NSA Has Massive Database on Americans' Phone Calls

[Devastatin Dave]

I thought tinfoil hats were for mind-control rays, but now DevDave has me all confused.

It distorts sound waves.

[KafirChobee]

What was reported on PBS's "The Lehrer Report", tonight:
1) +10 million Americans are being tracked (Gah! 10million american terrorists - guess we lost that war in a hurry). +50million conversations are being "stored".
2) 320,000 people are on the NSA "primary" watchlist - yeah, right like they couldn't even pay attention to the 9/11 yahoos, so this will help. 320,000 suspects? Hope their all in Texas - j/k.
3) Their "watchlist" includes (amongst others); Ted Kennedy, Al Gore, and every John/and or Jorge Garcia in existance (true btw).

This sounds more like a political enemies list (ala Richard Nixon), and invasion of their privacy (s) than an actual tool being used to sort out the real terrorists amongst us.

As Lemur put it - you don't build a greater haystack when attmpting to find a needle in one. Their building a greater one to cover up their real intent - to subvert their political enemies - more than likely.

Soon, however, (after this November) we may have our three independent branches of government returned to us. We can only hope the Democrats take back at least the House - then LET THE INVESTIGATIONS BEGIN!

Btw, Bush's legal stand on this issue is identical to that of Richard Nixon's - we all know what happened then. There is no difference, and 9/11 (Patriot Act) did not change our laws it only subverted a few of them.

[Alexanderofmacedon]

Ok, let me start off by saying I'm a liberal. I do however notice the fact that it seems the liberal side has known about this since 2001 and have only brought this out now, for political gain. That being said, I think both conservative groups as well as liberal groups are always doing this sort of thing, and you nor I, nor anyone else can stop this.

On this issue, I think I have a few problems with it, but overall, if they're only monitoring what they say they are, then I'd say "ok". I don't see an invasion of privacy too badly, so I think it's alright. I may change my mind, when I get more information.

It struck me as being very funny how I heard about this. I was coming back from soccer practice and my friends dad was listening to some conservative talk show. It was the funniest thing I've ever heard in my life. He was spewing absolute crap.

[Xiahou]

On this issue, I think I have a few problems with it, but overall, if they're only monitoring what they say they are, then I'd say "ok". I don't see an invasion of privacy too badly, so I think it's alright. I may change my mind, when I get more information.

That about matches my position.

Lemur, Im no intelligence expert- but the guy in the article sounds like a knuckle-head. Legal/ethical questions aside, it strikes me as the absolute best way to achieve the goals of the program. Say the NSA gets a cell number used by a terrorist recruiter in Afghanistan- obviously, they should tap the number asap, but in addition with this program they can instantly query their database and find out, not only what numbers have been called by this one, but they can also pull up any matches for calls into that number. From there, they could also instantaneously look for patterns in phone numbers that the people who were in communication with this number of calls in common between all of them. From this they could begin to get a picture of who other persons of interest may be.

For example, if you have people in 8 different states all calling a known terrorist number and then you have records of them all calling each other in addition to others- you'd have the potential to uncover networks of possible terrorists.

[Avicenna]

It's definitely not surprising, don't be shocked to find out some time later that even your credit cards and emails are looked at as well. It's all a matter of security, and personally, I don't care if my calls are listened to, so long as I don't get blown up by a terrorist attack.

[Lemur]

Looks as though a majority of Americans are cool with the whole process. Linky.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Poll: Most Americans Support NSA's Efforts

By Richard Morin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, May 12, 2006; 7:00 AM

A 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.

Underlying those views is the belief that the need to investigate terrorism outweighs privacy concerns. According to the poll, 65 percent of those interviewed said it was more important to investigate potential terrorist threats "even if it intrudes on privacy." Three in 10--31 percent--said it was more important for the federal government not to intrude on personal privacy, even if that limits its ability to investigate possible terrorist threats.

Half--51 percent--approved of the way President Bush was handling privacy matters.

The survey results reflect initial public reaction to the NSA program. Those views that could change or deepen as more details about the effort become known over the next few days.

USA Today disclosed in its Thursday editions the existence of the massive domestic intelligence-gathering program. The effort began soon after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Since then, the agency began collecting call records on tens of millions of personal and business telephone calls made in the United States. Agency personnel reportedly analyze those records to identify suspicious calling patterns but do not listen in on or record individual telephone conversations.

Word of the program sparked immediate criticism on Capitol Hill, where Democrats and Republicans criticized the effort as a threat to privacy and called for congressional inquiries to learn more about the operation. In the survey, big majorities of Republicans and political independents said they found the program to be acceptable while Democrats were split.

President Bush made an unscheduled appearance yesterday before White House reporters to defend his administration's efforts to investigate terrorism and criticize public disclosure of secret intelligence operations. But he did not directly acknowledge the existence of the NSA records-gathering program or answer reporters' questions about it.

By a 56 percent to 42 percent margin, Americans said it was appropriate for the news media to have disclosed the existence of this secret government program.

A total of 502 randomly selected adults were interviewed Thursday night for this survey. Margin of sampling error is five percentage points for the overall results. The practical difficulties of doing a survey in a single night represents another potential source of error.

© 2006 The Washington Post Company

[Lemur]

There's a really thorough legal analysis of the legality of the program here. Looks like candy for lawyers and law students.

[drone]

It's definitely not surprising, don't be shocked to find out some time later that even your credit cards and emails are looked at as well. It's all a matter of security, and personally, I don't care if my calls are listened to, so long as I don't get blown up by a terrorist attack.

So basically, the terrorists have won? You have no problems with your government collecting all kinds of information on you, not telling you about it, and not telling you how secure this data will be and who has access? You are willing to trust that this information will not be used against you for political reasons or as a result of bureaucratic bumbling (the more likely scenario)? All this, because there is a very, very, very small chance that you might die in a terrorist bombing. ~3000 people died from the 9/11 attacks, but we kill ourselves way more effeciently than the terrorists do. It's this culture of Fear that threatens the US, not some fanatics from across the waters. Americans are so preoccupied with not dying that they have forgotten how to live.

Should we be watchful? Yes. But not at the expense of turning into a police state.

[Lemur]

I'm not as worried as I should be. I have faith that the minute a Democrat takes the Presidency, all of the people who are okay with the lack of oversight and accountability will suddenly get interested in the division of powers again.

My guess is that the majority of the conservatives are okay with all of this because there's a "conservative" government in place. Please correct me if I'm wrong.