Phony Phone Foolishness

I am stunned when the lunatics elected by the uninformed (thank the media)  scream bloody  murder about the latest NSA canard. The 12th imam is on his way (at least ah-mad-mini-me seems to think so), the worldwide Islamic extremist movement means to take us out, and Hitler part II is playing with nuclear weaponry. To better understand the latest phone kerfuffle, Ben wrote the following ;

  Traffic Analysis

As a public service, I thought I would shed some light on what it is the NSA is doing with all those phone records.  It’s not what the media implies it is. For starters, what they are not doing:  NSA analysts are not sitting at their consoles with their headphones listening to your conversation.  They don’t know about your mistress, how smart your son is, who Emily is going out with, your dinner plans, why you hate your boss, and they don’t care.  They don’t have the time to bother because:

1)       They have phone records, not taped conversations.

2)       Even if they had conversations, they wouldn’t have a fraction of the analysts needed to listen to more than a tiny, tiny subset of conversations, and they cannot waste their time on your personal issues.

In fact, they don’t even know what number you called, when, and where.  Yes, this information exists, but buried inside machines.  No one “knows” it, just as a librarian does not “know” a fact merely because it exists in a book on a shelf in a library.  And this information will stay buried, unknown, secure and personal unless something very unusual turns up.

So here is what is being done:  traffic analysis.  This is an arcane art-science, in which the analyst, or more precisely, in this case, the algorithms designed by analysts, glean information not from the conversations themselves, but from the patterns those communications generate in time and space.  Some of it is obvious and self evident:  you can tell the difference in communications patterns between passing information and coordinating an activity, because the coordination conversations will have short return messages initiated by the non-node elements, while information is generally passed to a node from only one element, and then distributed to a larger group by the node.

After 9-11, a lot of people talked about “connecting the dots”.  This is connecting the dots.  This is using a computer to pluck patterns out of the virtual “information space” in which people communicate, without actually monitoring the information itself.  Of course, should a particular pattern be red flagged by an algorithm, it could lead to actual monitoring.

In a New Century kind of way, it’s not unlike scanning the airspace for signs of enemy bombers- something taken for granted back in the Cold War but inappropriate today, now that we have an enemy that doesn’t bother to maintain old fashioned conventional air forces.  Today we have to scan information space for signs of enemy activity.

Exactly what can be gained from traffic analysis is highly classified for obvious reasons.  Any enemy, aware that certain communications patterns meant certain things to analysts, would make an effort to change patterns, or send “false positives” to the analysts.    The New York Times is aware of this too, and so would make every effort to get this information to terrorist groups and help them thwart intelligence analysts.

The people railing against this are still living with September 10th Mentalities.  I’ve heard it over and over; it’s “Wrong” to gather intelligence unless there is a clear sign of law breaking.  On 9-11, some of those hijackers hadn’t actually committed a felony UNTIL they took over the planes- what dots, then, were we supposed to connect?  Traffic Analysis is dot connection at work.  It is not wiretapping, it is not eavesdropping.  No personal information comes into contact with another human being unless it is part of a very suspicious pattern.

Thanks Ben.
In other words, STFU already and start fighting the real war. BTW, most Americans agree.

 

Comments

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Pamela-
This is one post that I hope all your readers send to everybody they know. It's well-reasoned, absolutely accurate and not written in a strident tone that will turn off reasonable liberal skeptics. It just sounds like one adult setting the facts out for other adults.
Living in central Maryland most of my life (when not on the road or at sea) I've had the privilage of knowing more than a few of the great people at NSA. They are soooo different than CIA. They are not full of themselves, they approach their tasks with humility and they are almost constantly in continuing education. They might discuss politics with you or they might talk about the latest Elton John hit.
They're not just vetted before they begin. They know that they are subject to security tapping their home phones randomly and routine lie detector tests.
Nicknamed "No Such Agency" long ago, these men and women are quiet heroes and deserve tremendous respect. Remember them in your prayers from time to time. And thanks, Ben

[nikkolai]

Does the MSM realize that we are on to their gig? Guess not--running a 4 month old "non-story".

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Nikkolai
If by 'we' you mean well-informed free-thinking people, then of course, MSM knows that we are 'on to their gig'. 'We' are not the ones that need informing (because we hang out at the best blogs).
There are millions (millions, I say) that still get their news from 4 TV networks, USA Today, The NY Times and others. They are lazy and do not pursue information. 'We' need to help inform them.
'Why?', you ask.
Because lazy, ill-informed citizens of this country are never-the-less allowed to vote and they have made some very bad choices in the not too distant past.

[wxjames]

Good points, we should have an education system.........(pssst, those who can, do; those who can't, teach)........ummm what was I saying ? Oh yeah, we should have an education system..........(controlled by a teachers union, that would be UNION, and tenure, TENURE, heh, heh, heh, dream on)........ummmm, what was I saying ?
Oh, yeah if there were only some way of teaching how to determine facts from bullshit, we would bury the MSM and replace it with honest, honorable reporting.
So, let's roll !

[sdmoderate]

Whether you agree with the NSA mining this data or not you are forgetting one little issue, the NSA broke the law when gathering these records. They forgot about that little thing called FISA that requires the government to get their approval before conducting this type of surveillance not to mention the Telcoms breaking the law under the Stored Communications Act. But then again that has never stopped anyone associated with the current administration in the past.

[MarcH]

Ben gave an excellent summary.

I believe sdmoderate was incorrect when s/he wrote, "the NSA broke the law when gathering these records. They forgot about that little thing called FISA that requires the government to get their approval before conducting this type of surveillance not to mention the Telcoms breaking the law under the Stored Communications Act". The FISA requirement governs examinations of the content of communications. I beleive that an adminstrative subpoena is sufficient to get telephone toll records. For example, in a narcotics or health care fraud case such records can be secured through issuance of an "admin subpoena" by the US Attorney (the federal prosecutor, part of the executive branch).

It should also be noted that there is no requirement that the telephone companies preserve records of all telephone calls. For example, a counterterrorism investigator could learn in 2006 that a certain number may have been associated with suspicius activity in 2004 (dates are hypothetical). If the investigator requested records of all calls in 2006 those records might not be available. This NSA activity allowed data on all calls to be preserved and held in Ben's "library" (see above) until needed.

[turn]

wxjames
There is a way to teach critical thinking and it's as simple as showing the person that they aren't. This is why my 1st post urged readers to share Ben's info.

sdmoderate
That's exactly what the good-hearted MarcH was attempting. I think MarcH hasn't been mugged yet.
sd, reading your post I thought of three possibilities: You didn't read Ben, you didn't understand what Ben wrote, or you read Ben and don't believe. Those are 'benefit of the doubt' options.
Whether on your own or by directive you come up with the inane and disproven 'FISA' argument that it just can't be legal. The LLL believes in the old Marxist saw that 'a lie repeated often enough will take on the status of truth". News forya' sd--won't work here or many other places on the blogosphere (maybe try the young teens at MySpace).

[epaminondas]

OK Pamela..these people have all missed by far the most important thing on this post...WHERE did you find the picture of the cover of that book?

[MarcH]

turn said: "the good-hearted MarcH"

Can I use that on my resume?

Sincerely,

the good heated MarcH