Too Many Secrets?
Today, multiple sources from CNN to Yahoo are reporting that the NSA has been creating a massive database of American phone calls.
http://news.yahoo.com/fc/World/Espionage_and_Intelligence/
http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/05/11/nsa.phonerecords.ap/index.html
Apparently, the program “documents who talks to whom in personal and business calls, whether local or long distance, by tracking which numbers are called”.
Bear in mind that the subject callers number in the tens of millions. The callers are, generally, not suspects in any crime. Their calling information is recorded by their provider companies, AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth telephone companies, who then turn over customer records to the NSA program.
This is more than a little creepy. It shows that the disclosures over NSA wiretaps were much more narrow than were disclosed. This program addresses the communication of not some few bad actors, criminals, or Terra-ests but rather an absolutely huge number of citizens accused of no wrongdoing. Further, this revelation shows a startling contrast between what we are being told and what is being done in our names.
Consider the implications of such a program. The data gathered from people legally presumed innocent included who is calling whom, when, for how long, and using what means. Such data gives rise to patterns which can then [DELETED FOR YOUR PROTECTION]. This requires an enormous amount of trust to be placed in authorities who have been anything but forthcoming and open about their programs and intentions. Given that, there is every reason to doubt [DELETED FOR SECURITY REASONS]. Surveillance of ordinary citizens is the hallmark of a police state: Stalin’s KGB, Batista’s Secret Police, Duvalier’s Ton Ton Macoute, Orwell’s Thought Police, The Taliban’s Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice, Ray Bradbury’s Firemen, [DELETED PER GENERAL ORDER 622-06]. Whether fictional, historical, or a present day political fact, secret surveillance of citizens is ascribed to these organizations BECAUSE secret surveillance chills free speech. After all, who feels safe to say what they really think and feel when they don't know who is listening? No one, not government agents, and certainly not people that we're paying for telecommunication service, should be contributing to activity which directly or indirectly contributes to chilling free speech...
I have to go, there is someone pounding on my door...
http://news.yahoo.com/fc/World/Espionage_and_Intelligence/
http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/05/11/nsa.phonerecords.ap/index.html
Apparently, the program “documents who talks to whom in personal and business calls, whether local or long distance, by tracking which numbers are called”.
Bear in mind that the subject callers number in the tens of millions. The callers are, generally, not suspects in any crime. Their calling information is recorded by their provider companies, AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth telephone companies, who then turn over customer records to the NSA program.
This is more than a little creepy. It shows that the disclosures over NSA wiretaps were much more narrow than were disclosed. This program addresses the communication of not some few bad actors, criminals, or Terra-ests but rather an absolutely huge number of citizens accused of no wrongdoing. Further, this revelation shows a startling contrast between what we are being told and what is being done in our names.
Consider the implications of such a program. The data gathered from people legally presumed innocent included who is calling whom, when, for how long, and using what means. Such data gives rise to patterns which can then [DELETED FOR YOUR PROTECTION]. This requires an enormous amount of trust to be placed in authorities who have been anything but forthcoming and open about their programs and intentions. Given that, there is every reason to doubt [DELETED FOR SECURITY REASONS]. Surveillance of ordinary citizens is the hallmark of a police state: Stalin’s KGB, Batista’s Secret Police, Duvalier’s Ton Ton Macoute, Orwell’s Thought Police, The Taliban’s Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice, Ray Bradbury’s Firemen, [DELETED PER GENERAL ORDER 622-06]. Whether fictional, historical, or a present day political fact, secret surveillance of citizens is ascribed to these organizations BECAUSE secret surveillance chills free speech. After all, who feels safe to say what they really think and feel when they don't know who is listening? No one, not government agents, and certainly not people that we're paying for telecommunication service, should be contributing to activity which directly or indirectly contributes to chilling free speech...
I have to go, there is someone pounding on my door...
posted by Minotaur at 8:39 PM
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