I just got a horrible thought. Could bush* be using our phone

[Auntie Bush]

records to figure out who is winning in the polls by our phone calls?
If "X" says/does something and there is no burst of phone calls...then they can presume that no one is much interested/worried. On the other hand if there is a flurry of calls to "A" and "B"...they hit a nerve. In other words I believe the Rethugs will use these records to get an advantage as to what's going on in the campaigns and who is working with whom and just how much interest there is in certain candidates. It could almost be like getting "free" (paid by you and I) polling. They could give certain people certain information and then track the direction of their responce...which would be similar to spying. I know I haven't explained this very well but I hope you get the main idea. Bush/Cheney will use this information for political gain and have an unfair advantage over the Democrats.

[lvx35]

1. Hey stop giving the chimp bright ideas!!!

hehe. ;) Seriously though, its quite possible. Knowledge is power, and having knowledge centered in secret facilities will by nature give an advantage to anyone that has access. That's why things like wikiedia are on the "Revolutionary" edge in my opinion, they balance things out by providing the public with information and therefore power, and help keep things democratic.

[NYC]

2. I understand what you are saying,

and I think it is a distinct possibility.

[NVMojo]

3. It's like real time web bots ...yes, this is a possibilitiy, it helps them

distract ...it's like the yellow and orange alerts ...what triggered those? Our doubts?

If you understand the technology of a basic web crawler, then you can understand that the same technology is available to crawl through audio:

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

[Auntie Bush]

4. Thanks for the link. I didn't know/understand all that.

Learn something new every day/visit DU.

[gasperc]

5. they are linking #'s

who's calling conservative groups, liberal groups, in what volumes

run up a test balloon and then track the calls

simply set a flag on say the ACLU's number and then tag all the calls made to it and plot it out on a map of the US, etc

who really knows, we can speculate till we're blue in the face, like this new story that the CIA was using calls to ABC reporter #'s to try to identify soures within the government.

POint is that it's all being done secretly without our knowledge and for unclear and unknown reasons and if it's to combat terrorism then why hasn't a single 'terrorist' been nabbed????

[Beacho]

6. Karl Rove still has his security clearance

You connect the dots

[enough already]

7. I believe it

They could then take this data and identify which particular polling machines Diebold needs to manipulate.