NSA Chose Invasive Phone Analysis Option

Encrypted Anonymous Coward writes "The Baltimore Sun reveals the existence of an interesting experimental NSA program codenamed ThinThread from the late 90`s. The program involved link analysis of traffic data, with a twist; The phone numbers from the U.S. would only be analyzed in an encrypted form. This way the analysis would potentially be possible under existing privacy laws, according to the people behind the program. The NSA could gather further unencrypted details if there was evidence of a threat. Political infighting seems to have dropped an interesting and respectful program from the books."

Comments

We as Americans need to ask hard questions.

[GundamFan]

We are at a crossroads, and we need to take a step back from the emotion of September eleventh (nearly 5 years later) and really look at what we want to see in the future.

I won't stand on a soapbox here and force my opinion on others but I think it is time for a very serious debate over what is acceptable to give up in the name of security, what secrets we will let our government keep from us and what checks and balances need to be in place.

I think we are in trouble of letting "terrorism" be the ultimate excuse for any unpopular move by the government and it sadens me to see that the events of 2001 have changed us so much.

P.S.
The latest Justifications I have heard for the NSA wire taping are indicative of the problem... saying "we havent had a terrorist atack because of this program" is like saying "the wolly mammoth repelant is working" unless you can show proof that attacks have been thwarted .