Homeland security opening private mail

[sgtmac_46]

Not when this particular mail exchange has been occurring for a while with no prior interruptions. Hmm ... they must have put a "hot" word on the envelope - "bomb" or something.

You're making an assumption that it has. In fact, you're making several assumptions. One of which is that this wasn't just a random search. The sheer volume of mail sent back and forth from oversees makes it difficult to check every envelope. A random search pattern very well likely may be in place. We have only this mans obviously biased insinuation as evidence of anything.

Again, there is no evidence, and I mean ZERO evidence, that this is anything but a continuation of the type of searches having been carried out by Customs for years.

 

[sgtmac_46]

have you ever heard of echolon? what do you think the NSA is doing?

ALL, and i mean ALL electronic communication is being taped. how do you think the world works?

'ALL' electronic communications is not 'being taped' that's an impossibility. Consider the sheer amount of electronic communications conducted daily in the US. It measures in the many BILLIONS of individual transmissions. Do the math and figure out just exactly what kind of software and hardward it would require just to monitor all that traffic.....no figure out how much space it would take to 'record it'.

The NSA certainly does monitor certain foreign (and possibly domestic) communications for key words. However, it is extremely limited in it's ability to monitor even a significantly small percentage of overall broadcasts. Software does exist to monitor for key words in telephone conversations, for example, but the sheer volume prevents any real analysis on very much of it. Moreover, it requires human beings to actually look at the information, once the filtering software has picked anything of interest out. That is where the real limitation begins. Analyists are stretched thin, and aren't capable of even looking at a percentage point of the actual overall data that keeps accumulating every day.

In other words, contrary to the Orwellian paranoid fantasies of some people, Big Brother doesn't have the capacity to be 'Watching You' every minute of every day.

 

[shesulsa]

'ALL' electronic communications is not 'being taped' that's an impossibility.

No it's not. What kind of processors and size drives do you think your government is using? Pentium chips were developed for gov't use exclusively long ago, my friend - like ... in the 60s. You really think they are incapable of recording much? even on an automatic overwrite feed?

 

[sgtmac_46]

No it's not. What kind of processors and size drives do you think your government is using? Pentium chips were developed for gov't use exclusively long ago, my friend - like ... in the 60s. You really think they are incapable of recording much? even on an automatic overwrite feed?

Do you have any idea how much electronic data gets sent out, through ALL mediums, in the US in a single day? It's obvious you don't have even the slightest inkling of the scale...my friend.



Did you actually just say that the Pentium chip was developed by the US government in the 1960's?

 

[shesulsa]

Do you have any idea how much electronic data gets sent out, through ALL mediums, in the US in a single day? It's obvious you don't have even the slightest inkling of the scale...my friend.

Do YOU? And you still didn't answer my question - if the gov't says they're monitoring all forms of communication - I think you'd better believe it. Or ... do you not believe in the abilities of the administration? My friend?

 

[sgtmac_46]

Do YOU? And you still didn't answer my question - if the gov't says they're monitoring all forms of communication - I think you'd better believe it. Or ... do you not believe in the abilities of the administration? My friend?

There's a difference between having the capacity to monitor different forms of communication, and actually, simultaneously monitoring ALL communications within the United States....and RECORDING it...my friend.

Though this may seem a subtle distinction, it is actually a HUGE distinction. It's like the difference between saying I can run radar on any street in my town, and saying that I can single handedly run radar on EVERY street in my town at the same time.

If the administration claims they can do the former, i'm sure they can. If they claim the latter (which they do not) they are lying.

 

[shesulsa]

OH! You mean there's only ONE GUY doing the job of homeland security??? Well that answers a lot of questions ....

Actually, as I understand it, all electronic communications are monitored for hot words and once they are typed, spoken, etcetera, recording begins. I have no problems resolving that there are many, many stored recordings of these communications. Clearly you do. You might want to communicate your lack of faith in the OHS to your local Senator.

 

[James Kovacich]

I don't understand what the problem is.

This is true.
Recently I've been researching martial art supplies (here in the U.S.). Out of the blue I received an email (derived from Pakistan) with prices that were about 30% of our prices and they had everything from Karate to Boxing. The prices were to good not to click the link and check out their site. Once there I realized I was viewing a site in Pakistan.

What are the chances that I would of been on the governments watch lists if I bought from them? Our freedom that this country was founded on is gone and we can't have it back!

 

[James Kovacich]

If you want to give it a name, then call it what it is....US Customs opening foreign mail as it has for many years now.....jeez. Some people could turn picking up the garbage early into a conspiracy.

I receive my mail opened up ALL the time thanks to the corrupt post office emploees AND there is no recourse. When I complained (when living in my previos apartment) about the carrior regularly delivering my mail to my neighbors. IT GOT WORSE.

So now I bought a home in small community and now my mail is opened before I get it. I think that the corrupt Post Office employees know they can get away with it because they know that the Govt. opens up the mail.

 

[sgtmac_46]

I receive my mail opened up ALL the time thanks to the corrupt post office emploees AND there is no recourse. When I complained (when living in my previos apartment) about the carrior regularly delivering my mail to my neighbors. IT GOT WORSE.

So now I bought a home in small community and now my mail is opened before I get it. I think that the corrupt Post Office employees know they can get away with it because they know that the Govt. opens up the mail.

Well, there's a difference between opening your mail on the part of individuals who want to steal something, and the government doing it. One is inevitable, as long as mail is delivered by human beings.

 

[sgtmac_46]

OH! You mean there's only ONE GUY doing the job of homeland security??? Well that answers a lot of questions ....

Actually, as I understand it, all electronic communications are monitored for hot words and once they are typed, spoken, etcetera, recording begins. I have no problems resolving that there are many, many stored recordings of these communications. Clearly you do. You might want to communicate your lack of faith in the OHS to your local Senator.

There are over 300 Million in this country, how many people does the US government have monitoring phone calls? If the entire US federal government had every employee on the job, you 'might' accomplish it.

Moreover, the bulk of the NSA's mission is aimed at monitoring foreign electronic communications traffic. So, we can add the combined traffic of, what, a couple Billion people to that.

Now, you want to explain to me how much recording space it takes to record the everyday traffic of 300 Million people? Not to mention how many people it would require to actually read the data accumulated on even 1% of that daily traffic of 300 Million people. It's obvious you haven't the slightest grasp of the sheer scale. And that's just telephone calls alone, that's not email traffic, snail mail traffic, radio traffic, cell phone traffic, etc, etc, etc.

The NSA's budget is approximately $3.6 billion, most of that is used to maintain and purchase computer equipment. Granted, that grants them considerable capacity, however, keep in mind the bulk of their resources are aimed at gathering and analyizing foreign eletronics communications (cell phones, radio traffic, etc). They have approximately 20,000 employees, many are technicians, some are anaylists. They supplement this with nearly as many military personnell, on as needed basis.

Now, how many people does it take to analyize even 1% of the daily electronic intercepts of just 300 Million people? Do the math.

 

[Blotan Hunka]

What. Life is not like the movies or my favorite Spy vs. Spy book?

 

[James Kovacich]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11161832/

I wonder why defense attorneys wanted a judge to seal records to this sex predator case? Could it be because someone from the Dept. of Homeland Security was caught in the sting?

(That article didn't mention the Dept. of Homeland Security but he was seen and arrested on Dateline)

 

[dobermann]

well, if not ALL communication is being taped, how can they be searching for HOT words in the first place? this is a piece of logic. if its stored or just deleted again afterwards does not matter really.

besides that, there were issues of companies being sold and one of the parties involved had detailed information which according to them, could only have been done by observating that parties communication as details were only known to a small nr. of people. they blamed echolon for it. dont ask me about details tough..

 

[Blotan Hunka]

Listening for key words or certain phone numbers wouldnt mean "recording" all communications. They may be "monitoring" traffic but it would be impossible to record it all.

 

[Xue Sheng]

Just a quick note, the infrastructure of the internet and the infrastructure of corporations, Enterprise Firewalls, DMZ, Enterprise Antispyware, amongst other things make it very close to impossible to monitor, sense, check, read all electronic correspondence.

Spyware is not exactly data mining, actual data mining is much better and if you see it in action very scary. But even with data mining it is impossible to track, sense, monitor all electronic correspondence in North America little alone the world. And that is not exactly what data mining is for anyway

If this were possible most hackers would be caught, stopped and or arrested before they broke into government sites. If this type of monitoring were possible do you think the US would be the only one with this technology? I can bet several other countries would have it or be working on it. The shear number of corporations that would be attempting to find out about their competition would be staggering.

Is it possible to look for hits on key words? yes. But they will still miss some. Are there Websites that you can go to that will get you on a FBI or other government list? yes. But monitoring all electronic correspondence is just not possible.