quote:Fresh disclosures yesterday in USA Today about the scale of domestic surveillance -- the most extensive yet known involving ordinary citizens and residents -- touched off a bipartisan uproar against a politically weakened President Bush. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) vowed to haul telephone companies before his committee under oath to ferret out details the Bush administration refuses to supply, and more than 50 House Democrats signed a letter demanding a criminal investigation by a special counsel.
I personally don't care if this was done legally or not. I don't care if it's been going on in past Administrations. I don't even care if they first sought court orders to cover this. It's wrong and it needs to stop.
More importantly, I would've vastly preferred hearing about ALL of their domestic surveillance activities at once, not have this junk get leaked out in a string of "shocking" revelations over the course of months...
From a public relations perspective, not explaining this one when Gonzalez was hauled in front of Congress would seem to have been, in retrospect, a miscalculation.
My cell phone company is Verizon. I think they'll be getting a letter from me.
posted
This isn't all that new, the New York Times is desperate for new and "shocking" stories about the administration. This program doesn't even listen to phone calls, it uses a computer to track calls, scanning for keywords that set it off, and if they're heard, the phone number is added to a database, it attempts to look for networks of potential terrorists, it's nothing more than an algorithm. Unless your making regular calls to radical Pakistani groups and chatting about blowing up the Great Satan, I wouldn't worry.
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posted
Sorry, but that's not the point. The point is that access to this information is supposed to be more difficult than just "the government asked for it."
I realize that the content of calls was not part of this particular effort. The only thing I can tell you is that to me, it doesn't matter. I simply do not want my government to have the ability to get these records without proving to a judge that they have a good reason to have it.
The only thing that would make me think this was even marginally acceptable is if the records were purged of all personal identifiers before being turned over to the government. Since a phone number is assigned to a specific person or family (in the case of non-business lines), I don't see how this condition could be satisfied and still turn over phone numbers as part of the record.
I know what they were doing with this stuff -- the algorithms they were hoping to apply to the mass of data. Frankly, I'm skeptical that it'll ever work they way they hope. But in the meantime, data that is none of their business has been turned over to the government without any independent review.
And, by the way, this story wasn't broken by the NY Times. It was USA Today.
Oh, and the real "villains" here are the three major phone companies that went along with it.
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quote:Originally posted by Bob_Scopatz: I realize that the content of calls was not part of this particular effort. The only thing I can tell you is that to me, it doesn't matter. I simply do not want my government to have the ability to get these records without proving to a judge that they have a good reason to have it.
.... But in the meantime, data that is none of their business has been turned over to the government without any independent review.
What is going on with this country when I cannot have any reasonable expectation of privacy without being accused of supporting terrorists? I used to feel proud that I lived in a country where this sort of thing "couldn't happen." This is really starting to alarm me. Posts: 51 | Registered: May 2006
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posted
Here's an interesting (possible) bi-product of this work:
You're on the phone with your One True Love, and you mention that you need to get flowers for her Mom because she babysat for the two of you on a last minute notice.
Two days later, you get junkmail from a florist and a professional babysitting service.
The phone company uses your conversation to tag what products you're likely to purchase, and then sells that info to interested parties.
Grr. I'm not pleased.
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posted
There's a good summary of the whole thing at Ars Technica. I remember Total Information Awareness (with its creepy logo) from a few years ago, and even though I'm not American and don't live in America I was glad to hear that your politicians had voted it down. Now it's sounding like the program was never actually abandoned, merely hidden from Congressional, judicial, and to some extent even executive oversight.
quote:You might recall from our earlier coverage of a related instance of law enforcement overreach that government access to phone call transactional data is regulated by 18 USC 2703, which stipulates that the government doesn't need to show "probable cause" when petitioning for a court order to obtain this information on a customer. The standard that the government must meet is set at a lower threshold than probable cause, but it's not set at zero.
Crucially, the NSA's data-mining program not only dispenses with probable cause, but it dispenses entirely with the court order and thus with the lowered standard of evidence.
Think about that for a moment: the program is secret, and there is no judicial or congressional oversight (as of today, there's not even any executive branch oversight from the Justice Department), so the national security establishment has arrogated to itself carte blanche to snoop your phone activity and possibly to detain you indefinitely without a warrant based on what they find.
posted
Scott R -- that scenario is unlikely because they don't have the content of the phone calls -- at least we don't think they have a way of scanning all calls for keywords yet (which I suppose would be the easiest way to get at what your saying).
There was talk of developing such a system -- especially to monitor cell phone calls which are basically broadcast signals open to anyone with the right equipment. I don't know what became of it.
I expect in a couple of months we'll hear that it was developed and has been in operation secretly since sometime in 2003.
That's just me being cynical, though.
Oh...and the track record to date.
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quote:I personally don't care if this was done legally or not. I don't care if it's been going on in past Administrations. I don't even care if they first sought court orders to cover this.
Frankly, it doesn't matter if you care whether it's legal or not. As soon as "more than 50 House Democrats sign[] a letter demanding a criminal investigation by a special counsel" the legality becomes the single most relevant issue and the one that will dominate the public discourse.
If you want to see genuine discussion about the rightness or wrongness of this (and I'd love to here what your reasons are for thinking this is so glaringly wrong that it should be stopped), then we need to get politicians and others to stop and do a little basic legal research before introducing criminal threats into the discussion.
quote:I simply do not want my government to have the ability to get these records without proving to a judge that they have a good reason to have it.
Could you elaborate by what you mean by "good reason"? You say you "don't even care if they first sought court orders to cover this," yet the only general principle you state seems to suggest that you do care. Does the reason have to be specific to the individual whose records are being sought? Because, I promise you, the people who did this do believe they "have a good reason." Which reasons do you consider "good" enough?
And, I know you don't care, but it has long been standard doctrine that it is not a violation of your fourth amendment rights to request and receive the call records for a particular customer from the phone company. This is basic stuff. Which means that if this is such a big issue for you as it seems to be, you need to be lobbying for rules to change this.
quote:I cannot have any reasonable expectation of privacy without being accused of supporting terrorists
Of course, that criticism is at most marginally relevant to this program. I don't see an accusation that you or anyone else who doesn't want their phone records released support terrorism.
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posted
Bob: This statement from dantesparadigm is what my post references:
quote:This program doesn't even listen to phone calls, it uses a computer to track calls, scanning for keywords that set it off, and if they're heard, the phone number is added to a database, it attempts to look for networks of potential terrorists, it's nothing more than an algorithm.
posted
I have rarely been as proud of where I work as I was when I read the USA Today article yesterday and found that my company was the only major telephone company who refused to participate.
quote: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.
As an employee, of course, I cannot comment on my company's actons and national security. As a customer, I am thrilled that Qwest had the integrity to refuse to turn over customer records without proper authorization.
quote:Unable to get comfortable with what NSA was proposing, Qwest's lawyers asked NSA to take its proposal to the FISA court. According to the sources, the agency refused.
The NSA's explanation did little to satisfy Qwest's lawyers. "They told (Qwest) they didn't want to do that because FISA might not agree with them," one person recalled. For similar reasons, this person said, NSA rejected Qwest's suggestion of getting a letter of authorization from the U.S. attorney general's office. A second person confirmed this version of events.
quote:Originally posted by Dagonee: And, I know you don't care, but it has long been standard doctrine that it is not a violation of your fourth amendment rights to request and receive the call records for a particular customer from the phone company. This is basic stuff. Which means that if this is such a big issue for you as it seems to be, you need to be lobbying for rules to change this.
Is the snippet I quoted in my post wrong, then? It seems to me that US government agencies do have to obtain a court order to obtain such records, and that was not done in this case, which would make the program illegal.
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Of course, for me, it's enough that I just don't like it. I don't think the government has a legitimate need for the phone call records of millions of Americans just to "sift through."
It's wrong. Some things just are. This is one of them.
If you'd like a more cogent reason, I suppose I'll just have to say that I grew up believing that the role of government precludes domestic spying in all but a few very specific scenarios, and that those are covered by the governmental system of checks and balances such that there's not supposed to be an opportunity for any government entity to get information on individuals unless:
a) it's already part of a public record, or b) the individual specifically agrees to turn over that information, or c) a warrant is issued by a duly sworn judge who conducts an independent review.
To be clear, I think the FISA court, domiciled as it is within the Justice Department's back pocket, fails the laugh test on item c.
But...getting at records without even the FISA court's okay is just wrong.
Now, seriously, do I think the Administration did something illegal in asking for the records? That I don't know. My problem really is with those phone companies who just sent the stuff along without a court order.
I think they may end up regretting that decision. Granted, I'm a bigger crank than the average customer, but I suspect a lot of people will be upset by this revelation.
And...to the companies, I suspect that whether this was all legal or not will matter a heck of lot less than whether or not their customers are pissed off by it.
So, like ME, what they care about matters a whole lot.
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quote:Originally posted by Dagonee: And, I know you don't care, but it has long been standard doctrine that it is not a violation of your fourth amendment rights to request and receive the call records for a particular customer from the phone company. This is basic stuff. Which means that if this is such a big issue for you as it seems to be, you need to be lobbying for rules to change this.
Is the snippet I quoted in my post wrong, then? It seems to me that US government agencies do have to obtain a court order to obtain such records, and that was not done in this case, which would make the program illegal.
Your snippet and mine don't contradict. First, statutory requirements are not constitutional, and my statement was about the constitutionality.
But there's an even more basic reason why 18 U.S.C. 2703 might not apply here:
quote:§ 2703. Required disclosure of customer communications or records
(a) Contents of wire or electronic communications in electronic storage. A governmental entity may require the disclosure by a provider of electronic communication service of the contents of a wire or electronic communication, that is in electronic storage in an electronic communications system for one hundred and eighty days or less, only pursuant to a warrant issued using the procedures described in the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure by a court with jurisdiction over the offense under investigation or equivalent State warrant. A governmental entity may require the disclosure by a provider of electronic communications services of the contents of a wire or electronic communication that has been in electronic storage in an electronic communications system for more than one hundred and eighty days by the means available under subsection (b) of this section.
(b) Contents of wire or electronic communications in a remote computing service. (1) A governmental entity may require a provider of remote computing service to disclose the contents of any wire or electronic communication to which this paragraph is made applicable by paragraph (2) of this subsection-- (A) without required notice to the subscriber or customer, if the governmental entity obtains a warrant issued using the procedures described in the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure by a court with jurisdiction over the offense under investigation or equivalent State warrant; or (B) with prior notice from the governmental entity to the subscriber or customer if the governmental entity-- (i) uses an administrative subpoena authorized by a Federal or State statute or a Federal or State grand jury or trial subpoena; or (ii) obtains a court order for such disclosure under subsection (d) of this section; except that delayed notice may be given pursuant to section 2705 of this title [18 USCS § 2705]. (2) Paragraph (1) is applicable with respect to any wire or electronic communication that is held or maintained on that service-- (A) on behalf of, and received by means of electronic transmission from (or created by means of computer processing of communications received by means of electronic transmission from), a subscriber or customer of such remote computing service; and (B) solely for the purpose of providing storage or computer processing services to such subscriber or customer, if the provider is not authorized to access the contents of any such communications for purposes of providing any services other than storage or computer processing.
(c) Records concerning electronic communication service or remote computing service. (1) A governmental entity may require a provider of electronic communication service or remote computing service to disclose a record or other information pertaining to a subscriber to or customer of such service (not including the contents of communications) only when the governmental entity-- (A) obtains a warrant issued using the procedures described in the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure by a court with jurisdiction over the offense under investigation or equivalent State warrant; (B) obtains a court order for such disclosure under subsection (d) of this section; (C) has the consent of the subscriber or customer to such disclosure; (D) submits a formal written request relevant to a law enforcement investigation concerning telemarketing fraud for the name, address, and place of business of a subscriber or customer of such provider, which subscriber or customer is engaged in telemarketing (as such term is defined in section 2325 of this title [18 USCS § 2325]); or (E) seeks information under paragraph (2). (2) A provider of electronic communication service or remote computing service shall disclose to a governmental entity the-- (A) name; (B) address; (C) local and long distance telephone connection records, or records of session times and durations; (D) length of service (including start date) and types of service utilized; (E) telephone or instrument number or other subscriber number or identity, including any temporarily assigned network address; and (F) means and source of payment for such service (including any credit card or bank account number), of a subscriber to or customer of such service when the governmental entity uses an administrative subpoena authorized by a Federal or State statute or a Federal or State grand jury or trial subpoena or any means available under paragraph (1). (3) A governmental entity receiving records or information under this subsection is not required to provide notice to a subscriber or customer.
(d) Requirements for court order. A court order for disclosure under subsection (b) or (c) may be issued by any court that is a court of competent jurisdiction and shall issue only if the governmental entity offers specific and articulable facts showing that there are reasonable grounds to believe that the contents of a wire or electronic communication, or the records or other information sought, are relevant and material to an ongoing criminal investigation. In the case of a State governmental authority, such a court order shall not issue if prohibited by the law of such State. A court issuing an order pursuant to this section, on a motion made promptly by the service provider, may quash or modify such order, if the information or records requested are unusually voluminous in nature or compliance with such order otherwise would cause an undue burden on such provider.
(e) No cause of action against a provider disclosing information under this chapter. No cause of action shall lie in any court against any provider of wire or electronic communication service, its officers, employees, agents, or other specified persons for providing information, facilities, or assistance in accordance with the terms of a court order, warrant, subpoena, statutory authorization, or certification under this chapter [18 USCS §§ 2701 et seq.].
(f) Requirement to preserve evidence. (1) In general. A provider of wire or electronic communication services or a remote computing service, upon the request of a governmental entity, shall take all necessary steps to preserve records and other evidence in its possession pending the issuance of a court order or other process. (2) Period of retention. Records referred to in paragraph (1) shall be retained for a period of 90 days, which shall be extended for an additional 90-day period upon a renewed request by the governmental entity.
(g) Presence of officer not required. Notwithstanding section 3105 of this title [18 USCS § 3105], the presence of an officer shall not be required for service or execution of a search warrant issued in accordance with this chapter [18 USCS §§ 2701 et seq.] requiring disclosure by a provider of electronic communications service or remote computing service of the contents of communications or records or other information pertaining to a subscriber to or customer of such service.
All emphasis is mine. Here there was consent.
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quote: I grew up believing that the role of government precludes domestic spying in all but a few very specific scenarios
And just what would those scenarios be, if I might ask? And what exactly do you count as "domestic" spying?
Because Moussaoui and the other terrorists did much of their planning of the 9/11 attack through phone calls to each other from inside the United States. So if we could have prevented that....
quote:If you'd like a more cogent reason, I suppose I'll just have to say that I grew up believing that the role of government precludes domestic spying in all but a few very specific scenarios, and that those are covered by the governmental system of checks and balances such that there's not supposed to be an opportunity for any government entity to get information on individuals unless: a) it's already part of a public record, or b) the individual specifically agrees to turn over that information, or c) a warrant is issued by a duly sworn judge who conducts an independent review.
I get that this is the way you believe it should be. What I'm asking is why?
The people who advocate this program will advance pretty concrete reasons about what it can achieve (I have some statistical reasons for doubting this, myself). They will point out the importance of detecting terrorist communications. They will point out the limited nature of the information gathered. They will assert that even though they could match phone numbers with people, they aren't doing so.
So far, all we have against the program is that it's wrong because it's not your three-point policy for governmentt obtaining information. So the question is, what are the norms upon which you've made this policy judgment to enhance privacy and decrease investigatory capability?
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quote:I cannot have any reasonable expectation of privacy without being accused of supporting terrorists
Of course, that criticism is at most marginally relevant to this program. I don't see an accusation that you or anyone else who doesn't want their phone records released support terrorism.
Not on this board, no. But there seems to be an escalating lack of privacy, constantly justified as being necessary to fight terrorism. Any objection is implied as being against fighting terrorism. The President was quoted as saying this was confined to people affiliated with al Qaeda. Does that mean all the people whose phone call records are being given up are suspected? Even me? I can barely spell al Qaeda and I certainly do not support terrorism. Politicians are quoted as asking why would anyone object if they haven't done anything wrong. What kind of thing is that to say in America?
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quote:Frankly, it doesn't matter if you care whether it's legal or not.
Dag, the INSTANT I read Bob's first post on this thread, I thought, "the first thing out of Dag's mouth will be a dismissal of those grounds, because he won't HAVE an argument about ethics." Seriously, man, you won't GET into a political discussion unless you can argue a point of order.
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quote: Because Moussaoui and the other terrorists did much of their planning of the 9/11 attack through phone calls to each other from inside the United States. So if we could have prevented that....
....it would NOT have been worth the cost.
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posted
I don't know, Tom. While I'm not happy about the eavesdropping/record divulsions, they don't exactly affect our liberty now. We can all still say what we want to whom we want.
I don't think this is a safety vs. liberty discussion. It is a privacy issue.
If we could ressurect ~2000 people just by reviewing phone-to-phone logs...man, it's hard for me to say no to that.
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quote:The people who advocate this program will advance pretty concrete reasons about what it can achieve (I have some statistical reasons for doubting this, myself). They will point out the importance of detecting terrorist communications. They will point out the limited nature of the information gathered. They will assert that even though they could match phone numbers with people, they aren't doing so.
Of course, all of this was said after their program was discovered. Their explanations for the program may all be completely true, but it's also exactly what you would expect them to say about it, so I can't help being a little uneasy about the after-the-fact justifications. After all, there could be a lot more happening that they didn't feel was necessary to mention. With the lack of checks and balances, all that's left to ensure your privacy is the honesty of a few individuals, an idea I'm not entirely comfortable with.
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posted
This incident, to me, just underscores a recurring theme of this administration: "How much can we get away with?"
This is the administration that sends memos investigating ways it can justify a war it already knows it wants to start.
This is the administration that outsources torture, and has teams of lawyers discussing "How illegal is torture, anyway?"
This is the administration that assures us it's "domestic spying" is limited to very specific cases involving calls from the US to overseas locations meanwhile collecting telephone data wholesale on average citizens it has no reason to suspect of anything.
So when I read things above about how "This program is just collecting phone call records, not the content of the calls" I sorta have to add "as far as we have been told."
I simply do not trust this administration. I think it cares very little about what is "right" and only about what is "legal" insofar as it will tell them what they can get away with without being impeached.
quote:Dag, the INSTANT I read Bob's first post on this thread, I thought, "the first thing out of Dag's mouth will be a dismissal of those grounds, because he won't HAVE an argument about ethics."
And how did I know that the only thing you'd bother to respond to would be based on your creepy obsession with trying to get me to discuss what YOU want me to discuss. Tom, I'm sick and tired of this crap. Cut it the hell out.
I haven't dismissed Bob's grounds for hating the program. I haven't heard them yet. I've heard him explain, quite cogently, what the characteristics of his preferred system would be. I've heard him declare quite passionately that a system without those characteristics is wrong. I haven't heard him explain why.
Bob made a declarative statement about a policy preference. I don't have a preference on this yet. I've asked for clarification. I haven't made up my mind about this program yet. I asked someone who has - quite strongly it seems - to explain his reasons for thinking it wrong.
If you cared one whit about discussing the ethics – dare I say if you HAD an argument about ethics – you had the opportunity to make one directly in response to my questions. But you don’t. You just want to take me to task for not doing something you can’t be bothered to do yourself.
Remember, Tom, the only reason I even bothered discussing the interception of international calls and the legalities was because YOU called for impeachment without bothering to do the least modicum of research into whether it was actually illegal. Here, I was faced with an immediate predismissal of what politicians have already begun to make a very important issue.
I didn't say Bob should like it if it's legal. I didn't say it was legal. I simply said that it will be an important issue and pre-protestations won't alter that fact.
You seem to have a lot to say about me lately Tom. Yet, when I have responded to direct questions from you about what I think of particular issues, you don't bother to respond.
quote:Seriously, man, you won't GET into a political discussion unless you can argue a point of order.
And you won't bother to respond to me when I do enter a political discussion on other grounds. Because it seems to have escaped your attention, in my first post in this thread I asked Bob a series of questions about the policy and ethical considerations. Why? Because I wanted to know what he thought on the subject. Consider it an open query to anyone who’s already made up their mind on this issue.
quote:
quote:Because Moussaoui and the other terrorists did much of their planning of the 9/11 attack through phone calls to each other from inside the United States. So if we could have prevented that....
....it would NOT have been worth the cost.
You seem to like calling me out on what I really think. Well Tom, why don't you bother, instead of spending effort whining about what I choose to discuss on the board, explaining your rather broad statement. Why don't you tell me what you would say to the family members of these people to justify your position that the government running pattern searches on phone call data not attached to names is too high a price to pay for these almost 3,000 people to be alive.
I know I can construct a cogent argument as to why such a step shouldn't be taken even at the cost of these lives. I can also construct a cogent argument as to why this particular form of monitoring and the attached privacy concerns would be worth the risk of losing this many people again. I haven't decided which argument I find more compelling yet. Unlike you, I'm not comfortable simply making a half-sentence response to Farmgirl's very appropriate question and thinking I've said anything worth hearing.
All we know at this point is that TomDavidson thinks those 3,000 lives are worth not having this monitoring program. We don't know why.
So the next time you feel the need to attempt to call me to account for what I choose to address in one of these threads, please don't finish your post with a half-sentence judgment involving 3,000 deaths without doing the questioner the courtesy of stretching yourself beyond your usual snappy little one-liners to actually give a reason.
If you can harp on me to discuss the ethics of the situation, you can damn well bother to acknowledge the ethical issues underlying Farmgirl’s question.
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to be clear, any frustration that seems to be aimed at you in my previous post is spillover from my intense frustration with Tom. I apologize if I got you in the crossfire.
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posted
Companies buy and sell phone numbers, email addresses, social security numbers, purchase information all the time and that is just peachy. If the goverment has computers searching numbers looking for specific information then THEY must be stopped because the evil Government is soooo unethical. Corporations collect vast amounts of information on us every single day but that is somehow OK?
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posted
Yes, DK, but if Amazon.com finds me inquiring about fertilizer prices in DC, they are likely to send me an email about books on gardening in zone 7, not likely to whisk me off to Guantanamo and deny me access to lawyers. See the difference?
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"Q: How could the NSA use American phone records? A: By conducting "social-network analysis" of calling patterns, the government maps connections between people and can determine which far-flung organizations have acquaintances in common."
I'm uncomfortable with the government having records of what organizations I'm involved with. In theory, I have nothing to worry about as long I don't belong to any terrorist organizations. But in reality, I don't trust any administration (this one or any other) to limit themselves to looking for only terrorists. It would be too easy for them to extend this network analysis to look for members of opposing political parties, watchdog groups, various religious groups, or any other organisation.
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posted
I'm not sure how the Government is going to throw you in jail by looking at phone numbers? The difference to me is that Amazon shouldn't be able to sell your private information for a profit to people who can easily commit ID theft, and the government should be concerned with people buying tons of fertilizer, renting trucks, and so on near DC, or Oklahoma City for that matter. See the difference? It's all about POV [edit because I can't spell]
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quote: majority of Americans initially support a controversial National Security Agency program to collect information on telephone calls made in the United States in an effort to identify and investigate potential terrorist threats, according to a Washington Post-ABC News poll.
The new survey found that 63 percent of Americans said they found the NSA program to be an acceptable way to investigate terrorism, including 44 percent who strongly endorsed the effort. Another 35 percent said the program was unacceptable, which included 24 percent who strongly objected to it.
A slightly larger majority--66 percent--said they would not be bothered if NSA collected records of personal calls they had made, the poll found.
I'm actually a little concerned that only 2% of people haven't formed an opinion on this already. This is not a simple issue and involves one of the core value judgments at the heart of government.
Edit: Please note that I've made no contention that the approval of this program by a majority of Americans has any bearing on its rightness or wrongness.
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quote:Originally posted by Dagonee: Here there was consent.
That makes sense. So since the NSA asked for it rather than demanding it, it's legal? Are the telecom companies permitted to sell this information to whoever they like?
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quote:So since the NSA asked for it rather than demanding it, it's legal?
I don't know that. There are privacy requirements, but Ive heard conflicting reports. And, of course, no newspaper gives a cite to the statute.
The exclusion of names may be the dispositive factor making it legal. It may not be.
I do know that law enforcement investigations rely heavily on cooperation and voluntary turnover of information by third parties. The actual privacy regulations will matter for any particular party, and telcos have more privacy regs than most.
quote:Are the telecom companies permitted to sell this information to whoever they like?
Don't know, but the phone directory is essentially public domain information (not really, but the use allowed is essentially unrestricted).
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posted
For the record, I'm still undecided about the rightness of government surveillance in an era of widely available means of mass destruction. I just don't trust that what has been disclosed thus far is the whole of the story. And I really distrust this administration's apparent abhorence of any kind of oversight of its actions.
If the question was really "If this program had been in place and thus prevented 3000 deaths, would it be worth it?" I'd have a hard time saying flat out "No, it wouldn't", however, I suspect the real question is "If this program had been in place and thus prevented 3000 deaths in 2001, and also had resulted in the imprisonment of thousands of homosexuals in the 50s, 60s, and 70s, and had amplified the fear of the McCarthy era so that it persisted even today squelching political opposition to the powers that be, would it have been worth it", well I'm pretty sure it would not have been.
And until such a program actually can be shown to prevent a future 9/11, it's highly questionable whether it would have prevented the one in 2001.
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posted
There is nothing actually limiting this to terrorists or terrorism. The administration could be doing this (and their other warrantless domestic spying) for whatever information they want. They say that they are only doing it in regards to terrorism, but the only thing that is backed up by is the honesty and integrity of the administration.
This is the problem with powers not having any oversight. There is no practical check or even way of finding out what limits these powers are put to.
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
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quote:If the question was really "If this program had been in place and thus prevented 3000 deaths, would it be worth it?" I'd have a hard time saying flat out "No, it wouldn't", however, I suspect the real question is "If this program had been in place and thus prevented 3000 deaths in 2001, and also had resulted in the imprisonment of thousands of homosexuals in the 50s, 60s, and 70s, and had amplified the fear of the McCarthy era so that it persisted even today squelching political opposition to the powers that be, would it have been worth it", well I'm pretty sure it would not have been. And until such a program actually can be shown to prevent a future 9/11, it's highly questionable whether it would have prevented the one in 2001.
These are the exact things that need to be weighed: the possible "non-good" uses, the efficacy of the program in reducing future attacks, the probabilities of future attacks, the effects on privacy, and how all of these balance against each other.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
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posted
Phone companies are permitted to sell lists of listed telephone numbers. The ones that are in the phone books. The information the NSA is gathering is call records -- what phone numbers were called from what phone numbers. Phone companies are not permitted to sell that information at all, and generally do not release it without a court order, to anyone. Including the owner of the account. If I called in right now and requested the call records on my account, I would be told to get a subpeona. If I tried to access the information myself, since I'm an employee, and I was caught, I would be fired. It has happened in my office in the last six months, so I have no doubt that we mean it. Posts: 7954 | Registered: Mar 2004
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posted
Hmmm, my cell phone bill comes with a list of every call made on it during the billing period, including the number the call was to and how long it lasted. I recall, back when I had a landline, that my home phone bill also included this information for long distance calls. I also know that I can request copies of my old bills without a court order.
This seems not to jibe completely with your information, Eljay.
Posts: 6394 | Registered: Dec 1999
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Yep, anything that shows on your bill you can get, and cell calls and long distance calls show on your bill. Basically, any toll calls show on your bill. But landline local calls don't. We've already sent you the bill once, we'll happily send you as many copies as you like. But we won't provide you with any information that doesn't show on the bill.
Posts: 7954 | Registered: Mar 2004
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KarlEd, I respect your rant, but I would like a little further clarification as to what you consider "this Administration" that you so deeply despise.
After all, this wasn't a single-handed Bush thing. Hate him all you want, but this wasn't a Republican-only action.
Overall, there are (from what I have been able to read about this) tons of checks and balances in place. Someone in authority can't just say "Oh, today, I think I'll listen in or investigate Joe Smith". There are many many different levels of different people and intelligence that have to sign off on each possible investigation, and that suspicion can be thrown out at any one of those levels, so the suspicion has to be pretty darn severe before it actually gets to a full investigation and "Camp Gitmo" (as you threw in).
quote:These are the exact things that need to be weighed: the possible "non-good" uses, the efficacy of the program in reducing future attacks, the probabilities of future attacks, the effects on privacy, and how all of these balance against each other.
I disagree. What needs to be weighed is those things and, if the program seems like it's important enough, those things that we're going to add to it so as to prevent abuse.
Also, such an analysis should have been done before this was put into place and it should have been open to Congress, at the very least. Frankly, I think the idea is pretty stupid and a waste of effort.
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
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I wonder if the same people that don't mind the fact that their phone call logs are obtained without warrant would object to a police officer going through their home without a warrant while they are not there. After all, they said they don't have anything to hide.
Posts: 1412 | Registered: Oct 2005
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quote:Overall, there are (from what I have been able to read about this) tons of checks and balances in place. Someone in authority can't just say "Oh, today, I think I'll listen in or investigate Joe Smith".
I'd be interested to know what these are, because this is the first I've heard of it.
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
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If what they want to do is perform social network analysis based on known terrorists, they only need local information to those nodes and some general properties of the network topology.
That is, they could do this just as well if they "merely" received all the phone records up to two or three hops out from known terrorists.
They're most likely getting all of it because they're lazy, and because the NSA's stance is always going to be, the more information, the better.
However, other than slightly widening the radius of people paid attention to (I can only assume they've already been getting all the phone records of known terrorists and immediate contacts for some time now), collecting all the data has little potential use in fighting terrorism.
While there's some potential use in having those expanded networks for known terrorists, I am extremely skeptical of a system that provides all the data needed for, say, figuring out all the central organizers of political protests (which would be abundantly decipherable and even detectable by tracking calling patterns).
While law enforcement agents and agencies are on the whole ethical and righteous, there are repeated and routine abuses of the powers granted them that must be constantly checked. The possibility inherent in the NSA's system for nigh-undetectable abuse (few people would need to know about the abuse as the information would be obtained through automated analysis, and only one person is needed to run such a search. Not to mention that if the people dealing directly with the database don't know the provenance of the numbers they'd just think it was another search for terrorists; also, the results of such an abuse could not be easily backtracked to the database given there are other ways to find out such things) makes me quite dubious.
In many ways this is similar to my abhorrence of the domestic phone tapping program as it currently stands; I was astounded that it was considered reassuring it took at least a shift supervisor to approve a wiretap! While there are ways I could see that program being acceptable, if barely, any system that allows warrantless phone tapping deserves significantly more required authorization than that pathetic amount.
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
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quote:I disagree. What needs to be weighed is those things and, if the program seems like it's important enough, those things that we're going to add to it so as to prevent abuse.
I consider that necessary to the "possible 'non-good' uses" factor, so we actually agree.
quote:Also, such an analysis should have been done before this was put into place and it should have been open to Congress, at the very least.
Only if what they've done is illegal, which is very unclear at this point. I don't want a president who runs to congress every time he does something that he's allowed to do under law.
He did notify 15 senators and 21 representatives.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
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quote:They're most likely getting all of it because they're lazy, and because the NSA's stance is always going to be, the more information, the better.
That and the fact that if they asked the phone companies to do the hop analysis, the companies would likely say, "Here, do it yourself."
My primary efficacy argument is based on the prosecutor's fallacy. Here's a cross post of my thoughts on the subject, attacking the idea of terrorist phone-activity pattern recognition (which I don't know if they are attempting):
quote:Imagine that a given pattern has an accuracy rate of 99% in determining terrorists. Sounds pretty good, right? (I'm betting it's far, far better than anything a pattern criminologist would claim for any kind of test like this.)
OK, now assume there are 300 million people in the U.S. that use the phone. Assume there are 30,000 terrorists that use the phone, meaning one in a ten thousand people who use the phone are terrorists.
Of the 30k terrorists, 99% or 29,700 will be identified correctly as terrorists. 300 will not be identified.
Of the 299,970,000 non-terrorists, 1%, or 2,999,700, will be falsely identified as terrorists. This means that only 29,700 out of 3,029,400 (or 0.98%) people identified as terrorists by the test will be terrorists.
I'm not worried people will be convicted based on this evidence. I'm worried investigatory resources will be horribly diverted by people who don't comprehend this phenomenon (called the "prosecutor's fallacy) and also that lesser burdens than conviction - such as the do not fly list - will be placed on these people.
quote: I'd be interested to know what these are, because this is the first I've heard of it.
I'll try to find you some links, then. I heard most about from an ex-NSA speaker on a news program....
FG
(personally, I'm more worried about the mother-of-all-databases that Microsoft is said to have with uses information from all the licenses of home pc's, etc. But I have no proof such a thing really exists)
Posts: 9538 | Registered: Aug 2003
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Dagonee: I would like a President who runs to Congress every time he wants to do something subject to great potential abuse by the executive, even if its legal .
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
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quote:Only if what they've done is illegal, which is very unclear at this point. I don't want a president who runs to congress every time he does something that he's allowed to do under law.
So, you think that instituting a wide-scale spying program on American citizens is something that the President should do without oversight. From my perspective, there is often a difference between what is legal (and, as far as I can tell, that point is unclear just now) and what is right. I expect my representatives to do what is right, even if it extends beyond the technicalities of the law.
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
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posted
The hop analysis (that is, who are all the people within x number of hops out from person y) is most likely one simple (if massive in memory, but it can be easily chunked) database query. At least, it would be on any semi-sane system I can imagine.
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
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quote:The hop analysis (that is, who are all the people within x number of hops out from person y) is most likely one simple (if massive in memory, but it can be easily chunked) database query. At least, it would be on any semi-sane system I can imagine.
Sure, but it's still harder than dumping the database.
quote:So, you think that instituting a wide-scale spying program on American citizens is something that the President should do without oversight.
No, and I didn't say I did. And you know I didn't say that, considering I pointed out the oversight that did exist.
Maybe that oversight is inadequate. But it wasn't "none" and any one of them could have taken steps to attempt to get Congress to assert its oversight.
quote: From my perspective, there is often a difference between what is legal (and, as far as I can tell, that point is unclear just now) and what is right. I expect my representatives to do what is right, even if it extends beyond the technicalities of the law.
Of course there is a difference between what is legal and what is right. We elect the president and give him authority to do what is legal, expecting him to exercise his discretion to choose what is right. There is enormous discretion inherent in the President. The President and Congress have set up a method of informing Congress of such activities, for the specific purpose of allowing Congress the chance to assert its ability to make something like this illegal.
There's nothing inherently "right" about talking to all of Congress about something that's legal (and here we're in an "if" scenario - I'm not saying it's legal) when Congress itself has said, come see these 36 people about legal spying activities you undertake.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
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quote:These are the exact things that need to be weighed: the possible "non-good" uses, the efficacy of the program in reducing future attacks, the probabilities of future attacks, the effects on privacy, and how all of these balance against each other.
Which is of course why I don't think it's worth the cost, Dag. Because I am supremely confident that any one of those factors, once this becomes an "accepted" practice, can easily be dismissed by a future administration with a wave fo the hand. There should be very, very strong firewalls set up to prevent exactly this sort of thing, mainly because the American government is powerfully defended from its critics by bastions of meaningless law.
The enormous discretion that you believe is inherent in the office of the executive is discretion that I firmly believe should not exist -- and should never have existed.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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quote:Originally posted by Farmgirl: KarlEd, I respect your rant, but I would like a little further clarification as to what you consider "this Administration" that you so deeply despise.
I don't think I'd say "deeply despise". "Deeply mistrust", yes. "Fear", yes, too. As to what the "Administration" is, well, at the very least Bush and those he has put into power.
quote:After all, this wasn't a single-handed Bush thing. Hate him all you want, but this wasn't a Republican-only action.
"Hate" again is your word. I never said it was a "Republican-only action". I think that's irrelevant. But since you brought it up, can you tell me which Democrats were involved in putting this particular program into action?
quote:Overall, there are (from what I have been able to read about this) tons of checks and balances in place. Someone in authority can't just say "Oh, today, I think I'll listen in or investigate Joe Smith". There are many many different levels of different people and intelligence that have to sign off on each possible investigation, and that suspicion can be thrown out at any one of those levels, so the suspicion has to be pretty darn severe before it actually gets to a full investigation and "Camp Gitmo" (as you threw in).
Farmgirl
Having worked in military intelligence, I'd say that's an overly optimistic view of things.
It's much more likely that most of those lower levels will simply be passing along what to them is meaningless raw data they have collected and processed and that each individual department has little to no idea what the other departments on their level do with or know about any data at all, or even if they work on the same project. You have to get pretty high before you'd know who was an actual target of an investigation and whether or not your particular piece of the puzzle had anything to do with it.
Posts: 6394 | Registered: Dec 1999
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