rodeodance]

92. -----200 million customers."

..It said the three companies cooperating with the NSA "provide local and wireless phone service to more than 200 million customers."

[leveymg]

93. That's just a few more than "a couple thousand" al-Qaeda supporters

in the U.S. making international phone calls, isn't it?

[wicket]

94. OMFG!

:grr: :grr: :grr: :grr:

[Gin]

95. I use Qwest..............and Verizon.......both will hear from me.....

2 totally different messages...I will be looking for a new local carrier.

[wicket]

109. We use verizon, I'm switching us to Vonage ASAP!

http://vonage.com/

Screw verizon!!!! :grr:

[Gman]

96. Total Information Awareness is alive and very well

and lives on. They just wait for the furor to die down, then they do it anyway.

[The Backlash Cometh]

97. If we find out we're on the list, can we sue collectively?

[wordpix]

233. there's talk of a class action suit; however, how can we find out if we're

on the blacklist or not?

[Jacobin]

102. Guess its time for Congress to give Smirk a standing O again

Like they did at the SOU address when he talked about warrantless wiretaps

[rodeodance]

103. seems many on the Committee just want to make a new law !!

[electropop]

106. I expect Chimpy's poll numbers to hit the mid-20's on this one!

And Hayden now has no chance of avoiding a filibuster.

[WePurrsevere]

115. Let's hope so, at least there would be something good to come out of this.

Other then that although I'm not as surprised as I wish I could be, I'm so mad that I'm actually almost speechless.

[LizW]

107. So, the largest database ever in the world

amassed by a national security agency is about the nation's own citizens?

Somehow, in Bush America, that seems about right.

I'm incapable of being surprised or outraged anymore.

[0007]

108. This is outrageous. I guess most these people are the ones

that the airlines screen when they fly also.

[Nickster]

113. Am I missing something here?

They are creating this monster database and are dying to get their hands on more and more of our personal information to supposedly track down terra, BUT they don't have enough translators and analysts to get through our foreign intelligence which would have helped to stop 9/11. The FBI barely has any compter capability at all, which would help domestic crime fighting. The NSA and their systems are tragically inept. And on and on and on.... So how the heck would they even be able to sift through this data to get to anything useful or determine patterns? The only thing I can think of is to have access to the info for very specific targeted people. Dubya decides he wants the phone records of Howard Dean, and the NSA goes to the database and pulls it up. Right?

Oh and I just can't wait until the system has piss poor security and that data gets hacked and distributed around the world. *sigh*

[mccoyn]

128. Relational searches.

Look for any numbers that called the democratic headquarters as well as known drug dealer numbers. Find out who has those numbers and form a smear campaign. This can go beyond targeting individuals and target whole orgainzations. It could also target an individual and every individual that person contacts.

It sounds like an impossible task when you think about the ammount of data, but computers can use hash indexes which are surprisingly fast at finding information in a large data set because they scale extremely well. It takes just as long to find an entry in a hash index containing a thousand entries and one containing a trillion entries.

[Nickster]

132. Well, it's not so much that it's an impossible task, but based on previous

efforts that would actually do us some good, it seems like the govt can't do it. So I'm wondering how the heck are they going to run something like this effectively since their past performance has been pretty pathetic. Is it just another boondoggle to pay off another contractor? It just seems like they'd want the infrastructure in place so they can bear it down on a specific target on an as needed basis.

Got a tight race in a congressional district? Heck, here's some phone records of his calls to his mistress....don't tell anyone....shhhhh

[Vanje]

183. Keeping us safe from terrorists......

.....by looking through the phone records of Helen Thomas's grandchildren to see if any of them has contacted a suspected drug dealer's cousin.

[Singular73]

202. Yeah, and Google doesn't really exist either.

That would just be impossible.

[Nickster]

205. Does Google have intelligence analysts looking over and making decisions

on every single piece of data found through Google? Apples and Oranges.

[Singular73]

207. *Sigh*

No, its actually exactly the same thing. A massive relational database where an operator can query for any type of relational information they are looking for.

The EXISTANCE of the database is illegal, whether it is ANALYZED of not.

[Nickster]

213. I'm not debating the legality of it at all. What I'm saying is that I

don't think the govt can pull it off effectively based on their lack of analysts and previous massive failures with technology. Their databases and searches are going to be nowhere as effective as google, and you'd have to analyze all of the data to be able to pull out trends and then use your queries to pull back data, then you need analysts to look it over and make heads or tails of it. A majority of the FBI doesn't even have email access or networks that talk to each other and you want to compare the govt's technical abilities to Google?

A computer can't make useful intelligence analysis reports, you need lots of humans to do that. I query data all day long and it needs to be thoroughly massaged by me before it means anything. I can put in any meaningless strings of data and get back data, but what do the results mean? The analysis of data is where the Gold is.

In other words, is it technilogically possible to do this, sure. Do I think the Fed is technically capable of doing this, sure. Do I think they can organize an effective popsicle stand let alone a massive computerized domestic spying plan that will not be bastardized by either missing the important stuff or giving false positives on a consistent basis? Not a chance. Do I even think the program should exist at all? Hell no! (OMG, I'm channeling Rumsfeld)

[TankLV]

295. There is probably some low - level jerk RIGHT NOW mining the data to use

it to THEIR advantage.

Of this I have no doubt.

Collect ZILLIONS of items and put it all in a CENTRAL PLACE.

Of course, every single one of these NSA wonks is an "angel", right? and would never thing of doing something improper when their boss isn't looking!

Not to mention any foreign spys out there.

bunkerboy and the REPUKES have just endangered ALL of our "national" security by conveniently placing ALL of our PRIVATE info in ONE CONVENIENT PLACE for ANYBODY to "browse"!

They are literally TRAITORS

[Exultant Democracy]

114. Did they find Osama?

Wait, no they were busy using 9-11 as an excuse to assemble the largest database ever.

[maxrandb]

118. Someone with an account ought to post this on Freaker RepukeliKKK

Wonder if they'd like a little "Freedom Fries" with their monitored phone calls.

Would love to see their take on this. Idiots probably would still "schill" for the most corrupt pResident I've seen in my life-time.

Maybe RIMJOB won't let them post this, cause I checked and it ain't on their site. Don't think they'd be trying to hide something, do you?

[Exultant Democracy]

120. "The nationalist not only does not disapprove

of atrocities committed by his own side, but he has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them." George Orwell

[jayfish]

131. Don't Bother. They Either Think It's Quaint,...

a vital tool in the WOT or a list of telephone number akin to a phone book. They are idiots.

Jay

[sinkingfeeling]

119. I found it amusing that on the same page there's the story of 500 lbs.

of explosives being stolen. The priorities of 'securing' America are as twisted as this administration's rationale for war.

[Ilsa]

121. This story got about 10-12 seconds on NPR this morning.

Of course, that shouldn't surprise me, given the way they've been leaning lately.

[TankLV]

299. Actually, I've been listening all afternoon, and that's ALL they've been

talking about on NPR this afternoon - every few minutes they interrupt THIS story with a couple other things, then GO BACK TO THIS STORY!

Seems to be hitting quite a nerve, I'll say!

It's not about 5:15pm Pacific Daylite Time.

And that ASSWIPE Roberts is STILL trying to say this is "terrorist surveillence" and "no big deal"!

I fucking HATE that TRAITOR almost as much as BUNKERBOY!

[Ilsa]

320. Well, that's good. It was a tiny blip on Morning Edition. eom

[Iniquitous Bunny]

123. Dear NSA...

Can I have my 4th Amendment rights back please? :(

Do we even have a Constitution left for God's sake?

[CoffeeCat]

140. Of course we have a Constitution left...

Junior gets up every morning and wipes his hiney with it.

Bastard.

[yellowcanine]

125. But if you have done nothing wrong you have nothing to fear. Heh.

:sarcasm:

[mccoyn]

130. Do you think this is what that secret session was all about?

I remember they had the secret session and everyone said they weren't allowed to talk about what was said. Then, if I remember the timeline correctly, all these rumors about wire tapping started to emerge. In the last month or so we have been hearing that "someone" was buying our phone records and that we should be worried about who. The thing that links these in my mind is that in both cases there was important information left out. Perhaps the thing that they couldn't talk about in the first case was the same thing they couldn't talk about in the second case.

[flyarm]

133. please put on homepage!!! k&R nt

[antigop]

138. Any particular reason the Carlyle Group wanted to buy Verizon Hawaii?

http://carlylegroup.com/eng/fund/l5fundnews-2792.html

[progressivebydesign]

197. Fuck.. the Carlyle Group is buying up EVERYTHING lately!

Guess they have lots of dough to spend from their war moneymaking machine.

[greenman2]

284. limo's provided by

i wonder if Goss knew about this and didnt want to co-operate from my understanding, Goss was liked by the people inside the CIA. if this new guy gets in the CIA were all F*** the Bush Admin wants the power , they dont want the CIA to be the top intel. they want the DOD to be, rummy is in their back pocket.
remember a while back, they revealed that the DOD had a special SPY devision
that congress wasnt told about,
On sept 10th 2001 rumsfeld admitted the DOD couldnt account for trilions of dollars.
he knew this news would never make it, it would be overshadowed on sept 11th
DOD contractors made out like BANDITS on this war.(not JUST halliburton)
so much of our tax $ that THEY will be in charge of everyting.
$ buys votes, dont ya know. just buy the voting machines and companies.

limo's provided by DHS...

[AndyA]

139. This certainly could explain a lot. Just think of the possibilities having

access to this type of information could provide. You would know lots of confidential information, personal blackmail, Democratic plans, etc.

This alone should be good enough to sink Bush into the 20% range of approval. He has lied AGAIN to America about this. These are not international calls, and there are no warrants being issued for the information.

GEORGE BUSH: IMPEACH - PROSECUTE - INCARCERATE.

The survival of American values demands it!

[kentuck]

141. Well, how many terrorists have they caught...?

With this strategy? Is it paying off? Is there even one?

[lagavulin]

142. Activists should start promoting "Talk Like A Terrorist" Days!

Get everyone you can to call their friends and insert various inflammatory keywords into otherwise ordinary conversation. I won't list what I think those should be...you can guess for yourself.

[bennywhale]

345. I think that is a fantastic idea

It could become a monthly thing. A big fuck you to the snooping fascists.

In fact we could do it on here. Once a month get everyone to send eachother very dubious sounding emails. How many Duers is there?

I'll bet it wouyld melt there computers

[nolabels]

145. Is this one of those 'time to inform your legislator' moments?

Call me cynical, but how come we are reading about this today when most here knew this to be pretty much the fact months ago. Like I know many here have speculated this was going on for years (which obviously was)but only now we get it on print on the front page. Are the whores that work in the corporate media having buyers remorse or trying to distance themselves or is KKKarl and the klick up to something else?

[Massachusetts]

147. "massive database of Americans"

Until they become conscious they will never rebel, and until after they have rebelled they cannot become conscious."
-Orwell 1984

[yurbud]

148. When will Democrats and MSM stop acting like these guys are legit?

Most elected Democrats are still acting like the Bushies are just people that, gosh darn it, we disagree with on some methods--NOT goals, just methods. And the MSM, with child-like trust, tries to find some meaning or justification, like a kid who is beaten and raped by a parent, but wants to believe that parent has their best interests at heart.

If you saw the movie V for Vendetta, they did this with eavesdropping trucks driving down the street listening to random bits of conversation. In reality, they are looking at random people's calling patterns to look for terrorist activity.

Ironically, back in the 90's, this is precisely the kind of thing the far right was paranoid about--the black helicopters flying over their trailer park keeping track of whether they were watching Jeopardy or a Seinfeld rerun.

It's funny but whenever some administration wrong-doing is uncovered, they will make up an excuse that fits just as much of the evidence as has leaked out. Then we found out that they did more and worse.

First they were wrong about WMD in Iraq because of "bad intel." Then it becomes clear that they ignored career analysts, Cheney went to the CIA to personally lean on them to change their findings, political partisans were appointed to the Pentagon and CIA to essentially make up new findings without new evidence, and finally the Downing Street Minutes revealed that "the facts were being fixed around the policy."

Abu Ghraib was just a few bad apples. Until we see the torture memos by Rumsfeld and the White House counsel (now attorney general) Gonzalez. And the general who did the same things at Guantanamo Bay first was transferred to Iraq to bring the torture methods with him.

They would have moved heaven and earth to prevent 9/11 if they had had any warning--oh, wait, they did have warnings. From other governments, the CIA, and FBI. They got all the way to the president and were ignored.

But we never would have suspected the terrorists of using airplanes as weapons. Well, apart from the terrorism drills the Pentagon did where a plane crashed into the Pentagon, or the foiled Bojinka plot to use up to 11 planes in a 9/11 style attack in the 90s.

Too bad we don't have any fighters that can fly two to three times as fast as an airliner that could have forced or shot down a couple of those planes after the first one hit or that the military didn't have a procedure for dealing with hijackings. Oh wait, we do or did have those.

What exactly do these guys have to do to convince people that they aren't just a worse than average administration, but an actual threat to our democracy itself?

[liberalcanuck]

201. Excellent post. n/t

[TankLV]

300. Maybe the CIA, et all, didn't have any scheduled TIME to effectively do

their LEGITIMATE work because of all this ILLEGAL activity?

I want to know HOW MANY DEMOCRATS WERE SPYED-ON?

[Torn_Scorned_Ignored]

149. Hmmm.....

Wasn't the rational for not getting warrants in the domestic spy scandal that they didn't have time, the terrorists move around so quickly and use different phones? How then does this reasoning--analyzing calling patterns for terrorist activity make sense? Would someone in Congress please ask them that?

[jaredt112]

150. This has been going on since the..

early 90's, with Bush Sr. While it may be worse now than it was then, the NSA has always done this, it's just now finally getting some publicity.

Also, as horrible as it is that the government has records of calls made, most (if not all) phone companies make you sign a contract that says they reserve the right to hand over your phone records to any law enforcement agency. So..shitty, but not unlawful.

[magellan]

154. How do you figure it isn't unlawful?

Just because it's been going on for so long (in a more rudimentary form), a fact that most Americans weren't aware of? Or because the government isn't actively recording your call to start, just collecting data on WHO you call and deciding from that information whether to focus on you for whatever reason they might have?

Sounds unconsititutional to me.

[AverageJoe]

162. Yes, unconstitutional

This is in direct conflict with the 4th Amendment, which forbids unreasonable search and seizure.

[magellan]

172. Forbids it without first showing probable cause

But definitely, the constitution forbids this sort of fishing expedition. Many a criminal case has been thrown out of court because the police failed to secure a warrant before wiretapping a suspect or gathering phone records to find out who a suspect called. There is absolutely no difference here.

[Zynx]

161. They can hand over phone records in the case of a warrant being issued.

You cannot do these sorts of things without warrants.

[leveymg]

163. Yes, records can be turned over if there's a lawful warrant or subpoena

In this case, nada. Thus, it's an illegal wire tap. The phone companies have been acting as co-conspirators, and their executives will eventually be prosecuted, and then they'll be sued.

[marions ghost]

316. wouldn't the phone companies

argue that they were coerced?

[CornField]

210. Echelon was originally put in place in the early 1960s.

You really should fact-check before repeating right-wing talking points.

Echelon worked more like an internet search... looking for key words, phrases and/or combinations of both. It was put in place during the cold war -- early 1960s -- and is something which almost all industrialized nations use.

HOWEVER -- the scope of Echelon changed dramatically with FISA in the late 1970s. While it was still used by nations to snoop on foreign communications, it was no longer to be used by our government to monitor us. (All western nations adopted a similiar stance and while critics often speculated countries cooperated by spying on each other's citizens and exchanging data, this was never confirmed.)

It all boils down to the fact that Americans have a reasonable expectation of privacy when using their phones. Without probable cause AND A WARRANT American citizens rightly believed their private communications would remain private. That is where this program through NSA goes over the line. In short, it skirted the warrant process and violated a reasonable expectation of privacy. Further, when confronted with the program itself going public, the administration and others in charge, FLAT OUT LIED about the scope and dimension of the program.

So... why, when there was a legal avenue in place for collecting such data, did the administration feel the need to skirt it? The only logical answer is that the administration KNEW the warrants would not be issued based on current privacy laws and Constitutional rights.

If we had a Congress which was worth a teaspoon of salt, the only sound we would be hearing today is the jail cell door slamming shut on this arrogant, lying bunch of weasels.

[crickets]

275. "most (if not all) phone companies

make you sign a contract that says they reserve the right to hand over your phone records to any law enforcement agency."

Customers signing this, myself included, have every right to conclude that the phone company would be handing over those records in response to a lawful request by the authorities, which includes judicial oversight and a warrant. It's that probable cause thing. Signing the agreement is NOT an agreement to be wiretapped, nor is it signing away rights given to all citizens by the Constitution. Spying on US citizens is not lawful. At all. According to the Fourth Amendment it is specifically unlawful, Patriot Act and signing statements be damned.

Sorry if I sound like I'm jumping down your throat, jared. It's the situation that angers me, not you. ;) Welcome to DU!

[jaredt112]

324. I understand. I agree that when you sign that agreement..

..you don't think your going to have all your records turned over in the name of national security.

And to the others. I'm not trying to repeat "right-wing talking points". I'm merely talking about what I know. I have heard of the NSA collecting this info back when Bush Sr. was president. That's why I said it's been going on since the 90s.

Oh, thanks for the welcome. Glad to be here :-)

[CabalPowered]

326. I know that is the case but it would seem to me that the situation

is drastically different than when such programs came into existence. I befriended the son of a Prez at a major telco during college and he made is plainly clear that ALL major telcos* are REQUIRED to keep archived copies of conversations for two months. This includes cooperation/coercion with telco hardware providers. Knowing that, I always understood it that FISA and the courts were acting as a good firewall between fascism and intelligence gathering. I believe what is happening today is a major policy shift in regards to this capability and this is indeed a constitutional crisis that should concern every American. Welcome to DU

:toast:

* Including US West which is now Qwest.

**edit: prob w/ line spacing with smilies

[Sugar Smack]

153. What's next? National banks selling their customers' info?

[Tight_rope]

271. Hell they already do that!....

[Chimichurri]

159. Hayden is a liar and Congress should oppose his nomination : his words

Gen. Michael Hayden, principal deputy director of national intelligence, and now Bush's nominee to head the CIA, at the National Press Club, Jan. 23, 2006:

"The program ... is not a drift net over (U.S. cities such as) Dearborn or Lackawanna or Fremont, grabbing conversations that we then sort out by these alleged keyword searches or data-mining tools or other devices that so-called experts keep talking about.

"This is targeted and focused. This is not about intercepting conversations between people in the United States. This is hot pursuit of communications entering or leaving America involving someone we believe is associated with al-Qaeda. ... This is focused. It's targeted. It's very carefully done. You shouldn't worry."

Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, Feb. 6, 2006:

[Seabiscuit]

221. All a pack of lies, Mr. Hayden.

The inmates have taken over the asylum.

[KyGoreChick]

160. NSA....

If you don't stand for what you believe in, you deserve what you get. Putting aside how totally wrong this Administrations is on so many levels, PLEASE let them listen to MY phone calls!

[liberalcanuck]

204. Welcome to DU! Great first post!

:toast:

[Brazenly Liberal]

165. I'd like to see the NSA flooded with calls

"Hey, my phone rang this morning while I was up in the attic and by the time I got downstairs, it stopped. So would you root around in that database and tell me who it was? Thanks!"

[lavendermist]

166. This is the email I sent BellSouth...

"Access- Three major companies are reported to have allowed illegal access to their customer's calls. BellSouth is one of them. "For the customers of these companies, it means that the government has detailed records of calls they made — across town or across the country — to family members, co-workers, business contacts and others.

The three telecommunications companies are working under contract with the NSA, which launched the program in 2001 shortly after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the sources said."

I would like to know why I should not cancel my local service and use my cell phone exclusively? That is exactly what I will do if this illegality is not addressed."


I don't know if it will make an impact but at least someone will hear what I have to say. Imagine if we all contacted our local company.

I know, I know. Cell phones are vulnerable too, but some days I feel like I have to take a stand somewhere even if I know logically that I am just one little fish in a big pond.:banghead:

[midnight]

167. It's against the law.

The law makers in this country have a job to do. So do it.

[area51]

168. There's a traitor whose calls the NSA is ignoring...

... he's living @ 1600 PA Ave. in D.C.

[footinmouth]

169. Does the government really need to know ...

that I waste 2 hours of my life every Tuesday night voting for American Idol. Cripes, if I ever wanted to run for public office this could come back to bite me bigtime.

[RobertSeattle]

171. Cue the Republican defense meme:

1. This report is not true.
2. Even if it is true, it's perfectly legal.
3. Even if it's not legal, the law is outdated and needs to be changed.
4. And in any event the President can ignore the law because of his inherent powers as kin- er Commander-in-Chief.
5. And this is a vital program necessary to protect the United States from terrorists who have the power to destroy life as we know it.
6. Democrats are pussies

[LilyLibber]

179. Dead on!

You nailed it! :thumbsup: Now when will someone in Washington dismantle it?

[RobertSeattle]

185. Oops, I forgot one...

7. 911 911 911 911 911 911 911 911 911 911 911 911 911

[subterranean]

198. Looks like they're focusing on #5 now

I heard Orrin Hatch on the radio this morning uttering almost the exact words you typed. They think if they say the program is necessary to protect Americans from terrorist attacks, the question of legality won't matter to many people.

I would add another one to your list: Even the act of DISCUSSING this program is jeopardizing national security.

[thoughttheater]

173. Thank You Mr. President, May I Have Another...

So if I follow the latest logic…gee, we aren't doing anything illegal even though we aren't using the FISA system…and we are talking to "some" members of congress…but they can't tell you anything because the information is totally classified….and gee, we are ok with some investigative oversight…but unfortunately we can't grant security clearance to the investigators.

Gee…it looks to me like we have a dictator in charge. He breaks the rules, he rewrites the rules, he changes the rules, and he answers to no one.

I only hope we can soon finish exporting our "democracy" to Iraq and the rest of the oppressed world so they can have the same rights that we do.

more observations here:

www.thoughttheater.com

[daa]

175. Remember the fuss

from Limbaugh and repugs when Clinton had 900 FBI files? Where is the outrage now?

Remember in November and vote the asshole republicns OUT!

[Broken_Hero]

176. I couldn't

believe it, when i heard it this morning, while watching good morning america...should i grab a pitch fork, and start the revolt?

Man, I can't wait, for the RW's to explain/spin this one...god, what a fucking disgrace to America, W is...

[MessiahRp]

182. Well every time I ever joked that the NSA was going to pay me a visit

probably isn't far off. Who knows how many times I said something considered "threatening" to Herr Bush.

Between getting every internet search record and obtaining every phone call from every American they are making sure every political enemy is squashed. This has nothing to do with Terrorists.

I sincerely doubt too many Americans would be dumb enough to use their phones to contact al-Qaeda... it's not like they have a 1-800 Osama Chat Line that runs late at night with the B-horror movies.

Considering Nixon's social stances, he looks like a fucking prince next to this crew.

Hitler/Nazi comparisons out of line indeed. :eyes:

Rp

[jseankil]

184. I don't think they have all the calls recorded. To much data.

It's just to much.

[jayfish]

219. Don't Know Much About The NSA Do Ya.

with equipment available at retail you could store 100billion 60second calls for around 42million bucks. The NSAs budget is reportedly close to $4 billion.

60second call=.63MB
1587 calls per gigabyte
1190250 calls per 750gigabyte drive
840 750GB drives=1 billion calls
$500 per 750GB drive=$420,000
$420000x100=$42,000,000

That's at telephone quality.

Jay

On Edit: That budget figure is from 1996. Who knows what Herr Fuhrer is dumping into it now.

[SeveneightyWhoa]

230. Yes, it is "to much".

Good call, genius.

[RobertSeattle]

188. Picture of Front Page of Today's USA Today

Not sure if this is a permanent picture

[Coastie for Truth]

189. A question of memory + metadata + schema + federation = MINING

Once you have the data (caller, person called, time and date of call) it is a simple matter of playing with metadata and schema (it's called federation) to connect everybody ("just six clicks away") and it is almost trivial to "federate" and/or "link" credit, credit card, buying habits, and even health and health insurance (HIPA notwithstanding) and National Agency Check data -- and recreate your life history, and your friends' life histories.

Lots of code (but it has been written) and lots od databases -- big task but doable.

[TankLV]

302. "6 degrees of separation" or something like that.

That's what they are saying.

[Coastie for Truth]

312. Scary

how easy both "identity theft" and "surveillance" really are. And this administration can not be trusted with that power/capability. It's too much like the old J. Edgar Hoover days where Hoover "had something on everybody." Now Bush has that capability.

[Paradise]

190. * denies but everyone already knows that * lies! n/t

[stevenleser]

191. I wrote an Op-Ed on this

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=103x209812

[progressivebydesign]

193. Hayden IS NSA. Coincidence that this should come out??

I think not. This is scary, scary, shit. And I think it's coming out because the Republicans are just as frightened over Hayden taking over the CIA... The law-abiding folks on BOTH sides of the aisle HAVE to take notice this time. Of course, some will never listen.. like this dipshit young woman in my town keeps writing these unbelievably stupid letters to the editor (actually, the fuckheads at the local paper print them like essays when she sends them in). She goes on and on about the movie Flight93, and how it reminds her WHY it's okay to spy on AMericans.. to keep us all safe from the terrorists. She chides those who have criticized Bush for the wiretapping because 'it's a terrorist surveillance program', and takes to task people who accused Bush of lying about the Iraq/911/Al Quaida connection because "now that they've translated Saddam's tapes, it PROVES that Bush isn't lying about Saddam and 9/11!" (what the hell is she talking about there?).

And lest anyone not know the depth of the NSA's stuff, I came across this scary book review about Bamford's book on the NSA: http://archive.salon.com/books/review/2001/04/25/nsa/index.html You really ought to read this review, if not Bamford's books, to get an idea of the NSA. I didn't know much about them, until all this came out recently. This is my first foray into learning about the agency.

oh.. and I fucking HATE Verizon, my cell phone provider, for rolling over like that. It's unfair to ordinary citizens to have that creepy feeling that people are listening in to your calls, recording all your call information. Where the fuck do we live?? Some communist country??

[Placebo]

199. And democrats STILL don't want to bring this up...

during the confirmation hearings for Gen. Hayden because the polls "show" that Americans support wiretapping.

Except the polls never ask them if they support wiretapping of Americans without warrants.

Or some sort of massive "every call ever made" database.

Damn them all. Damn them all to hell.

[KeepItReal]

200. Sen. Feinstein on floor of Senate fighting tax cuts right now

:wtf:

[Seabiscuit]

220. Yes. Damn them all to hell. Even the Dems are asleep in Congress.

Fascism isn't coming on the horizon. It's already here. That's why people like Hillary make ass-kissing comments to the media about Monkey-Boy. Fascism has become business-as-usual in the rarified air of the insulated circle in D.C.

[TankLV]

303. Asleep AS USUAL. A day late and a dollar short.

[Radio_Guy]

208. Does anyone really think that what we post here

isn't being eavesdropped on by the NSA? Every phone call, every post, every bit of data carried by transmission lines. It hasn't affected me yet. It may, or may not. But be aware it is happening.

[nolabels]

223. Yea, the rat bastards better be taking note

Tell mike the jig is up, we got his # :rofl:

Like dude and all the rest of you law abiding people the secret is that they haven't got enough jails, razor wire or anything else. The whole impetus here is they have decided they are the master and they need no humility because they are god on high, they are U.S. government. The rule of thumb is they serve us unless they can find enough fools to be scared, then all bets are off.

The parable of the boy who cried wolf they never learned completely

[wordpix]

234. I totally agree so beware what you post. BTW, Chimp, what you're doing is

ILLEGAL. Not that you care a whit.

[Hardrada]

238. I have always assumed from 1997 on when I started posting

on the Internet that everything I posted was subject to close scrutiny.

[IronLionZion]

266. They better not be reading my posts without a warrant!

and they better not check my blog or my facebook either! That info is private goddamnit! I hide it on the Internet so no one else can read it.

I'm series! This is HUGH!

ATTENTION NSA: Don't read my posts without a warrant. I'll sue the federal government.

:silly:

I'm just kidding Radio_Guy.

[TankLV]

305. It's "serious" not "series".

Sorry for pointing this out - I hate the spelling gestapo, too.

[IronLionZion]

307. aaaah you got me!

actually, that's an inside joke around here. It's making fun of the freepers.

series, hugh, moran, and a few others.

[jaredt112]

325. Every post is being recorded here thanks to McCain-Feingold.

If those two had their way, we would have to shut down 30 days before any general election. Do some research if you haven't heard it, it's a bill..i'll find the exact bill if any wants to read it.

[noonwitch]

209. Good, maybe they can figure out the source of all the hang-up calls I get

Whoever had my number before me must have received lots of faxes, because I get call after call during business hours.

[MsMagnificent]

212. "Only Qwest refused to help the NSA..."

Among the big telecommunications companies, only Qwest has refused to help the NSA, the sources said. According to multiple sources, Qwest declined to participate because it was uneasy about the legal implications of handing over customer information to the government without warrants.

Quote taken from http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-05-10-nsa_x.htm?POE=NEWISVA

Guess who now will have my business?

[GreenGreenLimaBean]

214. can you say "20% Approval"

this will push Bush below the 30% barrier.....then all hell breaks loose!!!

[RedSpartan]

254. No doubt. He's headed for historic lows in the next polls.

I love this, from an MSNBC article:

"Following a report that the U.S. agency in charge of a domestic spying program is building a database of every phone call made in the country, President Bush on Thursday told the nation from the White House that all anti-terrorism efforts are within the law.

. . .

We are not mining or trolling through the personal lives of innocent Americans,” Bush said before leaving for a commencement address at Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College in Biloxi. “Our efforts are focused on links to al-Qaida and their known affiliates."



Um, so, evey phone call made in the courty is linked to al-Qaida and their known affiliates?



:wtf:

[TankLV]

306. Of course, "You're either with us or with the terra-ists" according to

the lil' dictator!

[ArmchairMeme]

215. Who Profits from this?

My next question is who is profiting from this? Is it the telephone company or NSA or Bush or ......

Do they sell this information/entity if so, to whom? and for what purpose?

[flamingpie2500]

216. Verizon is my phone company and also my DSL--they didn't mention internet

so I am sure I have been pretty well covered.
This country has got to put a stop to this maniac!!

[babsbunny]

224. Quest didn't allow it.

I just checked and we only have limited service from Quest. I would get it all from them if I could!

[Fluffdaddy]

282. Ditto

[Bretttido]

226. This can be used to create tailored political calling lists

I'm a database administrator and maintaining a record for each call ever placed in the U.S. is not a very far stretch (since they would not be storing the voice data). If i were to create the database, each record would contain the date/time of the call (8 bytes), the source phone number (10 bytes), destination phone number (10 bytes), and length of call (4 bytes). So each call would take 32 bytes to store. Lets guess each person makes 5 calls a day. That's 160 bytes per person per day. With about 300 million people in the US, thats 48,000,000,000 bytes(45 GB) per day. Heck, I'll go down to CompUSA right now and buy a 500GB harddrive for about $300 and I can store almost 2 weeks worth of all of the calls made in the USA. This is VERY doable for a government agency with millions of dollars at their fingertips.

Instead of "negatively" using this information, it could be used "positively" by the administration to find prospective GOP voters. Simply search for everyone that has called a conservative-oriented company. BAM, you got 20 million phone numbers for the GOP phone banks to reach a new segment of their base. If they start now, maybe they can call every single one of them by Nov 2.

[upsidedownaussie]

227. wow

thats really scary. I mean, secret collection of phone calls and with everything else thats going on already and...

Wait a second. USA Today actually broke a story?

/apocalypse

[nebula]

228. Kiss the Constitution Bye Bye

We are officially living under a totalitarian state.

[LuckyLib]

231. Yes, we are.

[ContraBass Black]

235. So, remember to begin and end every call with "FUGWB"

In order to assist the indexers.

[Divine Discontent]

239. "a database of every call made"

wtf!!!!!!!!???????? do you people (nsa) think you can do whatever you want???? obviously!

this is complete, beyond, utter, bullshit!

write everyone today, tell someone in your family too, also, and make a couple calls, this is
our ONE CHANCE FOLKS!

OUR ONE FUCKIN CHANCE! DON'T BE AFRAID TO CALL OR WRITE and tell the dems in your family to do the same, the republicans would die with the rats on a sinking ship, let them wake up on their own, but WE have to do something!!!





all designs and more, available at:
www.cafepress.com/warisprofitable <------ CHECK IT OUT!

[Brigid]

244. Terrifying. Absolutely terrifying.

And the best response * can come up with is the same old one he's been using all along: "trust me." Trust him? On what basis? Even if everything he said in his response this noon is true, how do we know that he isn't just trying to soften us up to accept more intrusive spying later, a la the "frog in boiling water" trick? How do we know what purpose this data is really being collected for? How do we know it won't be used to track the activities of those who oppose the president, an increasingly large number these days. I also find it troubling that * just couldn't resist jabbing at USA Today for printing this story in the first place. Sounded to me as though he just didn't like being caught out. We live in dangerous times for civil liberties, to put it mildly.

[subterranean]

255. Unfortunately, you're all too right

The only answer to your questions is "trust Bush," because this president accepts no oversight and no accountability. He thinks the 2004 election was, in his words, his "accountability moment," and that gave him a mandate to do whatever the hell he wants. (All in the name of national security, of course.)

[superconnected]

247. Does anyone NOT think every post and IP on DU is being logged.

[Brigid]

249. Of course they are.

But they can't arrest all of us. They don't have concentration camps big enough yet. But just wait till they do.

Some of you may think I'm exaggerating. But history teaches us that developing fascism in a country is never taken seriously until it is too late.

[Wise Doubter]

250. This program does not involve ...

...the NSA listening to or recording conversations.YET But the spy agency is using the data to analyze calling patterns in an effort to detect terrorist activity, sources said in separate interviews.

If they are not listening, HOW will they determine terrorist activity ? !! A pattern of calling is vague to say the least. :wtf:

[Corgigal]

251. What happened to the probable cause?

Man, I wish I was working with the local law enforcement now. If we pull you over and you ask us why ..we don't have to tell you anything but we're out protecting the USA.
If we knock on your door and want to enter your home, you ask why and if we have a warrant ? We just answer with we need to come into your home to protect America.

Probable cause is the line in which these laws were written. No president , or terrorist has any power to take away this term on US citizens.

[Brigid]

253. Probable cause?

We don't need no stinkin' probable cause! That's just Constitutional crap! * is keeping us Murkans safe from the big bad terrorists. What are you, unpatriotic? :sarcasm:

[IronLionZion]

263. This is how they get probable cause

Ideally once something is red-flagged, they go wake up the nearest federal judge(not local) and ask for a warrant, then the humans listen to the call. In reality you don't know for sure what they are doing because it's so secretive.

But the funniest part of this thread is where DUers think someone is spying on DU posts.....:rofl: like our posts are secret and not publicly accessible by everyone on the web!


ATTENTION: If you are NSA, don't read my posts without a warrant. :sarcasm:

[Rex]

256. If anyone decides to file a class action lawsuit against the companies

lemme know so I can sign my name too. I don't remember allowing AT&T the right to hand over all my telephone conversations to our fascist government.

[IronLionZion]

257. this is news??? They've done this for years

since at least the 90's. The UK and Israel do it too. And they share relevant info.

It's not just for terrorism. They catch criminals too. FYI, long distance and cell phone calls are always digital, so it's much easier to monitor. That's why drug dealers use disposable cell phones and speak in code words.


The biggest problem I have with this article is that people are saying it's some kind of "secret". I saw a special on the Discovery channel about this....when Clinton was president! Those of us in the high tech field are familiar with how they go about doing this. It's not that complicated.

Now, what really gets my goat is what the bastards do with the information. I can see Bush and his cronies using it for their own nefarious purposes.

But people are not supposed to listen to the calls unless there is a warrant. Not like anything other than honesty is going to stop them. But the calls are parsed through filters that place red flags on certain key words that are used by terrorists and/or criminals. Then they are "supposed to" go to a judge with probable cause and get a warrant to pursue it further. In actuality, no one can say for sure what happens with the info...and that's kind of scary.

But to put things in perspective, you'd be shocked at the personal details about you in a simple Internet profile of what's freely available to the public. There's no privacy in the information age.

[Media_Lies_Daily]

274. The difference is that the government sought FISA warrants....

...BEFORE they did any surveillance on the targeted groups prior to December 2000. The NeoCon Junta is proceeding with their domestic surveillance without asking for any legal warrants. That is clearly illegal.

Additionally, the NSA's charter has been to intercept all communications going out, or coming into, the U. S. Surveillance of domestic targets is illegal unless a FISA warrant is sought and granted.

This has nothing to do with whether or not the NSA has been eavesdropping, nor whether or not the technology exists to do the eavesdropping. This has EVERYTHING to do with what is legal or not legal. Herr Busch continues to insist that he is above the law.

Two questions:

1. If this is allowed to continue, how soon before these systems are subverted for use in eavesdropping on political enemies, anti-war demonstrators, or certain minority groups?

2. Are those systems already being used for the purposes described above?

[CornField]

279. Argh. This is NOT echelon

See this post (because I'm too damn lazy to type it again): http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=2276110&mesg_id=2277455

Finally, we know the administration knew this type of activity would not be approved. How? They tried to -- after already starting the program -- make it legal. TIA (aka Total Information Awareness) was tossed out by Congress in 2004. The administration didn't freaking care. They went right ahead with a program they knew to be illegal.

[IronLionZion]

285. If what you say is true,

then there must be a lot of NSA employees in on it. Why would they help the Bush Administration with anything other than national security?

[CornField]

288. Maybe they are just like so many other government employees

"just doing their job"

[IronLionZion]

260. This is what they do

it's their job. Whether it's right or not, they're still doing it and have been since the early 90's when the technology became feasible.

And agency as big and secretive as the NSA has to be up to something right? Seriously, they're 10 times bigger than the CIA yet you hear much more about CIA activities.

But the NSA's biggest job is codebreaking. They can and do break everything including your bank password if they wanted too.

It's here to stay. Which brings importance to the phrase,"watching the watchers". We need responsible elected officials who won't abuse this awesome power.

Whatever you hear about in fictional books or movies, I assure you that reality is much wilder.

The only assurance I can give you is that the bastards denied my employment application for no apparent reason. So people like me are not listening to your calls. They have a pretty rigorous background check process where they talk to everyone in your life and I do mean EVERYONE.

[JackDragna]

261. Is it a sign of being overwhelmed by Bush's corruption..

..when something like this comes up and the best I can say is "I'm not surprised?"

[TX-RAT]

265. Stupid question

What if this was put out just to see if it would be leaked, and who would leak it?

[IronLionZion]

269. Better question

What if this was old news that was broadcasted on cable TV during the 1990's?

I don't blame DU for not knowing. But this is an open secret.

[Media_Lies_Daily]

270. "Open secret"?? Which part?

[Land Shark]

272. Millions demanding privacy will be good cover for *Secrecy* claims

Our rhetoric should distinguish privacy (freedom from unwarranted INVASION of that normally private) from secrecy (unwarranted prohibitions on information where legitimate public interest in knowing)

Although my definitions above make them clearly different, they are easy to conflate....

[TX-RAT]

273. Isn't there a couple of operations like this already.

What was Carnivore?

[IronLionZion]

283. yup

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnivore_(FBI)


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_ECHELON



It's just mind-boggling how huge and secretive these guys are: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NSA



A poster above claims what's happening now is not Echelon, but I don't understand the difference. :shrug: I definitely knew the NSA was sniffing out keywords from phone calls long before Bush became president.

[CornField]

294. Another note from the poster above

While this program might be being run on the same systems as Echelon, it isn't the same because Echelon was never set up to grab phone data... just sniff the wires, so to speak (and after 1978, it wasn't even legal for NSA to sniff the wires of American citizens).

Both Echelon and Carnivore worked much like a web search in that the government could put in keywords and/or phrases and let the machines put their ear to the ground for those. If the information was discovered, the intelligence agency could continue surveillance for up 72 hours to determine probable cause. The thinking being that 72 hours would be enough time for the intelligence agencies to gather information to present to FISA, which would ultimately make the decision if the evidence was great enough to warrant further wiretapping or other surveillance. (Now, keep in mind that the FISA courts issued warrants in 99.9% of the cases brought before them.)

This program is different from both due to both the process and scope. First, this program directly targets American citizens -- post-1978 both Echelon and Carnivore were set up to gather international communications, but forbidden to gather info on American citizens. Second, this isn't simple sniffing of the wires... this is keeping a direct record of the the calling patterns and habits of American citizens. (A database of information.)

If the information produced by the NSA 2001 transitional documents is true (more info on that at Truthout), then this program was in place as soon as the Oath of office was given to Bush in 2001. (Not a direct result of the 9/11 attacks as has been stated.)

Finally, when the domestic spying information first came to light, the Bush administration told the American people it was very limited and very targeted. Both, it seems, were further lies to cover up the truth of what has been happening -- continued unlawful surveillance and data mining on American citizens without probable cause and without a court order.

As a side note, the RW talking points out today are all about Echelon and how this is simply a part of that program which has been going since the early 1990s. That very statement is false. Echelon was a product of the cold war, circa 1960. It was only after the government abuses during the Nixon administration that most of what was happening came to light... it, among other major grievances, was the reason FISA was put in place. Many of the civil rights decisions of the Supreme Court are what put forth the legal idea of "reasonable expectation of privacy" -- which is something which has held up in case after case over the years. "When you pick up the phone to call someone, should you have a reasonable expectation of privacy?" Yes, you should.

[Rex]

293. Domestic spying is not old news, spying is old news.

So did Clinton's administration do warrantless, domestic spying? Somehow I doubt it.

[IronLionZion]

308. The only difference is Clinton got warrants

:shrug: Sounds like a legal problem, not an NSA problem. If Bushco doesn't have enough probable cause to get warrants, then let's string em up legally.

[Rex]

318. What if you cannot string him up legally?

I'd love to see it done. The FISA court is so lenient that they can get a warrant after the raid or whatever they do to nab 'people of interest'. I'm confused as to why it took so long for this to become apparent in the Capitol Dome. I know two Dem leaders are seeking to stop the NSA, but what dirt does Hoover, er Rove have on them?

[IronLionZion]

333. Another problem: what if we do catch the bad guys

but the evidence gets thrown out of court because there was no warrant so it violated the 4th amendment rights against unreasonable search and seizure? No conviction? Clinton got the bad guys and today they are in prison or dead.

It doesn't take shit to get a warrant. If Bushco can't even get a warrant, then he has no right to pursue further investigation or detention or whatever the hell he is doing with this information. The homeland is not secure while Republicans are in charge.

[YankeyMCC]

276. Verizon's Privacy Policy

Your Privacy
8 We have a duty under federal law to protect the confidentiality of information about the quantity, technical configuration, type, destination, and amount of your use of our service, together with similar information on your bills. (This doesn't include your name, address, and wireless phone number.) Except as provided in this agreement, we won't intentionally share personal information about you without your permission. We may use and share information about you: (a) so we can provide our goods or services; (b) so others can provide goods or services to us, or to you on our behalf; (c) so we or our affiliates can communicate with you about goods or services related to the ones you already receive (although you can call us any time if you don't want us to do this); (d) to protect ourselves; or (e) as required by law, legal process, or exigent circumstances. In addition, you've authorized us to investigate your credit history at any time and to share credit information about you with credit reporting agencies. If you ask, we'll tell you the name and address of any credit agency that gives us a credit report about you. It's illegal for unauthorized people to intercept your calls, but such interceptions can occur. For training or quality assurance, we may also monitor or record our calls with you.



This is directly from the customer contract I have with them. Well guess what they just violated the terms of the agreement and I'm gonna terminate the contract and they should not expect to get any sort of termination fee from me.

[Beetwasher]

311. They Will Claim Part (e) Applies

"(e) as required by law, legal process, or exigent circumstances."

I'm not saying I agree, but that is what they will claim and if you don't pay, they will probably fuck w/ your credit rating.

[YankeyMCC]

338. nope

they didn't get warrants.

[Beetwasher]

349. I Know, But They Will Still Claim That It Applies

That will be their "defense" of their trying to make you stick to the contract and they will still fuck w/ your credit if you refuse to pay.

[Canuckistanian]

277. The numbers alone must be staggering

On practical point, how can they make any kind of sense out of people's calling patterns?

What about dialling wrong numbers? Unwanted calls? People leaving messages?

This is insane.

[creeksneakers2]

297. Bush quote

"This is a -- I repeat to you, even though you hear words, "domestic spying," these are not phone calls within the United States. It's a phone call of an al Qaeda, known al Qaeda suspect, making a phone call into the United States."

At Kansas State University 1/23/06

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/01/20060123-4.html

[enki23]

304. impeachment. followed by prosecution.

.

[InkAddict]

309. I fear they have been using it for some time now to spy on

their political "enemies" in order to interfere with Americans'ability to support themselves and their families to facilitate the confiscation of pirated booty, i.e, foreclosed and bankrupted assets of those persons.

:banghead: Grieving for the death of the American Constitution and Bill of Rights.

[Maestro]

310. Hey NSA

I am going to call my mom and complain about the Big Prick! May I or is that not my constitutional right? :eyes:

[RhodaGrits]

313. Just got off the phone with Qwest -

changed all four of my business telephone lines and my calling card from AT&T to Qwest. The rep was gleeful - apparently I was not the first to tell him why Qwest was getting my business tonight. Monday I'll call AT&T and tell them why they are losing my business. HIt 'em in their pocketbooks and join the class action lawsuits!!

[LibertyorDeath]

331. Good stuff! anyone that gives so much as a fuck about Democracy

should do the same..at the very least.

Cheers to You!

[bennywhale]

346. Good on ya. Spread the word. This is where

people can demonstrate quiet determined effective people power. Mind you i'll bet that they'll have agents examining their books anf finances now to try and fuck them over for something. Qwest have values, i hope it doesn't cost them

[demo dutch]

314. It's more and more like pre-war Germany. It's exactly what Hitler did!

[Greylyn58]

321. This is just beyond the pale

I was talking to my Mom today and asked if she had read about this in the local paper. She said she had and right in the middle of our conversation I said:

"Hello to whom-ever is listening in. Hope you're getting an ear full and learning everything you will need to catch all the local terrorist."

We both laughed slightly until I added, "I find it hard to laugh at this administration anymore. Our freedoms are being trampled over day in and day out by these people." She agreed.

How much more Oh Lord? How much more?

[Blue_Tires]

322. wow...that's crazy

all those conspiracy folks i knew back in college were right all along!

[Zorra]

323. Can we finally now all agree that we are living in a fascist state?

Calling the republicans fascists is not extreme.

It's reality.

[LuckyLib]

347. This statement bears repeating in every social conversation we

encounter this weekend. "Can we all now agree that we are living in a fascist state?" Again. And again. Why do I feel like I'm ready to scream?

[williesgirl]

328. Here's what I just sent my 2 spineless Senators

ENOUGH IS ENOUGH. I want our Constitution followed or send this criminal administration and their criminal leader to JAIL. You stood back and allowed the domestic spying to continue, probably knowing this fishing expedition of every American's phone calls was going on too.

I'm tired of getting your "spin form letters" in response to serious issues. DO YOUR DAMN JOB FOR ONCE.

Do you really think we VA voters won't vote you out next time? WE WILL IF YOU DON'T LISTEN TO US and follow our laws.

I will NEVER VOTE REPUBLICAN AGAIN, I don't care if it's for Dog Catcher. You've seen my last vote and I can't wait for you to leave office. Don't bother answering me. I just get sick when I read your responses.

[MikeStl]

332. This really just makes me want to scream

I am so angry. I've been in a bit of an e-mail war with at&t but its so pointless. the response from their rep of "we do not comment on matters of national security" followed by how much they value the privacy of their customers really had me about to blow a gasket. So futile.

I can't help but wonder now if my phone and internet activity will receive extra special attention.

[trofholz]

343. Concerning the Wiretaps

think how much more info the I.R.S. has about you than this #'s only phone record. I.R.S. knows where you live, how old you are, how many kids you have, how your income his derived, your s.s #, date of birth, what you use for deductions, how many miles you drive and if you're self imployed it gets worse. So to me the N.S.A. thing is small beans pumped by the media for ill gain.

[Krakowiak]

334. cnn.com doesn't even have this as its lead story

instead, it's something on a new evacuation plan for n'orleans. The NSA database story is listed just next to a story entitled, "Alligator kills Florida jogger near canal"....

eeesh.

[Beth in VT]

340. I'd like to know how much they're paying for the data.

From the article: "The sources said the NSA made clear that it was willing to pay for the cooperation."

[johnlal]

344. I just got off the phone with Bellsouth

I called the Small Business Line to complain about service. I explained that due to the nature of my business (I'm a lawyer), I don't want the government to know WHO I call or Who calls me. I told them that when I signed up for service I had the expectation of privacy.

The customer service rep said that they did not give out any information without the "proper legal authority".

I asked, "Does that mean search warrant"?

She said, "I didn't say search warrant. I said 'proper legal authority'".

I told her that Qwest Communications refused to give out the same information that BellSouth gave out. Her response:

"We're not Qwest Communications".

Unfortunately, Qwest does not serve my area.
I pay too much money for phone service as it is. I shouldn't have to put up with government eavesdropping. This is too much to take.

[michael_1166]

348. Anyone know about this one so far?

They're watching you from space:

http://thinkprogress.org/2006/05/12/more-unlawful-activity/

[lilypad_567]

351. hi

i don't know if it is okay...because verizon and at& t said that they can do it because the customer have given permission to the company to give information to the government when they need it.