Myths and falsehoods on the NSA domestic call-tracking program

[struggle4progress]

... #1: The NSA has access only to Americans' phone numbers and call records -- not names, addresses or other identifying information ...

But .. phone customers' names, addresses, and "other personal information" can "easily" be obtained by cross-referencing their phone numbers with other databases ...

#2: The NSA is only tracking phone calls, not listening to them ...

Indeed, a May 12 Washington Post article reported .. "Government access to call records is related to the .. eavesdropping program .. because it helps the NSA choose its targets ..." Despite this .., the Post and ABC News conducted a poll .. that asserted that the NSA is not "listening to or recording the conversations" ...

http://mediamatters.org/items/200605120018

[smomfr]

1. I believe this will get a lot.......

of peoples attention because they´ve seen it so many times on TV and at the movies. Example...detective goes to phone company for records pertaining to a case, phone company says no f**kin´ way without a warrant.

[peacetalksforall]

2. Consider this - Echelon was born after the end of the Cold War.

Echelon means that contributing partners arranged to spy on each other for each other. It was also used to track weapons manufacturing, sales, and movements and for corporate and business intelligence.

What we were told that was fascinating was that we spied on each others citizens for each other TO GET AROUND LAWS - each countries laws. We spied on UK citizens and gave counterparts the data. That's normal sharing. Doing it to your own people was not supposed to be allowed so . It seems we have some kind of precedent of law.

Please work through reasons that they would go further -

Hasn't it always been said that all satellite calls can be listened to? So we're talking cable with this latest release?

Does anyone really think that this monster processor and database is only being used to find patterns in calling by phone numbers only?

If you have thousands and thousands of reports of stolen data from a variety of databases, would you pass up the thought that some of that data might have been purchased by the PNAC crowd (or even stolen by them). They reimbursed the three phone companies for the data - why not buy and add the stolen data? All this could have all been paid for with the missing $440 billion dollars from the DOD.

Consider their purpose. It's money and control. It is making us a third world economy. It is to narrow the population by methods that we are probably just beginning to figure out. Denial of rights. Denial of disasters. A push to tell us that we must take care of ourselves and each other because they are eliminating 'government' as we have known it to a government by rule that keeps us in submission. How better to control it all than to know who, what, where, when, how much, and how long of everything we do.

Some of the data can sit there while the system hums along until needed - the very concept of databases - data in waiting - nicely accessible until needed for correlations, analysis, studies, and lists.

Does anyone think that they closed down the Poindexter program?

Does anyone now believe the stories we've been hearing about our inept abilities to put together automation programs.

Do you even think that there were no inter-department ability for computers to talk to each other as they have claimed.

They had to have substantiation to change our government to a hierarchal intelligence system that leaves everything in the hands of a PNAC person (now Negroponte).

We know the military rules presently. We know that they think that more than half of us are not patriotic. They despise most minorities and those who are dependents.

Why not get all of us sorted out.

Why not verify Tim Johnson of Dubuque IL is not the Tim Johnson of Dubuque IA - one a desi arable, the other not. And we may even be talking 'desirable' in the question of becoming a soldier against us - in prison or otherwise.

We know how vile they have plotted and the extent of evil that they plan.

We know how separate they were to get in the White House. We know the speed that all of their plans are being put in place - pushing for the 'conquest' of Iran, etc.

Why think less of their planning schemes with this telephone project?

Raise your hand if you think that they are only watching call flow and nothing more.

Their partners are the corporations and the media.

Raise your hand if you think that corporate propaganda tv and the papers are going to be honest with us.

[struggle4progress]

3. Ya ain't gotta convince me. Just gotta hone it down to one-line zingers ..

.. that'll work in ordinary conversation ..

[ManiacJoe]

4. You seem to be confusing multiple programs.

Echelon, assuming it is still active, is actively monitoring all data into and out of the USA via the handful of oversees transfer points of the Internet.

This is completely separate from the database of phone calls being/already compiled. This is just a monster list of { from number, to number, date, time, duration }. You are correct in that cross-database checks can be setup to match the phone numbers with names and addresses. This is neither very easy nor very hard to do. Now that this program has hit the news, it will be interesting to see how often the participating phone companies update the government with the new calls.