The NSA Knows Who You've Called 1136
Jamie adds: Traditionally, the devices which record dialed phone numbers are called pen registers, and trap-and-trace devices. The ECPA provided some legal privacy protection. It was controversial when Section 214 of the Patriot Act amended 50 USC 1842 to allow the FBI to record this information with minimal oversight. The Department of Justice has been required for some time to report to Congress the number of pen registers and trap-and-traces, though in recent years [PDF, see question 10] it declared that information classified.
If anyone has information about how the NSA, as opposed to the FBI, has been involved in domestic phone number collection, please post links in the discussion.
In related news, the National Security Agency has closed down an inquiry into the so-called "Terrorist Surveillance Program," a separate program from this one, by refusing to grant security clearance to the lawyers in the Department of Justice. The NSA and the DoJ are both established under the executive.
The NSA should take aim at Qwest. (Score:5, Funny)
I for one suggest NSA take aim at Qwest and bomb them back to to the PSTN-age!
Re:Oh, the Abuses We'll See! (Score:5, Funny)
Then the government would have to explain why it has not captured the mastermind who lies at the heart of this six degreed web of terror:
Kevin Bacon.
Message from the NSA (Score:5, Funny)
please can you start using the telephone more often? We're having real trouble finding where you are! It would help if you phoned one of your relatives, spoke loudly and clearly into the phone, and if you can say a few of our keywords that would be great.
Thanks!
The NSA
I guess I'm in trouble now..... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:At least a tech sector storage boom? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Oh, the Abuses We'll See! (Score:3, Funny)
Fans of Douglas Adams rejoice: 42. And a little bit.
Numbers don't add up... (Score:3, Funny)
"a database of every call ever made inside the USA" ... "has been secretly collecting phone call records of tens of millions of Americans"
Man, there are waaaay more than 10 million Americans... but I guess they probably have no reason to record the calls of the Religious Right or people watching Fox News... since they are good little toadies... so that probably cuts it down to size...
All your speed dial... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Oh, the Abuses We'll See! (Score:1, Funny)
George Carlin (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Oh, the Abuses We'll See! (Score:3, Funny)
Mom (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Oh, the Abuses We'll See! (Score:5, Funny)
Retro is hot these days. That pole lamp, like witch hunts and covert surveillance, is coming back in style.
Subversive elements (Score:3, Funny)
Thus members of environmentalist organisations, members of anti-war movements, members of anti-globalization movements, anybody that was a whistle-blowers of an illegal behaviour by a big corporation, anybody that's neither a registered Republican nor a registered Democrat and anybody that ever downloaded an MP3 from a P2P network.
Anybody that believes that State Surveilance organizations exist (be it in a "democratic" state or not) to protected the citizens instead of what they actual do which is defended the status quo and the existing power structures (also known as "protecting stability") can e-mail me 'cause i can sell you the location of my secret gold mine in the middle of the Atlantic.
Re:9-11 was a wet dream come true for the governme (Score:4, Funny)
oh man, I read that like Ballmer's "developers, developers, developers, developers"
I have a sudden image in my head of Bush prancing around repeating endlessly:
Terrorism, Terrorism, Terrorism, Terrorism...
Re:The NSA should take aim at Qwest. (Score:3, Funny)
I am from Florida, we never really voted for him to start with!
Re:There was, you stupid fuck. (Score:5, Funny)
You mean Kodos?
Ahem. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:This is not a troll.......... (Score:3, Funny)
I think my luggage made it to New Zealand once, though.
Re:The NSA should take aim at Qwest. (Score:4, Funny)
For any of a zillion reasons. Maybe they were rationalising their address space utilisation. Maybe they were trying new routing strategies. Maybe they were performing major network upgrades and were trying to simplify the cutover. Maybe the Mossad made them do it.
I think you're definitely onto something there. The NSA has satellites that can count your sperm from space, but they do not have the technology to intercept network traffic without changing everyone's IP addresses twice.
Reminds me of all those people in Silicon Valley who got their area codes changed from 415 to 650 a few years back. The party line, what Hillary Clinton would have you believe, was that 415 was full (yeah, and so was 68.x.x.x, am I right? Am I right? Dude!). You and I know better, though: It was the only way the NSA could start tapping all the phone lines south of San Bruno and find out when eHaircut.com was going to IPO.
The good news is that I still have the same IP address, so I know that the NSA isn't monitoring any of my traffic.