“The National Security Agency has traced and analyzed large volumes of telephone and Internet communications flowing into and out of the United States… by tapping directly into some of the American telecommunication system’s main arteries,” the Times is reporting.
The volume of information harvested from telecommunication data and voice networks, without court-approved warrants, is much larger than the White House has acknowledged…
As part of the program approved by President Bush for domestic surveillance without warrants, the N.S.A. has gained the cooperation of American telecommunications companies to obtain backdoor access to streams of domestic and international communications.
When the NSA domestic spying story broke last week, I had a hunch that the eavesdropping technology at work was a whole lot different than what you’d find in an average wiretap. A former signals intelligence specialist wondered whether the NSA “may have compromised… a telecom carrier.“
That guess looks to be dead-on.
Since the Sept. 11 attacks, the leading companies in the industry have been storing information on calling patterns and giving it to the federal government to aid in tracking possible terrorists.
“All that data is mined with the cooperation of the government and shared with them, and since 9/11, there’s been much more active involvement in that area,” said the former manager, a telecommunications expert who did not want his name or that of his former company used because of concern about revealing trade secrets.
The Times article also makes clear why Senator Jay Rockefeller compared the program to Total Information Awareness, the Pentagon’s uber-database project.
The N.S.A. has sought to analyze communications patterns to glean clues from details like who is calling whom, how long a phone call lasts and what time of day it is made, and the origins and destinations of phone calls and e-mail messages. Calls to and from Afghanistan, for instance, are known to have been of particular interest to the N.S.A. since the Sept. 11 attacks, the officials said.
This so-called “pattern analysis” on calls within the United States would, in many circumstances, require a court warrant if the government wanted to trace who calls whom.
The use of similar data-mining operations by the Bush administration in other contexts has raised strong objections, most notably in connection with the Total Information Awareness system… [which was] ultimately scrapped after public outcries over possible threats to privacy and civil liberties.
But the Bush administration regards the N.S.A.‘s ability to trace and analyze large volumes of data as critical to its expanded mission to detect terrorist plots before they can be carried out, officials familiar with the program say. Administration officials maintain that the system set up by Congress in 1978 under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act does not give them the speed and flexibility to respond fully to terrorist threats at home.
Some will say this story is old news. The NSA has long been rumored to have the ability to vacuum up huge swaths of data at once.
“The NSA is intercepting huge streams of communications, taking in 2 million pieces of communications an hour,” James Bamford, the author of two books on the NSA, told the Boston Globe on Friday.
“They have a capacity to listen to every overseas phone call,” added Tom Blanton, director of the National Security Archive at George Washington University.“
But the question has been: how do you turn all that data into something useful? You’ve got to find a realtively simple way to get rid of 99.99999% of the calls and e-mails quickly. Otherwise, it’s like drinking from a firehose.
But as link analysis and data mining programs have become more sophisticated, that sifting process has gotten easier. And, I’ll bet, it is simpler still when the telecom companies are playing ball.
Actually the preffered method of comm between splodeydopes is the pre-paid cell phone. Spend fifty bucks cash, talk for 20 mins, and dump it.
Thats why the voice recog is so important. They tap a trunk and run the scans to try and pick up a certain goblin, and then find out who he’s talking to.
Algorithems may be more neutral and detached than humans.
So a well constructed algorithem may offer more protection to privacy than a human system. An Algorithem will only deliver what is requested.
The unfortunate publicity on this topic may be looked on by historians as the functional equivalent of revealing the Ultra and Purple decrypts in WW II.
The leaks are an evil action, taken against the interests of our country.
Those responsible should be prosecuted to the max!
who said the NSA were the goog guys?!
Update:: http://nytimes.com/2005/12/28/politics/28legal.html?ei=5094&en=8778e8e441c81c90&hp=&ex=1135746000&partner=homepage&pagewanted=print
now we see the new score that the leak and then the breaking of this story has caused.
Democrats= +1 partisan political points
Bush= –1 political point
Terrorist +5 Jihadi points
US civilians-5 defence points
Noah do you still think the NYT’s had the US best interest at heart or some other? When this is over the gov will be forced to give up thier tactics in detail so the big winners Terrorist who already today have a huge bump and growing. But we must keep the eye on the real threat Bushitler right?
I understand where you guys come from, i really do, and i do believe that the Bush adminstration really is in their minds trying to protect us, but the laws and ground-work they are setting up is leaving wide open the door of paranoid rule. The next adminstration or that years down the road has the ground worked paved to declare “subversives” terrorist or threats to the security of a nation. I can tell you right now i sure as heck dont want to be marching around with the constant fear that if im overheard saying a word or phrase which some computer has been told to recognize as a threat that the next day i’m in jail without due process. the first link formed in the chain of fear from your own people is the first link which will bind the nation as it deteriates from the inside. No nation in the history of the world has ever survived when suspision ruled the day. Please consider this when you think it is just cause for the military and security caufers.
Finally I also said that the most important thing is to find themselves on the state mind, playing their own, the same as me that if happy I will spend Hellgate gold to buy many things. I hope everyone can play happy in the game.
There are four modes to choose from when playing Shaiya. When you first begin playing, only Easy and Normal modes will be available Shaiya money. Once you have reached level 50 in Normal mode, Hard mode becomes available. After reaching level 60 in Hard mode, Ultimate becomes available.
In the two years I made many good friends also spend much money to buy the Archlord gold, but I do not have a little sad, because I make many good friends, they are very kindliness.
In fact I think in the game the most important was not the fiesta Gold or the upgrade, in my mind play with friends and get more friendship were the most important.
because he always play the game, so we often together to play and chat and discuss how to earn the 2moon dil, at that day I told him, I liked him, but he did not say anything, I was very sad, unknowingly the tears streaming down.