Comments on: How telephone call detail record collection works

By: NSA collected pre-9/11 phone calls for analysis | Homeland Stupidity

NSA collected pre-9/11 phone calls for analysis | Homeland Stupidity — Fri, 21 Jan 2011 20:42:05 +0000

[...] to the government, there is nothing you can do about it. You can switch telephone companies, but that won’t help. Share this story: Facebook Digg del.icio.us reddit.com [...]

By: BK

BK — Mon, 25 Jun 2007 16:01:19 +0000

From this review of the situation, it seems on the east coast where I live, when I dial the guy up the street using my home telephone number… it’s possible the call (number) is recorded. I’m wondering what if someone calls my house, dosen’t get an answer, and hangs up. My caller ID says someone called but I don’t have an answering machine so there was no connect. I wonder if these are also recorded.

Also I wonder if it’s true they’re held for 60 days. I mean, if the NSA or FBI wants to know something, they’d have to act fast, I don’t think 60 days sounds right. Because they’ve used similar records after investigating a person for terrorism related matters they’ve discovered a year or so after. How’d they investigate their phone records over a year later? There must be some form of backup or archive that’s held for more than 60 days.

By: BellSouth, Verizon not involved in NSA phone record database - Homeland Stupidity

Sat, 01 Jul 2006 13:57:42 +0000

[...] Verizon’s denial of participation did not extend to MCI. “It was not cross-city calls. It was not mom-and-pop calls,” said Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, who receives briefings as chairman of the Senate Appropriations Defense subcommittee. “It was long-distance. It was targeted on (geographic) areas of interest, places to which calls were believed to have come from al-Qaeda affiliates and from which calls were made to al-Qaeda affiliates.” — Ibid. [...]

By: Michael Hampton

Michael Hampton — Mon, 22 May 2006 18:18:50 +0000

Hm, well, it’s a long stretch from the inner workings of the telephone companies to the government’s terrorizing its people, especially since that’s a topic I’ve brought up repeatedly in the past, and certainly will again. Where were your comments then?

It also confuses other people who, perhaps, were expecting further discussion of the inner workings of the telephone companies, and instead got comments on U.S. foreign policy. It certainly confused me.

And this leaves me back at your original question, way back in the first comment. From whom are you trying to secure your phone calls? If government surveillance doesn’t figure into your threat assessment, as you said, then what you’re concerned about remains unclear.

By: emphatic

emphatic — Mon, 22 May 2006 17:17:20 +0000

I may have strayed from my original question, but the topic is right on. The only way the gov’t gets away with the ‘stupidity‘ your site details is by fear mongering or more specifically, intimating a ‘threat’ where one doesn’t actually exist. My last point was simply that as a part of that fear mongering, those who debunk supposed threats are generally ‘labeled’, unfairly and illogically. I thought it was obvious that the gov’t is using the fear of terrorism to deflect criticism of its trampling of the constitution.

PS – Maybe you should post a note to restrict comments to the obvious points of your various posts. To say it is ‘off topic’ to discuss how a post on your site relates to what is going on militarily vis-a-vis US doctrine seems a little naive. Thanks for your time anyway. Sorry to have bothered, though.

By: Michael Hampton

Michael Hampton — Mon, 22 May 2006 03:02:48 +0000

Well, that may be, but you’re far from the topic, and even far from your original question.

By: emphatic

emphatic — Mon, 22 May 2006 02:36:36 +0000

Suppose intentions are unclear, though. Is it then legitimate to persue a worst case scenario doctrine? It seems that this is the logic which has the US embedded in Iraq and looking to get involved with Iran, while completely ignoring the question of 'capability'. Not that I disagree with your basic point, but it seems, more and more often, that common modes of thought are being twisted, co-opted, so that, for instance, the patriotic becomes unpatriotic, at the whim of the talking heads. PS - Militaristic, yes, but I prefer machine-like. Which in some cases is the same thing.

By: Michael Hampton

Michael Hampton — Mon, 22 May 2006 02:16:30 +0000

The general method for assessing a threat is first to determine who it is that poses the threat. And you determine their intentions, or likely intentions. Then you determine their capabilities. Finally, if warranted, you neutralize their capabilities, or if that is infeasible, you alter your tactics to work around their capabilities.

If that sounds vaguely military to you, there’s a good reason.

By: emphatic

emphatic — Mon, 22 May 2006 01:09:05 +0000

I don't view government surveillance as a personal threat. The technological vectors for information gathering, for an organization as large as the us goverment, are so numerous that I generally live my life like its 1984 anyway. I do think that a general inability to have a private, 'electronic' conversation is a danger to the ideals set forth by the constitution. Surely our government was structured as a system of checks and balances for a reason. To assume any branch or division of any government will control or restrain their own actions, for any altruistic reasons, has shown itself, historically, to be a poor assumption.

By: Michael Hampton

Michael Hampton — Sun, 21 May 2006 21:34:20 +0000

Secure from whom? If your threat assessment includes government surveillance as a potential threat, you should not assume any type of voice call is secure at this point.