Government monitors about 200 million Americans' calls

[ProSense]

Government monitors about 200 million Americans' calls

May 11, 2006 - As controversy continues to swirl around the National Security Agency program that taps the phones of suspected terrorists within the United States, a USA Today story reveals another piece of the president's NSA spying program.

Addressing the issue this afternoon, President Bush did not confirm or deny the report and said the intelligence operations he's authorized are "lawful" and "appropriate."

The newspaper says that the spy agency has been collecting information on every phone call made in this country.

"Chances are that your cell phone calls, as well as your home phone calls, have been tracked," said Leslie Cauley, the reporter who broke the story. She said there was a "high likelihood" that this information was being passed on to the FBI and CIA.

Bush said any intelligence activities specifically target terrorists. "Our intelligence activities strictly target al Qaeda and their known affiliates," Bush said. "We are not mining or trolling through the personal lives of innocent Americans."

Snip...

About 200 million people have had their call records monitored, Cauley said. This means the NSA keeps track of the outgoing and incoming calls, but not the callers' Social Security numbers or addresses.

more...

http://abclocal.go.com/wls/story?section=nation_world&id=4162271

[Lost-in-FL]

1. What make them think that...

they are able to monitor 200 million calls when they missed ONE pre-9/11 Memo about possible attacks against the US using airplanes? :eyes:

[neoblues]

2. Naw... not their SSN's...

not in the same database "file", anyway (though it's in another linked relational database). Of course, they don't have the SSN's/Addresses in the initial database file, it just maintains just their names, zip codes, phone numbers, phone company account number (but they have instantaneous, easy access to other associated information: photographs, eye color/hair color/height/weight, finger-prints, DNA mapping, medical records, addresses, social security numbers, credit card numbers, birth date, employer, spouse's name, children's names (and their photographs, eye color/hair color/height/weight, finger-prints, DNA mapping, medical records,, addresses, social security numbers, birth dates, employers, spouse's name... etc), parent's names, dog's name, mother's maiden name, shoe size, eye color, friend's names, memberships, educational records, childhood nicknames, prior address history, phone number history, first bank account and full financial history, complete employment history and much, much more...)(okay, granted, some of that might take a extra little time and some additional evidence collection (easily performed while you're not home)).

[dweller]

3. okay ... 200 million people

and how many terra-ists have they nabbed?


btw, i posed this to my repug boss today and his response was: and how many buildings have fallen in that time?
(is that a Limbaugh talking point now?) :shrug:

i pointed out the PDB before Sept 11, and also mentioned that the data had been being collected before Sept 01 altho i wasn't that sure of how i knew that other than i thought i had read it here. He didn't question or challenge me on it since several other more vociferous members of the staff joined in and we all felt we had the upper hand on it for the time being. . . and then went back to work.

touchy subject.
dp

[hopeisaplace]

4. but they are unable to "secure" the ports.

gheesh, they count on our stupidity.