Changing the way Al-Q talks to the world
The most idiotic thing about the whole NSA phone-records scandal is one that I haven't seen covered at all in the mainstream press. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that the Bush Administration has probably been spying on us for some time -- and if you're as smart as our friends at Al-Qaeda undoubtedly are, they didn't wait until USA Today broke the story to assume that their phone calls were probably being tracked. No, that's not the idiotic part. The idiotic part is that all the landline and cell phone records in the world are not going to help identify terrorist activity.
In all likelihood, Osama Bin Laden and his friends are not now, and have not been for some time, using the regular phone system. The phone records turned over to the NSA probably don't contain anything useful in the way of terrorist-tracking data.
I have three cousins, sisters who live in far-flung parts of the world. One lives here in the continental U.S., a second lives in Guam, and the third one lives in Norway. You'd think this would mean they'd rack up huge phone bills, staying in touch with each other on a daily basis. But these days, not so -- they've all got phone numbers on an Internet phone service like Vonage or Skype, which allows them to talk as much as they want without being charged for the time.
But what's more important is that it also allows them to have phone numbers in any area code they want -- I'm not sure how they've got it set up, but I think they all have numbers in the 617 area code (Boston), because most of our extended family lives in that area.
So what happens if George Bush's snoops look up these phone records for calls between Guam, the U.S., and Norway? All they see is a whole bunch of calls that appear to be from one Boston phone to another.
My guess is that Al-Qaeda is doing the same thing. So when you hear George say that "We're using data-mining techniques to identify patterns of calls, find out when there are a lot of calls between the U.S. and Pakistan," etc., don't believe them. If a terrorist in this country calls one in Pakistan, it's going to show up in the phone records as looking like a call from Boston to Boston, or from Austin to Austin (if I were a terrorist, I'd get a phone number in Texas, just to stick it to the White House).
This whole privacy-invading, data-mining fishing expedition by the Bush Administration isn't just illegal. It's also a big waste of time and money, and it isn't going to turn up anything useful. Because the bad guys aren't using the regular phone system to begin with.
urbie
In all likelihood, Osama Bin Laden and his friends are not now, and have not been for some time, using the regular phone system. The phone records turned over to the NSA probably don't contain anything useful in the way of terrorist-tracking data.
I have three cousins, sisters who live in far-flung parts of the world. One lives here in the continental U.S., a second lives in Guam, and the third one lives in Norway. You'd think this would mean they'd rack up huge phone bills, staying in touch with each other on a daily basis. But these days, not so -- they've all got phone numbers on an Internet phone service like Vonage or Skype, which allows them to talk as much as they want without being charged for the time.
But what's more important is that it also allows them to have phone numbers in any area code they want -- I'm not sure how they've got it set up, but I think they all have numbers in the 617 area code (Boston), because most of our extended family lives in that area.
So what happens if George Bush's snoops look up these phone records for calls between Guam, the U.S., and Norway? All they see is a whole bunch of calls that appear to be from one Boston phone to another.
My guess is that Al-Qaeda is doing the same thing. So when you hear George say that "We're using data-mining techniques to identify patterns of calls, find out when there are a lot of calls between the U.S. and Pakistan," etc., don't believe them. If a terrorist in this country calls one in Pakistan, it's going to show up in the phone records as looking like a call from Boston to Boston, or from Austin to Austin (if I were a terrorist, I'd get a phone number in Texas, just to stick it to the White House).
This whole privacy-invading, data-mining fishing expedition by the Bush Administration isn't just illegal. It's also a big waste of time and money, and it isn't going to turn up anything useful. Because the bad guys aren't using the regular phone system to begin with.
urbie
posted by Urbie at 7:17 AM
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