NSA building massive database of US domestic phone records

[DinoDoc]

Why is OK if I can get such info easily but suddenly frightening if the government gets it?

Your phone records are for sale

[Imran Siddiqui]

Originally posted by DinoDoc
Why is OK if I can get such info easily but suddenly frightening if the government gets it?

Your phone records are for sale

You are asking the wrong question. It isn't OK that you can get that info easily and it should be closed off to private actors as well.

[Ted Striker]

Originally posted by DinoDoc
Why is OK if I can get such info easily but suddenly frightening if the government gets it?

Your phone records are for sale

Who's saying it's okay for either?

[MRT144]

my favorite part of the administration is how it blocks investigations into itself and blocks congress from investigating

[Ted Striker]

Originally posted by MRT144
my favorite part of the administration is how it blocks investigations into itself and blocks congress from investigating

QFT

[chequita guevara]

Let me clear my thoat here for a second . . . ahem


I TOLD YOU SO!!!!

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
Awww, sweet (and a counterpoint to Ogie's)

http://thinkprogress.org/2006/05/11/telcos-liable/

(Yes, a biased site, but some great analysis here)



Where's my cash?

Sweet! Let's start a class action suit against BellSouth!

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by lord of the mark
Id say the best thing is to have the congress look into

Yes, because Congress has been doing such a stand-up job of protecting seperation of powers and stopping a run-amuck presidency until now.

[Sirotnikov]

Originally posted by Pekka
Right. But such tools have been existing for a long time now. So it's not a tool 'to help catch AQ'. It's a tool to be implented, used to monitor US citizens.

How do you know that such tools have existed?

That also means, that the 'results' are highly unreliable in most cases. And because it is classified, you can not know what they have on you. THat means, that if and when they have false information on most people that are suspected, they can not challenge the wrong information. There is no way, that they can go there and easily set some records straight with 100% accuracy and provability. That's just impossible in these cases.

That means, that your life can be screwed over by a likely mistake in most suspect cases, or someone can do it to you on purpose.

Several problems with this:

There is no way to judge the data's reliability. Its job is to help connect the dots and the guess work. I don't expect anyone to be arrested and charged for "terrorist like patterns".

If such a pattern mistakenly includes innocent John Doe, then the FBI / NSA will try to get a warrant for closer inspection. They will not go on to arrest that person and get J. Doe in trouble.

You do not go arresting people, based on such loose evidence as phone call patterns. It is just a helpfull tool for investigation - it does not prove anything.

[Jon Miller]

my freind said he thought that the gove would just say national security about this, and than the judge couldn't do anything...

JM

[SpencerH]

As I said in the other similar thread, I'm not a 'happy camper' about this particular activity but I'm willing to wait for an explanation of why it was done this way.

Someone mentioned earlier that any relevant anti-terrorist info would be hard to glean from the hundreds of millions of daily phone calls and emails. Thats true. What's also true is that the NSA is probably the biggest supercomputer site in the world. Cray was 'unofficially' considered to be a nationally protected security resource. When the japanese started trying to dump supercomputers on the american market in the early 80's (which could have wiped out Cray), congress quickly jumped in (and I havent heard anything since).

[MrFun]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
Let me clear my thoat here for a second . . . ahem


I TOLD YOU SO!!!!

** squints eyes and uses electron microscope to read Che's post

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Originally posted by DinoDoc
Why is OK if I can get such info easily but suddenly frightening if the government gets it?

Your phone records are for sale

Beat you to it. See my earlier post.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

How exactly does USA Today investigate and corroborate their stories?

BellSouth Says It Gave NSA No Call Records


Email this Story

May 15, 11:00 PM (ET)

By WALTER PUTNAM


ATLANTA (AP) - BellSouth Corp. (BLS) (BLS) said Monday its "thorough review" found no indication it gave telephone records to the National Security Agency as part of a federal anti-terrorism surveillance program.

A report last week by USA Today identified BellSouth, along with AT&T Inc. (T) and Verizon Communications Inc. (VZ) (VZ), as companies that had complied with an NSA request to turn over tens of millions of customer phone records after the 2001 terror attacks.

"Based on our review to date, we have confirmed no such contract exists and we have not provided bulk customer calling records to the NSA," the Atlanta-based regional Bell said in a statement.

BellSouth spokesman Jeff Battcher said the company's investigation found "no contract with the NSA and we are confident that we have turned over no phone records."Last week, Battcher said the company had "not provided any information we would need a subpoena for." On Monday night, Battcher said "we cannot find anyone within BellSouth who has ever been approached by the NSA."

The USA Today report, which quoted anonymous sources with direct knowledge of the program, followed earlier revelations of wiretapping on overseas calls without a court order and sparked a renewed national debate over government intrusion into Americans' civil liberties in the fight against terrorism.

Critics denounced the phone companies for complying with the NSA surveillance request, while others approved of compromising privacy for national security.

A USA Today spokeswoman and the paper's editor did not immediately return calls seeking comment.

In a story in Tuesday's editions, USA Today said it contacted BellSouth the day before it published its initial story last week and that the company did not challenge the newspaper's account of the NSA database program.

Another of the regional Bells, Denver-based Qwest Communications International Inc. (Q), did not comply with the federal request for call logs.

Spokesmen for AT&T and Verizon said Monday night they had no comment on BellSouth's statement. Verizon spokesman Bob Varettoni referred to a company statement Friday that said Verizon doesn't "provide any government agency unfettered access to our customer records or provide information to the government under circumstances that would allow a fishing expedition."

Last week, Verizon said it had complied with relevant laws and was "committed" to customer privacy. San Antonio-based AT&T said it respects customers' privacy but has "an obligation to assist law enforcement and other government agencies responsible for protecting the public welfare."

Battcher said BellSouth's customer service department had received little more than two dozen complaints about reports that private phone records may have been relayed to the government.

"We have 20 million land line customers, so 26 complaints is not a lot," Battcher said.

Hacks.

[SpencerH]

If the phone companies had been handed a "National Security Letter" they would be bound by the particular provisions of the patriot act including that they could not reveal that the NSL had been used to gather info.