NSA amassing vast database of domestic calls

[Desert Walker]

All I can say is

WHATTHEHECK?!

[quote]
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - [b]The agency in charge of a domestic spying program has been secretly collecting phone call records of tens of millions of Americans, including calls made within the United States,[/b] USA Today reported on Thursday.

It said the National Security Agency has been building up the database using records provided by three major phone companies -- AT&T Inc., Verizon Communications Inc. and BellSouth Corp. -- but that the program "does not involve the NSA listening to or recording conversations."

USA Today said its sources for the story were "people with direct knowledge of the arrangement," but it did not give their names or describe their affiliation.

The existence of an NSA eavesdropping program launched after the September 11 attacks was revealed in December.


Defending the controversial program, President Bush and his administration officials have said it aims to uncover links between international terrorists and their domestic collaborators and only targets communications between a person inside the United States and a person overseas.

But USA Today said that calls [b]originating and terminating within the United States have not escaped the NSA's attention.[/b]

"It's the largest database ever assembled in the world," the paper quoted one source as saying. The agency's goal is "to create a database of every call ever made" within U.S. borders, it said the source added.

[b]The NSA has "access to records of billions of domestic calls," USA Today said. Although customers' names and addresses are not being handed over, "the phone numbers the NSA collects can easily be cross-checked with other databases to obtain that information," it said.[/b]

Air Force Gen. Michael Hayden, who headed the NSA from 1999 to 2005 and was nominated by Bush on Monday as director of the CIA, would have overseen the call-tracking program, the paper said.

Hayden, as well as NSA and White House officials, declined to discuss the program, USA Today said.

Among major U.S. telecommunications companies, [b]only Qwest Communications International Inc. has refused to help the NSA program,[/b] the paper said.

[b]Qwest, with 14 million customers in the Western United States, was "uneasy about the legal implications of handing over customer information to the government without warrants," USA Today said.[/b]

It said the three companies cooperating with the NSA "provide local and wireless phone service to more than 200 million customers."[/quote]


SOURCE:
[url="http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=domesticNews&storyID=2006-05-11T091326Z_01_N11276820_RTRUKOC_0_US-SECURITY-USA-PHONECALLS.xml&pageNumber=0&imageid=&cap=&sz=13&WTModLoc=NewsArt-C1-ArticlePage2"]REUTERS[/url]


And here's our president saying everything's ok:

[quote]
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President George W. Bush on Thursday said intelligence activities he has authorized are lawful and the government does not listen to domestic phone calls without court approval.

[b]"The privacy of ordinary Americans is fiercely protected in all our activities. We're not mining or trolling through the personal lives of millions of innocent Americans," Bush said.[/b]

The president came out to defend the administration's domestic spy program after USA Today reported the National Security Agency was secretly collecting phone records of tens of millions of Americans from phone companies to analyze calling patterns in an effort to detect terrorist activity.

"The intelligence activities I authorized are lawful and have been briefed to appropriate members of Congress, both Republican and Democrat," Bush said.


Revelation late last year that the NSA was eavesdropping inside the United States on international phone calls and e-mail of terrorism suspects prompted an political uproar. Bush did not say the report was inaccurate.

Bush said, "Our efforts are focused on links to al Qaeda and their known affiliates."

© Reuters 2006. All Rights Reserved
[/quote]


"Our efforts are focused on links to al Qaeda and their known affiliates."

Mr. President, I declare I would trust you with anything!



I hope I'm not being naive...

Edited May 11, 2006 by Desert Walker

[ironmonk]

It's legal, they do not need a warrent.

Federal agencies have that power and always have had that power. I want them to have that power.

It's just the media blowing things out of proportion that they knew Clinton did the same things but they're struggling desperately to get evil of national level dems in the office.

[jezic]

i am somewhat shocked. It would be more useful to know what type of information and how much of it.

Technology stuff is recorded for every website that people ever visit as well, but at least they tell you that they are doing that.

[OLAM Dad]

I really, really do want to be bothered by this.

[ironmonk]

[quote name='jezic' post='978444' date='May 11 2006, 01:03 PM']
i am somewhat shocked. It would be more useful to know what type of information and how much of it.

Technology stuff is recorded for every website that people ever visit as well, but at least they tell you that they are doing that.
[/quote]

Actually no. Sometimes things are tracked, sometimes they aren't... most of the time you don't know.

Nothing is wrong with any of it... the Internet is made up of other peoples networks and government networks. There is always an electronic trail... most of the data is a waste of space to save it all, but I'm sure some key sites have routers that track IP's.

There is virtually no way for any entity to know where you go except for your ISP.

If people are actually worried about this stuff, I suggest a service like [url="http://www.FindNot.com"]http://www.FindNot.com[/url]

As long as you are not talking or writing about bombing people, looking up how to build a bomb, human trafficing, high volume drug dealing, etc... you have nothing to worry about.

The reason why this seems so bad is because the media has been building up the foolish idea that privacy is more important than truth. As Christ said "Everything will be brought into the light"... people knowing that they can be tracked it good as it might keep them from an occassion of sin.

We all should conduct ourselves as if we are being watched by someone. We should have nothing to hide because it will be revealed... it always will be revealed, either in this life or the next. To many people forget these facts.

God Bless,
ironmonk

[jezic]

you aren't bothered by it?

i guess i don't have anything to hide really, but i still don't like the idea. It sounds almost communistic KGB style.

[ironmonk]

-----------

Also,
they need to keep this type of phone data... it's a waste of people's time to troll through people's personal lives...

the way it works is that when they find someone to be a terrorist, they then go back and search the phone records, and then search the phone records of the people he talked to, and so on...

Also this technology has been in place since at least the mid-1990s... and no one really gave a stink about it. It started under the clinton administration.

Desert,
Please just stop with the media chicken little stuff.

God Bless,
ironmonk

[jezic]

in some form or another almost everything we do on a computer is tracked, sometimes only through your ip address with things on the internet, but other times there are different ways, like Mac addresses. it would be difficult to reconstitute everything but it could be done in great need.

[OLAM Dad]

[quote name='jezic' post='978448' date='May 11 2006, 12:11 PM']
you aren't bothered by it?

i guess i don't have anything to hide really, but i still don't like the idea. It sounds almost communistic KGB style.
[/quote]
No, I'm not bothered by it, but something tells me that I probably should be.

It's kind of like with the Da Vinci Code movie. I think it is wrong and harmful but it just doesn't bother me that much. I feel kind of guilty...

[cmotherofpirl]

Look if you don't think your emails, phone conversations, and your location can't monitered you are naive. If you don't think you are on camera in public locations you are naive as well.



If the Federal Government wants to listen to me tell my kids to pick up bread and milk, and not forget the cat food they can.

[jezic]

now it makes more sense. Thanks for explaining Ironmonk. I actually feel sorry for the people who have to sort through the billions of entries to find something.

[morostheos]

[quote name='cmotherofpirl' post='978467' date='May 11 2006, 01:30 PM']
Look if you don't think your emails, phone conversations, and your location can't monitered you are naive. If you don't think you are on camera in public locations you are naive as well.
If the Federal Government wants to listen to me tell my kids to pick up bread and milk, and not forget the cat food they can.
[/quote]

[Sojourner]

Just keep any seditious talk off the airwaves, and be careful who you associate with. You'll be fine.

[ironmonk]

[quote name='jezic' post='978450' date='May 11 2006, 01:16 PM']
in some form or another almost everything we do on a computer is tracked, sometimes only through your ip address with things on the internet, but other times there are different ways, like Mac addresses. it would be difficult to reconstitute everything but it could be done in great need.
[/quote]

If you are behind a firewall they cannot get your MAC address. MAC address is only visable to the network you are on.

Here is what they can get about you...

[url="http://www.ericgiguere.com/tools/http-header-viewer.html"]http://www.ericgiguere.com/tools/http-header-viewer.html[/url]


God Bless,
ironmonk

[ironmonk]

[quote name='jezic' post='978469' date='May 11 2006, 01:31 PM']
now it makes more sense. Thanks for explaining Ironmonk. I actually feel sorry for the people who have to sort through the billions of entries to find something.
[/quote]


It's not that bad, they have some complex software that searches... but I believe for the most part it is ignored until someone gives reason for them to go looking.

For example... say there was this new terrorist, no one knew of him, but he had a cell phone, Internet access, and a land line phone... say this new terrorist blew himself up somewhere in the US and killed others... experiance tells us that terrorists do not work alone... so how does the government find his connections to stop them before they can kill again... they do a search for everyone who had contact with the terrorist, they go through ever record they have on the terrorist, then they research the people he contacted, and then they research the people they contact, etc...

By doing that they are able to develop a very detailed idea of who to start watching and actively listening to so that they prevent anything else from happening.


God Bless,
ironmonk