"Wire Tapping" Phone Conversations?

In the news media I keep on seeing/hearing the phrase "Wire Tapping" in the
context of the current issue about NSA doing same without warrants - as if some
guys were plugging into people's phone lines and recording the conversation as
on a recent cover of "The Week" mag.

Doesn't make sense to me.

First, if they knew in advance who was calling who they'd just get a FISA
warrant within the 72-hour period and avoid controversy.

I think it's more like they don't know in advance who they want to listen to and
they want to troll for suspicious conversations - not knowing in advance who is
talking to who.

To make it realistic in term of man hours spent I'd think they'd be running
thousands of phone conversations through some sort of keyword-sensitive software
and then flagging the "interesting" ones for human intervention.

If that's the case, it would seem like the logical corollary of that is that
*all* potentially-interesting phone conversations exist in their entirety on
some sort of digital media for some time period - to allow the high-volume
automated review - the question being what the bounds of "interesting" are.

Anybody actually know how it's done?
--
PeteCresswell

---

› See More: "Wire Tapping" Phone Conversations?

>
>Anybody actually know how it's done?

Not directly of course, but further speculation:
It's likely they can analyze easily call completion records - what
number you dialed, or, what numbers dialed you. Doesn't matter, cell
phone, fixed land phone, etc.

All calls these days become digital, even if you still have copper at
the home.

I would suspect after identifying a phone number(s) of interest, THEN
the audio/ contents of the calls would begin to be monitored.

For argument:
Call only numbers in your town - no interest
Call a number in Afghanistan - potentially of interest.

Or

Call a supected "terror cell" member, or get a call from same
- even a wrong number - and now your calls may of interest.

[POSTED TO alt.cellular.cingular - REPLY ON USENET PLEASE]

In <[email protected]> on Thu, 26 Jan 2006 19:06:04
-0500, "(PeteCresswell)" <[email protected]> wrote:

>In the news media I keep on seeing/hearing the phrase "Wire Tapping" in the
>context of the current issue about NSA doing same without warrants - as if some
>guys were plugging into people's phone lines and recording the conversation as
>on a recent cover of "The Week" mag.
>
>Doesn't make sense to me.
>
>First, if they knew in advance who was calling who they'd just get a FISA
>warrant within the 72-hour period and avoid controversy.
>
>I think it's more like they don't know in advance who they want to listen to and
>they want to troll for suspicious conversations - not knowing in advance who is
>talking to who.
>
>To make it realistic in term of man hours spent I'd think they'd be running
>thousands of phone conversations through some sort of keyword-sensitive software
>and then flagging the "interesting" ones for human intervention.
>
>If that's the case, it would seem like the logical corollary of that is that
>*all* potentially-interesting phone conversations exist in their entirety on
>some sort of digital media for some time period - to allow the high-volume
>automated review - the question being what the bounds of "interesting" are.
>
>Anybody actually know how it's done?

Good guess. It's commonly called Echelon. <http://www.echelonwatch.org/>
See also <http://duncan.gn.apc.org/echelon-dc.htm>
Very scary stuff that's gotten way too little public attention up to now.

--
Best regards, SEE THE FAQ FOR CINGULAR WIRELESS AT
John Navas <http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Cingular_Wireless_FAQ>

Merlin wrote:
>>Anybody actually know how it's done?
>
>
> Not directly of course, but further speculation:
> It's likely they can analyze easily call completion records - what
> number you dialed, or, what numbers dialed you. Doesn't matter, cell
> phone, fixed land phone, etc.

Requires a Title 1 warrant, ie. historical records.


>
> All calls these days become digital, even if you still have copper at
> the home.

Irrelevant

>
> I would suspect after identifying a phone number(s) of interest, THEN
> the audio/ contents of the calls would begin to be monitored.

Requires a Title 3 warrant, ie. analog data collection.

>
> For argument:
> Call only numbers in your town - no interest
> Call a number in Afghanistan - potentially of interest.

Beyond the bounds of reasonable suspicion.


>
> Or
>
> Call a supected "terror cell" member, or get a call from same
> - even a wrong number - and now your calls may of interest.

Now you've got reasonable suspicion. Go for it, so long as you have a
warrant.


Oh, and a Title 2 warrant is required to do a live collection on call
completion and call routing signals, ie. digital data collection.


--
jer
email reply - I am not a 'ten'

John Navas wrote:

> Good guess. It's commonly called Echelon.

Old news...

[POSTED TO alt.cellular.cingular - REPLY ON USENET PLEASE]

In <[email protected]> on Fri, 27 Jan 2006
06:14:04 GMT, DecaturTxCowboy <DTC@boogie_boggie.blog> wrote:

>John Navas wrote:
>
>> Good guess. It's commonly called Echelon.
>
>Old news...

Thanks for sharing.

--
Best regards, SEE THE FAQ FOR CINGULAR WIRELESS AT
John Navas <http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Cingular_Wireless_FAQ>

John Navas wrote:
> [POSTED TO alt.cellular.cingular - REPLY ON USENET PLEASE]
>
> In <[email protected]> on Fri, 27 Jan 2006
> 06:14:04 GMT, DecaturTxCowboy <DTC@boogie_boggie.blog> wrote:
>
>
>>John Navas wrote:
>>
>>
>>>Good guess. It's commonly called Echelon.
>>
>>Old news...
>
>
> Thanks for sharing.


"No problemo..." <-- Arnold Schwarzenegger, "Terminator I", circa 1984