Telephone Records are just the Tip of NSA’s Iceberg
The National Security Agency and other U.S. government organizations have developed hundreds of software programs and analytic tools to “harvest” intelligence, and they’ve created dozens of gigantic databases designed to discover potential terrorist activity both inside the United States and overseas.
These cutting edge tools — some highly classified because of their functions and capabilities — continually process hundreds of billions of what are called “structured” data records, including telephone call records and e-mail headers contained in information “feeds” that have been established to flow into the intelligence agencies.
washingtonpost.com
‘People Are Going to Be Shocked’
…A former intelligence officer for the National Security Agency said Thursday he plans to tell Senate staffers next week that unlawful activity occurred at the agency under the supervision of Gen. Michael Hayden beyond what has been publicly reported, while hinting that it might have involved the illegal use of space-based satellites and systems to spy on U.S. citizens. É
Qwest’s Refusal of N.S.A. Query Is Explained
WASHINGTON, May 12 Ñ The telecommunications company Qwest turned down requests by the National Security Agency for private telephone records because it concluded that doing so would violate federal privacy laws, a lawyer for the telephone company’s former chief executive said today.
In a statement released this morning, the lawyer said that the former chief executive, Joseph N. Nacchio, made the decision after asking whether “a warrant or other legal process had been secured in support of that request.”
Mr. Nacchio learned that no warrant had been granted and that there was a “disinclination on the part of the authorities to use any legal process,” said the lawyer, Herbert J. Stern. As a result, the statement said, Mr. Nacchio concluded that “the requests violated the privacy requirements of the Telecommunications Act.”
Gee there’s somebody looking at the law. What a world.