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May 13, 2006
Trust, But Don't Verify
By Ezra
Gotta love The Weekly Standard. In an article arguing that only "paranoid solipsists" could be concerned about a program that analyzes every American's telephone calls but strips them of identifying details first, Heather Mac Donald says:
True, the government can de-anonymize the data if connections to terror suspects emerge, and it is not known what threshold of proof the government uses to put a name to critical phone numbers. But until that point is reached, your privacy is at greater risk from the Goodyear blimp at a Stones concert than from the NSA's supercomputers churning through trillions of zeros and ones representing disembodied phone numbers.
So wouldn't the time to stop worrying come after the government had adopted some transparency, explained the threshold of proof, and outlined what steps they take from there? For Mac Donald, ignorance is bliss, and there's no way she's going to let some impudent reporters spoil it for her.
May 13, 2006 | Permalink
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Comments
Hey, Fred. Mother left her address.
Posted by: opit | May 13, 2006 11:47:51 AM
If one thinks that they aren't putting names, SSNs, addresses, Amazon book purchases, credit card numbers, web sites visited, credit card purchases, magazines subscribed to, and whatever, together with these call histories then you probably believe in the tooth fairy along with belief in BushCo honesty.
After thinking about this for a couple days, the thing that bothers me most is the effect this practice will have on news reporters, government sources, and potential candidates for office. With this capability and technology they can dry up any negative news and evidence of wrongdoing simply by alluding to what they know or can know about ANYBODY. They don't even have to use it much to have the desired silencing effect.
Posted by: JimPortlandOR | May 13, 2006 1:02:13 PM
If "anonymizing" were actually effective, then what would the point of this program be? What would they be trying to figure out?
Posted by: Noah Snyder | May 13, 2006 1:53:06 PM
Whatever happened to the "conservatives" worrying about big government controling their lives?
They get pissed when they have to register a rifle, but if the government knows every single phone call that they've made or received in the past five years, it's no big deal.
Posted by: Tony | May 13, 2006 1:53:59 PM
MacDonald: "the government can de-anonymize the data if connections to terror suspects emerge"
But how do you know there is a terrorist connection in the data if it isn't de-anonymized?
Posted by: Quiddity | May 13, 2006 5:18:42 PM
The whole government position on this is rediculous.
Its fits the pattern with every other illegal activity they've been involved with. Admit what you have to, find a plausible but unprovable cover story based on trust, and deny that anything else is going on.
Bush says that they're not 'trolling' or 'mining' this data. Of course they are.. They've admitted going through the numbers looking for trends in the data. That is data mining almost by definition.
They've tried to frame this as a legal/illegal, right to privacy debate. Why? because if they can make it that, then they win. What it should really be is another case to prove their lack of respect for typical american values and freedoms from governmental intrusion.
I remember after the german wall fell down. We investigated the activities of the Stasi (east german police) and every news program decried the 'nazi tactics' and horrible intrusions into privacy. Now we find the NSA and our government working on the same kind of programs. (like the tips program)
These are unamerican programs.. and trying to blur the lines, put the programs into grey areas in the consitution, and throw lawyers at the problem wont change that fact regardless of how the court cases are resolved.
Posted by: david b | May 13, 2006 9:55:24 PM
David B I think the word outrageous trumps ridiculous in this case. Making fun of the effrontery involved in these shenanigans which distort the obvious intent of law to win minor technical disqualifications does nothing to advance fair play - that should provoke a strong revulsion which snide comment simply doesn't satisfy.
Posted by: opit | May 14, 2006 2:20:56 AM
true nuf... Ill go with outrageous.. :)
Posted by: david b | May 14, 2006 2:59:34 AM
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