KirkCaraway.com - FISA - Comments

scrambling

Anonymous — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 20:52:25 -0800

If someone could build a complete anticommunication device, it would cripple even the U.S.

Yes, it is

kc — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 15:09:54 -0800

Yes, it is funny that the one CEO who balked is in jail. What else if funny is that, according to him, the NSA approached him about this program in February 2001, before 9/11. It kind of begs the question, if this program is so good at getting info from terrorists, why didn't it stop 9/11?

FISA :: Why We Can't Find Out The REAL Story

Anonymous — Sun, 24 Feb 2008 15:05:04 -0800

Interesting piece in the Vail Daily re: FISA today.

I had the pleasure of meeting a Russian fellow years ago named Leon Ferber, who at the time ran a company called "Perception Technology" in Canton, MA. He's listed in old SEC filings as a VP, but it was his, as much as a public company remains "yours."

Leon, who mysteriously shows up on Google far fewer times than, say, you or I do, invented "Speaker Independent Voice Recognition" back in the 1960's, under contract then to a secret three-letter-acronym agency of the US government. It took a while to catch on, since it required a lot more computer than even the best vacuum tubes could offer in 1964.

Today it is everywhere. Say "Show restaurant icons" in your Prius, for example, and the car's dashboard GPS obeys, no matter who says it, man or woman, adult or child.

Leon's work is the basis for the NSA, NRO, FBI and other US government "eavesdropping" of voice calls today.

The trick he mastered, you see, is how to listen in on a lot of calls. In fact, every single call placed in the USA and around the planet each day. Today's technology and computers have no problem with this call volume - the same ones that provide the digital interface to "law enforecement" route each one of them, after all.

What the governments of the world with the capability to listen like this don't want people to know is that they can and do listen to each one, too.

It's all automated, and the computers listening in can understand every language. When "key words" are detected, the calls are further screened and logged according to sophisticated algorithms developed over decades. Enough "hits" and somebody - a human somewhere - finally gets an email and the process is "escalated." Of course, you can track anyone you'd like by number, and even their voice print alone, from any phone, mobile or fixed, from anywhere to anywhere. Digital technology really is fabulous for this type of thing.

But the main reason this administration doesn't want the details to get out is ... it is all or nothing with this technology and has been for quite some time.

The systems don't just "do" selected calls, they have to monitor every call (and email, now) to function, to track users properly. This is how they were designed and was "ok" when they just monitored "international" calls, not that this was really ever anything but a software configuration.

Funny isn't it - the one telecom CEO who said "no" to these guys expanding to domestic monitoring is in jail now, isn't he?

Yes, all the amendments

kc — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 11:22:20 -0800

I'm assuming you are talking about some attempts to bring back the Fairness Doctrine. No, I'm not in favor of that. It was pretty stupid at the time, and nowadays wouldn't have any effect since it will only apply to airwave communications which are being phased out.

I'm a gun owner and hunter. I've also read the entire 2nd Amendment, including that part about the well-organized militia so many people seem to forget about. The unfettered right to own a gun is not spelled out by the 2nd Amendment. If you would like that right to be absolute, then I suggest calling your congressman to get him to sponsor an amendment that does make it absolute.

Amendments of the Constitution

Kmad — Sun, 17 Feb 2008 12:11:53 -0800

I would assume by what I read in his column that Mr. Caraway is passionate about the meaning the of the Constitution as it partains to the 4th Admendment..I wonder if he is as addament about the the 1st and 2nd as well. Where is the passion when Congress is assailing the 1st with the diatribe against talk radio or the 2nd with the right to keep and bear arms? Maybe Mr. Caraway supports some of the Admendments but not all.