Gen. Hayden: "international calls... 200 billion minutes"

[WhoWantsToBeOccupied]

PLEASE IGNORE THIS. HAYDEN'S STATEMENT WAS "MINUTES," BUT I SOMEHOW SAW IT AS "HOURS." MY APOLOGIES!!! I'M VERY EMBARRASSED.

I THANK MY FELLOW MEMBERS OF THE "REALITY-BASED COMMUNITY" FOR QUICKLY DETECTING MY ERROR.

---

Gen. Hayden said on Jan. 23rd, "In 2003, our citizenry was on the phone in international calls alone for 200 billion minutes" (www.fas.org/irp/news/2006/01/hayden012306.html).

There are 300 million Americans. 200 bil minutes / 300 mil Americans = 667 minutes/American. If you assume that few under the age of 20 are placing international calls, that's nearly 1,000 minutes of international calling per American adult. (THIS IS WHERE I SCREWED UP. IT SHOULD BE "NEARLY THREE MINUTES PER DAY.") That's nearly two hours of international calling per person per day, every day of the year. That includes everyone in Kansas, Montana, Alabama, Nebraska, West Virginia, Kentucky, etc.

How can this possibly be? I thought someone monolingual was called "an American."

Is this prima facie evidence that NSA has been intercepting US to US calls that it terms "international calling"? We know that phone companies have been routing huge numbers of domestic phone calls through Canada since at least 2003:

"AT&T has alleged that MCI routed domestic long-distance calls through Canada, then back to AT&T's network in the United States." (www2.jsonline.com/bym/news/ap/oct03/ap-mci-call-routin103003.asp)

"MCI’s document says that AT&T’s detailed motion... describes legal, least-cost routing that is commonly used throughout the industry." (www.networkworld.com/edge/news/2003/0805mcirebut.html)

And we know that "AT&T provided National Security Agency eavesdroppers with full access to its customers' phone calls, and shunted its customers' internet traffic to data-mining equipment installed in a secret room in its San Francisco switching center, according to a former AT&T worker." (www.wired.com/news/technology/1,70619-0.html)

The only question is how many phone calls have been subject to spying. The Bush Administration and Gen Hayden have "assured" us that only "international calls" have been monitored. But if Americans are making 200 billion hours of "international calls," isn't it likely that a good fraction of these are actually US-to-US calls?

I think so because the NY Times has reported that "The National Security Agency has traced and analyzed large volumes of telephone and Internet communications flowing into and out of the United States as part of the eavesdropping program that President Bush approved... according to current and former government officials. The volume of information harvested from telecommunication data and voice networks, without court-approved warrants, is much larger than the White House has acknowledged, the officials said. It was collected by tapping directly into some of the American telecommunication system's main arteries." (http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=FA0714F63E540C778EDDAB0994DD404482 and www.dailykos.com/story/2005/12/24/14746/603)

[napi21]

1. It does sound very suspect, but...does anyone know how the phone Co.

or NSA would catagorize the customer service calls made by you and I, but the CS rep is in India? IF they are thrown into the international call catagory, that could account for a whole lot of minutes! Airline reservations, computer support, and probably a lot of other businesses I'm not thinking about.

[WhoWantsToBeOccupied]

4. I'm not sure how much offshoring there was in 2003

Even after three more years of call center offshoring, I'd be shocked if I'm on the phone with India more than 20 or 30 hours a year. That would barely make a dent in my purported 1,000 hours/year in international calls.

[EVDebs]

9. Read up on Ben H. Bell, IIIrd's Global Information Group in the Bahamas

Bahamas Firm Screens Personal Data To Assess Risk
Operation Avoids U.S. Privacy Rules

by Robert O'Harrow Jr.
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, October 16, 2004; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A36853-2004Oct15.html

Total Information Awareness was outsourced and offshored to the Bahamas via the CAPPS II program it seems. Choicepoint and other datamining firms would then send their databases offshore to them. All outside of DOJ and the Constitution's framework.

[Kipling]

2. 200 billion between 300 million is only 1.8 minutes per day.

200 billion/300 million = 666.667/365 = 1.8

[ChairmanAgnostic]

7. you fail to consider missing blond chicks in Aruba.

Most of Fox news, Rita Carlson, and others giving the latest blow by blow of blond bimboism must take hours each day.

[Jim__]

3. Check your arithmetic.

Maybe I'm mis-reading your statement, but:

that's nearly 1,000 minutes of international calling per American adult. That's nearly two hours of international calling per person per day, every day of the year.

That's 1,000 minutes / person / year, right? That's only a little over 2 minutes / person / day.

[WhoWantsToBeOccupied]

5. Sorry!!! I'm an idiot. "Minutes," not "hours"!!! Mea culpa!

[EVDebs]

8. But the calls are 'culled' by keywords, such as the Eschelon

sytem. So the grand total of calls is much much less. Also, you have foreign listening posts too to consider. Not everything will pass through Ft. Meade.

[GeorgeGist]

6. Your math is way off... Try again.