Yesterday Drudge Report had as its top headline that the NSA had a secret deal with Verizon where all phone records were being released for the span ofApril to July. Just one of many of the stories, and one that I personally linked on Google + with the phrase
The first reading of the story is perhaps a little alarming. But it subsides the more you think about it. To begin with, companies already have all of this data. Verizon, AT&T, Comcast, Amazon, Best Buy, Target, Walmart, Banks, all this is tracked for commercial reasons already. We haven’t lost any liberty, we haven’t lost any privacy by the Government doing this it was already being done. Data like this was how cell phone companies initially set up contracts that included day and night time minutes. All of this is tracked.
Amazon and other companies in their immage conduct psychological profiling to create advertisements and show you things that you probably already were interested in but didn’t know they could sell you. These aren’t new concepts not at all.
So the question then is what can the NSA do with this Data set? By itself it is fairly innacous. Your names aren’t attached, they see phone numbers, locations of those numbers, which number initiated the call, which number ended the call, and how long those calls lasted. This doesn’t tell the NSA anything about you up front.
The Mission of the NSA is
“The Information Assurance mission confronts the formidable challenge of preventing foreign adversaries from gaining access to sensitive or classified national security information. The Signals Intelligence mission collects, processes, and disseminates intelligence information from foreign signals for intelligence and counterintelligence purposes and to support military operations. This Agency also enables Network Warfare operations to defeat terrorists and their organizations at home and abroad, consistent with U.S. laws and the protection of privacy and civil liberties. “
In other words the mission of the NSA specifically addresses both privacy and civil liberties issues while still following protocol to establish security as intelligently as possible. So what specifically does this data collection do? Realistically on its face it does nothing. In order for this data to be useful in needs to be integrated with other data sets. For instance, when the Boston Bomber was identified and a FISA Warrant is requested for his phone records, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Courts have to decide if it is valid to release. From there the Bomber’s records are looked through and all of the people he has ever been in contact are looked at. What has happened here is the NSA took it one step further. They now already have the data they otherwise would request, and they have the ability to immediately check follow on suspects without having to get additional warrants.
From elementarry school math classes we learned how to exploit a network, we just didn’t know we were being taught this. Logic/Word problems are perhaps one of the best examples of how a network like Al Queda or other organizations could be broken down and disected quite easily. Here is an easy logic puzzle that models the concept of network exploitation. http://www.thelogiczone.plus.com/logic_k_90.htm This one is simple but the application of the theory is the same.
So now when our Special Forces go grab or kill somebody like OBL you can 1. guarantee that every phone in the complex was picked up and probably exploited by the NSA and other intelligence agencies. Even if it is a foreign telephone agency that isn’t friendly with the United States you can still look through the phone memory and see frequent calls, and history of calls. Any number that is dialed to a U.S. area code is bound to be recorded by a US phone company (you can be assured that if Verizon has this going on with the NSA so do all of their competitors). This US phone number will then be cross referenced to build that same network which will then be built into a case to either be prosecuted or given further investigation and dropped. Even non US numbers dialed will still be cross referrenced to see if those numbers were in contact with US ones with the same results.
But without this outside data the initial collection of the phone records means nothing. In retrospect it is kind of amazing that we weren’t already doing it.
So why the outrage? Well because as of late, the government has shown a rather caviler approach towards civil liberties especially with regard to the First Amendment. First with the IRS story, and then again with the the Department of Justice with an AG who is currently facing perjury charges in an investigation concerning government over reach. The fear many Americans have, and somewhat rightly so, is that this new NSA database could be cross referenced with the IRS inquiries and a full blown assault on Conservatives would begin. It wouldn’t be a big leap at all for people to be concerned about this but for regulations that came out of the Church Committee.
Senator Frank Church (D) led the investigation that demonstrated collusion between the CIA and FBI. One of the effects of his little crusade against the American Government was a weakened Human intelligence collection program as we exposed people all over for information given to us. A somewhat positive side effect was that Departments were not allowed to, by law, just share data. Of course after 9/11 some of this changed with various security laws that were passed as well as the establishment of Department of Homeland Security, but by and large communication between agencies is not easy. This means that even though Department X has one bit of information and department Y has another, they aren’t allowed to just cross over without just cause.
So no, I’m not worried that the NSA has my phone records. It isn’t a major concern because the record by itself does nothing, and of course the NSA is actually doing its job and following its mission. If the IRS were doing this, yes that would be cause for concern, the IRS doesn’t require this information up front. Now if I were under investigation for tax fraud, and the IRS could make the case that I was involved in defrauding the Government, the case could be made for the IRS to individually look at my records and see what I was up to and with whom but that just simply isn’t the case here.
Go ahead NSA do your thing and find a use for this otherwise useless ball of data. At least in your hands I can feel safe and secure and not a victim of political vendetta.
