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U.S. Gov't Spent $30M On Citizens' Personal Info
infosec_spaz writes "According to a news story on Yahoo! News, the U.S. Government has spent US$30 million in the last year on buying citizens' personal phone records from online brokers...The very ones who Congress is trying to put out of business." From the Article:"Congressional investigators estimated the U.S. government spent $30 million last year buying personal data from private brokers. But that number likely understates the breadth of transactions, since brokers said they rarely charge law enforcement agencies any price." "So...who is getting all of BellSouth, SBC(AT&T) and other phone records?"
This all comes down to what you are scared of and who you trust.
Scared of: unfettered Government, people with criminal intent, and the day there's a knock on my door and they tell me that because one of my genes is linked to future terorist behavior, I'm being preventatively detained.
Who I trust: Myself, my wife, the most immediate members of my family, my best friend and his family and nobody else I don't know inside and out.
Most people cannot handle freedom and they want someone else to tell then what they can and cannot do. We need to fix the people more than we need to fix the government.
I agree. I'm suggesting we "fix" anybody with an IQ lower than 100. Letting them breed is a bad idea.
People are people; many have more than a few brain cells to rub together, they just haven't been trained to use them. That is indeed the fault of the educational system, which is run by the states (bad idea) and has no cohesion or standardization. We're spending so much time on helping children develop their feelings, that while they are very in touch with themselves, they haven't got the common sense of a kangaroo rat. They do stupid things like believe the guy on the other end of the IM "wants to be their friend"; then they grow up and believe "the government is only doing its job."
THe solution is simple: Americans need to take back their government, put people in positions of authority with some common sense and foresight, and teach kids to read, write, do math and take responsibility for themselves and their actions.
GetOuttaMySpace - The Anti-Social Network
http://www.gregpalast.com/massacre-of-the-buffalo- soldiers#more-1418
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"African-American Soldiers Scrubbed by Secret GOP Hit List"
"A confidential campaign directed by GOP party chiefs in October 2004 sought to challenge the ballots of tens of thousands of voters in the last presidential election, virtually all of them cast by residents of Black-majority precincts."
"Here's how the scheme worked: The RNC mailed these voters letters in envelopes marked, "Do not forward", to be returned to the sender. These letters were mailed to servicemen and women, some stationed overseas, to their US home addresses. The letters then returned to the Bush-Cheney campaign as "undeliverable."
"The lists of soldiers of "undeliverable" letters were transmitted from state headquarters, in this case Florida, to the RNC in Washington. The party could then challenge the voters' registration and thereby prevent their absentee ballots being counted."
"The BBC obtained several dozen confidential emails sent by the Republican's national Research Director and Deputy Communications chief, Tim Griffin to GOP Florida campaign chairman Brett Doster and other party leaders. Attached were spreadsheets marked, "Caging.xls." Each of these contained several hundred to a few thousand voters and their addresses.
"A check of the demographics of the addresses on the "caging lists," as the GOP leaders called them indicated that most were in African-American majority zip codes."
http://gregpalast.com/detail.cfm?artid=502&row=0
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THE SPIES WHO SHAG US
by Greg Palast
I know you're shocked -- SHOCKED! -- that George Bush is listening in on all your phone calls. Without a warrant. That's nothing. And it's not news.
This is: the snooping into your phone bill is just the snout of the pig of a strange, lucrative link-up between the Administration's Homeland Security spy network and private companies operating beyond the reach of the laws meant to protect us from our government. You can call it the privatization of the FBI -- though it is better described as the creation of a private KGB.
The leader in the field of what is called "data mining," is a company called, "ChoicePoint, Inc," which has sucked up over a billion dollars in national security contracts.
Worried about Dick Cheney listening in Sunday on your call to Mom? That ain't nothing. You should be more concerned that they are linking this info to your medical records, your bill purchases and your entire personal profile including, not incidentally, your voting registration. Five years ago, I discovered that ChoicePoint had already gathered 16 billion data files on Americans -- and I know they've expanded their ops at an explosive rate.
They are paid to keep an eye on you -- because the FBI can't. For the government to collect this stuff is against the law unless you're suspected of a crime. (The law in question is the Constitution.) But ChoicePoint can collect it for "commercial" purchases -- and under the Bush Administration's suspect reading of the Patriot Act -- our domestic spying apparatchiks can then BUY the info from ChoicePoint.
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It's worth reading, that and Choicepoint's responses. Palast (American with a BBC broadcast) has an entire chapter on the subject called "Double Cheese with Fear" in his book on the subject, "Armed Madhouse".
Hey, the American government does too! Don't you worry... I once put an unlikely typo into my IRS tax return and in DAYS I was getting junk mail with the very same typo.
It's amazing that in a consumer driven society the people with the most influence rarely effect a change as often as they bitch about it. It's not difficult to understand why this happens though. Even I would rather go snowboarding then march to washington and line Pennsylvania Avenue with fancy signs and flaming bags of poo.
I do vote though and write my congressmen about important issues -- which should be enough to effect a change IF more people would do the same.
Life is very much about competition, and crafty companies and governments hoard information and dish out only what they want you to hear. But then again, I bet you do the same thing on a personal level too. Only someone without self-preservation would share the same information with his or her boss AND coworkers AND spouse AND surley DMV worker, et al. Of course, companies and governments can do this on a larger scale and with a greater effect than you can, but it is the same thing and can be just as damaging. Granted there IS a difference between Ford's Pinto fiasco and not telling Jane Rottencrotch that you just gave her herpes, but just look through your local newspaper if you want real-world examples. But I digress...
In a society where people don't need to make any sacrifices -- EVEN DURING A WAR -- it's not surprising that the US public has slowly let companies collect more and more information. Whether you look at marketing companies, software EULAs, the actions of the RIAA or phone companies, or even the US Government, the story is basically the same: take without asking and check if anybody notices. Repeat.
Nobody wants to give a few minutes out of their schedules to pay attention or care about any sort of accountability. Data brokers have been operating legally for quite some time now, but I doubt public opinion of them has changed. They were bad news when they started and they're still bad news today. Perhaps more people know about them today, but does that mean more people will do something about them? It's OK as long as it's not in my backyard.
Instead of being shocked and annoyed that the US Government would utilize information from legal data mining companies, realize that: your fellow citizens do it to each other every day, and that you do have the power to do something about it.
It's almost noon. I need to finish my beer and get back to Langley.