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March 20, 2014

Nosy Americans?

Filed under: Cybersecurity,NSA,Security — Patrick Durusau @ 7:55 pm

You have heard the phrase “ugly Americans,” but have you heard “nosy Americans?”

Lee Munson reports in NSA can record 100% of another country’s telephone calls that:

The National Security Agency (NSA) has the ability to record every single one of a foreign country’s telephone calls and then play the conversations back up to a month after recording, according to a report by The Washington Post.

The NSA program, which begun in 2009, is known as MYSTIC.

MYSTIC, according to the Post, is used to intercept conversations in just one (undisclosed) country, but planning documents show that the NSA intends to use the system in other countries in the future.

The really sad part is when you read:

The Washington Post says, at the request of US officials, it will not reveal the country in question, or any other nation where the system has been planned to be put to use. It is, however, quite likely that calls made to or from that nation will include American citizens.

I must have missed the ballot when United States citizens elected the Washington Post to decide on our behalf what facts we need to hear, and those we don’t.

And I don’t have a lot of sympathy for the argument that surveillance may include American citizens.

Its an easy argument to make constitutionally, but if you denigrate the rights of others based on citizenship, the soccer fields aren’t as far away as you think. (But they will be in non-U.S. territory.)

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