What Can You Find Out From Metadata?

cervesaebraciator writes "In the wake of recent revelations from Edward Snowden, apologists for the state security apparatus are predictably hitting the airwaves. Some are even 'glad' the NSA has been doing this. A major point they emphasize is that the content of calls have remained private and it is only the metadata that they're interested in. But given how much one can tell from interpersonal connections, does the surveillance only represent a 'modest encroachments on privacy?' It is easy enough to imagine how metadata on phone calls made to and from a medical specialist could be more revealing than we'd like. But social network analysis can reveal far more. Duke sociologist Kieran Healy, in a light-hearted but telling article, shows how one father of the American Revolution could have been identified using the simplest tools of social network analysis and only a limited dataset."

Comments

Why bother?

[MrEricSir]

Obama must be impeached. The Congressmen and Senators who support his actions must be impeached. The courts who OK this must be removed. Washington D.C. must be burned to the ground and rebuilt if there are none there who will honor their oaths to defend and uphold the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic.

We could do all that, but we'd be right back where we started. The fundamental problem is the American people, who have time and time again said that they simply don't care. The government listening to our calls? We don't care. Reading our emails? We don't care. Hiding disturbing truths about our perpetual wars? We couldn't care less.

Blame government officials all you want, but remember this: as a democracy we get the government we deserve.

So "guilt by asociation" instead of plain guilt?

[erroneus]

Oh yes, that makes me feel MUCH better. It concerns me that in the event I ever dialed a wrong number that I could end up on a terrorist watch list somewhere.

Re:I'll know it is modest when

[Anonymous Coward]

maybe, you don't consider it so bad to have a government computer find out who my friends
are, what I bought, and where I traveled.

whats happening already though is your aggregate information is being used to profile you based
on whether or not you cluster with normal acceptable people. what happens if you get labelled
an outlier by some heuristics the govenment used..well, of course you get increased surveillance.

ok. but what happens when that profile, much like a credit check is already being used today,
restricts your ability to fly on an airplane, or get a government or other job. or travel outside
the country. what happens if you get stopped by the police for a headlight being out, and because you have a yellow star
in your file they decide to detain you for enhanced questioning techniques.

you're just a tiny hair away from having the government make a value judgement totally opaque to you about
your entire life, without you having broken any laws. deciding whether you are probably a good guy or
possibly a bad guy.

you still think thats ok

Re:Bend over and submit citizen

[ArcherB]

I think you just answered that - because it's the place I live... my family, my friends, my home, my job, etc are all here in the USA so why would I want to pack up and leave? And if I really feel that what I'm advocating is an improvement, why wouldn't I want to share it with everyone?

Because we don't want your "improvement" and we don't have the option of moving as there is no place else in the world that has the economic opportunity and freedom that the US has.

Hmm...isn't that what people said about racial segregation? We don't want "those" people on "our" bus or drinking from "our" fountains? Or about gay rights "If we let the gays marry, then everyone will want to marry their dogs and once heterosexual people see homosexual people in committed marriages, it will tear heterosexual marriages apart!".

I didn't even say what "improvement" I wanted, so how can you say that you don't want it? Don't you value my freedom of speech? You're trying to shut down my opinion before I even voiced it.

I'm not talking about civil rights. I'm a conservative libertarian. I'm talking about economic and personal freedom. Some of us just want to be left the hell alone while others demand that someone oversee what I do in my personal and financial life. It is how things used to be and the system worked quite well. For example, there are more people in poverty today than there was when Johnson declared a "War on Poverty". There are more people smoking marijuana today than there was before marijuana was made to be illegal. More people have a cocaine problem today than when cocaine was legal and could be purchased in a bottle of Coca Cola. the federal deficit was smaller before there was an income tax. The list goes on and on.

There are those of us who see that when government makes up a problem and declares war on it, that problem always gets worse. You would think that people would realize this and just stop it, but that hasn't happened. It has actually gotten worse. It seems that the more government fails, the more people demand that the government needs to grow to fix those problems. It's an endless cycle and the only end I see is absolute failure before we are allowed to restore what works.