Thursday, December 15, 2005
The basics of the NYTimes' 12/15 story on domestic eavesdropping
By now you may have heard of the story that the New York Times was asked to withhold. The paper did so for a while, but now they've come forward with (part of) the news: the president authorized monitoring phone conversations for as many as 500 people -- without a warrant to do so.
The Times' story is long, and even I didn't read the entire thing. You can, if you like.
These two paragraphs get the brunt of it. The "agency" referred to is the National Security Agency, or NSA (a Department of Defense org tasked with monitoring US and foreign airwaves for intelligence):
"Since 2002, the agency has been conducting some warrantless eavesdropping on people in the United States who are linked, even if indirectly, to suspected terrorists through the chain of phone numbers and e-mail addresses, according to several officials who know of the operation. Under the special program, the agency monitors their international communications, the officials said. The agency, for example, can target phone calls from someone in New York to someone in Afghanistan.
Warrants are still required for eavesdropping on entirely domestic-to-domestic communications, those officials say, meaning that calls from that New Yorker to someone in California could not be monitored without first going to the Federal Intelligence Surveillance Court."
The Times' story is long, and even I didn't read the entire thing. You can, if you like.
These two paragraphs get the brunt of it. The "agency" referred to is the National Security Agency, or NSA (a Department of Defense org tasked with monitoring US and foreign airwaves for intelligence):
"Since 2002, the agency has been conducting some warrantless eavesdropping on people in the United States who are linked, even if indirectly, to suspected terrorists through the chain of phone numbers and e-mail addresses, according to several officials who know of the operation. Under the special program, the agency monitors their international communications, the officials said. The agency, for example, can target phone calls from someone in New York to someone in Afghanistan.
Warrants are still required for eavesdropping on entirely domestic-to-domestic communications, those officials say, meaning that calls from that New Yorker to someone in California could not be monitored without first going to the Federal Intelligence Surveillance Court."
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well anyways Saqib, here is a comment more germaine to your specific posting:
cynical me thinks that there's more to domestic survelliance than the NYTimes story shows, and I don't think I'm alone in this idea. It's well known anyhow that other, publically available materials (such as blogs) are monitored by the gov't, and that the PATRIOT act allows the confiscation of library records for certain individuals by the gov't. More recently, the Bushies have tried to obtain the google account and search records for certain individuals thought to be involved with child pornography.(please don't take this as an endorsment of child exploitation, it's just an example) Our privacy is constantly eroded. This is not a new thing, it just becomes easier with the increasing use of digital technology, which is designed for recording (and thus primed for survelliance). So, strange times we live in, but how different are they, really? I do wonder though, if this were 30 years ago, would people be more pissed or what? Seems like it's all been taken pretty lightly by John Q. Public. What does everyone else think?
-Annon.
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cynical me thinks that there's more to domestic survelliance than the NYTimes story shows, and I don't think I'm alone in this idea. It's well known anyhow that other, publically available materials (such as blogs) are monitored by the gov't, and that the PATRIOT act allows the confiscation of library records for certain individuals by the gov't. More recently, the Bushies have tried to obtain the google account and search records for certain individuals thought to be involved with child pornography.(please don't take this as an endorsment of child exploitation, it's just an example) Our privacy is constantly eroded. This is not a new thing, it just becomes easier with the increasing use of digital technology, which is designed for recording (and thus primed for survelliance). So, strange times we live in, but how different are they, really? I do wonder though, if this were 30 years ago, would people be more pissed or what? Seems like it's all been taken pretty lightly by John Q. Public. What does everyone else think?
-Annon.
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: 1/20/2006 11:13:00 AM
: 1/20/2006 11:13:00 AM << Home
