I understand what you're saying. It's just that similar patterns would
exist in regular old normal everyday people calling. Your son or daughter
has a baby. They call you. You call brother. The chain continues. Or maybe
normal innocent random calling will match a so-called pattern that raises a
flag.
I don't believe terrorists use the telephone system much differently then
the population at large. Patterns mean nothing, in this instance. It's the
content that's meaningful. You can't prosecute or entrap somebody for a
pattern of phone usage. That implies something more is being done than just
looking for patterns...
How many millions/billions of phone calls are made in a day? How long to you
have to save the data to see a pattern, How do you know when a pattern
began?
Even if the government could detect patterns, how ridicuously simple would
it be to throw then off? Call from home. Call from a cell phone. Call from
a hotel lobby or pay phone. Arrange so that both parties don't call to/from
the same number.
The idea is absurd, is a waste of money, is barking up the wrong tree, and
is a further step toward a police state.
Tom C.
From: Paul Stenquist <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Reply-To: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: Zone Alarm (Now OT)
Date: Tue, 16 May 2006 19:33:24 -0400
On May 16, 2006, at 3:01 PM, Tom C wrote:
I just don't see how collecting data on 'all the phone calls in the
United States' and 'analyzing them for patterns' will help fight
terrorism. That data base would contain a preponderance of useless,
irrelevant data.
Tom C.
It's pretty simple, Tom. The computer looks for patterns. Twenty people all
linked to one call source or daisy-chaining. Then it looks at from whom and
from where the calls originated. Is it profiling? Yes. Is there some chance
that it might uncover a terrorist plot? Slim, but within the remember the
possible. Remember the hue and cry about government malfeasance prior to
9/11, and how not enough was being done to hunt down terrorists? Well, you
can't have it both ways.
