Are TIA and the NSA wiretaps related ? Some behind the scene info...

[MazeRat7]

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20051220-5808.html

If you haven't figured it out yet, the gub-ment has finally got game and able to harness some tech. I saw this on /. and figured I would post the link here. Its a pretty good overview of the tech being used by the NSA et al in lay-terms. What might not be apparent is that the tech being used is not that significantly advanced beyond what you might find in any fortune 50 company. What sets the NSA, FBI, CIA, etc apart is not their technology... its their access and authority. The interesting part is the explanation of "time". This is the admin's argument... so ask your self why is "time" an issue ? Why is it so hard to get a warrant before/after the fact ? Its because of the sampling and collection techniques employed by their tech.

Yeah, their tech is cool... but there is cool on the other side to prevent such intrusions. If or until legislation is crafted to deal with legalities of massive and arbitrary data collection and mandatory cooperation by service providers, the field is ripe for abuse. Unfortunately, only a small faction of Americans have the skills and knowledge to circumvent these programs leaving the rest of the population behind. So now I ask.. where is the real "technology" gap ? No its not between rich and poor, its between those that know how to communicate securely and those that don't. And why is this a problem ? Not because those that don't are lacking "skills" (to quote Napoleon Dynamite)... the problem is they should not be part of random data collection.

Last time I checked we didn't allow searches without probable cause. Random data collection and analysis is exactly that, a search without probable cause. So if your going to get pissed about all this be sure its for the right reasons. For me that is not because chimpy ordered it and circumvented the law... its that today there is a culture that somehow sees our "data" as being separate from our "person" when it (the data) is actually an artifact of the "person" and should be given the same protection.

MZr7

[GrpCaptMandrake]

1. Jay Rockefeller sure thought so!

In his "if-you-kill-me-i've-hidden-a-letter" letter to Big Time Dick Cheney of 17 July 2003, he said the following: "As I reflected on the meeting today, and the future we face, John Poindexter's TIA project sprang to mind, exacerbating my concern regarding the direction the Administration is moving with regard to security, technology, and surveillance."

Frankly, all of this miserable, hateful, totalitarian crap has its roots in the fact that most of us have acted as if the 4th Amendment was an afterthought, while the left screeched about the First and the Right howled about the Second. Without the Fourth Amendment, the First and Second are parlor doilies.

Of course this is TIA! Who believed the Busheviks when they said Poindexter was gone and they'd scrapped his idea?!

[pk_du]

2. Just read this and tell me TIA/Poindexter isnt behind this

http://www.politechbot.com/p-04186.html

<snip>
There are three parts to the TIA project to aid in this anti-terrorist effort. The first part is technologies that would permit rapid language translation, such as you - as we have used on the computers now, we can - there's voice recognition capabilities that exist on existing computers.

The second part was discovery of connections between transactions - such as passports; visas; work permits; driver's license; credit card; airline tickets; rental cars; gun purchases; chemical purchases - and events - such as arrest or suspicious activities and so forth. So again, it try to discover the connections between these things called transactions.

And the third part was a collaborative reasoning-and-decision-making tools to allow interagency communications and analysis. In other words, what kind of decision tools would permit the analysts to work together in an interagency community?
<snip>

[GrpCaptMandrake]

3. That's why I suggested on the show last night

that we *all* start including the occasional trigger word in our ordinary phone conversations. "Anthrax." "Bomb." Whatever. No context. Just the words. Just to drive the faccists crazy. It's not illegal (yet) and we need to make things difficult for the people spying on us.

[MazeRat7]

4. Show? Is this something I should be listening to ? if so where ? (n/t)

[GrpCaptMandrake]

5. "Head-On With Bob Kincaid" (me)

M-F, 7:06-10 p.m. Eastern. Live stream is at www.whiterosesociety.org/Kincaid.html

My lovely wife and I try to raise as much ruckus as possible in three hours' time. We'd be tickled to have you join us.

Thanks for asking!

[MazeRat7]

6. I'll catch your stream tomorrow night... no pressure. *grin.

[GrpCaptMandrake]

7. There's *always* pressure

Sometimes I live up to it, sometimes not. :shrug:

You can catch last night's show re-broadcast tomorrow at 3 p.m. Eastern at radiopower.org. I was fairly happy with that one.

I look forward to your input. I try to do a listener-driven show.

[mrfrapp]

8. Knowledge Gap

"Unfortunately, only a small faction of Americans have the skills and knowledge to circumvent these programs leaving the rest of the population behind. So now I ask.. where is the real "technology" gap ? No its not between rich and poor, its between those that know how to communicate securely and those that don't."

This is why PGP and other convenient software packages are so important and why the US Government's persecution of Zimmerman was so heinous. Episodes like that had real consequences on the development of secure and private communication IMO.