US penetrates citizen homes
p2p news / p2pnet: America’s National Security Agency has secretly compiled the world’s largest database of phone records using data provided by AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth, says USA Today.
“The NSA program reaches into homes and businesses across the nation by amassing information about the calls of ordinary Americans – most of whom aren’t suspected of any crime,” it says.
“This program does not involve the NSA listening to or recording conversations. But the spy agency is using the data to analyze calling patterns in an effort to detect terrorist activity, sources said in separate interviews.”
The NSA’s goal is “to create a database of every call ever made within the nation’s borders,” the story has unnamed sources saying.
“The three telecommunications companies are working under contract with the NSA, which launched the program in 2001 shortly after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the sources said,” it states, going on:
“The NSA’s domestic program, as described by sources, is far more expansive than what the White House has acknowledged. Last year, Bush said he had authorized the NSA to eavesdrop – without warrants – on international calls and international e-mails of people suspected of having links to terrorists when one party to the communication is in the USA. Warrants have also not been used in the NSA’s efforts to create a national call database.
“In defending the previously disclosed program, Bush insisted that the NSA was focused exclusively on international calls. ‘In other words,’ Bush explained, ‘one end of the communication must be outside the United States’.
“As a result, domestic call records – those of calls that originate and terminate within U.S. borders – were believed to be private.”
However, according to USA Today sources, that’s not the case.
Names, addresses and other personal data of customers of the three firms aren’t being handed over, “But the phone numbers the NSA collects can easily be cross-checked with other databases to obtain that information,” the story goes on.
The White House, “would not discuss the domestic call-tracking program,” it says, quoting deputy press secretaryd Dana Perino as saying, with respect to actual eavesdropping, “There is no domestic surveillance without court approval.”
Also See:
USA Today – NSA has massive database of Americans’ phone calls, May 11, 2006
May 11th, 2006 at 10:40 pm
Good,
I would be more upset if they were missing the opportunity for some basic traffic analysis. I don’t see this as a big deal unless someone has something to hide.
May 11th, 2006 at 11:30 pm
I agree, BUT, what else are they doing that we don’t know about. I don’t trust Bush or anyone who works in his goverment.
May 12th, 2006 at 12:28 am
the ‘no big deal unless someone has something to hide’ BS!!!!
Anyone that says that has absolutely NO idea what the Constitution and the Bill of Rights within it represent. Nor do they have any idea what Our Forefathers WENT THROUGH to get it that way!
Hey, ya’ll, USE your Search Engine and READ that Bill of Rights…at very LEAST!!!! Reading the whole Constitution would be even BETTER education …which is OBVIOUSLY extremely NEEDED!!!!
May 12th, 2006 at 8:19 am
I have absolutely nothing to hide, and would readily comply with a legally obtained search and seizure warrant; however, under no circumstances do I condone the arbitrary suspension of the rights and freedoms so adamantly insisted upon by our Founding Fathers.
The concept that, if you have nothing to hide or nothing to be ashamed of, you should willingly give up your Constitutionally protected rights and submit to the arbitrary, unlawful interference by your government in your personal life is a dangerous, groundless proposition propagated by the enemies of fee men everywhere.
The authors of the Bill of Rights did not provide for exceptions or biased interpretation of their forcefully stated insistence that Congress shall make no law curtailing the freedom of speech (etc.) No man, no court, no legislative body should arbitrarily create exceptions.
The Constitution does NOT say that Congress shall make no law restricting our civil rights, “unless or until the Chief Executive gets an urge to aggrandize his powers”; it does not permit the dissolution of those precious rights “if our great Republic should come under attack by Muslim extremists or lovesick starlet stalkers who decide to shoot the President in order to gain the attention of the object of his demented obsessions”; nor does it provide for the abrogation of those rights if the Attorney General feels the only weapons at his disposal to combat enemy forces within include setting aside pesky, bothersome civil rights.
And most of all, the framers of that precious document (the last citadel against tyranny) did not intend that it should be the sole discretion of the Chief Executive whether or not the citizens of this nation should enjoy the protection of government by law. Threats to national security and national sovereignty are not emboldened by the fears of some that our Constitutionally protected Human Rights provide safe havens for insurgents.
To the contrary, it was with brilliant insight that men like George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine, Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, Ben Franklin, and so many other men of courage and integrity realized that the fabric of our society is strengthened by the inviolability of those rights. To paraphrase Franklin and others: they who believe that it is worth forfeiting some of our rights in order to secure some degree of safety will lose both rights and safety.
Most telling perhaps, is that a solemn oath was prescribed whereby elected officials swear to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution. He who would author even the tiniest infringement of our Constitutional Rights, or support such infringement by vote or judicial decision, is, in my considered opinion, guilty of high treason and perjury. The PATRIOT Act, for example, on its face is illegal and anyone who voted its enactment has forsworn a sacred oath. No amount of rhetoric or obscure reasoning and justification can paint a different face on the deliberate suspension of unalienable rights. Having witnessed history since 1941, I am utterly flabbergasted that, as a nation, such a debate is even remotely entertained by honest, reasonable, patriotic men.
May 12th, 2006 at 8:25 am
Actually, I have something to hide! And I cower in fear when I realize that our government might be able to learn this secret about me!
I voted for Clinton; I voted for Gore, and I voted for Kerry! God help and protect me if I am ever forced to bear witness against myself and admit that I oppose the would-be rapists of the Constitution!
May 12th, 2006 at 2:49 pm
land of the free???, home of the brave ?!?!
May 12th, 2006 at 7:43 pm
The big question about this is what else is the bush administration (note the lowercase) doing that we are not aware of?
Let’s see…
Guantameno Bay
Secret CIA Prisons
Iraq War
NSA monitoring international phone calls
NSA monitoring domestic phone calls
What’s next? I’m almost afraid to ask. It’s time to impeach bush and take our government back.
May 13th, 2006 at 11:01 pm
It was time to impeach Bush 6 years ago…