Interesting People mailing list archives
more on NSA Sweep "Waste of Time," Analyst Says
From: David Farber <dave () farber net>
Date: Mon, 15 May 2006 12:19:31 -0400
Begin forwarded message: From: wes_morgan () US IBM COM Date: May 15, 2006 11:10:41 AM EDT To: johnmacsgroup () yahoogroups com Subject: Re: [johnmacsgroup] NSA Sweep "Waste of Time," Analyst Says Reply-To: johnmacsgroup () yahoogroups com David Bolduc suggested:
http://www.defensetech.org/archives/002399.html NSA Sweep "Waste of Time," Analyst Says It'd be one thing if the NSA's massive sweep of our phone records was actually helping catch terrorists. But what if it's not working at all? A leading practitioner of the kind of analysis the NSA is supposedly performing in this surveillance program says that "it's awaste of time, a waste of resources. And it lets the real terroristsrun
free."
Doesn't this discussion seem to assume that we must choose between alternative programs? Is it not possible (one would hope it's likely) that NSA (or whomever) is pursuing multiple avenues of approach, some of which will turn out to be ratholes, but some of which may produce useful results?
Well, according to the unnamed sources, the NSA is getting nothing more than raw call data; it has been stated, specifically, that personalidentifying information has been removed. So, it would seem that the base
data record is something like: * date/time * calling number * called number * duration of call (in some cases; I don't know if the telcos gather this info for calls other than cell/sat/LD calls.)There may be additional information, mostly inferred from billing issues;
for instance, knowing that a cell phone was roaming at the time may indicate that one party to the call was traveling at the time, or the presence of long-distance charges may indicate that someone was "phoning home."I'm no expert, but there aren't THAT many "avenues of approach" available
at first glance. More to the point, there aren't that many avenues that aren't available via traditional go-get-a-warrant methods. If you're interested in who's calling XYZ-ABCD, or in who XYZ-ABCD is calling, you can get a warrant for that. If they handle the matter under FISA, they can even wait up to 72 hours to get the warrant as they collect data. The key concern, to me, is that this appears to be yet another case of willful ignorance of judicial review. I don't buy the "identifyinginformation removed" dodge, either; if they have the number, tracing it to
a name is a trivial matter. Of course, whether that name-number link is an accurate reflection of "who made the call" is a completely different matter, but that leads us into this comment from the original thread:
Of course, there's a price to pay with this approach: a ton of false alarms. Several stages of filtering should fix that, he argued. Besides, "it's not like you call the FBI every time you get a hit."
Actually, I'd suggest that "call the FBI every time you get a hit" is a likely, if not probable, outcome. Since 9/11, we've seen numerousexamples of LE/FBI overreach in the name of "national security," from hits
on the nebulous no-fly lists to visits from FBI/SS/DHS officials to various persons; why would this differ? --Wes ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> Everything you need is one click away. Make Yahoo! your home page now. http://us.click.yahoo.com/AHchtC/4FxNAA/yQLSAA/XgSolB/TM --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/johnmacsgroup/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: johnmacsgroup-unsubscribe () yahoogroups com <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ ------------------------------------- You are subscribed as lists-ip () insecure org To manage your subscription, go to http://v2.listbox.com/member/?listname=ip Archives at: http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/
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- more on NSA Sweep "Waste of Time," Analyst Says David Farber (May 15)