"But it's only a phone number, what could they do with that?"

Google your phone number - for most landlines - it pulls up name, address, maps, satellite photos, etc. With name/address - run through IRS - bingo, there's your SS # - the ticket to all that the government (state & Feds) know about you.

With your address, I could probably find your property tax records online, know how much you paid for your house, possibly see a digital copy of your mortgage. Add in SS number, I can find where you work, how long, what your take home pay is - and pull your credit report (credit card companies got their major windfall this year, don't think they aren't paying off to the gov't) I can find out what you buy, how much of your income you have committed and just how close, financially, to the edge you are.

Donating to "lefty" causes? Barely making ends meet? IRS freezes your employer bank accounts for a couple weeks while they dispute some payroll claim - turns out the employer was correct after all, so sorry, but you'll spend enough time playing catch up on the bills that I just robbed Howard Dean of another donation

City councilman pushing for a town impeachment resolution? Or even opposing introducing ID in the schools (or one of Shrub's famously faith based funded private schools) - does your spouse know about the number of times you've called this or that number?

Does your boss know how many payroll minutes (hours) you've wasted on his dime looking at sites like DU or Kos?

The latest credit card bill also permits them to max out your rate if anything on your credit report goes negative - how hard would that be to do, and all of a sudden, you're trying to cover everything at 30% interest.

There are so many ways to use that phone number (and if AT&T turned it over, don't even think that there's such a thing as non-published or unlisted) and none of it has to have the government's hands directly on it for abuse. Obviously the loud lefty constantly writing LTTE and Congress getting IRS audits could be a red flag. But that quick list I just ran through? How would you even know? Or at least convince others that your tin foil wasn't too tight.

So for those who say "It's only a phone number, what could they do with it?" - put a few minutes thought into it and you'll probably come up with a few of your own scenarios. If nothing else, it'll give you some good responses to the inevitable Freeper comments.

I learned how to do traces some time ago. It's scary how one small bit of information can lead to just about everything you'd ever want to know about a person and how easy it is to obtain.

Note to DU code kiddies: don't get tense. I only pursue the really bad guys out there.

So does Bush, as the story goes...;)

trying multiple probes of multiple ports over a period of several hours, he qualifies as a bad guy, IMO, certainly someone who is up to absolutely no good.

The bad news is that sometimes it's a DOD IP address.

Are you saying that sometimes the hackers you trace come from within the DOD? Now that is scary!
Thanks for the insight, and I thought they were on our side! :scared:

NSA has been in love with social network analysis for a long time now.

Here's a representational chart of the social analysis of the relationships (with names removed) of the pilots of the flights of 911:



They also do this sort of analysis with individuals looking for links among terrorists.

If a friend's cousin's friend shows up on one of their charts via a terrorist watch list (or someone, like the screwy no-fly lists, has the same name as the friend's cousins friend and is on a terrorist watch list) there's a outside chance you could be netted.

That's why I don't like the call records being handed over without oversight.

I'm more concerned with real NSA error than some overblown fear of terror.

they could link calls to known liberal and conservative groups and create maps showing concentrations of various types of voters. Therefore using the data to target mailings, there is alot Rove used this data for. He's a numbers guy, Bush makes fun of him for staying up late and going over data.

all that NASCAR dad, soccer mom, data mining pure and simple and now suddenly the DOJ doesn't have the security clearance to investigate the NSA???


Give us a break

yesterday, I think it is more enfarous, can you say enemy's list

It's call records. It's who you called , when you called, how often you called and how long you talked.

Call any business or go there in person. Doesn't matter what business -- your hairdressers, bank, doctor, sporting goods store... What is the first thing they ask you? Your name? No... your phone number. You are your phone number.

In the last week, each of these businesses asked me for my phone number and typed it in into their computer. If the NSA hasn't done so already, how long 'til they simply threaten every business to release "just the phone numbers of your customers." So now it's, "who you visited, when you visited, how often you went there, and how long you were there" that gets easily added to their database.

All businesses know your phone # is your name. That AT&T and Verizon are trying to squirm out of this by saying "we didn't release any names" is laughable.

what civil servant will ever leak to a journalist again?

no more squealers to law enforcement

no more placing bets by telephone

no more phone calls to your shrink or doctor (you could get dumped from your health plan)

What about the calls from cousin Vinny in the slammer begging for bail? You want the government to know about those? They won't know he was begging for bail; they might think you're his accomplice.

Calls to/from the country club bar?

What about calls innocently made to someone who -- unknown to you -- is a crack dealer?

What if calls to/from your local dry cleaners are picked out because a Muslim works there?

It doesn't take much imagination to predict a thousand possible misuses of this database.

So then I googled my previous number.....bingo, but it is three years old....

About two weeks ago--I kept getting some idiot on my cell phone whose number I did not recognize. I had answered the number twice and nobody said anything. The time I answered two weeks ago I did a reverse lookup and called him BY NAME. He quickly ended the call when I told him I knew his address and would be sending the police there if he called me again.

:rofl: