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Comment by tmzt | Hacker News Reader

I'm trying to understand one thing: what is the difference between a telephone number and a name?

This is Penn register information, that is what it's referred to as in public laws.

In aggregate it can be used to draw connections between people, such as people talking to those who are committed to doing us harm. That is what public comments on these programs have said and that is true.

But clearly telephone numbers are identifying information, unless they are hashing them prior to building their graphs, but if that is the case why not say that?

His speech also conflates "federal courts", with "FISA court", which implies review by the independent judicial branch.

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He also glosses over the fact that cell tower location is included in this data. Most of the information that they would overhear in the actual call audio can be deduced from the data they're collecting. Which is kind of the whole point of the program.

So if I call you from outside 123 Main Street, Anytown on Tuesday at 6:37pm, what are we talking about? Even if one of us is known criminal or terrorist, the fact that conversation took place is merely suspicious rather than probative.

keep drinking the kool-aid. seriously, every response up to this has been you defending the ongoing actions of the government. are you a government employee?

Far from it; in fact, as a non-citizen I have far fewer rights than you do, assuming you're a US citizen. Now try addressing my argument instead of attacking me personally, and try to distinguish between defending the actions of the government and pointing out factual context, such as the fact that it is not in fact illegal or unconstitional for the government to collect records of phone calls, even though it perhaps should be.

As it happens, I'm from Europe, and one thing I do miss about the EU is that citizens of that territory enjoy a explicit and robust constitutional right to privacy that does not exist in the US, not to mention a unilateral right of access to and control over their personal data in both governmental and commercial spheres. I have called on many occasions for an amendment to the US Constitution that would confer such rights on Americans instead of relying on the vague and implicit 'discovery' of a privacy right that did not exist before 1965 and which could be taken away as easily as it was given.

He's just not jumping to conclusions right away. He asks a valid question and your answer didn't contribute in any way.

If a Tea Party leader gets a call from a Koch lobbyist, that information could easily be used to discredit them. Lots of the past abuses of government power would have been just as effective with merely the data the government is collecting about us.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COINTELPRO

As innuendo goes, that example is pretty weak sauce.

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