Tuesday 20 December 2005

What's the real story with the NSA?

Kevin Drum of the Washington Monthly suggests that the wiretap scandal (reg.req.) may be worse than it appears:

It seems clear that there's something involved here that goes far beyond ordinary wiretaps, regardless of the technology used. Perhaps some kind of massive data mining, which makes it impossible to get individual warrants? Stay tuned.

Read the full story from Drum.

David Braverman, Tuesday 20 December 2005 16:35:26 UTC
#    Comments [2] |
Wednesday 21 December 2005 01:35:00 UTC
This is an excellent summary, thanks for linking to it. I read and linked to a similar post about how the debates were missing the point that the snooping was digital not analog, and likely covered the entire Internet and ALL communication, but was not aware of when this started and how significant it was - "What kind of program is so intrusive that even Republicans, even with 9/11 still freshly in mind, wouldn't have supported it?"

Part of me really wants to believe that the incredible incompetence of the US Government would prevent it from doing anything harmful with this information, (I mean, didn't the FBI just get Internet access last year?) which surely is too unwieldy for it to use and store, but I know I'm just being naive.
katie
Wednesday 21 December 2005 02:25:12 UTC
The data storage requirement is, indeed, monumental; but private companies (archive.org, Google) have already done it.

I think where the incompetence comes in is that it will lead to actions against the wrong people. Remember, the 9/11 terrorists had broken almost no laws before they attacked. Nor were they using easily-intercepted communications. It strikes me that this kind of eavesdropping is really only good against law-abiding people.
David
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