Slashdot Mirror
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."
Unequal application of government power and laws is directly akin to removal or destruction of a person or organization's citizenship and rights. It is directly equivalent to the acts of a Slaver.
Slavery, or the forced removal/infringement of a person's civil rights for the pleasure or profit of another is considered to be an act of Hostis Humani Generis, or in other words, an Enemy Of All Mankind.
Everyone involved in this atrocity should be hanged after trial.
I'll know it is modest if the general public can get a dump of the meta data for every elected office holder as well as their staff members, and all judges. If they have nothing to hide then this shouldn't be a problem. If not then the NSA can fuck off.
Time to offend someone
I voted for Obama twice.
Anyone who serves as apologist for the NSA, the Whitehouse, and Congress on this proves himself an enemy of the Constitution and the American people. There is no justification for this. There is no gentle dismantling of the Constitution. It stands above this or any government in Washington, D.C. Anyone in Washington D.C. who assaults it like this means the destruction of our Republic and the subjugation of its people.
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.
Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
Why is it suddenly a big deal now?
NSA has massive database of Americans' phone calls
Updated 5/11/2006 10:38 AM ET
By Leslie Cauley, USA TODAY
"The National Security Agency has been secretly collecting the phone call records of tens of millions of Americans, using data provided by AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth, people with direct knowledge of the arrangement told USA TODAY.
The NSA program reaches into homes and businesses across the nation by amassing information about the calls of ordinary Americans â" most of whom aren't suspected of any crime. This program does not involve the NSA listening to or recording conversations. But the spy agency is using the data to analyze calling patterns in an effort to detect terrorist activity, sources said in separate interviews."
http://yahoo.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-05-10-nsa_x.htm
Its as if someone from the government physically followed you wherever you went and wrote down the places where you made a cell phone call and how long you talked on the phone. The also record when and where you send a text message. Almost everyone would find this unbelievably creepy.
Of course, no human actually does this for regular citizens, and no human looks at it — unless you are being investigated, which the government don't need probable cause to do (according to their interpretation of Section 215 of the PATRIOT act.) Then it really is as if someone had followed you and recorded all of this information.
Where is the outrage over this? It's amazing, Clinton gets a blow job from an intern and he gets impeached by the House! But yet this happens and... nothing. Oh, sure, the media is -talking- about it, people are -talking- about it, but where are the protests? Where is the action? Revolutions have been fought over less than this!
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
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.
There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
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.
"They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.”
"Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote!"
-Benjamin Franklin
"... God forbid we should ever be twenty years without such a rebellion. The people cannot be all, and always, well informed. The part which is wrong will be discontented, in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive.
"Laws that forbid the carrying of arms... disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes... Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man."
"No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms."
-Thomas Jefferson
"The jaws of power are always open to devour, and her arm is always stretched out, if possible, to destroy the freedom of thinking, speaking, and writing."
John Adams
"The Constitution is not an instrument for the government to restrain the people, it is an instrument for the people to restrain the government."
-Patrick Henry
"Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is argument of tyrants. It is the creed of slaves."
-William Pitt
"If ever time should come, when vain and aspiring men shall possess the highest seats in Government, our country will stand in need of its experienced patriots to prevent its ruin."
Samuel Adams
"The liberties of a people never were, nor ever will be, secure, when the transactions of their rulers may be concealed from them."
Patrick Henry
"I say we take off, nuke the site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure."