the world reacts when the NSA is found to be recording all phone calls. In my humble opinion they are also recording after you complete a call. The technology is there, to turn on the microphone in your cell phone. Anybody believe the NSA would not use this in their collection of meta-data?
What does recording call audio have to do with collecting metadata?
You tell me
Metadata in this case means the numbers you call or receive calls from, and the time and duration of the calls. So they can’t collect metadata by listening to you after you hang up, which they aren’t doing because they don’t care about you.
They are actually recording your thoughts. They don’t need to mess around with cell phones.
They dont care about anybody. Not just me. The purpose is to have records they can look up whenever they want, about anybody. Same as the phone call records. The ones that we already know they are keeping.
It’d be a little easier to take your opinion about what the NSA is or isn’t doing seriously if you knew what meta-data meant.
I dont believe they can record thoughts. Why dont you tell us why you would think that?
My occupation is none of your business and irrelevant to this discussion, but it doesn’t matter, I’m a software engineer. I don’t care if they’re listening to me, which they aren’t, and I don’t care if they have recorded all the metadata from my phone calls because there’s nothing interesting there.
Now then, exactly what is your occupation, and why do you care if they record your metadata? Did you ever mind that the phone companies have been doing that for longer than I know, and I don’t know because I don’t care.
TAKE my opinion? Do you mean accept my opinion? Lets conclude you dont want to discuss meta-data. Thats fine. My opinion still stands, that all conversations are being recorded. Is there some technological reason this cannot be accomplished? Does anybody believe the NSA would not do this if they can? A cellphone can easily be hacked.
Metadata has been explained to you. It has nothing to do with recording conversations. The reason they aren’t recording all conversations is that they don’t care about all conversations. That’s the point of metadata, to identify the conversations that they do want to record.
Why don’t you just fill us in on your whole conspiracy theory instead of asking pointless questions?
I seem to have touched a nerve here. Certain people protest too much, rather than add constructive criticism or facts, almost as if they think my thread was aimed in their direction. I cant see why that would be unless you were in some way connected to the US Gov. I am an American and a veteran. In a time of war, while people were protesting and burning their draft cards I enlisted in the US military and volunteered for duty in the western pacific. I am positive that in any national emergency the veterans in this country would once again put their lives on the line to defend this country. There is no need for the NSA, or their collection of personal data on American citizens. And for you that dont care if they listen, thats not up to you, the decision has already been made. And you might not care now, but what if in the future somebody decides they dont like you and start looking up your data. You think your recordings will be devoid of anything they can use against you? Dream on.
So you admit you are connected to the US Government since you used to work for them. And it is up to me what I care about. You’ve been given constructive criticism and facts, and provided no facts yourself. Believe what you want to believe, you aren’t impressing anyone. I know the NSA shouldn’t be collecting information on US citizens without a proper court order. I do care that they collect that information about you because in my opinion it’s being done unconstitutionally. If they don’t care about the Constitution then they don’t need to record my conversations or keep metadata about my calls because they could just make something up.
I admire vets for their service to our country, but it doesn’t give your opinions special privelege. Now tell us why the NSA would be recording all these conversations.
And how do you know they are not recording all conversations? Or which ones they care/dont care about? How about you fill us in on which ones they are interested in and how you know that?
I mentioned my military service to dispell any thoughts that I may be some kind of foreign agitator. I did not expect my opinions to be given any special privelidge, just letting you know where I come from.
I don’t believe they can do that. People and companies track their phones data use pretty closely, there’s no way they could transmit that much data surreptitiously. Indeed, I’m pretty skeptical the celphone networks could handle that much data.
And despite the fact that it was supposedly “secret”, the meta-data program has been widely reported on almost continuously for a decade, at every stage in its development. I seriously doubt a much more expansive, labour and resource intensive program could be kept secret.
And the gov’t does have a decent argument for the legality of the program. Obviously reasonable minds can differ on whether the argument holds up, but it’s not just BS. I don’t think the existence of the meta-data collection program really provides much evidence that the gov’t would be willing to flout the law to the extent necessary to basically put a bug on every person in the US.
And the gov’t doesn’t just mindlessly hoover up every available bit of info on people. The same law that legalized (at least in the gov’ts view) the meta-data collection also legalizes mass collection of location data. But it appears the gov’t doesn’t collect that data on people in the US.
It only takes common sense. Tell us what you think they want to record all conversations for. You have taken the position that they are recording all conversations and you haven’t provided a reason why they would do that. It’s your claim, not mine, I don’t have to refute an empty claim.
He’s mocking you, obviously.
Has it actually been established that my local cable company can do this? That they can turn on the microphone in my phone and listen to what’s going on in my kitchen?
Is there any record of this having been done? Has this technique ever been used during an armed stand-off with a guy in a house, or a hostage situation? We know that, during the lead up to the Waco assault on the Branch Davidian compound, the authorities sent in microphones, hidden in the boxes that held food and supplies. If they had had the technology then to listen in via phones, they certainly would have.
As far as that goes, how do you know they aren’t listening to your conversations, right now, by bouncing IR laser beams off your windows and detecting the vibration patterns from the sounds inside the room? How do you know someone hasn’t broken in and planted microphones in your sofa?
(How do you know you’re not living in a Holodeck sim…)
The statement ‘they have the tech’ is probably correct. It is technically possible to remotely and covertly activate the microphone of a mobile phone (assuming it is switched on), have it stream the audio somewhere across the network and record it. It’s a pretty trivial scenario.
***Are ***‘they’ doing it though? I doubt it.