So let me ask you guys a question about this spying:

My husband chats with his friend in Germany a lot. They talk on line and on the phone. Send emails, too.

Both of them are former military, both are against our invasion and occupation of Iraq and both of them loathe bush with a passion. They talk about those topics all the time, in no uncertain terms.

His friend was in the Army with him when they were stationed in Germany back in the 80s. His friend met a German woman, got out of the Army, got married to her, and stayed there. They have three kids now. So he's an expatriate American.

My husband wonders if conversations like theirs are the kind of things bush authorized spying on. Before we knew about all this mess, I would have laughed and accused him of being paranoid, but I'm not so sure anymore.

Both men hate what bush and his ilk has done to this country. My husband's friend has said on many occasions how glad he is, nowdays, that he lives in Germany and not America. The rest of his extended family still lives here.

Is this the kind of conversation the NSA would be interested in? If so, why? There's no threat there.

Just a hunch.

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I mean, they're just two family men who work hard at their jobs and talk about their good ol' Army days and bitch about bush and shake their heads about the war.

That's it. Something, God, millions of Americans must engage in all the time (at least the 50 million who voted for Kerry!).

I mean, what a waste of resources.

Humans only listen to the conversations that ring lots of bells, like the one's you described.

:evilgrin:

yes, everything is picked up out of the air, but not even the NSA has the computing power to record and analyze, let alone translate, all of the hundreds of millions of converstations that take place every day. Sure, certain words attract attention (If you say 'kill' and 'president' in the same sentence, someone probably notices, eventually) but to record and actually analyze that much data would require more data storage than has ever been developed and more processing power than exists on the planet (especially given the encryption of most data)

of course, if the NSA or some other agency has achieved a remarkable, earthshaking, advance in cryptology and processing power (like, say, a quantum computer) all bets are off.

Think of the system like a spam filter. It looks for certain things in the river of information and picks them out, everything else gets discarded. But once different languages come into play? and dialects, codes, and the like? There are probalby 10,000 conversations going on in Arabic at any given moment, over telephones, mobiles, internet chats and the like. the NSA doesn't have 10,000 full time Arabic translators capable of processing that. The manpower requirements are insane. That's the one thing we have going for us.

I didn't base my comment on my beliefs. Can't say any more, but I promise you that every transatlantic telephone conversation is recorded and sifted through with powerful software for content. The content proposed by the thread starter would surely be flagged and listened to by a human being. Betcha $5.00.

(By the way, I could give you a techonology education, so spare me the pedantic prose)

:evilgrin:

so all they do is sit around and listen to transatlantic conversations, right? you would need at least ten thousand people simply listening to tape, non stop to address such ridiculous conversations. It's wise to assume that everything is intercepted, but that doesn't mean it's all actually listened to. It's just like living under the KGB, assume someone's listening, but the odds are they really aren't.

it's a meaningless bet, after all, since we have no idea if any particular conversation was actually heard by a human, but you are talking about thousands of conversations every day, tens of thousands of hours, in fifty languages, 99.999% of which, even if they include questionable content are absolutely meaningless.

in my previous job, I spent about four hours a day making international phone calls, many of which involved political content, all of which was hostile to this regime (since I was a lobbyist) My coworker made the same. So if all are flagged, and listened to, as you say they would be, that's a full time job for someone to listen to. Eight hours a day. five days a week. figure an NSA analyst making 60 grand, plus benefits...I like the fact that the government spent 80 grand a year listening to my phone calls. it's amusing, actually. And those calls were mostly in English.

now multiply that by ten thousand or so. fun, huh?

just because the software exists, and the hardware may exist, doesn't mean the human capital exists.

on edit: I don't mean to question your technical expertise, or your insider knowledge (which, let's be honest, if you really had first hand you wouldn't tell us, I hope) simply the practical reality of living in a mass communication world.

anybody saying they don't like you is proof to you that you aren't paranoid. So yes there is definitely something of interest to them in these conversations.

You can bet they find ways around the law to justify spying on citzens
THE Department of Central Intelligence- DCI is run by the DNI- Department of National Intelligence- which over sees the NSA- and CIA- but as some suggest also spies on their personnel including the DIA.

it gets convoluted--------data mining techniques and interaction by different computers-* remember they shut down 2003- former Iran- Contra- Admiral Poindexters Total Information Awareness programme-a felon but a bright guy--------

ECHELON has been doing that for years- tagging certain words said on the telephone for future analysis

I'm with you, it would have sounded paranoid until the revelation that he authorized the NSA to spy on American citizens.

Still I hope that they really were just wiretapping suspected al queda contacts.

But then, why go around FISA? It allows for up to 72 hours of tapping before you obtain a warrant.

Plus there's the stuff about how they've spied on anti-war people, not just possible al-Queda contacts. Why go around the warrants? It makes no sense, unless they wanted to do some spying they thought wasn't kosher.

I told my husband chances are, their conversations have not been listened to. But like you said, who knows? They are country to country calls and they do mention politics, bush, and the war quite a bit.

:shrug:

It's just weird.

have been monitored since the 80's. International electronic communications are monitored by a consortium of US, UK, AUS, and NZ agencies using the NSA's Echelon system. Each does the other's citizens to work around domestic prohibitions like our FISA act.

What is new is that Bush turned Echelon on for domestic communications. He is lying when he says it was only international calls. They are lying when they claim it was just a few wiretaps. How do we know they are lying? It is simple - they already had legal avenues to wiretap anyone through the FISA courts, and the Bush administration has done so about 19,000 times since 2001. They already were monitoring all international calls - nothing new there and no need to break nay laws. So what is left is domestic communications - the only thing that is prohibited.

I talk to my brother in europe frequently and have for 20 years and we play mind games with echelon all the time. Screw them. Screw all their fascist police state bullshit. Live your life with your head held high and refuse to be afraid. It is the fear that they are selling and I ain't buying it.

If anything, he and his friend are now talking even more shit about bush.

but chimpco very likely had a special list of persons of interest that they monitored very closely. People like Dean, Kennedy, Reid, Kerry, Edwards, etc. I'd bet on it.

ECHELON is indiscriminate, it merely pulls everybody signal in, filters it for "red flag" words. If something is found they send it to analyst and so on and so on.

Similarly, I exchange emails frequently with a friend, and Vietnam vet, who now lives in Mexico. I have never heard him say a kind word about Bush--indeed, if he doesn't curse whenever he mentions his name, or write his name, then that's unusual.

I did read, however, that while all international emails and conversations have been at least electronically monitored, most of the monitoring is only electronic.

This makes sense to me, if only because it would require tens of thousands of people to be working constantly to have humans monitoring all international calls and emails.

I just read four emails from Mexico today, and replied with one.

I think I may start sending more just as my part of overworking the system.

chat online more often (international calls being a bit expensive!).

Assume the worst anytime the gov't circumvents oversight. There was no real threat from the peace activists of the 1960s and 1970s but NSA was ordered to spy on them anyway. FISA was supposed to stop all that.

I'd guess that German-American communications are monitored somewhat more closely than others because some of the 9/11 hijackers including Atta had lived in Germany.

then every call can be processed. I can't wait until they develop Skynet, show it to the public, declare it bad and disband it, secretly finish building it, start taking over the world! Conspiracy intact, 100% denial factor, mission accomplished.

generation of datamining software a few years back. Consider google.

COnsider that Nixon had the FBI assemble 500,000 files on Americans, 65,000 tabbed as national security threats.

I dont think the Bush Regime would seriously take a look at your husband.

On the other hand-- I have spent 6 months lobbying in my county against computerized voting machines, had my name in the paper a dozen times, My Picture in the paper-- at a Rally, holding an Impeach Bush sign, at a major intersection in Town. My Picture in the paper-Front page- at a Rally, holding a HONK FOR CINDY sign. I have publicly threatened the NJ Attorney General with a law suit in Federal district court, and a criminal referal to the US Attorney General for the district of NJ. Worked for JOhn Kerry campaign last year, worked part Time for Corzine for Gov. campaign

-Founded NJ Voting Issues project.
-Memeber DFA
-Founded Essex County task force on voting rights.
-attended about 25 anti BUSH , anti Iraq war rallies.

Whaddiya think---I might have a file with my name on it ? ................

now how about
CIndy Shehan?
Or Make Malloy
or Randi Rhodes
Or John COnyers---------------

on edit--
just remember to stress the clean & legal removal from office bit--- LOL

:yourock: I bet everyone on DUs been logged.

Dean or MoveOn, I think you're pretty safe. :)

..everything will lead back to Kevin Bacon. :rofl:

I read that the computers that they use to monitor these lines, monitor for certain key words that have been programmed into them. Once a key word is singled out the computer starts data tracking and informing certain level employees.