If you could have NSA super spy power, what would YOU want to know?

[Octafish]

In the case of Goldman Sachs or Carlyle Group, I'd build a database of "Inside Information" that would help identify opportunities and round up profits, Big Time.

To borrow a phrase: "Knowledge is Power."

DU: What would you want to know and what would you do with it?

[snot]

1. Forgive me for interjecting,

but I've had to wonder whether some % of those thousands of contractors haven't already taken advantage of the chance to do a little insider trading – but maybe that's what you're driving at.

Me, I'd spy on t.p.t.b.

PS: I've also long wondered why all the medical data being accumulated by the multitude of healthcarers and insurers can't be analyzed to confirm patterns of causes of harm to human health. Maybe add a few questions like, do you avoid non-organic foods, do you live within 500 feet of a power line, etc. – all those things t.p.t.b. claim are harmless . . . .

[Octafish]

9. Feel free, snot! There's gotta be a reason the rich keep getting richer.

Reasons, most likely.

Thank you for an outstanding suggestion for extracting good science from the NDA data mountain.

Knowing what the PTB were saying, to whom, and where and when they plan to meet would make for easy work at the DOJ. That they obviously do not is telling.

[KansDem]

2. I'd like to find out what really happened on 9/11

I imagine there are some super-secret files out there somewhere that would shed some light.

On a lighter note, I'd like to find out if there are any romances in my future! You know, check out some phone calls and emails to see who's been talking about me...in a positive light. Should would take a lot of the guesswork out of dating...

But your suggestion of inside information would be hard to pass up! To borrow another phrase, "Money is Power."

[Vinnie From Indy]

6. That is easy!

I would want all of Dick Cheney's communication in the year prior to 9/11.

[Octafish]

10. Excellent idea. Looks like NSA's been-there, done-that.

New NSA docs contradict Bush Administration 9-11 claims

Imagine what has been hidden from Congressional cough review, let alone FOIA.

Regarding future romance: Anyone who appreciates classical piano isn't far from happiness. Find someone to share that with...perhaps at a chamber music gig, that weird guy with the Beethoven lapel pin and mini-microphone.

[Taverner]

3. Why the fuck won't anyone hire me for a sales engineer position?!?!?!?!?!!?

[Octafish]

11. It's Monster.

Along with the resumes, perhaps they've got us pegged as Democrats or Liberals or Progressives or Socialists or Communists based on social network diagrams created from our phone logs, web visits and political contribution lists.

Outside the City of Detroit, it seems all the good jobs I've seen open up in, oh, the last 32 years in surrounding suburbs and up state have gone to Republicans.

Look at James B. Comey. The guy stood up to Bush and Gonzo's illegalities one time cough not really and he's now set to head the freaking FBI.

[panader0]

4. What my ex said to the priest in the confessional after our divorce.

In the ten years of our marriage she never went to church.

[Octafish]

12. Um. This is a difficult question, but one not outside the scope of NSA technology...

From Gizmodo, what can be harvested and by whom:

What It All Means: All Your Communications are Belong to U.S.

In sum, if you use encryption they’ll keep your data forever. If you use Tor, they’ll keep your data for at least five years. If an American talks with someone outside the US, they’ll keep your data for five years. If you’re talking to your attorney, you don’t have any sense of privacy. And the NSA can hand over you information to the FBI for evidence of any crime, not just terrorism. All without a warrant or even a specific FISA order.

http://gizmodo.com/exactly-how-the-nsa-is-getting-away-with-spying-on-us-c-540606531

PS: Do you ever watch "The Borgias" on Showtime? HUMINT got it done back in the 1502. Wanna know what the other side is doing? Send a spy. When it comes to fighting today's war on terror, HUMINT could get it done now. Going ELINT takes the risk of the human element -- the middlemen -- out of the equation. IMO, that's the real risk. No computer can understand what a human mind -- or heart -- can know.

PPS: Sorry to read about your ex, panader0. As I've been through one, too, I wouldn't wish divorce on anyone.

[Puzzledtraveller]

5. X-files

[Octafish]

13. That's what that one hacker was supposedly looking for...

http://www.wired.com/techbiz/it/news/2006/06/71182?currentPage=all

Britain refused to extradite Gary McKinnon after he supposedly hacked into UFO files from NASA, NSA and 55 others in the alphabet soup on the Potomac.

http://dangerousminds.net/comments/did_hacker_ufo_hunter_and_extradition_houdini_gark_mckinnon_have_something

I'm with you, Puzzledtraveller. Those are files I'd like to see go public.



Here's the time longtime and faithful government employee Rex Heflin was on the job, documenting foliage-covered highway signs in 1965 with his Polaroid. While ridiculed later for coming forward with the images, Heflin never said he took a picture of an alien craft, just that he saw something he could not explain nearby. In addition to the photos, his radio conked out when the object was nearby, then worked OK again after it departed.

http://www.ufoevidence.org/cases/case253.htm

As for what it was, or UFOs represent: Who knows? Rather than ridicule people for seeing something that doesn't fit in with one's belief system, I prefer to encourage them to come forward with their reports, photos and films. That way we might learn something new about the others from another side of the world...galaxy...universe. Gee. Isn't that what a spy network is for?

[Puzzledtraveller]

14. Heck yeah

Awesome info, thanks.

[DURHAM D]

7. In addition to investigating those corporations

that are both well paid with our tax dollars and extracting and using information to help them make giant profits for themselves I would like to know exactly how Clapper got the job.

[allin99]

8. Next big thing that might affect stocks.