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Feingold on Bush's NSA Data Mining Activities

By Jeralyn, Section War on Terror
Posted on Mon Jan 23, 2006 at 02:35:20 PM EST
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Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI) sent this letter (pdf) to National Intelligence Director John Negroponte, NSA Director Keith Alexander and Donald Rumsfeld today. A snippet:

"One element of the NSA's domestic spying program that has gotten too little attention is the government's reportedly widespread use of data mining technology to analyze the communications of ordinary Americans. Today I am calling on the Director of National Intelligence, the Defense Secretary and the Director of the NSA to explain whether and how the government is using data mining technology, and what authority it claims for doing so.

Data mining is a new, unproven and intrusive technology in the counterterrorism context, and we need to know how it is being used, how effective it is in finding patterns of terrorist activity, and whether there are sufficient safeguards to protect the privacy of Americans. We can and must fight terrorism aggressively without infringing on the privacy of law-abiding Americans."

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    Feingold on Bush's NSA Data Mining Activities | 6 comments (6 topical)
    Re: Feingold on Bush's NSA Data Mining Activities (none / 0) (#1)
    by Punchy on Mon Jan 23, 2006 at 03:12:26 PM EST
    And this letter went from desk to trash can in 2.4 milliseconds....

    Re: Feingold on Bush's NSA Data Mining Activities (none / 0) (#2)
    by jimakaPPJ on Mon Jan 23, 2006 at 03:14:52 PM EST
    et al - Repeat after me. This is not doemestuc spying. This is not domestic spying.

    Re: Feingold on Bush's NSA Data Mining Activities (none / 0) (#3)
    by jondee on Mon Jan 23, 2006 at 03:23:31 PM EST
    Blind faith speaks.

    Re: Feingold on Bush's NSA Data Mining Activities (none / 0) (#4)
    by Punchy on Mon Jan 23, 2006 at 03:34:54 PM EST
    Hey Jim! It's done without warrants or any judicial oversight, in complete secret and classified, by the most secretive and clandestine gov't agency we have; therefore, yes, it's spying. It's done in America, involving Americans, whether or not they're calling internationally or not. Therefore, it's domestic. But I suppose you'll just refute this by giving me Bush's assurances and talking points, because, he's never been wrong before, right? All those weapons we found in Iraq, eh?

    Re: Feingold on Bush's NSA Data Mining Activities (none / 0) (#5)
    by Strick on Mon Jan 23, 2006 at 04:50:19 PM EST
    "Data mining is a new, unproven and intrusive technology" No, no and not necessarily. It's hardly new, having been around for at least the past 15 years. All "data mining" does is identify patterns with data that seem correlated with something of interest. It alone proves nothing, it only provides clues which can be useful when combined with other data or for further investigation. It's proven technology as far as it goes; there's little difference in its intelligence use and the use marketing, telecom and banking analysts use it for. As for intrusive, that just depends on what data is being mined. It would be prefectly possible to get useful results without necessarily invading any privacy rights. Again, banks, telephone companies and companies interested in marketing are using it with out violating existing privacy standards. They use public information or information for which there is no presumed right to privacy.

    Re: Feingold on Bush's NSA Data Mining Activities (none / 0) (#6)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Mon Jan 23, 2006 at 06:25:56 PM EST
    But the full(er) quote is "Data mining is a new, unproven and intrusive technology in the counterterrorism context", which still may not be true, but it's harder to know, unless you work for the NSA. So, if we know these terrorists phone numbers and email addresses, why haven't we caught them yet? And why would a terrorist use a single address with any regularity, instead of throw-away mobile phones and email addresses? Would these terrorists perhaps call up people in the U.S. at random, mumble a few arabic words and then hang up just to get innocent people on the government watch list? Imagine, spam from a terrorist! Does anyone really think terrorists would use electronic communications for anything other than minor or immediate, short, context-free, code word communications?

    Feingold on Bush's NSA Data Mining Activities | 6 comments (6 topical)