Our question of the day is: who does the ‘fear mongering’ and who is doing security and protection for the nation?

(Updated Below)

The liberal media and their Surrnedercrat minions have been attempting to claim terrorism is a myth, despite bombings, public statements by terrorists, captured terrorist statements, and all those dead and injured people we have seen as the result of the mythical terrorist. In their poor deluded minds it is the US government that is the threat, listening in on their increasingly hysterical babble. The claim is Bush and others are simply using made-up fear to scare the masses, and as proof they make up fantasies and shop unsubstantiated AND clearly debunked claims of invasions of privacy to make their case.

So the debate has been for years who is making up scary stories to claim they are protecting America, and who is really protecting America from real threats. If this is answered in the minds of Americans one way or the other, that is the path the election will take this year.

The hyper-paranoid liberal chatter today is all about who ‘owns’ the location of your phones, especially cell phones. But before we get to their breathless fear mongering about Bush and company eavesdropping, as if that unproven liberal fantasy is more important than Bin Laden’s suicidal minions publicly claimed efforts to try and blow up American, let’s step back a moment and think – instead of going into a panicky meltdown like these paranoid liberals. They may be screaming ‘fire’, but is there really any smoke in this theatre?

Does the US Government know where you home phone or business phone is located? Why yes they do! Why? Because the phone lines are not yours, they are the phone companies’. And the US government is allowed to know which phone is talking to which through the PIN Register, a type of initial and unobtrusive surveillance warrant that focuses on phone numbers (and locations) of those in contact with a suspect. For example, let’s look at how police use this information to identify a drug dealing network operation:

After receiving information from the City of Orlando Police Department, agents with the Metropolitan Bureau of Investigation of Orlando, Florida (MBI) began investigating appellants Marvin Green, Clarence Wheeler, Sr., Clarence Wheeler, Jr., James Wheeler, Frank Wheeler, Frank Sims, Brian Carson, and Anthony Fowler’s involvement in a large scale crack cocaine distribution network. Initially, the MBI attempted to conduct surveillance of a residence located at 907 West Long Street. These attempts failed because the suspects immediately recognized and accosted the agents.

The agents applied for and were granted authority to use a pin register and a trap and trace device for the telephone number assigned to 907 West Long Street. Through use of the pin register and trap and trace device, the agents learned that many telephone calls were being made between 907 West Long Street, 907 West Anderson Street, and 1212 West 22nd Street. The agents also determined that a number of calls were being made between 907 West Long Street and a business known as “Tap’s Pool Room,” which Frank Wheeler owned. Eventually, communications between 907 West Long Street and 1212 West 22nd Street ceased, and heavy communications began between 907 West Long Street and 510 Daniels Street, the residence of Brian Carson.

On July 10, 1991, a state court granted MBI agents authority to intercept oral communications involving the telephone assigned to 907 West Long Street. The MBI also obtained a pin register and a trap and trace for 907 West Anderson Street and for a cellular telephone number that had been identified during a previous pin register and trap and trace period.

Emphasis mine. The first step is to get the PIN Register warrant to see who is being contacted, the second warrant allows authorities to listen in on and record the conversations. The initial PIN Register warrant was on the one set of phone numbers at the residence of the drug dealers. But as clearly noted the other ends of the communications were located as well. There was no ‘warrant’ on these phone numbers and their locations.

We are back again to the definition of a Target of a surveillance – which requires a warrant – and the Contact of the Target, who gets their communications with the Target monitored and investigated.

One of the big myths surrounding the Terrorist Surveillance Program, the NSA and the FISA court is the concept of ‘authority’. For instance, if Bin Laden’s head bomber was in the US and the FIS Court offered a warrant to monitor him, everyone he contacted would be under surveillance. If the warrant was for a PIN Register as in the example above, then the number and location of the phone number (not the contents) would be collected. Then a second warrant is issued to listen in. Note also that the investigation by police started before any of these steps.

So now let’s go to the world of international terrorism and international communications. The ‘authority’ to target suspects overseas lies within the intelligence community, which gives authority to NSA to listen in on the Overseas Targets (OST). This authority is equal to and replaces the need for the first warrant in the domestic version above. The NSA can note who, at a PIN Register level, is in contact with suspected terrorists. In fact, it is impossible not to note both ends of a communication event over modern technology.

Each packet of data (be it voice, text, imagery) is stamped information on the sending and receiving end-points. It has to have this information to route itself through the myriad switches, trunk lines, satellite hops, corporate subnets, etc. Communications today moves incredibly fast through a series of devices. Just open ‘full headers’ on any email you receive and realize the ‘hops’ listed are just those at domain boundaries, they do not include all the intermediary devices data must snake its way through. In my house alone data will traverse 2-3 networks before hitting the outside mesh of devices.

So it is impossible not to collect source and destination. The question is what to do with it recording-wise. In the case of the NSA all PIN Register level information is passed to the FBI to investigate any end point in the US. In fact, the new FISA bill does something unique in America, it does not automatically give non-US citizens physically in the US the same protections legally (see here for that revelation). Basically, never again – like prior to 9-11 – will the NSA have information on terrorists in the US it cannot share with the FBI, thus leading to 3,000 innocent deaths. This is not paranoid fantasy like that from the looney left, that is historic fact.

OK, so we have established that, not unlike domestic surveillance, once authority has been granted to monitor a Target (via warrant inside the US or via intelligence community procedures governed and monitored by the Department of Justice – and now the FIS Court) collecting the PIN Register level data is allowed. And that information is phone number and location (and possibly owner).

So with a logical and though out context in mind, let’s look over at what the paranoid liberals are screaming their heads off about today:

All modern cell phones are equipped with GPS capability that allows your location to be tracked within a few meters at all times. Question: does the federal government have access to this tracking information without a warrant? The ACLU filed a Freedom of Information request to find out but the feds refused to respond.

Short answer – yes. If you become a Contact to a Target and are swept up in authorized surveillance, then your PIN Register details are available without a warrant on you! Everyone can be under surveillance without a warrant against them if they are in contact with Targets.

Now, the real question is whether the location of a cell phone is ‘owned’ by the owner of the cell phone? I hate to bust Kevin Drum’s technologically naive bubble but cell phones don’t require GPS to be located. The same triangulation tracking method GPS employs can also be employed using the cell towers and cell phone RF links to gain position of the phone. And when people buy phones or communications they are surrendering much of their privacy to the company in question, and therefore also to the US government which owns the RF spectrum and has oversight rights as well.

If you are using the public RF spectrum, under lease to communication companies, are you on public property? Interesting question. Here’s is a parallel example for folks to ponder: On*Star from General Motors. This in-dash cell phone with GPS tracking can detect when and where you have had an accident. It is a level of outside visibility into your whereabouts and condition that you paid for, which buys you very useful support for emergencies, etc.

So, if Bin Laden in Pakistan calls his buddy’s Cadillac Deville in NY City on his On*Star phone number it will be picked up by NSA, because Bin Laden is an authorized target of the NSA. The Authorities will know the number and the fact it is a mobile phone, even an On*Star node. There will be no warrant as one is not required. Now, under these circumstances does it make sense to not also provide the ‘address’ of the phone as was done in the drug dealer example above?

Of course it does, since we better be protecting ourselves from terrorists with the same level of tools we protect our children from drug dealers. When we see the paranoid left trying to weaken our defenses against terrorists when compared to what we authorize when we track down drug dealers, it is a clear sign those panicked liberals have jumped the shark.

Note how the ACLU and these other liberals never put context around the question of invasion of privacy? All US Person require warrants when they are the Target of surveillance. The Target can have ALL their communications monitored. Contacts only have those communications monitored that are with a designated and authorized Target. The entire NSA-FISA flap was created over the mythology that there were no “Contacts” in the US when it came to overseas communications and terrorists. It was a naive and suicidal blurring of the reality of today’s threats and communications systems. Why would we allow the concept of a “Contact” to be valid inside the US only? Prior to 9-11 the rule was, when it came to international terrorists overseas, there were no “Contacts” – you could not record the number, the location or the contact.

And that resulted in two things: (a) we, in the form of our fellow citizens at the NSA, had detected the 9-11 highjackers here in America, and (b) we deleted the information that would have probably avoided the deaths of 3,000 innocent people just getting on with their lives one sunny day in September, 2001.

Only fools pretend we are not at war with terrorist and that all efforts aimed at terrorists are aimed at these fools. So, who is fear mongering and who is protecting us? Well, since 9-11 there has been no successful attack on the US (here or on our Embassy soil overseas). There have been plenty of attacks, but no successful ones. Fact vs fiction.

Update: Clearly, this paranoid delusion is not going to fly given some of sane analysis coming out on the internet:

Now just calm down and think for a minute.

• They could follow you without a warrant.
• They could ring your doorbell to see if you answer without a warrant.
• They can set up a stake out across your street and monitor your coming and going without a warrant.
• They can check your garbage and find out where you picked up the take out you had for dinner without a warrant.

If you leave your home, you are by definition “out in public.” Where’s the expectation of privacy when you are in public? If you’re not out in public, you must be at home or where-ever you went when you left home and went out in public to get there.

H/T Stop The ACLU

Tags: 9-11, ACLU, FISA, NSA, PIN Register, Terrorist Protection Act