Are TIA and the NSA wiretaps related ? Some behind the scene info...

[MazeRat7]

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20051220-5808.html

If you haven't figured it out yet, the gub-ment has finally got game and able to harness some tech. I saw this on /. and figured I would post the link here. Its a pretty good overview of the tech being used by the NSA et al in lay-terms. What might not be apparent is that the tech being used is not that significantly advanced beyond what you might find in any fortune 50 company. What sets the NSA, FBI, CIA, etc apart is not their technology... its their access and authority. The interesting part is the explanation of "time". This is the admin's argument... so ask your self why is "time" an issue ? Why is it so hard to get a warrant before/after the fact ? Its because of the sampling and collection techniques employed by their tech.

Yeah, their tech is cool... but there is cool on the other side to prevent such intrusions. If or until legislation is crafted to deal with legalities of massive and arbitrary data collection and mandatory cooperation by service providers, the field is ripe for abuse. Unfortunately, only a small faction of Americans have the skills and knowledge to circumvent these programs leaving the rest of the population behind. So now I ask.. where is the real "technology" gap ? No its not between rich and poor, its between those that know how to communicate securely and those that don't. And why is this a problem ? Not because those that don't are lacking "skills" (to quote Napoleon Dynamite)... the problem is they should not be part of random data collection.

Last time I checked we didn't allow searches without probable cause. Random data collection and analysis is exactly that, a search without probable cause. So if your going to get pissed about all this be sure its for the right reasons. For me that is not because chimpy ordered it and circumvented the law... its that today there is a culture that somehow sees our "data" as being separate from our "person" when it (the data) is actually an artifact of the "person" and should be given the same protection.

MZr7