The NSA knows if you're planning to go out or not.
The National Security Agency has collected almost 200 million text messages a day from across the globe, using them to extract data including location, contact networks and credit card details, according to top-secret documents.Great, so the NSA knows where I went for lunch and who I ate with, since that was all the subject of text messages this morning.
The untargeted collection and storage of SMS messages – including their contacts – is revealed in a joint investigation between the Guardian and the UK’s Channel 4 News based on material provided by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden.
The documents also reveal the UK spy agency GCHQ has made use of the NSA database to search the metadata of “untargeted and unwarranted” communications belonging to people in the UK.
The NSA program, codenamed Dishfire, collects “pretty much everything it can”, according to GCHQ documents, rather than merely storing the communications of existing surveillance targets.
The NSA has made extensive use of its vast text message database to extract information on people’s travel plans, contact books, financial transactions and more – including of individuals under no suspicion of illegal activity.
This is the text that I'd like to send those putzim:
Dear NSA, you pack of illegitimate bastards:
I could probably go into a lengthy discourse about freedom and liberty and the Constitution and your acting as the American Stasi, but let's cut to the chase, shall we: May you all die in painful crotch fires.
Happy New Year.
Dear Miss Fit
ReplyDeleteWe have received your communication and will take your ideas under consideration. Thank you for contacting us. And a Happy New Year to you.
The NSA
Concur! Except they should burn in hell...
ReplyDeleteHere's the dig: They very well may be collecting it but no way in hell are they reading it all. There isn't enough labor in the entire nation to read every text message, listen to every phone call, steam open every piece of mail, etc. They are looking for certain "hot" words and sift through it all to find them. Make no mistake, they have backdoors into everything and algorithms for searching but they are overwhelmed with it all. 9/11 is a perfect example. They had the data but didn't know they had it until later when they sifted through it. The more they collect the less they will find that is useful. The scary part is if this is ever used for political blackmail. I think they truly believe they are protecting us the best way they know how. I just hope there isn't a bad apple in the bunch looking for financial gain. A greedy Snowden type? Yikes!
ReplyDeleteAnon, that will be the subject of another post.
ReplyDeleteMay I suggest to the NSA that they read Jorge Luis Borges 1941 story "The Library of Babel" ;-)
ReplyDeleteAnon, those messages are not being read by people. They're being read by natural-language processing software.
ReplyDelete