Nothing But Love :: golf blogger

What's the Big Deal?

What's the big deal about the NSA logging telephone calls? There is no name associated with each number. There are no addresses supplied with any numbers. The records simply show which phone numbers were dialed up by about 200 million phone users for the last five years. What's the big deal? It's to stop terrorists ... to check patterns of calls and track down terrorists.

"We're not mining or trolling through the personal lives of millions of innocent Americans. ... Our efforts are focused on links to Al Qaeda and their known affiliates," George the Lesser told us about the data mining operation.

Let's assume for the moment that your daughter is using one of your cell phones, one of the free phones that you were offered as a part of the plan by the phone company. And unbeknownst to you, she is in the business of doing favors for her friends at school, getting crystal meth for them; so, she makes a lot of calls to her hook-up at a certain number. And her hook-up calls several individuals in a group that supplies him with ice, who get their stuff from a couple of meth labs, one of which donates money to a religious group that the IRS has under investigation, seeking to withdraw its religious exemption, for espousing political views about the prosecution of alleged terrorists out in California or in Buffalo or in Toledo, which are contrary to the views held by the Department of Justice.

A National Security Agency computer program finds a pattern there ... your phone number is implicated in activity by a terrorist group, which may be linked to an affiliate of Al Qaeda. Big Brother is watching you ... and investigating criminal activity without any warrant.

Let's track back ... It's not your daughter who is dealing crystal meth. Your son called the girl's number several times because she's popular and cute, and he really, really wants to take her to the prom to the point of being obsessed.

Well, Big Brother is there, omnipresent, making those connections to Al Qaeda, investigating you, an innocent American, because it's your phone, maybe pulling your tax returns, banking records, library records, your blog entries (horrors!) ...

That's the bigger picture. That's the picture that George the Lesser won't paint for you. That's America under a President who has no regard for the rule of law in general, no regard for the Constitution of the United States (it's only an old piece of paper), and no regard for laws enacted by the law-making branch of our government. W's attitude is far worse than that of Richard Nixon.

That's the "big deal."

Posted by Bill at May 12, 2006 05:49 PM