Massive phone-call tracking fuels furor
Friday, May 12, 2006
By RON HUTCHESON and JAMES KUHNHENN
KNIGHT RIDDER NEWSPAPERS
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Full extent unclear
The full extent of the administration's surveillance, data mining and similar programs isn't clear. Financial institutions have been reporting activities that they consider suspicious to the Department of Homeland Security. In one case, a Rhode Island retiree was flagged as suspicious after he made an unusually large payment -- $6,522 -- on his MasterCard.
In other cases, FBI or Secret Service agents have investigated e-mails or Internet postings that suggested possible threats to Bush or to national security.
The Pentagon launched a Total Information Awareness program to mine a wide variety of electronic databases, but Congress shut it down in 2003. However, former government officials said that the Defense Department merely shifted the program to the NSA's Advanced Research and Development Activity under code names that have included "Basketball" "Genoa II" and "Topsail."
In 2004, the Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress, reported that the government had or was developing more than 120 programs to collect and analyze large amounts of electronic personal data.
"It makes no sense to look at millions of phone records and not look at the kind of communications that terrorists actually use," said a former senior U.S. intelligence official, who spoke only on the condition of anonymity because he has knowledge of numerous classified programs. "That means e-mail and Web sites, and it means all kinds of travel and credit card records, because
bin Laden uses couriers to deliver most of his messages."
more....
http://www.northjersey.com/page.php?qstr=eXJpcnk3ZjczN2Y3dnFlZUVFeXkzJmZnYmVsN2Y3dnFlZUVFeXk2OTMzNTk0JnlyaXJ5N2Y3MTdmN3ZxZWVFRXl5Mg== How many private citizens use couriers?