The right side of the blogosphere is awash with “So what?” attitudes when it comes to the story that the major phone companies have turned over millions of phone records since 2001.
I’ll tell you so what: Get an effing warrant if you want to track my phone habits. I am tired of conservatives gleefully giving up our civil rights in the fight against terrorism. I have been uncomfortable for quite some time now with the concept of the president being able to hold people without charge for years at a time. I understand that we’re fighting a different kind of war, but there’s something inherently wrong with refusing to apply the Geneva Conventions to these people, and then refusing to apply any laws at all to them. This is not a banana republic. Even the prisoners at Gitmo have rights. If they’re not covered by the Convention, figure out what does cover them, and use it.
Unlike the Gitmo prisoners, the average American has rights, rights that are spelled out quite clearly in the Constitution.
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
What’s the probable cause for the NSA to have my phone records? Because they might possibly get a lead on someone who might be thinking about terrorist activity? Because they’ve discovered an alogorithm that will mine the databases and spit out a list of terrorists? Yeah, the government’s done really well on that count, too. They couldn’t even get Sami al-Arian convicted. They had to plea-bargain him into a guilty plea.
Maybe instead of mining the phone companies’ records for terrorists, they should try not throwing Arabic translators out of the armed services because they’re gay. Better they should be working on the FBI not punishing whistleblowers who point out their superiors’ ignoring important files in Arabic because they want to keep their numbers right for that raise and promotion, and the hell with what they might have found out by translating the papers.
Maybe this administration should try reading the Constitution, for a change.
This is a big deal, righties. It’s a very big deal. The fact that the government thinks it can, without warrant, go through my phone records to see if I am engaging in activity that it thinks might be terrorism is bad enough. But the fact that the government thinks it can arrest and imprison American citizens without charge under the name of the war on terror is the bigger deal. The Jose Padilla case should be a cautionary tale. Because this administration has proved to me that it can screw up on almost anything, which means that the database mining can screw up, too. And in the name of the Patriot Act and the War on Terror, don’t be surprised if an innocent American gets busted for terrorism, thrown into prison without charge, and kept there for years — because the Bush Administration thinks it has the right to go through our phone records.
So. Who did you call today?
Don’t worry. The NSA knows.
Can we get a viable 3rd party in the US already? I’d like to have an option somewhere between refusing to defend the US and going to far in said defense. Also, someone that actually took border security serious would be nice :P
Yes, but what does Tig think?
Invasion of your phone records has been regularly done by every administration since (and including) JC Himself Carter. In fact, it may be the case that the Bush2 administration is more focused in its “domestic spying” than was its predecessor. Perhaps the Hayden confirmation hearings will bring this out.
chsw
PS: Most of us live lives as exciting as watching cats sleep, grass grow, or paint dry, and our phone calls probably reflect that.
Bill Safire (often on Meet the Press) was the target of a months-long wiretap when he was a White House speechwriter. Nixon told him to leak a story, the reporter who he leaked it to was being wiretapped – so when he said he was going to leak a story, they wiretapped Safire for 6 months afterward. This apparently included some period of time when his wife was having some medical problem, and they tapped all of her calls to her doctor. Why would we think they wouldn’t cast as wide a net as possible, just to see what they catch? And what can be misconstrued? And what small fish with no resources they can hang something on? Safire may be the only conservative columnist opposed to this stuff – but he has good reason, and he knows it.
It’s too easy to bash government in this case. What about industry? Why are phone companies keeping records like this? Why does Google keep records of all of our searches?
The fact of the matter is that data never dies. As long as industries are keeping these records, both liberal and conservative governments will abuse them.
We’re not going to be able to solve this problem, because we’re too immature. We’re going to take the easy knee-jerk Bush-bashing approach, rather than the deep, hard look at how our businesses need to change.
Goodbye.
most of us live lives as exciting as watching cats sleep, grass grow, or paint dry, and our phone calls probably reflect that.
Then why do you use a pseudonym to comment?
Excuse me? Why bash the government and not the industry?
Phone companies keep records of our phone calls so they can bill us. Why do they keep the data? Let’s think. Hm. What happens when criminal cases come up and phone records get subpoenaed? Oh, yeah, the phone companies supply the data.
This is about the Bush Administration violating the Fourth Amendment. Where is the probable cause to get my phone records from Verizon?
And by the way, Qwest Communications was threatened with not getting government contracts in the future if they didn’t turn over their records. They still refused.
Unfortunately, the program is likely “constitutional” because of an extremely stupiddecision by the Supreme Court.
Meryl, I agree with you that phone call histories have been used successfully in court. Duh.
And you complain about a lack of probable cause — which is what I already asserted when I argued that that all governments, liberal and conservative, will abuse this information. Of course I agree this is an abuse.
So you’re inspiring no new thoughts for me. I already agree with you.
What I’m suggesting to you, however, is that the responsible party isn’t the one that opens Pandora’s Box — it’s the one that stuffed all our information into the box to begin with. Of course someone’s going to open it!
We cannot continue keeping information indefinitely on all people. I repeat: data never dies. It was the superb collection and organization of information that gave the Nazis such utter power over the Jews. Our society is mirroring — nay, besting — that effort in every way.
And by the way, kudos to Qwest Communications for refusing. That lasts as long as the right people are in place. It ends once lesser people take over.
I get nervous any time the government engages in major data collecting. I don’t trust ’em any farther than I can throw ’em, and the fact that the goal here is one I agree with (preventing terrorism) doesn’t change that. The watchers need to be watched.
That said, there’s a legal issue here that needs resolving. As I understand it, there’s a difference between a wiretap and the phone records that NSA has been collecting. A wiretap is an invasion of privacy and requires a warrant. But records of what calls were made to and from a specific number (the data NSA is collecting) are not private. That data is held by a third party (the phone company) and so there is no expectation of privacy. Local police agencies get phone records without a warrant all the time. So what NSA is doing may in fact be legal.
Wolfwalker is right. So, when NSA finds that Abdul the Afghan al-Qaeda calls Idris, Isa and Muammar in Danville, the NSA would also want to know if Idris, Isa and Muammar also talk with each other, if they are all relatives or not, and whether the jobs they do give them opportunities for criminality or terrorism. However, Abdul may also call Pejman, Suleyman and Mehmet and they may have absolutely no connection to any nefarious purposes whatsoever. That is what is driving everyone crazy – the possibility of being innocently caught up in a web cast on an acquaintance.
chsw
Allow a technical (i.e. boring) explanation of what NSA is (may be) doing. I spent almost 17 years at a three letter agency as both a telephone and computer tech as well as time in specialty areas.
The data bases the phone companies in question handed over to the NSA are used for internal company use such as billing, planning for expansion, equipment upgrades and the like. Per. WolfWalker’s observation these files are not protected information. The data files may have been used (hey, I’m rusty. I’ve been selling herbs, crystals and oils for 4 years) like this:
A specific number is entered into the data base and a tree is formed. Think the old commercial: you call 2 friends and they call 2 friends … The original number is “of interest†to NSA because it may have been found on a laptop in Afghanistan, an address book from Hamburg or just your local mosque’s phone number. The idea is to create a family tree of related numbers that are connected with the original number. Once a tree is established the limbs may be either pruned or more closely examined. The calls to the local Pizza Hut most likely pruned. The call to Detroit imam gets attention. Call to hillel meat store some where in between.
The result is a glorified flow chart that analysts (bureaucrats who want to be Jack Ryan) use to see if A in NYC has any connection with B in Detroit or C in Madrid. If a solid connection is made then they go for a warrant to listen in on conversations. Given that there are hundreds of millions of phone numbers in the US alone I doubt if more than 1% are ever looked at by the NSA. Those that are looked at have at least some connection to the original number “of interest.â€
I warned you this would be boring.
The fact Qwest Communications has refused to share data means the bad guys will now use phones, cells, faxes and computers based in Qwest’s service area. That is not boring. Just depressing and maddening.
It is still a fishing expedition, and my phone records don’t belong on that flowchart.
I would think that getting a warrant to keep track of suspicious persons’ phone records would be far more useful.
I just read in the NY Sun that the current version of this NSA program has been in place since 1994, and that the Senate has been briefed on a regular basis since that time. Chalk up a positive point for the Clinton Administration for getting this program off the ground, even if they didn’t know how to use it. However, when any of the Packodumbs or Jackasses object, remember that both parties overwhelmingly passed the program, and that they have known what’s been happening since the start.
chsw
Geoff Stone of Chicago Law explains why it’s not such a good idea to give the guvmint push-button access to your phone and e-mail records:
“It is still a fishing expedition, and my phone records don’t belong on that flowchart.”
I agree. Neither do mine. That doesn’t change that fact that it’s legal. Well, at least that it’s legal until a federal court says it isn’t. The SCOTUS decision Smith v. Maryland said that cops can get phone records without a warrant. Some states have outlawed this by state law or via the right to privacy that’s in most state constitutions. Others have not. In any case the controlling authority for feds is the federal courts.
Whether or not it should be legal is another matter entirely. Smith v. Maryland was about a single individual and a single phone line, and said nothing about anything on the scale of the NSA program. And at least part of the rationale behind it was that calling out was basically similar to asking an operator to connect to a specific phone number. There’s obviously no expectation of privacy there. But today the whole process is automated. Presented with a test case like this, SCOTUS might rule differently.
That doesn’t change that fact that it’s legal.
No, it isn’t. It’s constitutional under Smith v. Maryland. It’s illegal under the Pen Register Statute and the Stored Communications Act.
And it’s unconstitutional for the Executive to ignore these statutes.
wolfwalker–
With its two new GWB-nominated justices, you can’t be suggesting seriously that the newly-announced NSA program would face any difficulty at the Supreme Court. If you doubt that total fealty on War on Terror issues was the core qualification for those posts, I have two words for you: Harriet Miers.
chsw–
Yes, the Clinton Administration was every bit as bad on personal liberties as is the current one. Remember the “Clipper chip”? That was part of the Clinton-era initiative to ensure that the Feds could eavesdrop on all domestic encrypted communications.
Meryl–
Over two decades ago, I learned in law school that the Europeans were amazed at the lack of data privacy laws in this country. The issues are complex, but the implications are huge. Bruce Schneier writes frequently on the implications of living in a surveillance society; the “future of privacy,” “face recognition in bars,” and “data mining” articles here are all worth a look.
Andy
SCOTUS ruling > Any statute