Government Is Spying on Your Cell Phone Calls

[JRBids]

What about the terrorism that has happened under his watch that he didnt prevent ? He doesn't do shit he just campaigns on our dime and parties with his buddies in the Whitehouse . Manchurian Candidate .

So then Bush was a Manchurian Candidate, too? He let 9/11 happen. All he wanted to do was vacation during his term. Before 9/11 he'd been on vacation more than any other president. Afterwards he had to show up at the office.

 

[JRBids]

Again, simpler... what would supposedly make you care or scared... perhaps a less scarily named program?

What would scare me is if I were doing something illegal that I shouldn't be and they were listening. Since I'm not, I'm not worried. You apparently are though. What illegal activities are you involved with?

 

[JRBids]

Obviously the government can't be very good at compiling data. Look at Facebook, it's full of threats to shoot down planes, shoot the president, march with guns on Washington, and none of those people have been approached by "them". The reality flies in the face of your fantasy government.

 

[Joe]

So then Bush was a Manchurian Candidate, too? He let 9/11 happen. All he wanted to do was vacation during his term. Before 9/11 he'd been on vacation more than any other president. Afterwards he had to show up at the office.

Bush a manchurian candidate ? Sure he was . thats why he won in 2000 because that was the plan . Your vote is a illusion .

 

[Joe]

Obviously the government can't be very good at compiling data. Look at Facebook, it's full of threats to shoot down planes, shoot the president, march with guns on Washington, and none of those people have been approached by "them". The reality flies in the face of your fantasy government.

Well unless they get weapons from the Syrian rebels via Obama Im sure there is no threat ? Obama War mongerer

 

[Joe]

So then Bush was a Manchurian Candidate, too? He let 9/11 happen. All he wanted to do was vacation during his term. Before 9/11 he'd been on vacation more than any other president. Afterwards he had to show up at the office.

You can also blame Clinton For 9/11 since the plan was hatched out before Bush took office .

 

[Leifer]

Orwell's 1984, sales skyrocket following news of scandal..... (362%)

(edited....just saw the Huxley book too...)

 

[jvnk08]

What would scare me is if I were doing something illegal that I shouldn't be and they were listening. Since I'm not, I'm not worried. You apparently are though. What illegal activities are you involved with?

Yikes. The "I'm not doing anything wrong so I have nothing to worry about" argument is scary because it's really hard to counter. Privacy is incredibly important, whether or not you have something to hide.

http://chronicle.com/article/Why-Privacy-Matters-Even-if/127461/

 

[Critical Thinker]

I am curious, were the NSA not collecting the records of what phones called what phones, would they be able to retrieve those records by any other means had they not had those records? It is reasonable to assume there is a need for haste/expediency in tracking down co-conspirators in order to thwart any other impending attacks, does having those records of who called who expedite the investigation?

 

[Joe]

​
Biden in 2006 schools Obama in 2013 over NSA spying program

 

[Leifer]

200 million phone calls of were monitored.....over what period ?
Since 2001 ??...(I'm having trouble finding that out.)

I hastily came up with some numbers, for a hypothetical one year period using "200 million monitored".

There are roughly 316,000,000 Americans in 2012. (US Census)

65% of Americans owned cell phones in 2005, and 91% own them now (2013).

.....and the average # of cell calls per day are around ....5

Let's just say over that (ownership) period 80% own cells.....80% of 316 million is 252,800,000 cell owners @ 5 calls a day = 1,264,000,000 calls per day.

1,264,000,000 x 365 (days a year) = 461,360,000,000 calls a year, averaged.


Percentage of "200 million monitored" calls over a one year period = 0.043%

(That's just cell phones....not including land-lines.)

 

[Cairenn]

I really wonder what they can really tell about those of us that use the prepaid phones. I don't use mine a lot, mostly when I am at a show, or to see if I need to bring supper home to my hubby.

If I was up to no good, I would use a prepaid cell for one maybe 2 calls then lose it. You make a road trip and stop in at low cost outlet places and pick up the phones in a variety of cities and stores. Buy from smaller places, that may not keep any tapes they make for very long, not some place like Wal Mart.

I think this is what a lot of the drug dealers do.

 

[Mick West]

Some perspective:

http://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-releases-spying-requests-2013-6

Facebook on Friday became the first to release aggregate numbers of requests, saying in a blog post that it received between 9,000 and 10,000 U.S. requests for user data in the second half of 2012, covering 18,000 to 19,000 of its users' accounts. Facebook has more than 1.1 billion users worldwide.

The majority of those requests are routine police inquiries, a person familiar with the company said, but under the terms of the deal with Justice Department, Facebook is precluded from saying how many were secret orders issued under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Until now, all information about requests under FISA, including their existence, were deemed secret.

Microsoft said it had received requests of all types for information on about 31,000 consumer accounts in the second half of 2012. In a "transparency report" Microsoft published earlier this year without including national security matters, it said it had received criminal requests involving 24,565 accounts for all of 2012.

If half of those requests came in the second part of the year, the intelligence requests constitute the bulk [19,000] of government inquiries. Microsoft did not dispute that conclusion.

 

[PCWilliams]

Emphasis added.


It's a fear loop that only the loopy could believe. Tell me, how does it make any sense to reward the security apparatus every time there's a terrorist attack? It seems to me like they should all be fired, demoted or split up into competing agencies so that they get better results.

But you're right... the way things have been trending after 911, every time there is terrism they get more money and more fused together into a bigger and more powerful structure (inc.).

This will end well.

A "fear loop," i like that phrase.

At some point, the loss of freedoms due to this fear loop will exceed anything the terrorists could have dreamed of accomplishing without the help of our own government.

Makes me wonder, who are the terrorists?

 

[PCWilliams]

I do, however, disagree with your second point - terrorist attacks don't occur without a reason. 9/11 was arguably the result of our foreign policy, which is pretty intimately linked with preserving the American way of life through things like trade agreements. We've dabbled extensively in the affairs of other countries throughout the 20th century and continue to do so. The appropriate channels through which people in the affected countries can deal with that manipulation or unfairness are often either nonexistent or unlikely to actually change anything, and thus they turn to violence to make themselves heard.

To your point, as a nation we have not officially declared war since WWII, yet look at how many military actions we have taken.

A point i've made with friends and family: We tend to not see the impact of our "global policing" policy. To help see it from perspective of a non-American country, imagine it was Russia, China or North Korea (and not the United States) engaged in all these conflicts around the world?

 

[JRBids]

Yikes. The "I'm not doing anything wrong so I have nothing to worry about" argument is scary because it's really hard to counter. Privacy is incredibly important, whether or not you have something to hide.

http://chronicle.com/article/Why-Privacy-Matters-Even-if/127461/

I agree but I would love to know where all these people have been for the last how many years since they've been doing this? 15? 20? All of a sudden someone realized there's something else to pin on the black guy?

 

[PCWilliams]

What is needed is an update to the law, and properly financed oversight and enforcement of the law.

You can argue quite easily that recording metadata is not recording conversations, just as you could ague that observing someone mailing letters is not the same as reading those letter.

We can't stop these things by saying how much we dislike them. We need to have specific goals in mind for how things should be instead.

I don't see it as a matter of updating laws. This is about enforcing current law (the 4th amendment - at a minimum).

"Not recording conversations" doesn't give me any comfort and it's not analogous to snail mail. Metadata can expose more information about a person than that person would volunteer if asked outright. If the phone records show somebody making repeated calls to an AIDS clinic, we can all figure what that might mean. This is information that person may have wanted to keep private. Their choice of privacy has been taken from them, their expectation of privacy has been violated.

When i send postal mail, the "to" and "from" are printed on the outside of the envelope, i am aware the outside of the envelope can be read by anybody in possession of the envelope. There isn't an expectation of privacy regarding the outer envelope data. I decide to mail, or not, based on this known variable. But even in the postal system, it is self evident how the envelope metadata can violate one's privacy - it's the very reason some companies mail their products in plain, brown wrappers - to avoid what might be gleaned from the metadata contained on the envelope/package. Nobody wants to receive their erectile dysfunction medications in a clearly marked box.

The good news is, now that we know we don't have plain, brown wrappers in our telephone communications, not only will people change their telephone usage habits, but we're going to see an entire industry crop up dedicated to encryption software for everything from telephones, to emails, to text messages.

I can't wait.



P.S. "Plain Brown Wrapper" might be a great name for encryption software!!!!

 

[PCWilliams]

. . . WTF are you texting that you're worried about it?

Sounds sort of like what the Gestapo would say as they were kicking in the door of Germans.

 

[PCWilliams]

It's a matter of targeting and processing power these days, not manpower. As one of the NSA whistle blowers said, they can target anyone now.



Think of it this way, what's this guy worried about when a camera is on him?

​

Maybe the populist media types should have bought one of the drones available at stores now to fly it around his house to spy on him too. Or how about, put a back door in his cell phone to see what he's talking about and so forth. If he has nothing to hide, then why would he mind? And that way if he ever did anything wrong they could use a database to save it and then look it up later if they needed anything from him politically.

But he wants his own right to privacy at the end of that video? Imagine that.

I can imagine the corporate media: "Official sources just took a leak on us... and they want privacy. More news at 11!"

But the decentralized media: "Where do we go to investigate these official sources?"

Maybe investigative journalism isn't dead... and some people aren't willing to sit around simulating an investigation or reading their teleprompters.

He should have asked the former CIA guy where he was going with the cab? Why not? It's only metadata, right?

 

[PCWilliams]

It's weird, it's not really something that I lose sleep over. For example, if the government is going to listen to my calls, what would they do with it? For example, let's say I talked to my mother on my cell phone. We talk about various things of the everyday social life, such as getting apple pie for supper, and the government is hearing this. So what? What are they going with this information? probably nothing. Are they really going to come knock at your door because of the apple pie? And let's say you do talk smack about the president. Alex Jones does it everyday on Info Wars and on his YouTube channel. You don't see them come knocking at his door do you? And you probably won't, unless he decides to not pay his taxes or something.

It seems mostly to be an ethical or maybe even political issue, not really a conspiracy.



Mind you, I guess people like Alex Jones and/or Glenn Beck are going to spin in around to make it seem as though they are spying on Americans 24/7.

We should create a website where users can voluntarily post their cell phone text messages and call records for anybody to read.

I wonder how many people will voluntarily post their data.

 

[Joe]

[h=1]NSA spying flap extends to contents of U.S. phone calls[/h]National Security Agency discloses in secret Capitol Hill briefing that thousands of analysts can listen to domestic phone calls. That authorization appears to extend to e-mail and text messages too.http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-5...-flap-extends-to-contents-of-u.s-phone-calls/

 

[PCWilliams]

Except, as it very clearly states right there:

Telephony metadata does not include the substantive content of any communication, as defined by 18 U.S.C. ? 2510(8), or the name, address, or financial information of a subscriber or customer.

I'm trying to follow the flow of info but I'm getting lost in the discussion sauce - where was this data located?

 

[PCWilliams]

Another article that discusses the collection of info by the NSA..... and raises more questions...

http://www.newscientist.com/article...t-how-well-us-knows-its-people.html?full=true

"Although privacy protection may not seem to be on the NSA's priority list, Clifton says he knows the organisation has people actively working on techniques which would let it analyse data effectively while not breaching privacy. "If they get too intrusive on the data people will be up in arms and they will lose access," he says. "If they protect privacy they can get more data. They view it as part of their mission." "

If i understand the last paragraphs of this article, i could could live with the solution discussed.

 

[PCWilliams]

I am curious, were the NSA not collecting the records of what phones called what phones, would they be able to retrieve those records by any other means had they not had those records? It is reasonable to assume there is a need for haste/expediency in tracking down co-conspirators in order to thwart any other impending attacks, does having those records of who called who expedite the investigation?

I would assume phone companies maintain such metadata and a search warrant would give the government access.

 

[PCWilliams]

1,264,000,000 x 365 (days a year) = 461,360,000,000 calls a year, averaged.

I think that's called "information overload"!!! LOL! Holy cow!

 

[PCWilliams]

Some perspective:

http://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-releases-spying-requests-2013-6

Facebook on Friday became the first to release aggregate numbers of requests, saying in a blog post that it received between 9,000 and 10,000 U.S. requests for user data in the second half of 2012, covering 18,000 to 19,000 of its users' accounts. Facebook has more than 1.1 billion users worldwide.

The majority of those requests are routine police inquiries, a person familiar with the company said, but under the terms of the deal with Justice Department, Facebook is precluded from saying how many were secret orders issued under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Until now, all information about requests under FISA, including their existence, were deemed secret.

Microsoft said it had received requests of all types for information on about 31,000 consumer accounts in the second half of 2012. In a "transparency report" Microsoft published earlier this year without including national security matters, it said it had received criminal requests involving 24,565 accounts for all of 2012.

If half of those requests came in the second part of the year, the intelligence requests constitute the bulk [19,000] of government inquiries. Microsoft did not dispute that conclusion.

With 1.1 billion users worldwide and requests for 19,000 users' accounts, that would mean 0.00172% of their users' accounts? Is my math correct?

 

[JRBids]

Sounds sort of like what the Gestapo would say as they were kicking in the door of Germans.

Well, some people's minds go to extremes. Mine doesn't. What to you text that you're worried about?

 

[Critical Thinker]

http://m.vanityfair.com/online/eichenwald/2013/06/prism-isnt-data-mining-NSA-scandal

PRISM Isn't Data Mining and Other Falsehoods in the N.S.A. "Scandal"
BY Kurt Eichenwald

US Federal Government/Wikipedia.
I can't stand it.

A few days ago, I wrote in some detail about the National Security Agency's data-mining program in hopes of calming the hysteria that has been whipped up in the last number of days by incorrect and misleading reports, as well as by plenty of ill-informed commentary based on those errors. At this point, I've decided that I need to tell a little bit more.

Some explanation up front: I spent seven years investigating the national-security systems and policies established in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks for my book 500 Days. I learned a fair amount about the data-mining programs of the N.S.A. and wrote about it. I summarized those findings in my last post. However, now it has become obvious to me that I need to go further than I did in my book, at least in hopes of calming things down. When discussing errors, I'm going to mention "reports" regarding news articles, but I'm not going to identify them—the last thing I want is for this to become a back-and-forth between reporters.

First, the much-ballyhooed PRISM program is not a program and not a secret, and anyone who says it is should not be trusted because they don't know what they're talking about. PRISM is the name for the government computer system that is used to handle the foreign-intelligence data collected under Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

continue reading.......................

 

[PCWilliams]

I'm trying to follow the flow of info but I'm getting lost in the discussion sauce - where was this data located?

Disregard. I found it!

 

[PCWilliams]

Well, some people's minds go to extremes. Mine doesn't. What to you text that you're worried about?

Not the point. Send me a copy of all your texts.

 

[Cairenn]

Nice find and I liked the comments here.

My hope is that these explanations will make it clear why even I, as a civil libertarian, have no problem with data-mining programs. The information being obtained by the government entails far fewer privacy issues and danger of abuse than exists in your taxes or the census. Sure, people could make the argument that this could be the slippery slope to some sort of effort by the government to monitor your porn subscriptions, but . . . really? The N.S.A. is downloading petabytes of data every day with so many anonymizers and protections in place, it is incomprehensible to imagine (and illegal and technologically problematic) that someone would just somehow start surfing through private records. To me, the slippery-slope argument makes as much sense as the N.R.A.'s position that, if we use background checks to keep guns out of the hands of criminals, the United States is on the way to the seizure of weapons. And they make the same silly argument—they think that the government invades their privacy by running those checks.

As Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson said in a 1949 dissent, the Constitution is not a suicide pact. Creating absurd hurdles to protect against imaginary threats that instead open the door to real threats is self-defeating. We all need to calm down, recognize that no one is listening to our phone calls or reading our e-mails or hiding under our beds. These are programs that have been adopted very carefully, for a specific purpose. And for all those hypocrites who first wail that the Boston bombing wasn't stopped, and now wail about a working program that has successfully impeded real terror attacks, I have this to say: shut up, Mr. Hannity. And you too, those of you critics hoping to turn a Bush program into an Obama scandal. Or, as Republicans were wont to say during the Bush administration: Why do you hate America? And why do you support the terrorists? (I'm being sarcastic.)

 

[JRBids]

Not the point. Send me a copy of all your texts.

I really wouldn't have a problem with that. The ones I exchanged with my partner today involved the messy grounds of the house I was parked across from while waiting for my buyer, LOL.

 

[Oxymoron]

http://truth-out.org/buzzflash/comm...-than-spying-on-everybody-satire-or-maybe-not

NSA Responds: What Could Be More Democratic Than Spying on Everybody? (Satire, or Maybe Not?)


Dear US Citizen:
Please accept our most egregiously sincere apologies for the difficulties and inconveniences the secret monitoring of your phone records and email and GPS units and foreign travel and bank accounts and yes, even your snail mail has evidently caused.
We here at the NSA strive for the perfection of our services, which depend on the chronic obliviousness of you, our valued customers. Unfortunately, due to one disgruntled deadbeat (who escaped to China to avoid government persecution- which is like joining the Army because you're tired of people telling you what to do) you now know of our continuing efforts to keep you safe. That was never our intention.


And seriously, anybody who didn't suspect this kind of snooping was going on is not to be trusted with knives in the kitchen without a fencing mask. Privacy is soooo 20th Century. You share the regularity of your bowel movements on Facebook, but we check around to find out who's making coded phone calls to al Qaeda and suddenly everybody's nose is out of joint? You kidding me?
Unfortunately, one of our representatives testified in front of Congress, "no, we aren't collecting data on Americans," when what he meant to say is, "yes, we ARE collecting data on Americans." James Clapper simply gave the "least untruthful answer possible." Then again, Congress knows that getting a straight answer from us is harder than bending a wire coat hanger into a number representing pi to the sixth digit with your teeth. All for your protection.

This is not bunk... I think it's satire.