Tap Tap Tap
In one sense this is good news, the government may be tapping like crazy but they can’t do anything with the data as there is just too much of it.
So, why haven’t wiretaps yielded much information about terror operations? Part of the reason is that terrorists have become savvier. They’ve learned not to discuss sensitive matters by telephone. They use couriers and shared e-mail accounts to send messages instead. But, more important, there is simply far too much information for authorities to wade through. Key points are hidden by the reams of data that modern society generates. Increasing the number of wiretaps often just increases the size of the haystack, making the needle that much harder to find.
If a nation with a quarter of the U.S. population and seven times the number of wiretaps is not able to show better results, can there be hope for the United States? If anything, Germany has shown that an overreliance on technical methods keeps authorities from using basic detective tools to weed out terrorist elements. The same can already be seen in the United States, where some of the major successes in the war on terror have come through concerned community members who alert authorities to suspicious activity.
Given the German experience, why does the United States think it can make better use of more surveillance? Perhaps U.S. authorities have better technologies at their beck and call. But perhaps it’s just a matter of appearances: If the government can argue that it is using surveillance technology to keep tabs on terrorists, it can argue that it is doing something proactive. Based on these German lessons, however, the United States should think twice before adopting the false security blanket that more surveillance means more success in fighting terror. (more…)
However the Germans don’t have the NSA and I wonder if they have the computing resources of Carnivore system or the other NSA spying regimens that the US has. Currently the NSA scans every voice call leaving the continental US for key words and phrases. Carnivore does the same for electronic messaging. I have no doubt they would have no problem re-allocating some of those resources , or building more, to deal with all the wiretap data.
Related posts
Warthog »
