More on illegal eavesdropping
Bush's 'Big Brother' Blunder
By Robert Parry
ConsortiumNews.com
George W. Bush’s warrantless phone data collection may not only violate the U.S. Constitution but expend so much money and manpower that America is made less safe – by diverting resources away from more practical steps, like inspecting cargo and hiring translators.
Yet, because the operation is wrapped in layers and layers of secrecy – based on the dubious argument that al-Qaeda might not realize it’s being spied on – the public doesn’t know how much the project costs, who’s getting contracts and whether it does any good.
So far, however, what administration officials and computer experts have been willing to describe shouldn’t give Americans much confidence that their trade-off of Fourth Amendment freedoms for a little extra safety is a particularly good deal.
The project’s designers say the National Security Agency’s electronic warehousing of trillions of phone records from calls made by some 200 million Americans is intended to seek out “patterns” from conversations involving alleged terrorists and then to apply the digital outline to the stockpiled records.
That search, presumably, then spits out the phone numbers of other callers in the United States who fit into the “patterns.” These computer-generated tips then go to the FBI, which may question the suspects or use other investigative strategies.
There are, however, logical flaws to this “Big Brother” computer scheme, especially the idea that the project is likely to discern many usable “patterns” of phone calls that if applied to the population would detect much suspicious activity.
The 9/11 hijackers, for instance, made very few substantive calls about their plot, recognizing the risk of electronic surveillance and preferring face-to-face meetings as a way to avoid detection, according to the 9/11 Commission Report.
(There is more here.)
By Robert Parry
ConsortiumNews.com
George W. Bush’s warrantless phone data collection may not only violate the U.S. Constitution but expend so much money and manpower that America is made less safe – by diverting resources away from more practical steps, like inspecting cargo and hiring translators.
Yet, because the operation is wrapped in layers and layers of secrecy – based on the dubious argument that al-Qaeda might not realize it’s being spied on – the public doesn’t know how much the project costs, who’s getting contracts and whether it does any good.
So far, however, what administration officials and computer experts have been willing to describe shouldn’t give Americans much confidence that their trade-off of Fourth Amendment freedoms for a little extra safety is a particularly good deal.
The project’s designers say the National Security Agency’s electronic warehousing of trillions of phone records from calls made by some 200 million Americans is intended to seek out “patterns” from conversations involving alleged terrorists and then to apply the digital outline to the stockpiled records.
That search, presumably, then spits out the phone numbers of other callers in the United States who fit into the “patterns.” These computer-generated tips then go to the FBI, which may question the suspects or use other investigative strategies.
There are, however, logical flaws to this “Big Brother” computer scheme, especially the idea that the project is likely to discern many usable “patterns” of phone calls that if applied to the population would detect much suspicious activity.
The 9/11 hijackers, for instance, made very few substantive calls about their plot, recognizing the risk of electronic surveillance and preferring face-to-face meetings as a way to avoid detection, according to the 9/11 Commission Report.
(There is more here.)
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