News Item: The NSA is in the process of trying to gather the phone records (that is, the number called & called from, the time and duration of the call, but not its contents) of EVERYONE.
Do I think this is a good idea? Well, it sounds ultra-creepy but then I think of that show NUMB3RS and I think, "Wow, Charlie could do a lot of statistical analysis with that." And when I picture that, I see it as waves of data with grand patterns in it, patterns that involve millions of calls. I can't see Charlie looking at any specific number and saying, "Oh-hoh! Mrs. Jones has been calling the mailman every night at ten! I wonder if her husband knows!" So IF the NSA is doing what it says it's doing, then we probably don't have that much to worry about.
And then I think, "Are they really?" My doubt isn't the same as those at War Room on Salon-- they and probably most people are concerned about that the FBI or local law enforcement can't legally get a subpoena of your records, they could go get them from the NSA, circumventing the law. A reasonable fear in this age with no checks or balances.
But my question is: "Are they really getting this data? And if so, are they really making a usable database with it?"
This and the warrantless wiretapping of "every" call with one foot outside the US-- don't these smack of a competence that the intelligence community has blatantly shown they don't possess? Especially when using the terms "EVERY call" and "ALL records"?
My favorite joke after 9/11 was that the CIA had shown itself to be so incomptent that even the crazy people took off their tinfoil hats. And we're really worried that they could track our every communication? Really?
I have two conspiracy theories for this.
1. They are getting funding and are shuttling it somewhere, and to justify it they are claiming to be working on massive projects that they don't really have.
2. They are trying to trick the terrorists. We can't possibly analyze every call (after the first scandal the intelligence community-- I'll find the quote-- said that this program was going to cause an enormous backlog and they couldn't handle it), but maybe if we CLAIM we are, it will have a similar effect.
Both plans involve getting the current administration in hot water, but I'm not sure they care. They can't be re-elected, for one thing, and the rest of the Republicans are drawing strength from having concrete issues on which to separate themselves from the President. So that makes it pretty much a win-win.
Now there is a little niggling thought-- the kind that proves I'm no expert-- that says, what good is it to make the terrorists more careful? If you've spooked them into thinking that their phone calls are possibly montiored but certainly tracked, then you make them go farther underground. I can't tell if this is a problem, or if it helps by hindering their open operations, just making it more difficult to communicate. (My training in this area is limited to 4 seasons of "24".)
My roommate is a DB2 database administrator, which for the layman is the Really Really Big Databases, like for the IRS. He says that it is perfectly possible and relatively easy to collect this data and maintain it, as well as use it. So if he thinks he could do it, it could probably be done and maybe I'm just talking out of my proverbial derriere. But I have very little faith in the NSA and CIA, and more and more faith in the nefarious and sneaky dealings of this administration, and I just wonder...
In the meantime, a Tip of the Hat (as our beloved Colbert would say) to Qwest Communications. I'm going to quote Tim Grieve at Salon because he said it so well:
USA Today says that AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth are turning call data over to the NSA; Qwest has refused. At one point in discussions with the government, USA Today says, lawyers for Qwest said that, if the NSA wanted the call data so badly, it should go to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to have its monitoring program approved. The NSA refused, the paper says, quoting "one person" who says that the NSA's lawyers said that the court might not agree with the agency's plan.
Ya think?
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