Deliberately obtuse. Read Mulder's fine first post from beginning to end. You will see an administration trying to define the problem away and you will see the language of the law, which puts the lie to their spin.
It is my understanding that in this case "wiretapping" not a literal term. All of the systems work by intercepting either line of sight microwave communications, or from satelite transmissions, either by satelites in space or using towers on the ground. A reasonable percentage of traffic still travels undersea, and there is a submarine that taps undersea cables, the Jimmy Carter, but I believe most of the cables are fiber optic, and don't particularly respond to tapping in the way you described. If they were listening in on your calls, I doubt that you would be able to tell.
Nope. In all these many years, you've never made an argument I (and many others here) haven't knocked down with ease and this is no exception. I'm just finally bored with your game. You know the one. Start a fight, lose the fight, declare victory. Variations include accusing people of supporting terrorists, calling me a drunk, posting pics, etc. Oh yes, and when several posters weigh in on how badly you've embarassed yourself, call it a sign that the winner of the argument is on the ropes and needs help from some kind of liberal posse. That last thread was the last nail in the coffin. You got beat about six different ways and not only did your usual silly victory dance ("I am so smart! I am so smart! S-M-R-T!") but you actually took a quote from your worst thread ever for your sig. (Wonder why you didn't provide a link?) I've got to go serve Al Qaeda with a warrant now. We're spying on them, don't you know... See ya.
You seem to be mixing up the concept of being louder and more obnoxious in order to have the last word with being correct. The two aren't the same thing, though you aren't the only person to think so. Believing that something is true because you say it is true often enough is a halmark of schizophrenia.
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I don't know. Not long ago Air America Radio liberal talkshow host Randi Rhodes also mentioned she heard similar annoying noise during her phone calls, which I assume were mostly domestic. According to Maureen Dowd (cited in a Washington Post article), perhaps millions of Americans are being monitored on their phone calls, e-mail notes and Internet searches. If the budget of NSA (or whatever the federal agencies) is limited, it's possible they may still be employing low tech methodologies in spying.
WRONG WRONG WRONG !!!! The white says that Domestic to International or International to Domestic = ONLY IINTERNATIONAL. I am saying that is absolute crap aas ONE of the partys is INSIDE the US. I NEVER mentioned anything about PURELY DOMESTIC CALLS. You are changing the call of my question, playing the same BULLCRAP game they are. Since you are so FOND of asking questions, here's a HYPO: TRUE OR FALSE A permanent resident alien, Mohammad Jafari in Dearborn, MI makes a phone call to a cell phone registered to an O. Bin Laden in Pakistan. The President authorizes a wiretap on that individual without a court order. Since this an international call the President has not violated FISA.
Mulder: Good question. For a couple more good hypothetical questions, swap out the names you mentioned with Bill Clinton calling Nelson Mandela or Billy Joel calling Elton John.
Here is the Wikipedia article on the primary NSA collection system, Eschelon. Here is the Eschelon entry from the Federation of American Scientists. Here is a newspaper article from New Zealand detailing one little bit of the system. Eschelon is an old-school big budget Cold War system for spying on the Russians. It has massive and expensive and works wonderfully well. The last publicly revealed NSA budget before Bush reclassified it was $3.6 billion, second only to the National Reconnasance Office. Conversly, the USS Jimmy Carter is basically a redirection of cold war surplus. Beyond that I believe that most of the other DIA/NSA operated surface ships are fairly old. This comes from a list is warning signs by an anti-evesdroping firm. [rquoter] 5. You have noticed static, popping, or scratching on your phone lines. This is caused by the capacitive discharge which occurs when two conductors are connected together (such as a bug or wiretap on a phone line). This is also a sign that an amateur eavesdropper or poorly trained spy is playing with your phone lines. It could be nothing more then a problem with your phone line or instrument, but a TSCM person should evaluate the situation to make sure. [/rquoter] I find it difficult to believe that even under the tightest budget conditions the NSA would make mistakes that would be described as "amateur". I don't mean this to sound confrontational. I've just been interested in the way this stuff works for quite a while and I believe I have a fairly rudimentary uunderstanding of what mistakes could be made. In order to make mistakes of the type you are describing the tap would have to be before the switching station converts it to digital. This would necesitate a physical device at the end-point for everybody they want to tap. Why do that when it is so much easier to tap the trunk line and get everything at once? Eschelon lets them collect data from the trunk lines, with the exception of the remaining fiber optic undersea cables.
randi rhodes must have been listening to herself. that woman is every bit as annoying as bill oreilly.
She has moments of "clarity"...but I can't listen to her for more than 10 minutes a stretch and then check back later to see if she is still repeating her point form earlier on. Now, Al Franken and Jerry Springer--solid gold, they need to coax John Stewart into a syndicated weekly show or something.
