The National Security Agency has been collecting domestic calling records from major telecommunications companies, sources told USA TODAY. Answers to some questions about the program, as described by those sources:

Q: Does the NSA’s domestic program mean that my calling records have been secretly collected?

A: In all likelihood, yes. The NSA collected the records of billions of domestic calls. Those include calls from home phones and wireless phones.

Q: Does that mean people listened to my conversations?

A: Eavesdropping is not part of this program.

Q: What was the NSA doing?

A: The NSA collected “call-detail” records. That’s telephone industry lingo for the numbers being dialed. Phone customers’ names, addresses and other personal information are not being collected as part of this program. The agency, however, has the means to assemble that sort of information, if it so chooses.

Q: When did this start?

A: After the Sept. 11 attacks.

Q: Can I find out if my call records were collected?

A: No. The NSA’s work is secret, and the agency won’t publicly discuss its operations.

Q: Why did they do this?

A: The agency won’t say officially. But sources say it was a way to identify, and monitor, people suspected of terrorist activities.

Q: But I’m not calling terrorists. Why do they need my calls?

A: By cross-checking a vast database of phone calling records, NSA experts can try to pick out patterns that help identify people involved in terrorism.

Q: How is this different from the other NSA programs?

A: NSA programs have historically focused on international communications. In December, The New York Times disclosed that President Bush had authorized the NSA to eavesdrop — without warrants — on international phone calls to and from the USA. The call-collecting program is focused on domestic calls, those that originate and terminate within U.S. borders.

Q: Is this legal?

A: That will be a matter of debate. In the past, law enforcement officials had to obtain a court warrant before getting calling records. Telecommunications law assesses hefty fines on phone companies that violate customer privacy by divulging such records without warrants. But in discussing the eavesdropping program last December, Bush said he has the authority to order the NSA to get information without court warrants.

Q: Who has access to my records?

A: Unclear. The NSA routinely provides its analysis and other cryptological work to the Pentagon and other government agencies.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-05-10-nsa-qna_x.htm

With the p[oipulation of the US 298,000,000 that would mean with an average family of 5, then there is approxmately 59,000,000 family units which have phone #’s to be recorded..which is in the range of tens of millions.

Sexion try reading AND understanding the stories….tens of millions is about all the private phone #’s

remember when it was just a few, terrorists connected calls…

and only ones that started and ended outside the US….

not the American citizens…

there has been too much blown smoke to believe anything they say now………anything

So now you’re psychic and know what I’m thinking better than I do? Uh, no.

You’re overly sensitive and it’s very easy to push your buttons. Lighten up.

I was kidding.

Bush was in Chicago.

feel better?

as for why they thought the story they DID tell is more significant than this mite of a fact, could best be explained by think progress. send them an e-mail.

as usual, you ignore the meat of the issue:

exactly what does the mention or lack of mention of your nazi’s whereabouts on a particular day on think progress have to do with the comments by your whitehouse in, say, post #59? as always, you do not counter an argument with a better one, or even a worse one; you decide that because think progress did not include a detail of a single visit, that the underlying arguments presented throughout today are somehow ‘tainted’ and because they are such, you need not respond rationally to them.

and, please, have the last word because you are truly annoying….

The thing is, you (and others) actually think that way. It wasn’t a joke. Which is the sad truth.

Clif,

Every phone number of every call made? Gee, that’s not exactly what the USA Today claimed, but hey, exaggerate away! Might as well say that the NSA is wiretapping the entire world! Why stop there? The NSA is wiretapping aliens too!

As for me living in Norway, the telephone companies are forced by law to keep records of all calls made, which the authorities can get a hold of when they need to. Keep pretending that Bush is some kind of rogue king if you like, but over in Europe and here in Norway, things are actually much worse when it comes to privacy.

risser,

Think Progress wrote that the records were incomplete. They were not, as I show. They were exactly what Judicial Watch asked for. They then repeat the Raw Story insinuation that Bush was in the White House when Abramoff was there, because he nominated an associate of Abramoff that same day.

Think Progress never states that Bush was in Chicago. Why? Can you answer me that single question? Why is Think Progress so interested in giving their viewers less facts rather than more? Isn’t that what we call propaganda – carefully constructing a message according to an agenda?

Answer the question: why did Think Progress never say that Bush was in Chicago?

exactly what does the mention or lack of mention of your nazi’s whereabouts on a particular day on think progress have to do with the comments by your whitehouse in, say, post #59? as always, you do not counter an argument with a better one, or even a worse one; you decide that because think progress did not include a detail of a single visit, that the underlying arguments presented throughout today are somehow ‘tainted’ and because they are such, you need not respond rationally to them.

this is your classic maneuver. i don’t know how many dozens of times people have pointed this out to you, and you consistently miss the point…

your technique is misleading, false, phoney, and fraudulent. if you have an argument based on anything other than what was not said, but rather on what was said, you wouldn’t constantly get replies such as you have today…

of course, i don’t particualarly care what you do, but, i am writing this so that people reading it can more betterly identify your scheme and when they see it in you and other bush propagandists they will see it for what it is: a lie.

A straw man argument is a rhetorical technique based on misrepresentation of an opponent’s position. To “set up a straw man” or “set up a straw-man argument” is to create a position that is easy to refute, then attribute that position to the opponent. A straw-man argument can be a successful rhetorical technique (that is, it may succeed in persuading people) but it is in fact misleading, since the argument actually presented by the opponent has not been refuted.

Its name is derived from the use of straw men in combat training. It is occasionally called a straw dog fallacy or a scarecrow argument.

Setup of a straw-man

One can set up a straw man in the following ways:

1. Present a misrepresentation of the opponent’s position, refute it, and pretend that the opponent’s actual position has been refuted.
2. Present someone who defends a position poorly as the defender, refute that person’s arguments, and pretend that every upholder of that position, and thus the position itself, has been defeated.
3. Invent a fictitious persona with actions or beliefs that are criticized, and pretend that the person represents a group of whom the speaker is critical.

Some logic textbooks define the straw man fallacy only as a misrepresented argument. It is now common, however, to use the term to refer to all of these tactics. The straw-man technique is also used as a form of media manipulation.

However, carefully presenting and refuting a weakened form of an opponent’s argument is not always itself a fallacy. Instead, it restricts the scope of the opponent’s argument, either to where the argument is no longer relevant or as a step of a proof by exhaustion.

As a rhetorical term, “straw man” describes a point of view that was created in order to be easily defeated in argument; the creator of a “straw man” argument does not accurately reflect the best arguments of his or her opponents, but instead sidesteps or mischaracterizes them so as to make the opposing view appear weak or ridiculous. An example of this is when person A says “I don’t think children should run into the busy streets”. Person B will say “I think that it would be foolish to lock up children all day with no fresh air”. This insinuates that person A’s argument is far more draconian than it is.

now, what does tp not stating something have to do with any of the evidence against your silly statement?

It’s just because you don’t get them. They are over your head. Like that swarm of flies mistaking you for a steaming pile of pig dung.

And unlike you, I’m at work.

Why the compuslion to turn something someone said into something they didn’t say so you can whine some more about it? Is it pathalogical?

I don’t run TP. How the Hell do I know what they do or why? We don’t have a Bible for Liberalism like you wingnuts do.

And, really, you need to grow a sense of humor. Might spare yourself that annurism for at least a decade or two. I was joking.

You mean you don’t visit blogs that aren’t pre-approved by Think Progress because you don’t want to fracture your brainwashed minds with anything that might include the truth.

Why hasn’t Think Progress mentioned that Bush was in Chicago for Abramoff’s first logged visit? Ever ponder that? You all seem to be even more incurious than you claim Bush is.

Next time, instead of smearing and bashing me, try to read my blog post before proving your ignorance of the facts over and over. It doesn’t hurt to go outside the “house” every once in a while. Try it some time.

mr chevy chase, c. 1970s

nurse, oh, nurse, please read this to the gentleman from norway. and, please be gentle with the shock treatment today; he seems to be getting more and more deluded with each day:

A White House spokeswoman, Erin Healy, said she could offer no explanation of why the records released Wednesday did not reflect all of the visits by Mr. Abramoff that the White House had previously acknowledged. Asked if officials might have approved Mr. Abramoff’s entry without requiring him to register at White House security posts, Ms. Healy declined comment. “I have nothing for you on that,” she said.

Two other administration officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of rules that generally bar them from speaking to reporters, said the White House had decided that the settlement of the lawsuit did not require other, more complete visitor logs to be made public.

They said the more complete logs, known within the White House as Waves records, an acronym for the Workers Appointments and Visitors Entry System, would have identified the other visits by Mr. Abramoff.

Just a rule of thumb – we rarely read blogs by those we don’t take seriously. And you know that around here, that means you.

The Hanukkah meetings and the Garza meeting doesn’t show up on the Secret Service logs because (1) they are outside the scope of the FOIA request by Judicial Watch and (2) the Garza meeting took place at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building – not the White House.

So yes, the Secret Service records are “incomplete” because they are exactly what Judicial Watch asked for. The three meetings (Hanukkah and Garza) we already know about aren’t covered by the FOIA request, since it asks for policy meetings that Abramoff attended at the White House – not holiday receptions. Nor any meetings at any other places, such as the Eisenhower Executive Office Building.

If you guys just spent the 2-3 minutes actually reading my blog post instead of huffing and puffing like a bunch of drunks, maybe you’d learn a thing or two. Then you might complain to Judicial Watch for filing such a narrow request, or appeal to other organizations to file FOIA requests that are broader in scope.

Oh, and the fact that Bush wasn’t even in Washington DC during Abramoff’s first logged visit seems to be avoided like the plague by places like Think Progress. Come on guys, it’s not hard to accept the truth.

The SS is doing just what they are supposed to be doing. PROTECTING the president. If they have to lie to do it, they will. Thats it in a nutshell.

The Democrat’s investigation into the conduct (legality or illegality of same) of the criminal Bushite junta’s lawyers who set up the White House justification for NSA domestic spying…

…has been summarily CLOSED!

Why?

…the investigators were denied the proper SECURITY CLEARANCES by the department responsible for issuing such clearances…

…effectively shutting down the Democrat’s investigators ability to gain access to the necessary records…

…Fu*k ALL of you “little” sh*t Americans who think you can bring down Bushiva and L’il Dick…

…You’re NOTHING!!!

…if you don’t like how our government is run, LEAVE!!!!