Media Back To Hyping NSA Controversy
With Gen. Michael Hayden going before Congress for appointment as director of the CIA, and given that Hayden was heavily involved with running the NSA domestic surveillance program the left/media has been in a tizzy about for the last several months, that controversy is getting some new hype.
Witness this Reuters story reporting a supposed USA Today scoop:
This is going to create a lot of uproar, but without knowing more details about this database I'm not sure anyone can conclude that it is illegal.
Remember that there are two parts to a phone communication. The call's data - which includes the time of the call, date of the call, call duration, originating number and destination number - and the call's actual content, which are the things said during it. One part of the call is protected under privacy law. The other is not.
Think of it this way: If you send a letter through the U.S. mail to your mother, that's private right? Well, the part of the letter in the envelope is but the information on the outside of the envelope (the return address, the destination address and the date stamp the Post Office puts on) isn't private at all. Your mail carrier can read it along with anyone else who happens to get a look at your mail.
According to what is being reported by the USA Today, the NSA has a database of phone calls made by Americans. The NSA states explicitly that they do not record the content of the calls, so what's left for the database is the "on the envelope" information. Information that has long been used by law enforcement without the need of a warrant.
Plus, whoever thought they could trust their phone company and/or their cell phone company to keep this sort of information private? They already sell this sort of information to telemarketers. Why not the nation's top anti-terror intelligence-gathering organization?
There is nothing new here, nor am I especially worried about this sort of thing. It has been going on almost since the invention of the telephone. The only thing that makes it "news" right now is the fact that it can be crafted by the left/media into a political weapon at an opportune moment.
Witness this Reuters story reporting a supposed USA Today scoop:
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The agency in charge of a domestic spying program has been secretly collecting phone call records of tens of millions of Americans, including calls made within the United States, USA Today reported on Thursday.
It said the National Security Agency has been building up the database using records provided by three major phone companies -- AT&T Inc., Verizon Communications Inc. and BellSouth Corp. -- but that the program "does not involve the NSA listening to or recording conversations."
USA Today said its sources for the story were "people with direct knowledge of the arrangement," but it did not give their names or describe their affiliation.
The existence of an NSA eavesdropping program launched after the September 11 attacks was revealed in December.
This is going to create a lot of uproar, but without knowing more details about this database I'm not sure anyone can conclude that it is illegal.
Remember that there are two parts to a phone communication. The call's data - which includes the time of the call, date of the call, call duration, originating number and destination number - and the call's actual content, which are the things said during it. One part of the call is protected under privacy law. The other is not.
Think of it this way: If you send a letter through the U.S. mail to your mother, that's private right? Well, the part of the letter in the envelope is but the information on the outside of the envelope (the return address, the destination address and the date stamp the Post Office puts on) isn't private at all. Your mail carrier can read it along with anyone else who happens to get a look at your mail.
According to what is being reported by the USA Today, the NSA has a database of phone calls made by Americans. The NSA states explicitly that they do not record the content of the calls, so what's left for the database is the "on the envelope" information. Information that has long been used by law enforcement without the need of a warrant.
Plus, whoever thought they could trust their phone company and/or their cell phone company to keep this sort of information private? They already sell this sort of information to telemarketers. Why not the nation's top anti-terror intelligence-gathering organization?
There is nothing new here, nor am I especially worried about this sort of thing. It has been going on almost since the invention of the telephone. The only thing that makes it "news" right now is the fact that it can be crafted by the left/media into a political weapon at an opportune moment.
