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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsWhat metadata can tell about you... (p.s. "more intrusive than content)
For example, she said, in the world of business, a pattern of phone calls from key executives can reveal impending corporate takeovers. Personal phone calls can also reveal sensitive medical information: You can see a call to a gynecologist, and then a call to an oncologist, and then a call to close family members. And information from cell-phone towers can reveal the callers location. Metadata, she pointed out, can be so revelatory about whom reporters talk to in order to get sensitive stories that it can make more traditional tools in leak investigations, like search warrants and subpoenas, look quaint. You can see the sources, she said. When the F.B.I. obtains such records from news agencies, the Attorney General is required to sign off on each invasion of privacy. When the N.S.A. sweeps up millions of records a minute, its unclear if any such brakes are applied.
Metadata, Landau noted, can also reveal sensitive political information, showing, for instance, if opposition leaders are meeting, who is involved, where they gather, and for how long. Such data can reveal, too, who is romantically involved with whom, by tracking the locations of cell phones at night.
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2013/06/verizon-nsa-metadata-surveillance-problem.html?mbid=gnep&google_editors_picks=true
Major Hogwash
(17,656 posts)I hope Eva Longoria doesn't break under questioning and admit that I like her guacamole!!
ProSense
(116,464 posts)...ridiculous spin. I mean, actually spying on people, wiretapping their conversations is less intrusive than metadata?
Absurd!
Skittles
(153,193 posts)Tierra_y_Libertad
(50,414 posts)And, pursuing whoever told us about the collection of harmless data.
morningfog
(18,115 posts)I am stunned at the double-think being offered on this.
PSPS
(13,614 posts)Oh, and don't forget, "If you have nothing to hide...," "President Hitler would be worse," "You're handing the election to Christie," "This is nothing new," and the next, I suppose, will be the ever ready, "Why do you hate America?"
gollygee
(22,336 posts)though I agree that it is intrusive and can tell more than people might think, it won't tell more than content.
Skittles
(153,193 posts)jbond56
(403 posts)so not covered by 4th amendment.
Gov has been collecting this since 1979.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smith_v._Maryland
Should we change this? I think so but that involves changing the supreme court. Does that happen if we elect Republicans?