AT & T
Verizon
Bell South
Never Again!!!!
Pat Lang
RSS- Tit for tat until it all goes boom
- Deadly H5N1 avian influenza strain detected on mainland Antarctica
- “BYD is launching its next-gen Blade EV battery soon with more range and even lower cost”
- Iran launches air attacks on Israel
- ISW on the developing Ukrainian defense industrial base and Russias strikes on the Ukrainian energy infrastructure
- Britain? Kaput! By Walrus.
- Declaration “Dignitas Infinita” on Human Dignity
- The situation and some possible courses of action … A Pat Lang post reposted from 26 February 2022
- HARPER: COL. W. PATRICK LANG R.I.P.
- A Note On Our Folly By Walrus
Nina and I are with you, Pat. Thanks for your leadership. What is our alternative in N. Va.
Bob
“Judicial oversight is a security system, and unchecked military and police power is a security threat.”
http://www.schneier.com/essay-045.html
As of AT&T: They want to kill net-neutrality on the Internet (which woul make blogging etc. much more expensive). What better way of getting that done than by helping the governement in another issue?
One hand washes the other…
Going to make do with dial-up. My ISP is pretty much locally owned and operated. Will give up DSL and switch long distance. Can’t starve the beast, but can at least put it on a diet.
I refuse to switch to cable though. Have been boycotting television since 1999 (to no avail).
Did Communications Opportunity, Promotion, and Enhancement Act of 2006 ever get a number? I want to cite that as the other reason.
This should be rich in perverse outcomes. Bet folks will give up when it turns out to be even slightly inconvenient.
Was going to paste a picture of Dick Cheney above the thermostat, but thanks to fuel costs it turned out not to be necessary. Perhaps will download one and turn it into desktop wall paper. Take that, you scoundrel!
There may have been a quid pro quo with the big telcos and cable companies – give us complete backdoor access to your networks and we’ll help you guys charge tolls and effectively control content delivery on the net.
Qwest management showed concern for the rule of law. I wonder how the others like Comcast, Sprint, Nextel, Cingular, etc behaved.
Bob,
I am looking into it, but am thinking of taking my phone business to Comcast. pat
Pat, If you boycott the gang of 3 who do you get residential service from in New York City? Qwest doesn’t do residential phone service. I just want alternatives.
Michael Singer
And while you’re at it, buy Qwest (NYSE – symbol: Q) Last trade 6.55 at 9:35 am.
Mr. Siger: Did you try Vonage?
It seems
Americans don’t care.
Credit serfs wouldn’t.
Wonder what time of day they do those surveys.
RJJ:
I submit the White House planted the story in USA Today to get just this reaction. The December NSA domestic spying story got them a 52 percent favorable number. And since they’re tanking in every other category, going lower in the polls every week, this is all they’ve got. “Protecting America” diverts attention from the bloody streets of Iraq, gas prices and all the other bad news. Most Americans have never heard of the 4th amendment, and the WH knows it.
RJJ:
Probably because they don’t see themselves or their neighbours as being potential terrorist suspects. Its fairly easy to get people to agree or disagree depending on how you phrase the questions in a poll. I wonder what the results would have been if they asked if every american who had any type of contancts with the middle east, islam or an organization that’s considered a threat should be automatically investigated and if they trigger a profile put under surveillance.
All of this is by the way also underway in the EU with the mandatory data retention directive for all electronic communications within the EU.
William Arkins in his blog described the scope as ‘an all-seeing domestic surveillance is slowly being established, one that in just a few years time will be able track the activities and “transactions” of any targeted individual in near real time’
http://blog.washingtonpost.com/earlywarning/2006/05/nsas_multibillion_dollar_data.html
I am waiting for the class action lawsuite.
Lina, thanks…I will look into it. Are there other options? I tried to query Verison and my computer dumped the URL as soon as I wrote out my question about the NSA.
Michael Singer and Michael is fine as an address.
Vonage is voice over IP, they may work in your area, check out their website. You still need a broadband provider. There are many small broadband companies, if you want to skip cable. It is a pain to research this stuff, but there are options. Also, you can go to a cell phone, like US Cellular, and switch to cable for broadband if you are not opposed to your local cable company. However, then you could also try some of the Voice over IP services. Consumer Reports has a rundown on the quality of many national options.
@RJJ
The was a phone poll about phone surveilence?!!!
See how that goes:
http://www.moonofalabama.org/2006/05/phone_survey.html
Advice to everybody for Your next home phoneset purchase, (the one you plug on the wall.)
Consider purchasing one with VOIP capability. (eg. start thinking about using VOIP as alternative phone line)
It’s won’t be 100% secure, but there won’t be a gigantic corporation acting as gate keeper. (plus, if you are bored, you can wired your entire town and build your own wireless system.)
Of topic but of interest to people here I think.
The home and office of Kyle Foggo, who stepped down on Monday as the Central Intelligence Agency’s number three official, were searched today by law-enforcement officials as part of an ongoing investigation, the Federal Bureau of Investigation said.
April Langwell, a spokeswoman for the F.B.I.’s San Diego office, said that Mr. Foggo has been under investigation by the Internal Revenue Service, the Defense Criminal Investigative Service and the C.I.A.’s Inspector General as well as the F.B.I.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/12/washington/11cnd-foggo.html?hp&ex=1147492800&en=7520856c0c14122e&ei=5094&partner=homepage
So the next step is every American adopting Al-Qaeda countersurveillance techniques to avoid being surveilled by its own goddamn government.
We can all go live in caves now.
Tell me again how we’re winning?
Col. Lang:
I posted this same description below on your Traffic Analysis post. It’s not just traffic analysis they’re doing. They’re trapping a massive amount of conversational audio and then turning it into text. Note that none of the information below is from classified sources; I just know how it’s done, and have worked on some of the automating technologies for it. Here’s how it goes:
At its core, this type of surveillance requires excellent audio mining capability to return accurate text values. You must analyze the signal you captured and figure out what the speakers actually said. This task is decidedly non-trivial, and quickly gets you into prediction and cognition.
Mathematically, you can use the same tools to analyze patterns (Bayesian Networks, Hidden Markov Models) and cluster them statistically for speech as you would for, say, air travel. You just need the data. Preferably all of it. Once you’ve got enough data assembled and have defined domain outcomes, you can figure out all the paths that led to, or theoretically lead to, those outcomes. Then you’ve built what’s called a Finite State Machine…a method of predicting what someone wants in a topical domain, often before they know it themselves.
Then you flag the pathways that require human analysis, pass it to trained agents, and they listen and cross-check other databases to learn all about what someone wants. This is what has been built. It cannot be unbuilt.
Nixon’s enemies list was much shorter.
Col..
I agree..Enough is Enough of Data Mining…Manipulations…and Powerful Structures being built off the Emotions of 9/11..
This administration has wound up in the Unique Position of Being ALLOWED to Make EXTREME Transformations to Several Levels of Our Governments Institutions..
AND >>They Have CREATED…Several NEW and POWERFUL Institutions..AND They Have BEEN able to Appoint virtually EVERY Dept HEAD..and CONTROL Management of Most of them..
AND They are Testing the LIMITS of the CONSTITUTION..and the POWERS of thier INDIVIDUAL Offices..
Apperently Its Now Turning into somewhat of a CONTEST…and RIVALRY For Power… Among Them..
Typical TURF WAR BATTLES..
Based on what you say abour Mr. Negroponte and Mr. Rumslfeld…For TOP Level POWERSand Controls..
Apparently..there are ELEMENTS..within the Military..Complex..who want to be part of the TEAM..or BOTH TEAMS..
With other SUB Levels also being Developed and Groomed..????
In My OPINION..All of these Domestic and Foreign Events are EXTREME..
Requiring the greatest of PUBLIC Attention..
These Are NATIONAL ISSUES..
Because there MUST ..be Checks and Balances..
On Government..When ISSUES are Close to being out of Control..or NO CONTROL..
And blamed over and over..on Quaeda..
nd the CONSTANT ..use of the Words TERORISTS…and Terrorism….
The Repetition of those KEY WORDS…over several Years now…are the same Media Methods of ADVERTISING.by DATA MINING..Brain Washing
in my Opinion..
This GROUP..Have used a Few KEY WORDS..to JUSTIFY and EXCUSE…Every single POWER PLAY they have made..
Look at Most Public Speechs..Bush has Used those key Words to EXCUSE or JUSTIFY..ever single ACT..
There is no excuse for DATA Mining of the American People..way beyond the Scope of thier
Authority.. without Probably Cause and FISA~Warrants..
I say they should be required to destroy all Illegally obtained TAPES..
And do thier field investigations with HUM/INT..Find any suspects…Get Good Sources and Informants..Get thier PROBALE CAUSE…and Obtain Thier WARRANTS..
Like It has always been…When the CONSTITUTION and RIGHTS and PROTECTIONS were respected..
We all knew the Capacitys were there..and developing for these Futuristic Orweillian..Scenarios..
The FUTURE..is TODAY..
Col…I woiuld like to see the CIA remain Intact..as “THE AGENCY”
INDEPENDENT…and with a Good DCI..with NO POLTICAL.TIES ..to this Administration
or ANY Political Party..
I think there should be a DEMAND FOR and Thorough search for such a Director..with Public and Congressional Input into the Decision Process..
NOW..on This ISSUE..
LAST Chance Opportunity..
with MEDIA Support..
A Independent AGENCY…would be a Good CHECK and Balance on all the other Super Agencys Created and Controlled by this Administration..
That way…We the People and Congress would always Have Agency data..to Insure We Have a LISTMUS TEST..Independent Data to Compare to What the other Super Agencys are Saying..
Speaking of MANICURED INTELLIGENCE…
WHO has the POWER..??
I Recommend an “Independent CIA”
The CIA would then be in the position to make up for Past Sins..when it was USED..to Provide FALSE or MISLEADING Data..
When it Became the FIRST Institution USED by Members of this Administration..
Over`all…I dopnt think the Rank and File Members of the “AGENCY'” appreciate the Way the Agency was USED…and got the Blame for all the INTEL Failures..
I don’t know how they feel about a Complete Take`over by Negroponte..
via Gen. Heyden..
I Have some Suspicions thats whan the current Investigations are about.and who the SOURCES of INFORMATION Are..
HOUSE CLEANING..with DIRTY WATER..
Col…I think YOU…and Your Hand Picked Team should Run CIA..
YOU should be the New DCI..
You are MORE Qualified than Gen..Heyden..Have Better Qualifications..
Are RESPECTED..
Know the BUSINESS…
Could Do ALL the RIGHT thinks..
PROPERLY…and EFFECIENTLY..
INDEPENDENTLY..
With HONESTY..and INTEGRITY..
Its all about TRUST..
I would TRUST…..YOU..
Damn, I just signed a two year contract w Verizon for a cellphone, and I’ve had a BellSouth landline my entire adult life. There is no other landline service in Charlotte, NC except Time Warner cable VOIP. How much you wanna bet they’re implicated vis-a-vis e-mail next. What’s a guy to do?
Damn, I just signed a two year contract w Verizon for a cellphone, and I’ve had a BellSouth landline my entire adult life. There is no other landline service in Charlotte, NC except Time Warner cable VOIP. How much you wanna bet they’re implicated vis-a-vis e-mail next. What’s a guy to do?
Posted by: Paul | 12 May 2006 at 07:43 PM
class action dude…
Those phone company just broke their own contracts. What they are doing is VERY illegal.
Paul,
You might check to see if NC has a public utilities website. In Maine, the public utilities commission posts all the phone companies operating in the state and their rates. We have a couple local options. I don’t know if NC does, but if you have not investigated that yet, take the time. There may be a small phone company you can trust. We have some up here. I hope you do too.
For anyone, Earthlink is Consumer Reports highest rated service, they do VOIP I believe. There are also small independent broadband companies. Great Works Internet in Maine provides excellent broadband and also has VOIP, and the serve all of one state a little bit of a couple others.
P.S.
Colonel, if people are able to find the alternatives, which do exist in some areas, the subesequent costs to the big companies could be a very important piece of leverage on more than just this issue.
If one can find an alternative broadband service, which may be you local cable provider, then you can get VOIP. All you need is the broadband pipeline. So Earthlink, for example, can handle your landline phone needs via your cable modem.
The NY Times says that a lawsuit has been filed against Verizon that could run up to 50 billion dollars. That should make the boardroom sit up and notice.
@b, funny [ever get the sense folks are phasing into that old timey Soviet Union (dark) end of the humor spectrum???].
@Someguy, thanks [!!!!] for the GWI and Maine PUC reminders.
Working Assets which I use for long distance has entered the ACLU’s NSA case. So, they are an option for long distance. Local service is, in the NYC area, a real problem. But, I am looking into it. Putting your money where it talks is subversive, and that can be a good thing. I use AOL which I assume is turning over all of my emails to the NSA but then I assume that I am being monitored anyway. How do you all find Earthlink or other email purveyors? I can’t and won’t use anything that depends on my using a MS email program! What is a gal to do? Hypocritical, yes, but then I am human and hate spam!
Another thought, isn’t this a total waste of tax payer dollars? This is a squandering of the treasury. Can it be justified that tens of millions of Americans are involved in terrorism and need their phone calls tracked? It would seem to me that just from a conservative point of view this is a waste of treasury. I am an amateur in this discussion but from a dollar and cents perspective this seems to me like a huge waste of money if it is in the fight for the GWOT. John and Jane Doe’s phone calls, I would think, are irrelevant, unless it isn’t John and Jane Doe’s domestic calls, they are interested in. I am reminded of John Dean’s assessment that this administration is “Worse than Nixon.” I am thinking enemy’s list and John Bolton’s list of folks being tracked and which the Administration wouldn’t release, and the ensuing recess appointment. But then I am just one of those wacky folks who like to look at dots and occasionally try to connect them.
`MarkLord, I was intersted in your comments. Years agoo I worked on a project about telephone surveillance. I would like to get your email.
Michael Singer mrsinger@mac.com
Tuli, it sure is big spending of taxpayer dollars for dubious systems. But isn’t that what the Bush-Cheney administration has got at the top of its priority – transfer of wealth to their cronies.
Trailblazer the first attempt by Gen. Hayden to do massive data mining after spending over $2 billion is still yet to see the light of day. Imagine all the computers, software, routers, consulting services and program management that $2 billion “bought”.
Data mining only makes sense when there are statistically significant patterns. I am not sure how effective mining tens of millions of call data records of American citizens would be in identifying AQ activities. But it sure’s making a lot of money for the “beltway bandits”.
The Dukestir/Wilkes/Foggo investigations, indictments and conviction are just the tip of the iceberg of how many defense contracts and “black” intelligence contracts are parceled out in a pay-to-play system. Of course Gonzales will do his best to prevent the DoJ career prosecutors from going too far for fear it may unmask the pervasiveness of DC corruption.
Yep..
Good Comments..TIMELY..
And The American TAXPAYERS…Bought the Whole “System” for those Guys..Wonder who got those ‘CONTRACTS”…??
Don’t tell me me..Halliburton..??
Who else who be..”TRUSTED..”??
Well,…now that the “bad Guys” know we Have been monitoring everyones Phone calls..emails..Credit Card Data..Hotel Reservations..Vacation Destinations..(God Yes…MUST be a “Pattern” there..More DATA to Analyze..
And Food and Restaurant Preferences..Damn…and I like Pizza..(Must be an Italian) Mexican..Must be an “Illegal Alien”..Chinese..Oh No..!!
NOT Chinese…God…what a File i must have by now..
Well..They are running out of New Toys..I think Its Time to screen all Postage and Package Services..Create Data Base on Who senT Mail and Packages…and who too..
You Know…I think it would be Easier and MORE””EFFICIENT” to just deport ALL Muslims..
Maybe thats the “FINAL SOLUTION”….
MUST be a CLUE in theresomewhere..Yep..Check everyones Mail..
Heck..Lets just put a Camera in ever home..Audio of coarse..
Hey…Maybe the TVs are Looking Back at Us..??
“MATRIX”.??? Hmmmm???
Being Done Now…HMMMMM..??
God…What a job MARKET FR “analyists” these Days…
Wonder if they all have to Be.”YOUNG REPUBLICANS”???
Thats how ROVE got his Start..
And..LOOK where He’s at..!!
Dear Patrick Henry:
“Well..They are running out of New Toys..I think Its Time to screen all Postage and Package Services..Create Data Base on Who senT Mail and Packages…and who too..”
They are already doing that. We had to change our postage meter because the Patriot Act requires a new barcode to track mail. Look at any commercial mail you get with a meter stamp and you will see it.
Lots of new toys! And I am sure that Mr. Wilkes will get his share of the pie. As long as he stays out of jail that is.
But then Duke isn’t talking, will Jerry?
Simple safeguards could have been applied such as encoded phone numbers, with the master phone list opened by FISA court order. Development of analytical tools, data mining, and monitoring can all be accomplished without actual phone numbers. NSA can easily function with encoded data. Suspicious activity when supported by additional evidence could be used as justification for a wire tap court order.
Hand waving arguments by the administration are unconvincing and could easily have been avoided. The simplistic reassurances offered by the President suggest that safeguards were not a high priority.
“God…What a job MARKET FR “analyists” these Days…”
Hire evolutionary biologists, their good with patterns and underemployed, but not many young republicians.
Posted by: EvoBio | 13 May 2006 at 05:24 PM
here is my theory, and I will be proven right again later.
1. this spyign stuff has nothing to do with “terrorist” and other stuff like that.
2. it’s about observing/collecting large demographic communication pattern. (ie. voting pattern.) What the NSA spying program is really a gigantic and very precise ‘polling’ service for Karl Rove.
3. It’s to spy “all political rivals” (leaker, journalists, activists, anti-war, vocal voice against the administrations) Two of them have been confirmed … give it time, all of them will be confirmed.
All the talk about “war on terror”/national security is just a talk. A cover for actual purpose of spying program, just like ANY regimes that has done it in ANY countries. It’s to maintain power and supress dissent.
I put my shiny dime on these items. At least two of them will come out right.
Popping in here rather late in the game, folks, sorry.
There are, indeed, many people who don’t care what is going on, there are those that care and are voices-in-the-wilderness (so to speak,) there are those who are truly scared and still trying to do something. There are also those who are scared and have retreated to a cave.
I’m one of those “scared and trying to do something” and, believe me, I’m scared.
I am just a midwestern housewife, kids, pets, a house, bills… what could someone possibly want to keep track of me for? Eh? Even so, I have no doubt but what someone is, has or, will in future, be looking.
The ability of government, from federal all the way down to local, to intrude on our lives, to block any means of personal expression, to interefere with daily life, to bother, annoy, irritate and confound every aspect of our lives, has gotten so pervasive that local police are now “spying” on citizens. Any agency that receives and type of federal funding can, and I predict will, be involved in the process of stripping us of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
Every time I send and email, answer the phone, leave the house, talks to friends, have a party, I wonder who is checking it out? And why?
This far-reaching activity by government is a fulcrum to lever away our liberties. It doesn’t matter if you are “blue” or “red”, north or south, red, yellow, white, or whatever… we all of us, as Americans, are not very far from losing the last shreds of what we have always assumed were inviolable rights.
Yeah, I’m scared, and I’m scared bad.