Stanford Researchers Spot Medical Conditions, Guns, and More In Phone Metadata 193
An anonymous reader writes "Since the NSA's phone metadata program broke last summer, politicians have trivialized the privacy implications. It's 'just metadata,' Dianne Feinstein and others have repeatedly emphasized. That view is no longer tenable: Stanford researchers crowdsourced phone metadata from real users, and easily identified calls to 'Alcoholics Anonymous, gun stores, NARAL Pro-Choice, labor unions, divorce lawyers, sexually transmitted disease clinics, a Canadian import pharmacy, strip clubs, and much more.' Looking at patterns in call metadata, they correctly diagnosed a cardiac condition and outed an assault rifle owner. 'Reasonable minds can disagree about the policy and legal constraints,' the authors conclude. 'The science, however, is clear: phone metadata is highly sensitive.'"
Reasonable minds? (Score:2, Insightful)
"Reasonable minds can disagree about the policy and legal constraints"
Not really. They're infringing upon the constitution and privacy rights. A reasonable mind would always view this as a bad thing.
Re:Reasonable minds? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Reasonable minds? (Score:4, Insightful)
THE Muslims want to kill and subdue us? All of them?
With such broad generalized accusations, you are a much greater danger to freedom than the average Muslim is. Specifically you seem to be defending your freedom by pissing it away.
"Metadata" is the important stuff (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:"Metadata" is the important stuff (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:"Metadata" is the important stuff (Score:5, Insightful)
The holdover of calling it "metadata" is a little odd.
All metadata is, naturally, data. That's not the odd part; people should know that.
It's reasonable to call it "phone call metadata". That's what it is. That indicates that it is not the content of the calls, but it's other data about the calls. So in the context of phone calls, it's metadata, because it's not the phone call content itself. Once it's separated from that context, it's just "data".
Saying "it's just metadata" makes no sense at all, since the "meta-" part give you no information about the data's value.
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Saying "it's just metadata" makes no sense at all, since the "meta-" part give you no information about the data's value.
Agreed. Yet that is precisely what Feinstein (et al) are saying.
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good point.
Re:"Metadata" is the important stuff (Score:5, Insightful)
For "metadata" read "your entire itemised phone bill". I think the layperson will grasp the implications of giving those to the NSA.
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Re:"Metadata" is the important stuff (Score:5, Insightful)
For "metadata" read "your entire itemised phone bill". I think the layperson will grasp the implications of giving those to the NSA.
I would sure like to believe you are correct, but I fear the layperson is much too busy (working to pay bills) to pay attention.
I do some random informal polling amongst the working class, my people, and even the most cerebrally capable lack either the will or the investment of time necessary to understand they're slowly boiling the water we're all in.
I am afraid those of us with inclination will have to speak a little louder to cover for our silent brothers and sisters.
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Of course... (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course it's sensitive and provides "useful" information. If it didn't provide any information, they wouldn't bother collecting it.
Stazi. NSA. CIA. CSEC. GCHQ.
All the same animal, just different flags.
Re:Of course... (Score:4, Insightful)
is there any proof that the NSA was doing stuff like this?
It doesn't matter. A "we don't do that" from the NSA, even if we could be sure it was the gospel truth, would be no defense. Read up on the creation of the Bill of Rights. The authors took the approach that any power which potentially can be abused, will be abused at some point.
Hypocrite (Score:4, Insightful)
It was obvious before that it was a violation of privacy, this is just an illustration. Do you think politicians will care if it doesn't have anything to do with them?
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Given her low approval ratings, the only reason Feinstein is in office at all is because the Republicans keep miraculously finding people even more unelectable.
Right to Privacy? (Score:2)
<sarcasm>Wait, I thought that Roe v. Wade [wikipedia.org] established my right to privacy. Don't those left-wing nutjobs believe in their own judicial activisim? Based on that legal precedent, all NSA spying of all U.S. citizens should cease, immediately!</sarcasm>
Griswold vs Connecticut (Score:2, Informative)
Actually, it wasn't Roe v. Wade.. it was Griswold v. Connecticut, and had to do with the availability of contraception. Essentially saying that what you do in the privacy of your home is none of the government's business. Importantly, there's no explicit "right to privacy" in the US Constitution, but Griswold laid the foundation for why it follows from many of the other parts.
Roe did cite Griswold and other cases and essentially held that decisions to have abortions are a *private matter* between woman an
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I've heard this claim before, and I'm confused and truly looking for an analysis. The 4th Amendment to the US Constitution says:
Re:Griswold vs Connecticut (Score:5, Informative)
Importantly, there's no explicit "right to privacy" in the US Constitution
"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects" sure sounds a hell of a lot like "privacy" to me. Of course, an "explicit" right to privacy is not required, it's already guaranteed by those pesky 9th and 10th amendments.
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The types we are dealing with do not take positions based on overarching principle. Instead they take individual positions they were convinced to by their peers or superiors regardless of context. Thus, you will see conflicting positions that amount to obvious hypocrisy.
Two recent examples:
A Republican speaking of "Freedom of religion" while supporting a law allowing vouchers to be used for religious schools, then backpedaling quickly when
What the hell does that even mean? (Score:2)
Oh that's right....I forgot: sensationalism.
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No, "assault rifles" are not perfectly legal, unless you have an FFL and pay the annual fee.
Of course, they probably really meant "assault weapon", a nebulous term that seems to mean (usually) "a scary looking small calibre rifle".
Note that I am an assault weapon owner. As well as the owner of an equally scary looking small calibre rifle that is on the "exempt" list of the original Assault Weapon Ban, as well as the later one that Obama couldn't get past Congress a few years ago.
you have no idea what you are talking about.... (Score:2)
Bzzzzzt. Wrong. They are perfectly legal and you have no idea what you are talking about. I have many and I don't pay a fee or have an FFL.
The only rifles that are restricted to own are automatic rifles. ie: machine guns. But those have been restricted for a long time. Outside of that, there are no other restrictions to buy, own, posses, shoot, or sell an "assault" rifle/weapon (no difference). Th
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Umm, no.
What you are thinking of is an "assault weapon". Which is NOT an "assault rifle", even though both "assault rifles" and "assault weapons" are rifles.
Note that an "assault rifle" is selective fire. An "assault weapon" (what you own, unless you have an FFL) are semi-automatic (AKA self-loading).
wrong, but close.... (Score:2)
Instead, he said we had to have an FFL and pay annual fee to own an assault rifle. That simply isn't true.....unless the assault rifle is a Class 3 weapon. However, most assault rifles are not Class 3 weapons so OPs statement is demonstrably false.
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If it's just metadata... (Score:3)
... then Ms. Feinstein should have no problem with a FOIA request for the metadata for her cellphone.
I bet it would take about an hour to find a call from a lobbyist, received during a break in a legislative session.
Answer the QUESTION. (Score:2)
Does the NSA rearrange bits on cable-connected computers in the USA without a warrant?
Please pardon the John McEnroe reference!
And it will be made more revealing at time goes on (Score:2)
For instance, for no good reason, stories I send to myself via the "share" button on a lot of sites have an overly descriptive "header" in them that basically reveals the entire content and tone and POV of the article. It's more descriptive than even the headline. I am not comfortable with this. so I take the time to change the header to something like "read later".
Once companies get keyed into the "public nature" of metadata, - if they aren't already - believe that they will generate the most revealing me
untenable nanoseconds (Score:2)
I've attentively followed every stray tidbit to cross my radar about the shadow sector since the publication of The Puzzle Palace, about the peripheral ghosts of which my algebra professor had direct experience.
The gold box agencies can do traffic analysis at scale. They can model metadata at scale. They can't break every damn cipher at scale—neither can they employ the rubber hose password-getter at large scale (the Soviets managed to cover about 10% of their populatio
oops I did it again (Score:2)
s/heal/heel
Second time this morning. Bad fingers, bad.
It's traffic analysis (Score:3, Insightful)
Analysis of metadata is traffic analysis [wikipedia.org]. It has always been one of the staples of military intelligence, and everyone involved in intelligence-gathering knows it. It's based on the knowledge that a great deal of information--often including identities--can be gleaned simply from patterns of communication. Anyone in the intelligence world who says otherwise is knowingly lying.
The credit card bill analogy works just fine (Score:2)
I think without all of the work involved in this study, the credit card statement analogy paints a picture everyone can understand easily and accurately.
lack of ability to remember (Score:2)
'The science, however, is clear: phone metadata is highly sensitive.'
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Subscribers get to see an article in red before it posts. Sometimes regular users do too, right before it posts.
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Users with good karma get to see stories early.
So they can burn their karma on 'first posts'.
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I'll spell it out more clearly for you (I'll put it in simple hillbilly):
Them people what pay money get to see the writin' 20 minutes before the nerd yellin' starts. Them people what don't pay money get to see the writin' 20 seconds before the nerd yellin' starts. The writin' is red before the nerd yellin' starts.
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"Outed" an assault rifle owner? I wasn't aware guns had been banned in the United States.
I would love to see the NRA get involved in this. They're well organized, have a lot of influence, and are hardly considered left-wing nut jobs.
P.S. I don't belong to the NRA, own no firearms, and have mixed feeling about the organization. However the NRA on one side, and people concerned about calls to abortion clinics and labor union organizers on the other would make a formidable coalition. Something for everybody to hate except the Stasi wannabees.
Re: Outed? (Score:3)
Actually, the NRA is involved [slashdot.org] and has joined with the EFF, ACLU, and other groups in opposing NSA snooping.
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Excellent!
On the downside, if a coalition of the NRA and the ACLU can't get anywhere, then we're well and truly fucked. I am curious about how many Americans were awake in history class. I was boiled in the Bill of Rights, and the reasoning and historical justification for it. If you're going to wave the flag, you really should know what it stands for.
Re: Outed? (Score:5, Insightful)
We're well and truly fucked!!
FTFY
When Feinstein was okay with NSA spying on Americans we were fucked. Now that that chicken came home and roosted upon her doorstep, she is suddenly "offended". Where was that outrage when it didn't affect her. She is a hypocrite of the highest order. ANYONE who supports her at this point is the problem, regardless of how she votes on every other issue.
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They are banned in some areas of the country. But i agree, 'outed' shows a bias against gun owners by the people writing the story.
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I don't have a bias against gays and lesbians, but I'd have no trouble using the word "outed". There's enough social disapproval that some people like to keep their sexual preferences secret, and their private life should not be arbitrarily publicized by somebody else. There's social disapproval against owners of whatever the media is calling assault rifles today, also.
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Not where i live there isn't. ( for any of those groups )
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I suspect the individual never even knew he was hiding his Assault Rifle Orientation.
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"outed" does have a negative connotation as if someone was hiding something.
From the Urban Dictionary: To reveal some previously secret part of someone's life.
Of course the original article doesn't say anything like that. It is the original poster's bias that added that phrase
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Even if you are not ashamed of what you are doing, one can still fear potential repercussions and thus 'outed' sounds about right.
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It's a lot safer if a random thief breaking and entering your home does't know for certain if you have a gun. For one, he won't be going specifically to steal your gun. And he won't necessarily pack any heat of his own if he doesn't expect that level of violence.
And of course there are plenty of people who would like to lynch gun owners as a matter of policy. A bit ironic, but that's the kind of hysteria the U.S. experiences every time someone goes on a rampage.
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And of course there are plenty of people who would like to lynch gun owners as a matter of policy. A bit ironic, but that's the kind of hysteria the U.S. experiences every time someone goes on a rampage.
That's just not ironic. It's asinine.
It would be akin to every time a man rapes a woman, men all over are randomly attacked due to their potential to rape.
It would be akin to every time someone drives drunk and injures someone, people are attacked randomly at a wine tasting event for their potential to drive drunk.
Seems we only care about certain abuses and take them to asinine levels.
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As a gun ambivalent Democrat, I'd like to thank the current president for doing so much to stop these abuses.
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Those abuses. You know.
Re:Outed? (Score:5, Insightful)
You don't hate guns. You hate the people who own guns. Hating guns is illogical as hating chairs or hats or the air you breathe. They are inanimate objects and if you "hate" them, then you're clearly unable to deal with reality.
That being said, you don't hate guns, you hate "we the people" having guns. As a liberal, forcing people to join your collective under threat of government guns is what you depend upon. Your support of Government owning guns, is very likely. You likely support army, police and other national security people owning and bearing guns, even to protect the President (Republican OR Democrat) and high ranking officials like Feinstein, Reid and so on.
I have YET to meet a "gun hating democrat" that wants to disarm EVERYONE (including the government). Therefore, you don't hate guns. You hate average people having guns. And that speaks higher volumes about your hypocrisy than anything else.
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You don't hate guns. You hate the people who own guns. Hating guns is illogical as hating chairs or hats or the air you breathe. They are inanimate objects and if you "hate" them, then you're clearly unable to deal with reality.
That being said, you don't hate guns, you hate "we the people" having guns. As a liberal, forcing people to join your collective under threat of government guns is what you depend upon. Your support of Government owning guns, is very likely. You likely support army, police and other national security people owning and bearing guns, even to protect the President (Republican OR Democrat) and high ranking officials like Feinstein, Reid and so on.
I have YET to meet a "gun hating democrat" that wants to disarm EVERYONE (including the government). Therefore, you don't hate guns. You hate average people having guns. And that speaks higher volumes about your hypocrisy than anything else.
This may be true for you, but many people hate created objects. I, for one, hate land mines. I don't care who made them, or where they exist; I don't even care if they're armed or disarmed. I see no problem with someone making a land mine, but I do see a problem with that mine existing for any length of time. I find this logical; land mines not only kill people, they incite (yes, anthropomorphic, but still true) people to carelessly and indiscriminately maim and kill other people.
Likewise, I know of peo
Re:Outed? (Score:4, Insightful)
Hyperbole just makes you look like a fool.
No one owns landmines legally and while many do have automatic firearms, they are highly regulated and owners go through extensive background checks.
Amazing Analysis (Score:2)
Re:Outed? (Score:4, Interesting)
The Brady Zombies just won't die.
Gun violence and deaths have been trending down for decades while gun ownership has been going up.
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Replace GUN with CAR in the above rant and it still works. (If you compare annual automobile deaths vs gun deaths, CAR is far more concerning).
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Obviously you didn't actually READ what I wrote. You aren't anti gun, you're anti citizens having guns. You are all for government having them. It isn't a matter what purpose guns serve, it is blanket statement that you don't like guns, except the guns in the hands of tyrant governments.
And pointing to Europe is very interesting, as Russia is invading Ukraine. I wonder how Russia would fare if Ukrainians had guns. Yeah, guns in citizen's hands isn't about gun saftey or murder, it is about letting government
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People have plenty of guns that the government doesn't know about as they were inherited or obtained through private sales.
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... but some people are being threatened with jail for it.
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Right, because who needs to pass a law requiring a gun registry when we can just ask the NSA for a list on demand?
Oh, wait, maybe this is a BAD thing.
You gun nutjobs would probably be a lot more successful at making your case if you could string together at least 140 characters that make sense. Right now, people like you are actively keeping the phrase "gun nutjob" alive, and you're turning off people like me who actually support your position. I know it's asking a lot of someone with a room temperature IQ, but could you at least try to think before you click "post"?
Re:Outed? (Score:4, Informative)
I agree, but I think 'gun nutjob' applies to both ends of the spectrum. A majority of Americans believe in the right to own _some_ guns. I assume you are pointing out the right-end of the spectrum. But among the left end, there is a double-speak that is equally counter-productive. Conservatives are aware of this, but most centrists don't realize it. i.e. News headlines and quotes from the left state things like "Common sense" gun laws. But conversations among liberals or progressives are decidedly 100% anti-gun. "Gather them all up and throw them away" This is part of the reason that seemingly reasonable people dig in their heels on any proposed gun laws.
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I'm pretty liberal and fairly progressive, but I'm not 100% anti-gun, so your statement is certainly not broadly generalizable outside of conversations in the media, in my experience. I voted against a gun law just a few months ago, though it passed anyway. I wanted to vote for it, because the requirement that weapons be stored securely (either in a safe or with a trigger lock) was good, and the requirement for timely reporting of stolen firearms was good, but I couldn't vote for it because it also contai
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electronic fingerprint safeties on all new firearms
No. Just no. Put yourself in imminent position on needing a gun for self-defense. Do you really want a gun that might not fire not because it can't read your fingerprints accurately enough?
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Now put that same firearm in a household with kids. Do you really want a gun that might fire because somebody got curious? You shouldn't be required to use the digital lock, but it should be required to be present on the firearm as a mandatory safety feature, just like you can disable the air bags in your car, but by default, they come enabled.
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electronic fingerprint safeties
After police and military forces (including the special forces and SWAT teams who might actually fire a gun someday) standardize on some technology like, then I think we can talk about the merits of this. Until then we might as well be talking about mandating that all cars run on Cold Fusion by 2017.
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Then you have someone running around without training, kind of ruins the point.
And the cooling off period isn't for any concern for crime, their effectiveness being inconclusive at best. The waiting period is designed to dissuade people from purchasing handguns overall, which is the goal of the organization that had them instituted.
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Good point. Instead of pussy footing around with this metadata crap, lets just have searches of everyone's homes. Sure most of them can legally own firearms, but who knows who is keeping a ton of C4, liters of weaponized anthrax, or a pair of box cutters in their basement. Search everyone - there is nothing to worry about if you've got nothing to hide.
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Which could easily be the same thing.
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Which could easily be the same thing.
'Outing' has a connotation of a) the public identification of an individual, b) the disclosure of private information about that individual, and c) being against the (not necessarily explicitly stated) wishes of the individual. Neither a) nor b) occurred, which also means c) is moot.
Re: Let The Light shine In (Score:3, Insightful)
For example, say we hand over the specs and signatures for the subs carrying our nuclear deterrents (MIRVs). As it is, any aggressor has no idea where those subs are, what they sound like, their physical limits or their capabilities for detecting threats. If you hand that information over, suddenly, the entire sub fleet becomes useless. Defeats the purpose of being hidden.
Now, that is a fundamental part of MAD and our secon
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The Russians had a solution for that: Doomsday device. Forget launch capabilities et al, just build one bomb deep underground and well protected but so big it will kill the entire planet.
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Dr. Strangelove was not a documentary.
Re:Let The Light shine In (Score:5, Insightful)
Sure. There is nothing wrong with everyone knowing everything about everyone IF nobody will use such knowledge for malicious activities, nor to judge and/or segregate people into groups based on their preferences. I wouldn't mind people knowing which porn genre I prefer if they wouldn't treat me different for it. I'm sure many transsexuals wouldn't mind other people knowing that they are if people would just treat them as human beings just like any other.
The biggest issue with all information being public is that any deviation from social norm is usually met with hostility, instead of curiosity, thought, acceptance that not everyone thinks the same and that not all deviation is "bad".
Re:Let The Light shine In (Score:5, Insightful)
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You seem to be implying that the loss of some privacy is worth the perceived safety society might get from it? Really! Then why not give up all privacy because it would benefit society so much!. That people don't understand the "right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects" is a fundamental right. Not violating that right is worth any perceived, or even real, danger to society.
"OMG he has kerosene and fertilizer in his garage he must be planning to use it for bomb making!
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Re:What people seem to forget... (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah, that was my first take as well. This telephone number called that telephone number. Big whoop. Unless we have the name of the person who owns that first telephone number it's still just a number. Granted, matching a name to a phone number is trivially easy, except more and more people are not putting their cell phones into the phone book so it at least requires an Internet connection.
Did you really just say that you think clandestine government agencies are using the White Pages?
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Whew, that's a relief!
I have an unlisted number so the government can't use that metadata against me. :)
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I didn't think I needed to put the word "exclusively" at the end of my sentence, since OP's post pretty much implies it.
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It's just a weird post - you go from implying that it's not worth worrying about, because a number not associated with a name is not identifiable, to pointing out how trivially easy it is to identify what person that number belongs to, then saying that it's not so trivially easy because "more and more people are not putting their cell phones into the phone book."
Then something about an internet connection. It's very mercurial and hard to follow.
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more and more people are not putting their cell phones into the phone book so it at least requires an Internet connection
I've heard rumors that Internet connections aren't hard to get these days. It's also possible that telecom providers might have lists of their customers' phone numbers. Of course such companies would never share that information with the government.
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Re:What people seem to forget... (Score:4, Insightful)
If it's so useless, then why are they collecting it under the guise of preventing terrorism? It has some use, and obviously, they're able to identify people if they want.
I'm just saying that fears of metadata abuse are overexaggerated.
It's really not.
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the metadata has no names or content. Who is contacting all these people?
Call 100 of these source numbers at random, and ask "Hey, who's that?" [reply] "[reply] who?"
You'd probably get plenty of hits, and that's without any fancy-schmancy social engineering. And since you know the numbers they're calling, that would be a lot easier too. "Hey, it's the abortion clinic again, just need to confirm a couple of things with you..."
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Call he Ma'am. She likes that.
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assault rifle (illegal to own)
The term "assault rifle" is not clearly defined, and hence they're not illegal. What is illegal is firearms with certain characteristics. After all you can massacre a lot of school kids with a rifle that has a 10 round magazine, but rifles with 7 round magazines are harmless.
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A few years ago Yahoo released some cleansed search data. Researchers were able to pinpoint the searches of a specific guy living in Florida.
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The government already considers George Washington to be a terrorist and does not approve of his actions. You're about 10 years too late to bring "patriots" in to change anyone's mind there.
Now if you want to convince a judge that it's wrong and dangerous, acquire a judge's metadata and have it entered into evidence. If the judge isn't okay with it, then you've won.