So how has cataloging all domestic phone calls helped the NSA catch OBL?

My understanding has been that the NSA is concerned with foreign intel rather than domestic intel - with the express purpose of national security.

Okay, on the one hand when the head of the NSA heard a briefing about Osama's plans to strike the US on the US soil, and she did little/nothing in response (as in no red flags were raised... no "hair on fire" response...) one could (and true believers did) rationalize that this was an oversight/human error. Let's use that generous rationalization. So what do they do right after the attacks as a major human resources effort to catch Osama?

We now know that right after the attacks, the NSA devotes tons of man power and resources to coerce the major telecoms into giving up all phone records of all customers with the (according to the USA Today article) goal of having a record of every phone call being made in the United States.

Yet Osama is still alive. Al qeada has regrouped. The Taliban once again controls parts of Afghanistan. The war in Iraq has increased the number of terrorists who are at least nominally loosely affiliated with Al Qeada (or so say several major military and intelligence reports.)

So how has this massive data-base helped in protecting national security? How has it helped the president's goal to "smoke" OBL "out of his cave and catch him dead or alive"?

Perhaps it is time to dump the NSA? After all the NSA seems to have:

*missed information delivered to them per a REAL imminent threat;

*and to have stoked up claims (based on known faulty and twisted/trumped up intel) of a fake imminent threat in order to sell an elective war (that is now a mess - and as stated before seems to be creating more and more terrorists daily);

*and has been more effective at creating the power for massive domestic spying (illegally) while making no ground toward catching Osama Bin Laden, or weakening the financing of terrorists - or much of anything that the public can detect that comes close to protecting national security.

Perhaps this is what the GOP means when they refer to government wasteful spending?

Don't you feel safer with OBL still out there, with our intel/military reporting that there are many, many more terrorists today than at the time of 911? Isn't it all made okay, because after all the NSA knows how many times people called for pizza carryout compared to how many times they called their relatives?

found out where Jimmy Hoffa is buried

found Waldo

found where in the world Carmen Sandiego was

got a tip on the 5th race at the Aqueduct

and found out the best place for Chinese takeout in Des Moines.

registry of calls ;-)

Btw - yours was the funniest post I have read all day :D

They found out who people were calling and sent out throngs of FBI agents across the nation following up on millions of call patterns and deduced the above.



Yeah...that's it. That's the ticket!

I think it would be much better if they did a more thorough job of cataloging how often their relatives were called!

:hi:

affiliations of taxpayers into a database ... blame it on contractors who were collecting the data and said it is because the sources used for data already included party affiliation.. odd that, given that at least one of the states in which this data had been included is a state where no citizen declare's party - only way to get that is to DIG - be it through donation records, or perhaps minutes of local party meetings? Funny little story in January that just died. IRS said - not doing it anymore (and we believe this because...?)

Point being all they have to do is start using that data to harrass by audits anyone who isn't a republican. So many tools of the govt under bush that are being put into place that could easily force a totalitarian-one-party rule (and one branch of govt if bush got his way). Comforting, eh?

They could not possibly enforce them all. They are just tools for selective enforcement.

The Repubican party used 9/11 as a catalyst for the biggest power grab in this country's history. They have been able to break laws and do things in the name of national security that they'd never have been able to do otherwise. EVERY decision made has been designed to steal from the American people - steal our jobs, our money, our lives - so that the aristocracy can have more. They don't care about keeping us safe, if there ever was a threat in the first place.

The biggest threat to this country, to our way of life and what we hold dear is our own government.

in the name of creating "more jobs" we increase costs on middle and lower income (through higher costs of goods, and the shipping away of higher paying hobs) and give bigger tax cuts to the wealthy, and reward outsourcing companies by giving them bigger tax breaks.

In the name of "security" pursue policies that put citizens at greater risk of abuse of power by a government that appears to be morphing into an Orwellian world in which information about citizens is collected in order to control said citizens.

In the name of "pursuing the war on terror" the Exec branch declares the other two branches of government as null and void - by filing more than 750 "signing statements" that allow the pres and fed govt to ignore constitutionally passed (and signed by him) laws and declare that his is the only interpretation of the Constitution that is needed.

While I thought bushco would be a disaster if elected in 2000, I could never have predicted that the disaster would be so huge that it threatened to completely alter our system of government and way of life.

But then again, no one could have predicted terrorists would fly airplanes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, right? ;)

:shrug: ;-)

or the Republicans are lying to everyone.
Frankly .. the terrorists win this argument.

The republicans have zero credibility and have spent billions
of dollars on this wang-doodle wiretap contraption that
has failed to catch a single terrorist. Nor is it likely
to ever catch a terrorist. The republican "lie" that this
system will prevent the next terror attack is pure hogwash.
This system can only do what it is told to do... a variation on
an old adage....cluelessness in > cluelessness out.

This machine has one purpose.. to spy on known political enemies
(for whatever purpose you like... extortion, blackmail, insider trading,
coercion, industrial and political espionage, etc etc.. )

Don't believe a word of what the republicans say. They lie.

Eschalon, used during the Clinton administration, intercepted calls originating in the US but being made only to overseas destinations--and I can somewhat understand that form of surveillance--not that I like it, but it could have been productive had it been used right in the Bush admin.

But this new situation, with NSA having access to phone activity by Americans to Americans, is a different ball of wax. It is going to be used improperly by the PTBs to spy on political enemies--and it has potential to be used for much worse purposes.

Any American who appreciates the liberties provided in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights should be angry about this latest usurpation of our rights.

The people who think it's OK are ill-informed of the very founding of this nation and the reasons for it.

How many of them understand what it means? I'd be willing to bet it's a minority. Ignorance is a huge obstacle, IMHO. People just don't know and are all too willing to trust the government and give them a pass.

and I bet that most can't even list two Amendments in the Bill of Rights.

We are a nation that prides itself on ignorance--and that's sad.

Here's a little tidbit for you. I read the news article to my college history class that said that over 60% of Americans could not find Iraq on a map and 88% could not find Afghanistan. They all smirked and giggled, as if saying, "Those ignorant fools! Not knowing where Iraq and Afghanistan are on a map."

Friday, on that class's final exam, I gave the class a bonus: "On the map of the Middle East below, put a star on Iraq, to prove that you are not one of the 60% of Americans who have no idea where Iraq is." Out of 120 students, how many do you think got it right?

Six. yes, 6.

how frickin sad. Of the 114 - about what percent were even in the right area of the ME on the map?

The map included Afghanistan and Pakistan. Many chose either of those two. Several put Iraq square in the middle of the Persian Gulf or the Mediterranean.

I'm going to hit the road. Depressing.

Have a great week!

:hug:

In the article I read about the same survey, a huge percentage of young Americans couldn't even find Louisiana (as in Hurricane Katrina).

Getting back to the Constitution. Do they even teach "Civics" or "American Government" in high school anymore? Probably high school is the only time people MIGHT be forced to actually read the Declaration of Independence, Constitution and Bill of Rights. Now its apparently more important to know about 'American Idol', the final episode of 'Lost', or the saga of Nick and Jessica. Personally, I believe the appalling drop in standards of American public education in the past 50 years has been a deliberate attempt to produce an unknowing, uninvolved, uncaring electorate composed of sheeple. Easier for Neocons to manipulate that way. There's a reason we pay our teachers shit salaries.

have it as a requirement of graduation? Civics or Government.

of the repressive authoritarian countries that the US used to work against, that are being quietly put into place in this country.

Old (soviet/easternbloc) party systems - can only get jobs, housing, etc if one belongs to the party;

Old (soviet/easternbloc) party systems - if media prints something negative about the govt, the media risks being shut down (think the bill the house just passed to make it against the law to leak or print a leak about problems in our govt).

We aren't there - but it seems like the infrastructure is being put into place...

we are harkening back to the days of eugenics. Slowly, social services are being phased out. Let the weak either care for themselves or die out of the gene pool.

How much more fascist does it get?


And thank you for opening this discussion. :hi:

am about to sign off for a number of days - cable went out at the house and I am never able to get off work during the hours that the cable company makes house calls. Is leading me to get a little more sleep in the am - since I can't do the early am news read. :hi: :D

I'm taking a four-day vacation this week--I'm averaging my students' grades in a bit. I'll take my laptop to stay abreast of the Rove news, but I won't be posting much on DU. Too much fun to be had while I'm away.

Then, when I get back, it'll be time to start arranging research trips to archives...Oklahoma, Michigan, New Orleans, etc.

:hug: So good to see you, too!

how many years will it take of listening to calls to Aunt Jane to catch OBL

since they think she might have more of a clue than they about OBL. :shrug:

It hasn't.

Cataloging all domestic phone calls - we're talking millions of contacts a day - and trying to catch that one terrorist conversation is much like searching for a needle in a haystack. In this case, the haystack may not even have a needle in it. I'm sure that anyone with ill intentions toward us knows better than to communicate through such easily detected channels.

Now, it could more realistically help the government with other things. Listening in on the conversations of federal prosecutors and rival politicians, for example.

:thumbsup:

:thumbsup:

the people they called. They've probably made a good chart of Democracy For America, and Hillary's social network.

How many will be audited by the IRS?

But that is beside the point. They wanna know what my friend Tanya and I talked about yesterday. Where I order in pizza from...

As long as Osama is out there, they can use the "terra and fear" thing to their advantage. I wonder if they even want him caught.

no better focused on who might commit a terrorist attack than this, they aren't going to catch any. Don't they have citizens reporting all suspicious behavior to them? They have time to go after high school students who do projects insulting Bush, that means there are no serious threats out there.

It's like starting in Maine and just working their way down. They do nothing to focus the search.

It's exactly what one of my coworkers asked...If they collected all this info to catch terrorists, who have they caught?

Another good point she made was, don't you think the terrorist would be smart enought to use those prepaid cellphones like they show on EVERY crime/cop/spy show? Thought that was an excellent point also.

I mean, we all know it's a bogus excuse for collecting the info...SO WHY DOESN'T SOMEONE IN THE NEWS POINT THIS STUFF OUT???? (I know, that's really just a rhetorical question but I had to get it off my chest)

assume that this collection "fights terrorism."