2006-05-15

When the Government Knows Who Calls Who


On one Sunday morning news program after another, the NSA data collection efforts were dismissed on the grounds that the government only knows who calls who, not what was said. No one on any of the shows I watched tried to explain why anyone should care if the government has detailed historical records of who calls whom, covering millions of Americans.

Can you imagine how interesting it would be to have this type of information on one of your enemies? To know exactly whom they call, and who calls them, and exactly when, going back at least five years? Can you imagine how interesting someone might find these same items, about you?

3 comments:

Jim said...

if the leftist and the liberals and the lunatic fringe, don't take this country back from these oppressive warmongering pigs in silk and satins, oinking and snorting their hearts out while eating us, this country goin to be worse off than ever i seen it and i saw it under nixon and johnson and the money-pigs of those days, sucking the life and days out of the poor and downtrodden common man.

all us against it got to vote against it, or we gonna have to do a lot more than that cause it ain't going to improve otherwise.

what a bloody mess, and now world wide it is.

Paul Hue said...

Nadir: Lots of conservatives opposed this on the news programs that I watched. I do agree with you that this information is useful to politicians who want to go on fishing expedtions against political opponents. The conservatives cried foul when Clinton did just that with the IRS, and they should oppose at least Bush enacting this plan without the consent and oversight of the judiciary and legislative branches.

Count me amoung the repo voters who are mad that Bush responded to 911 by increasing the size, activities, and powers of the fedl govt, and decreased the freedom of citizens to move freely about their own country.

Paul Hue said...

Nadir: I think that the defense of this activity claims not "only who calls whom" but "what numbers call what numbers", with numbers matched to names only when a officials identify a suspect. My primary complaint is that these fedl executive branch officials have not submitted themselves to oversight by the other two branches.