National Call-in to Congress on NSA Warrantless Surveillance Day

How do they track who is calling who......

This story in today NY Times sheds how the tracking and connecting the dots is being done by the "Math experts"
What it also points out is that although there may be some information ...it isn't really helpful in catching terrorists.

Jonathan David Farley who is a science fellow at the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford writes this informative article.

The article in today's paper pointed out a few types of mapping used and describes the ways to mathematically create a chart of who calls who, connecting the nodes or the spokes to the hub so to speak.
Problem is, the end result is not a terrorist, in fact there is many possible unknowns and thus not helpful in true terrorism fighting

Jonathan described these math spies as "graph theorists"
Read this enlightening article here -  link to www.nytimes.com

The title of the article is The N.S.A.'s Math Problem

pre-read phone bills to your congress person for payment. suggest they use the nsa budget funds cut from the spying program. nice.

From this link:  http://writ.news.findlaw.com/ramasastry/20060515.html
I relay to you all the following exerpt:

That law is the 1986 Stored Communications Act (SCA), which specifically and clearly forbids phone companies from turning over records to the government without a warrant or court order: Under the law, providers of "electronic communications ... shall not knowingly divulge a record or other information pertaining to a subscriber or customer ... to any government entity." (Emphasis added.)

There is one particularly relevant exception to this rule: Companies, under the law applicable until March 2006 (when the SCA was amended), could only turn over records if they "reasonably" believed there was an "immediate danger of death or serious physical injury" that disclosure might help prevent. So for instance, if there were a specific investigation of an imminent terrorist act, the companies could instantly - without a court order or warrant - turn over the suspects' records.

It appears that the NSA program predated the March 2006 SCA amendment (which coincided with the renewal of the USA Patriot Act). Indeed, the program may have existed since shortly after September 11. If so, then the pre-amendment "reasonable" belief of "immediate" danger standard applied.

It appears that the NSA program predated the March 2006 SCA amendment (which coincided with the renewal of the USA Patriot Act). Indeed, the program may have existed since shortly after September 11. If so, then the pre-amendment "reasonable" belief of "immediate" danger standard applied.

It's unlikely that the phone companies can argue that they had a "reasonable" belief of "immediate" danger throughout the entire period from whenever the program began, until the date of the amendment. Perhaps in the months just after the September 11th attacks, or during periods when the threat level was most elevated, a belief in "immediate" danger was conceivably warranted - even "reasonable." But even the government has only claimed that there was immediate danger in particular places, and during particular time periods.

Yet there is no suggestion by the government that the NSA's phone-log monitoring was restricted by place, time period or threat level. Instead, it appears to have been a continuing program, which undermines any claim that it was justified by "immediate" danger.

Moreover, the way the program has been described suggests that it is preventive, not responsive. According to the government, the NSA is scanning vast databases of phone records and trying to find patterns indicating future attacks; it is not seeking phone records because it has had, at particular times, knowledge of a specific and impending threat.


-check link at top for full article-

kissin' cuzzins y'reckon?

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