more on NSA Sweep "Waste of Time," Analyst Says

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

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 a
> > waste 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 personal
identifying 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 "identifying
information 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 numerous
examples 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



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