The NSA Knows Who You've Called

Magnifico writes "USAToday is reporting on the National Security Agency's goal to create a database of every call ever made inside the USA. Aided by the cooperation of US telecom corporations, AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth, the NSA has been secretly collecting phone call records of tens of millions of Americans; the vast majority of whom aren't suspected of any crime. Only Qwest refused to give the NSA information because they were uneasy about giving information to the government without the proper warrants. The usefulness of the NSA's domestic phone call database as a counterterrorism tool is unclear."

Jamie adds: Traditionally, the devices which record dialed phone numbers are called pen registers, and trap-and-trace devices. The ECPA provided some legal privacy protection. It was controversial when Section 214 of the Patriot Act amended 50 USC 1842 to allow the FBI to record this information with minimal oversight. The Department of Justice has been required for some time to report to Congress the number of pen registers and trap-and-traces, though in recent years [PDF, see question 10] it declared that information classified.

If anyone has information about how the NSA, as opposed to the FBI, has been involved in domestic phone number collection, please post links in the discussion.

In related news, the National Security Agency has closed down an inquiry into the so-called "Terrorist Surveillance Program," a separate program from this one, by refusing to grant security clearance to the lawyers in the Department of Justice. The NSA and the DoJ are both established under the executive.

Comments

Oh, the Abuses We'll See!

[eldavojohn]

What an awesome tool for a government agency to have!

You know what I love? Scenarios! How about this one: You're arrested as a suspect for a crime you didn't commit. The government doesn't have anything on you except that there are no other suspects or witnesses. What they do have, is a network of vertices (phones) and edges (calls) spanning the past year of your life. They also have a list of "dirty" nodes or telephone users who have a rap sheet or ties to anti-American groups.

Thanks to Dijkstra's & the Bellman-Ford algorithms, it's a hop skip and a jump to a prosecutor saying "we have records showing you called your mother on such and such date prompting her to call her hair dresser who has been forwarding money to his family living in Mexico that has ties to Islamic Extremist groups!"

Farfetched? Maybe. But you don't have to be a Sci-Fi author to imagine crazy abuses of this data.

In the eyes of the government, we are all innocent until proven guilty. This could easily be turned into a data mining tool making some of us "less innocent" than others. And frankly, I'm not looking forward to that day.

<tinhat> Imagine a time and place where you have a security rating ... you approach an airport terminal and hand them your ID card (or scan your arm) but you can't board the plane because you've been making too many phone calls to your friends who happen to have a rap sheet. </tinhat>

Re:Oh, the Abuses We'll See!

[AGMW]

What an awesome tool for a government agency to have!

I friend sent me this link just yesterday about someone trying to purchase a pizza in the world it would appear both the UK and US governments want us to live in!

I, for one, do not welcome any overlords, whether insect or other sufficently low life to want to be in politics!
Just say NO

Re:Oh, the Abuses We'll See!

[aeoneal]

We are indeed guilty till proven innocent. I worked as a 911 calltaker back in the early '90s, and part of our training was to ride with police to learn the town. I was appalled by the attitude of the police. They picked different car models for ticketing each night, and followed them around until they found something they could ticket. The attitude (which one policeman stated openly to me) was that "everyone is a criminal, you just have to catch them at it."

Re:Oh, the Abuses We'll See!

[just_forget_it]

Your credit rating has very little to do with the way you manage your finances. For example, I was recently denied a car loan over $5000. There was nothing bad on my credit report and I pay all my bills on time. I even had a $6000 car loan that I paid off last year. So why was I denied? Because I had too little credit. The loan officer told me that utility bills and student loans don't count. My car loan didn't count either because it was too old (the credit union only counts the loan by the start date, so even though I paid my car off a year ago, they considered my loan to be 4 years old, since that's when it started).
The reason I don't have enough credit (which is almost as bad as having bad credit) is because I don't feed the credit industry their rediculously high interest rates. I was punished because I only borrow money when I absolutely have to. So a joe-blow that maxes out his three credit cards on frivolous junk is less of a credit risk than me if he pays the minimum payments every month, according to the credit industry.
Credit ratings have their place for weeding out people that are bad with money and buy things they can't afford. Having good credit is walking a tight-rope, one minor slip and you're buried forever.

Re:Oh, the Abuses We'll See!

[ThePowerGorilla]

A lender is in the business of making money through loans. In order for them to do this, they invariably must get their money back. Not all borrowers have the means or intention of returning the money that they have borrowed. A credit score is used to give a lender an idea of how much risk they are taking on by lending to this person. A person that has a long-standing record proving that they can both borrow and return money in a responsible, timely manner will have a high score, as they pose less risk to lenders.

The reason I don't have enough credit (which is almost as bad as having bad credit) is because I don't feed the credit industry their rediculously[sic] high interest rates.

The high interest rates having nothing to do with this. You do not need to float revolving debt to maintain a high rating. If a credit card company floats you $3k every month, and you pay it back every month, that looks good to them, and affects your score likewise. If they give you $3k every month, and you pay it back at interest, that also looks good, as you pay it back on time. If they give you $3k a month, and you skip payments, that looks bad. If you don't spend any month on the card every month, that looks like nothing, and will not raise your score, or lower it.

If you never borrow money, and therefore never return it, your score will be low. No one wants to be the first person to find out the hard way if you'll repay a debt, so they simply don't lend to you.

Credit ratings have their place for weeding out people that are bad with money and buy things they can't afford.

You've hit the nail on the head. You attempted to borrow $5k to purchase a car. That raises flags in and of itself. Needing to borrow the trivial sum of $5k to afford a car puts you on the verge of not being able to afford to maintain, repair, insure or operate said vehicle. This puts your loan into a high-risk category. You will probably require a higher credit score to purchase this loan than someone buying a $30k car. The $30k car is likely to be in better condition, will have a resale value, and loan is less likely to be abandoned. Your previous did not affect your credit score much as it was a trivial sum. A credit score is simply a guideline. A bank may decide to extend you credit based upon other merits, such as your banking history with them. The company that gave you your original loan may be willing to do that again. A different bank may see that you are a high-risk, and elect not to.

Your credit rating has very little to do with the way you manage your finances.

It has everything to do with this. Even if part of your management is managing to have no income.

Re:Oh, the Abuses We'll See!

[ehiris]

This is very true.

One example I can think of is how the Nixon administration made drugs illegal because they needed to hang something onto the anti-Nixon demonstrators who weren't doing anything illegal but who were an inconvenience.

Even though the revolution against Nixon was won through the freedom of press, it wasn't seen as a revolution and as such we got left with the fallout regulations.

I wonder what fallout we will be left with after Bush. Will it be regulation against our privacy? Not even Nixon managed to pull that one through.

At least a tech sector storage boom?

[BrynM]

Man, the NSA must have servers the size of Steven Colbert's galvanized balls. This and the Google search request they made represent massive data sets.

The agency's goal is "to create a database of every call ever made" within the nation's borders

Are they really going through old records as well? "Ever made" is a pretty big term, but I'm betting there are lots of old call records on legacy systems and paper out there. Do they have agreements with the companies in question to provide aggregate data for marketing purposes? I also wonder what points they're getting the data from. There's a lot of people and companies spoofing ANI with Asterisk or similar boxes these days. This is a government database though... how clean can that data be? That cleanliness, of course, makes the situation better and worse at the same time. If someone reading has more operational knowledge of telcos and how the call records themselves are transmitted, please post clarifications.

So many questions, but me no longer wonders how those biggie telco mergers got past regulators anymore...

Six Degrees of Separation Test

[coinreturn]

I'm sure they're just testing the Six Degrees of Separation hypothesis.

Seriously, though, how long until they use this information for the "War on Drugs?" Hunting down anyone who ever spoke on the phone with a drug dealer? Oh, wait... someone's pounding on my door right now.

Can you hear me now?

[Noryungi]

Actually Bin Laden came that close to being snuffed by the NSA, since they have tapes of him talking to his mother by sat-phone, while he was in Afghanistan and she was in Saudi Arabia. This is why Clinton bombed Afghanistan and Sudan using long-range cruise missiles. They missed him, too, by a few minutes, unfortunately.

Of course, last I heard, he only used trusted human couriers to deliver messages. He may be a madman, but he is a smart madman. And most of these couriers were not American, but Pakistani and Saudi citizens, and they try to be as discreet -- and "un-islamist" as possible. So the NSA domestic spying program is definitely not useful against terrorists. But remember, kids, if we can't listen to your phone, the terrorists have won!

Now I have to change my answering machine message

[smooth wombat]

Currently it's a simple message saying I'm not available and to leave a message. Now I'll have to add:

Be aware that the National Security Agency may be recording this call and anything you say may be used against you. I have no control over this situation as my phone provider is turning over this information on all its customers to the NSA.

Can't wait to hear the questions about this when people start calling.

Do you need a bigger signal?!

[BlackMesaLabs]

Do you Americans need a more obvious signal?? How fucking stupid are you!? You sit on your ass doing nothing while you lose every freedom you have- you wont ever notice they're all gone! not even when you're in some slave labour camp!! you all believe what they tell you! No wonder the rest of the world sees Americans as ignorant.
Now is the time to use that 2nd ammendment you are so proud of!
Or would you prefer to wait until you're all handcuffed to each other on a chain-gang?

Re:Do you need a bigger signal?!

[PaulBeelee]

I recognize you are all worked up about this, but lets consider for a moment.. Who are we supposed to shoot? What are we supposed to blow up? America is way beyond being fixed by a simple revolution. Fixing the mess we are in is complex, not easy. This is an incredibly diverse country, which is sometimes a strenght, and sometimes causes problems, that makes it much harder than you might think to effect real change. The public is so divided on so many different issues, a revolution is more likely to produce a worse mess as it is to produce a better situation. And please, non-Americans, give me a break, Europe is still less free than the US. Yes we have problems, and yes we need to fix them. Yes, this NSA stuff looks bad, perhaps going back to a "gridlocked" government, where one branch is one party and the other branch is a different party would help a lot. We'll have to see what happens in the next elections.

what about cell phones

[tehwebguy]

does this include t-mobile and cellular-only companies?

Re:UK

[StrawberryFrog]

You're serious?

But we've got CCTV cameras everwhere, cameras that read license plates, and Id cards coming soon.

Re:Terrorist threat is minimal

[thelexx]

I'd be pretty amazed if it was anywhere near 4000 again. And even if it was then that is the PRICE OF FREEDOM goddamnit. And yes I would feel exactly the same way if my entire family was in that 4000.

Make them hurt--slashdot them!

[Knytefall]

I think it's time to Slashdot these companies.

If you have Verizon, MCI, AT&T, SBC, or BellSouth for local phone service or long distance, DIAL 0 and complain to the operator.

If you have Cingular, AT&T, or Verizon for cell phone service, DIAL 611 and get a customer service rep on the line to complain to. REMIND THEM THEY ARE IN VIOLATION OF THEIR AGREEMENT WITH YOU, AND THAT YOU CAN SWITCH TO ANOTHER PROVIDER WITHOUT PENALTY.

More info here: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/5/11/91046/7966

Re:Mandate to fight terror

[Bobzibub]

The desire of the vast majority of Americans to root out terror in the US has given the government the mandate to use communication records.

I'm sorry but that simply is not the case. Most of the laws sent by congress are written by lobbyists now. What is *your* lobbyist doing about it? Don't have one? Thought not. That is why they spy on you.

Sophisticated terrorists already know they are being spied on and avoid electronic communication. For example, Bin laden uses human couriers for this very reason. My phone company simply betrayed me for money. The US government does it because in it's opinion, it is above the law, and it fears disruption of the current cozy system.

I think they are scared of political movements, rather than terrorists. For instance, people of Mexican origin and / or nationality are organizing now. Where will that lead? There is more income inequality now than decades past. Will that ignite some sort of movement to re-adjust the balance of power between companies and workers?

That is what scares the government. It could bring an end to Facism. (No, I'm not saying they're Nazis. But they are authoritarian, rule with a bunch of companies, and suppress dissent.)

Cheers,
-b

Re:People refuse to see the big picture

[TobascoKid]

There are a lot of cops out there who can't shoot worth a damn and police departments are legendary for resistance to change. Do you trust them with your daily safety? I don't.

What I don't understand about this is argument is that if the police really are so bad that you (and a large amount of the population) don't trust them with your daily safety, why have them at all? If the police are so incompetent/corrupt that you don't feel safe without access to guns, why pay thier wages? These arguments give the impression that the police are not worth the money spent on them. But I rarely see people campaigning for fewer cops.

Re:The NSA should take aim at Qwest.

[plantman-the-womb-st]

But then you m0r0ns re-elected Dubya...you get no sympathy...

If us morons can ever get the election records from Diebold (fat chance) we can prove the election was rigged.

Re:serious question

[thelost]

you do realize they meant the arms of a bear, you know the eight foot boo boo that ate your picnic lunch.

I'll be here all night folks!

seriously i've never understood how you US folks have become so proud of having the right to keep a weapon in your house so that you could potentially kill someone else, yourself and your kitchen sink too. I can see that Americans are fiercely proud of their righ to bear arms, but look at it like this, this is part of a constitution - correct me if I'm wrong, i'm not american so I could be talking hot air - written a long time ago which it seems is quite innefective now. Isn't another part of that constitution tp protect your right to not be wiretapped without a warrant? Patently the constitution is failing. Or you are failing to live up to the constitution. Either way America's long lasting obsessive love relationship with guns (which murder tens of thousands of americans every year) seems misplaced on a piece of paper that isn't even valued these days.

Are you willing to ignore the massive issues of privacy that are being abused not just by your government but by you, the populace who your government works for just for the right to bear a weapon you could potentially murder your neighbour with.

there is no sense in it.

I'm gonna write me a letter!

[simrook]

This NSA story always gets me going in the morning...

Dear Qwest;

I recently signed up for your local phone service. I haven't been using it very much, and was considering dropping it. But because I read today that you're standing up for my rights (even at the cost of government jobs), I've suddenly decided, without hesitation, to keep the phone service.

In addition, my business will soon be doing complete overhaul of their phone system, as well as their internet setup. I have a bid from the local qwest office on the project. I think I'll go with them.

Thanks!

---

Dear 2600/EFF/ACLU;

Wouldn't it an interesting to have one of your guys go overseas, to say, France (republicans still hate the French) and call the US a bunch. Don't say anything weird. Just make a bunch of calls at odd times (completely random), for very short to very long lengths (again, random). And then start to make a bunch of calls every 15 minutes, exactly 15 minutes apart. Then call New York or DC or something like that (from France). Then call the same number from your US number. Just be sure to do something that would get flagged by George's precious little algorithm.

Then?

Watch the NSA/CIA/FBI/DEA show up at your door.

Proceed to Supreme Court doorstep and hold a vigil until this gets ruled unconstitutional, which shouldn't take very long (only 4 to 10 years).

Thank you!

---

Dear Verizon;

Why do I pay you $50 a month to tell George Bush that I'm talking to my parents every Sunday night? Or that I order pizza at 1:00 am often enough? Because Bush now knows that I've called planned parenthood, does that mean my federal student loans are in jeopardy, just like all those people in Africa who can't even talk about condoms?

Fuck you.

Re:People refuse to see the big picture

[I'm Spartacus!]

You think the Pledge now is chilling. Just take a look at the way it used to be recited:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bellamy_salute

Try to imagine a whole room full of children giving a Nazi-style salute to the flag. Now that's chiling.

Re:serious question

[Smuffe]

Actually, I'm not sure you are serious or joking, but I'll (probably wrongly) assume you actually mean what you are writing.

How on earth can you compare having a kitchen knife at home with having a gun? For example, the knife has a small problem accidentally going off and killing a neighbour through a wall or window.

If you don't put any difference between a gun and a knife, then where is the difference between a gun and an assault rifle, or a gun and a claymore mine, or a gun and a bunker buster? Last time I checked, you're not allowed to keep either assault rifles or bunker busters at home, even in Texas. Not sure about the claymores though.

Ah well, rant over. Back to work.

Re:serious question

[liliafan]

If everybody were armed, society would be a lot more polite.

Wrong is everybody were armed society would be a lot smaller.

Re:serious question

[TobascoKid]

Having a gun in my hand is an excellent deterrant
to those who might want to take advantage of me or my property

Are there a lot of people out there looking to take advantage of you or your property? All the pro gun arguments here make it sound like the US is a third world nation, where somebody's going to rob you as soon as they get the chance (let alone the whole "corrupt and tyrannical" government thing).

okay. stupid question.

[porkchop_d_clown]

Other than "anonymous sources" who apparently feel it's very important to tell us about this - but not important enough to risk their jobs - is there any evidence that this story is true?

I mean - I'm not saying it *isn't* true, but we're basing a lot of outrage on something that's no more soundly based than any random internet posting.

Misinformed

[Tony]

Also, we receive only one side of the story: the one the US government sees fit for us to see. They conveniently forget to mention it was the CIA who trained him and his original followers to fight the Soviet Union in Afghanistan during the Reagan years. They also don't bother mentioning that we've spent an order of magnitude more money in Iraq than we have trying to find bin Laden.

Which one had something to do with 9/11 again?

The Rove Database

[HangingChad]

The problem might be that some other drunk asshole member of the US congress might overstep his bounds (which we see examples of on the news weekly) and use this information with no sense of proportion to forward an adgenda in the guise of an investigation.

Or some lacky with the morals of a political prostitute might decide to keep tabs on who their political opponents are calling on a regular basis. Or detail the grassroots network in a particular area and send their buddies in the FBI out to intimidate them.

I am sick and fucking tired of our government spending billions to spy on Americans instead of sending some steely-eyed mofo's out to whack terrorists in their own back yard. The Republicans are the most foul, corrupt, incompetent bunch that this country has ever seen in power. I'm disgusted.

Re:The Rove Database

[Cecil]

The problem is, the Democrats are equally foul, corrupt, and incompetent. So who am I supposed to vote for?

And Ross Perot throws his hat on the ground in frustration.

Seriously though. "Throwing your vote away" to the marginalized, independent candidates whenever you can is the only long-term solution. Voting cannot be simply about "this election, this candidate", sometimes you have to think long-term, no matter how dire the current situation may seem.

Translation:

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem with granting government excessive power over citizens in order to catch criminals is that criminals can get jobs in government.

Re:Bigger signal? No, I'm getting the hell out

[dangerz]

..and what happens when this reaches you in your future country? Running away does not solve the problem so much as it delays it.

Change will come.. this I am sure of. There are people in this country that do still believe in the constitution. They simply need to be awakened.

Heed these words, my friend.

"But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security."

Re:There was, you stupid fuck.

[rossifer]

You must have meant Mike Badnarik because that poodle Kerry would have us all reading from the Quran by now.

The fact that you think Kerry would have been worse than the nightmare we've got now speaks volumes. Nice try at showing your "libertarian" side, though.

Liberals like to label themselves progressives which would be correct, progressively stupid and a progressive loss of common sense. They're more like brain dead zombies with a sense of entitlement instead of hard working folk. They want money form people who earn it to pass it on to health care for self abusers and aids patients for a totally preventable condition.

If you can manage to get one more strawman into your paragraph, you'll be in the running for the "sheeple of the week" award. I'm a libertarian and a registered Republican, but right-wingers like you and others who won't or can't think for themselves, have let this country be turned into a police state.

Wasn't being a Republican all about less government? So where's the less government already? Massively expanded police powers? Check. Continued full frontal assault on civil liberties? Check. Dissent == helping the terrorists? Check.

Your guy has done enough damage. If you've travelled anywhere around the world, you know that "Land of the free" is already a bad joke. Unless this country gets some serious repair, and quick, you won't be allowed to leave when you finally realize how much you've lost. "Papers please!"

Ross

Who Dunnit

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you like this news so far? Here's the best bit, which I heard on NPR this morning:

The man who was in charge of this operation at the NSA is THE SAME GUY that Bush appointed to be the head of the CIA.

Re:People refuse to see the big picture

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the original author is referring to the fact that corporations have all the rights of citizens, without any of the associated responsibilities. You can't send a corporation to jail, and individuals are often sheltered from the consequences of corporate behavior, even when they are responsible for that corporate behavior.

Re:Oh but they can predict disastrous events

[shutdown -p now]

Regarding democracy being flawed, you miss the fact that the USA is not the only country in the world which claims to be democratic; and furthermore, many of those democratic countries actually manage to be true to that declaration. So it's not a problem with democracy as such, it's a problem with either the implementation of democracy in your country, or the apathy of the population. Or, as you have said, it is indeed what the people want - but I don't see how it is flaw of democracy in this case.

If it makes you feel any better...

[Malakusen]

...you're not the only one. Take a look: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12729893/

My political principles, if this were the 90s, would be a mix of Democrat and Republican and I would feel fairly comfortable labelling myself a liberterian and not sweating it. However, the things I liked about the Republicans, like fiscal responsibility, a strong military, and fierce protection of privacy, have all been thrown to the winds. Believe me, funneling billions of dollars into fat cat contractors and wearing down our servicemembers in conflict after conflict does not make a strong military. Eisenhower warned against the military-industrial complex, saying "In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist."

Eisenhower said a lot of smart stuff, check it out: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/d/dwight _d_eisenhower.html/
"Whatever America hopes to bring to pass in the world must first come to pass in the heart of America."
"When people speak to you about a preventive war, you tell them to go and fight it. After my experience, I have come to hate war."
"Together we must learn how to compose differences, not with arms, but with intellect and decent purpose."
"The problem in defense is how far you can go without destroying from within what you are trying to defend from without."
"Only Americans can hurt America."
And a personal favorite,
"Here in America we are descended in blood and in spirit from revolutionists and rebels - men and women who dare to dissent from accepted doctrine. As their heirs, may we never confuse honest dissent with disloyal subversion."

Wish I'd been around for him.

More reasons we are back-assward...

[danceswithtrees]

• Spy on own citizens (unwarranted wiretapping)
• Imprison citizens w/o charges for 3 years!, change charges and transfer custody to civilian justice system (Jose Padilla)
• Don't let gays marry (more repressive than South Africa for crying out loud!)
  
• Secret eastern European prison/torture camps
• Bush leaks secrets, lets journalist rot in jail, lets Scooter twist in the wind, and only when found out, says that he can "declassify secrets" whenever he wants
• 2nd highest perinatal mortality in the developed world.

Re:Stop watching television

[dave562]

Unfortunately the large majority of the population does not use the web for their news. Of those that do, I'd assume that at least 50% of them turn to a main stream web portal such as Yahoo or MSN that simply presents the same content that they'd find if they were to turn off MTV and turn on their local news.

Re:serious question

[dave562]

"When are you going to do this?"

When the government comes to take them away.

How are you going to know that the government is going to come take them away? Are you going to turn on the news and find out? How about when they come knocking on your door? The government disarms people all the time... that's what the SWAT team is for.

The same government that was formed by a violent revolution will not be overthrown by a violent revolution. The only thing that allowing American's access to firearms is doing is ensuring that if this country were ever to be invaded by a foreign force, it would theoretically make the urban warfare in Iraq look tame by comparison.

However when this system falls, it will be because of outside pressures that force the country to turn on itself.

Re:The NSA should take aim at Qwest.

[Kadin2048]

Don't you think it's important for your government to conform to the constitution in all of its dealings, even in international lands?

No. The Constitution governs a relationship between the U.S. Government and the Citizens of the United States of America. The relationship of this Government to citizens of other places is governed by the treaties lawfully made (i.e. made according to the Constitution) by the Government, with the foreign government.

You have a belief system in your constitution that only applies to domestic issues?

Yes. I have beliefs about how a country should be run -- my country, the one that I live in. How other countries are governed is their own citizens' business. I don't think we should be telling other people how to govern themselves, which is basically the result of the attitude I think you are suggesting -- namely that the Constitution should apply extraterritorially everywhere.

I mean, what do you really stand for otherwise?

I think this quote sums it up rather nicely:

We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

It says exactly nothing about "making the world a better place," or "ensuring the rights of all people everywhere are respected."

However, if you can come up with a good argument for why such measures or goals would make life here in America nicer, or be otherwise beneficial to U.S. Citizens, I'd probably support them. (E.g., by fostering democracy and human rights worldwide, you make the world a more stable place, reduce terrorism, increase trade, etc., thus we do it.) But the U.S. Government has no mandate over or responsibility to non-citizens. It never has, it wasn't intended to, and it never should.

This whole wiretapping issue..

[Anonymous Coward]

Why am I not surprised. It's been known for years that people who buy pre-pay cell phones from some unknown vendor can be tracked as easily as old Grandma who has had same phone number for 30 years.

All they needed to complete their little "Big Brother" system was a database, and one what would allow them to "Back track" from some future incident, in the case the feds may stumble upon a ditched cell phone, or it's number may have been known by one of their friends who's been tracked.

It's certainly reasonable to assume this vast database does not contain the content of your conversation, but at a later time they can still get it, but up until recently, finding this data has been very problematic. Now, no longer a problem.

This way, they can abide by the law, obtain their warrent to learn contents of the conversation, because it has already been recorded somewhere far far away, but not accessable until you know the exact time and call details of the call. Now, they can find it. Take their time in finding OBL (Assuming of course he is stupid enough to even use a phone), or whoever.

So, in a sense, your privacy is SORT OFF protected, and if you don't show up on their radar, then you don't have anything to worry about. We just don't know the frequency of their radar, thats all.

It would be really cool of someone would figure out what their "Frequency" is. IE: By what creteria would one wind up showing on their radar.

Always pays to be careful folks.