USA Today 5/11/2006 - "NSA has massive database of Americans' phone calls"

[jberryhill]

I don't understand why they won't let me post this in Latest Breaking News...

http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-05-10-nsa_x.htm

The National Security Agency has been secretly collecting the phone call records of tens of millions of Americans, using data provided by AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth, people with direct knowledge of the arrangement told 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. 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.

[Kurovski]

1. All digitally stored in San Francisco, as I recall.

At a disco on the outskirts of 'Frisco...

[NYC_SKP]

4. Commenced in 2003, outed in 2006, AT&T 611 Folsom Street, Room 641A, San Francisco, CA

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A

[dlwickham]

26. wonder if they dress up in leather for Folsom Fair

[xtraxritical]

34. I remember PBS did a two hour segment on this story at the time.

That's why I've been confused for a couple of days now trying to figure out what has changed. What I've figured out is that NOTHING has changed, it's just Republicons throwing crap at the wall to see if anything sticks. It's just like Benghazi and the Reston thing.

Republicons come into power and do all the damage they can. When Democrats come back into power and start to repair the damage Republicons blame Democrats and the media buys right into their narrative. The media never does the homework/due diligence it should do.

[librechik]

2. yep, an AT&T whistleblower came forward and described the locked room

where the equipment was

[NYC_SKP]

3. We've known since 2006!!! ROFL.

It's not breaking news for DU because it's not fresh (within 12 hours). Your article is from 2006.

And I know you know that, and I think it's good for others to see given the way so many seem totally surprised!

K/R

[jberryhill]

5. We've known since 1979, actually

In 1979, the US Supreme Court ruled in Smith v. Maryland, 442 U.S. 735 (1979) that the collection of numbers dialed by a telephone doesn't even require a warrant.

That is distinct from the contents of the conversation held during a call.

When you dial a telephone number, you are providing the information to several third parties, since that is a requisite part of what is required to connect your call.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smith_v._Maryland

[NYC_SKP]

11. It puts me to mind of people who are against Smart Meters...

They think their energy usage and time of day is nobody's damn business!

Tell them that they can save money with more information and they shoot at you, like it's their goddamn energy!

Then explain that time of day pricing is just free market dynamics of supply and demand at work, but at an hourly level.

And their head explodes!

[jberryhill]

12. Next up - "IRS collecting financial information from millions of Americans"

[dlwickham]

27. I love you

[jberryhill]

39. My condolences.

[MineralMan]

7. We forget what we know, all the time.

I'm sure that was discussed on DU back in 2006. It was news then. Some of the very people who are discussing the new revelations were probably in that earlier discussion. I'm not going to go searching for it, though. I don't ever visit the old DU site.

The NSA has been doing stuff like this for several years. Court orders were issued, and they got access to phone call records, but not to the calls themselves. They compare that data against numbers that they know are connected to terrorist activities and make a short list of numbers that have called those numbers. Then, they get another court order, and dig further into the connections. Computers handle the comparisons.

The actual calls don't exist any longer. What the NSA does then, or the FBI, is get orders to tap the lines of the numbers that called the known numbers. Then they monitor calls. And that's how this all works.

[JDPriestly]

21. I believe we were assured that they were not collecting

information domestically. That was my understanding. That is why people are upset.

[madokie]

6. A big difference between who you've been calling or whose been calling you and

listening to what is said. I fail to be alarmed by them having a record of who I'm calling or who is calling me because that's on my bill, its not something I worry about. To think the thought that they are listening to what is being said is absurd to me. In the fact where would they store all that information. Be many hours of conversation. I suspect they don't do that.

I suspect du has jumped the shark once again with all this pearl clutching going on

Go ahead and ripped me a new one. I'm ready for it.

[jberryhill]

9. I believe content is stored, for international calls

[madokie]

13. Thats not what many here is all up in arms about though

many here are saying that they are recording their conversations. I don't think that is even possible considering how much information that would be.
Its all blown up bullshit is what I think

[Triana]

8. Yep. I remember reading about this way back then!

Thanks for finding it.

When we complained about all this we were called "whiney", and "unpatriotic", and "treasonous" - NOW that the public is AGAIN confronted with allegedly "new" facts about this - they're suddenly outraged with epithets of: "But we didn't know!"

The truth is that they weren't PAYING ATTENTION and were being extremely and unfairly judgmental of anyone who was and who was trying to warn people about it.

Natch.

[uponit7771]

10. Rachell Maddow: "...didn't we know they were already doing this stuff?..." Asked last night on her..

...show by her.

The DU poutrage has been notable

[JoePhilly]

14. Recycled outrage.

[uponit7771]

15. Yeap, I knew it...I posted about it earlier today that it would end up being much ado about nothing

[JoePhilly]

16. The funny thing about the outrage is that it actually obscures the very real

opportunity to discuss the extent of the oversight used for these programs.

We were pissed when Bush had these programs and had NO oversight. So the addition of oversight (something I think we all demanded) was an improvement.

And so you could have a continuing discussion about the level of oversight. But you aren't going to have that discussion with people who think that this all proves Obama is not only worse than Bush, but that he's more like Stalin and Hitler (all references I've seen in the past day in a half here on DU).

In the end, the perpetually disgruntled will remain perpetually disgruntled.

[BlueState]

18. That is just exactly the correct point to be making

The right seems to want to make this a scandal. The Obama administration is, from my observations, operating with the law as defined in the Patriot Act. We should rightly be concerned and discuss amending that law to better protect privacy rights.

[madokie]

20. What you said

[Jamaal510]

23. Tell it like it is.

The manufactured outrage has gotten real bad on here. All this stuff about tracking is old news from BEFORE Obama even got elected, yet people now all of a sudden seem mad at him.

[bunnies]

24. Stalin & Hitler?

Seriously? Seriously?!?! Damn! I thought people using freeper smears was bad. wow.

[JoePhilly]

25. I was surprised they left out Mao

Hitler, Stalin, and Mao

[bunnies]

28. Well...

I guess they'll all be rounded up & put in camps soon then, huh? Geezus. The RW must be laughing their asses off at all this. The plan is working perfectly.

[JoePhilly]

29. Periodically the perpetually outraged

From the right and the left align to create a perfect eclipse of reality. Each outraged about the same thing.

The best is when they flip out about the same thing for opposite reasons.

[bunnies]

35. Driving in the car this morning...

I was listening to Glenn Beck (I know, I know)... and he was going on about that exact thing. How the left and the right should unite against the powers that be because we've "both been lied to". I almost gagged. You know somethings wrong when Beck wants to cozy up with left.

[Jamaal510]

40. That seems to be a popular libertarian strategy,

along with false equivalence.
"You know somethings wrong when Beck wants to cozy up with left."

Pretend that they are allies with liberals while equating Democrats with the GOP over just a few civil liberty issues in an attempt to demoralize and divide the Left. Greenwald, for instance, has constantly burned Obama from the Left, yet he himself came out once and supported Citizens United. The funny thing is that none of these people are ever anywhere to be seen when it comes to issues that matter to more Americans, such as the right to vote and also job growth. Neither Beck nor Greenwald threw this much of a hissy fit when Republicans blocked jobs bills or when they tried making it harder for the poor to vote. They've even been pretty quiet as state governments have been trying to intrude into what women do with their bodies.
That's why my opinion of libertarians is even lower than that of typical Republicans. They are the biggest opportunists around.

[JDPriestly]

37. But I understood that Senator Leahy said there is no oversight

over these programs. I am still outraged.

That the president and the administration collect all data on our outgoing and incoming calls, whether they are collecting the details of the contents of all calls or not is simply intolerable.

This chills our freedom of association as well as our freedom of speech.

Perhaps you don't feel it. But I bet that this constant surveillance is the reason that we have to go to the Guardian or other foreign papers and a few very courageous, non-corporate media sources here in the US in order to get anything approaching real news.

How can a reporter get honest information from dissidents in the US or around the world if every number he calls or that calls him is reported to the government.

This is repression, pure and simple. The numbers are enough to give the government the ability to repress speech, the press, association and all the freedom and liberty that is derived from those freedoms.

This also could reduce the amount of confidentiality you have when talking to lawyers. And you might really want to have that confidentiality some day. You never know.

It was a similar kind of lackadaisical, lazy attitude of Germans toward claiming and defending their basic rights that permitted the NAZIs to take over.

[BlueState]

17. Another key thing to note about this earlier intelligence gathering effort

From the same article:

"In December, The New York Times revealed that Bush had authorized the NSA to wiretap, without warrants, international phone calls and e-mails that travel to or from the USA. The following month, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a civil liberties group, filed a class-action lawsuit against AT&T. The lawsuit accuses the company of helping the NSA spy on U.S. phone customers."

Please, as a matter of perspective, let's all understand this. George Bush actually tapped phones, listened in on conversations, without any warrant! No FISA court nothing! In addition, his justice team strenuously argued that the president had the power to do so and it was legal and constitutional.

[Iliyah]

19. Greenwald and crew have came out with

another article which in my opinion ain't cool and hopefully will not too much hurt the US' National Security, geeeeezzzzzzzzzzz.

[rlegro]

22. A cynic could be excused for believing

...that the leak that is causing the current ruckus was a GOP operation. They simply rinsed and recycled. Thank you, Short Attention Span Media and Short Attention Span America.

[randome]

30. "Who could have known that terrorists would use planes as missiles?"

Who could have known that the NSA collected data?

[hr]
[font color="blue"][center]Stop looking for heroes. BE one.[/center][/font]
[hr]

[Life Long Dem]

31. Today it's breaking news

So maybe you should post this in the latest breaking news section like all the others.

[Gman]

32. Remember Total Information Awareness?

It was supposedly scrapped.... Guess again

[aggiesal]

33. Because it's a black man in control !!!

No problem when GW McIdiot was in charge, but now we have
Osama, oppps, Obama in charge.

[Th1onein]

36. "This program does not involve the NSA listening to or recording conversations. " THIS IS OLD NEWS.

PRISM is NOT old news. And the PRISM program DOES involve listening to and recording conversations (and everything else) and STORING them.

SEE the DIFFERENCE?

[randome]

38. But apparently it is not listening to AMERICAN conversations.

[hr]
[font color="blue"][center]Stop looking for heroes. BE one.[/center][/font]
[hr]

[Th1onein]

41. They are STORING them. Which is worse?

Don't bother to answer. I already know.