The cat's out of the bag. The USA Today's informant may have intended to reveal just part of the story--the idea that the government is engaged in a relatively benign cataloging of who calls who--but that's not what's happening. They are keeping recordings of every word you speak on the phone.
Now, before you blush at the thought that your wife will find out about that phone sex line you called last month, or your boss will fire you because of what you told your brother about him after a particularly trying day at the office, relax. Even if it's possible to store all those calls, even the most powerful computer in the world could not, in the foreseeable future, interpret all those calls. If you've ever tried voice command software on your computer, you know such technology is a long way from perfection. And if a computer cannot understand the content of all those calls, the recording is safely inaccessible. Right?
And yet, we've been told the purpose of all this is to route out terrorists. So if a computer can't analyze all these six million conversations a day--every day!--what's the point? How can we ever catch someone planning the next hijacking with this database?
What if the conversations to be overheard are not those of terrorists--but are, instead, of Congressmen and Senators and reporters and newspaper editors and TV anchormen?
What if, armed with those phone numbers, someone with access to this information could blackmail congressmen into, oh, say, voting for the Patriot Act without reading it, or permitting the invasion of Iraq or any of the other hundred-and-one bits of insanity that we've seen in Congress over the past five years? Broadcasters could be blackmailed into refusing to report the voting irregularities of the last elections. Occasional slips of information--like this story itself--would simply be the result of someone at one newspaper who didn't use the phone much.
And this scheme doesn't require an entire agency--just some trusted individual who can run the computer program that locates the target conversations and listens to them over headphones plugged into the computer at his desk.
And this information, stored for years, could be used to blackmail anyone who comes into public prominence, even though decades later! Given enough time, what future senator or head of CBS might never have talked with his best friend about the underage girl he screwed, or the one-time sexual experimentation with the football jock, or the time he tried pot or heroin or cocaine? Even if the man himself is as pure as the driven snow, could he guarantee he'd never had a heart-to-heart discussion over the phone with a relative or friend that would prove embarrassing to the other person if it became public?
Every single person in government or the media would be a potential tool of the person wielding this weapon.
And, okay--suppose you like George W. Bush and don't believe he would ever misuse information of this sort. Maybe you're right.
But can you guarantee the next president will be as noble? Or the one after that? Information like this is a weapon, and weapons are made to be fired. It's only a matter of time before some president gives into temptation and uses this, the most comprehensive blackmail database of all time.
And that's not all--go back to that quote from USA Today. The specification was every call ever made. There used to be rumors that all our phone calls were being tape recorded. If the guy from the NSA wasn't just bragging, his statement implies this was true. Millions of reels of old tape would be pretty useless, but if they can be read into computer form, then the ability to blackmail includes people who are currently prominent, but may have made indiscreet phone calls decades ago.
Just yesterday, George W. Bush remarked to the press that his brother, Jeb, would make a "great President". With enough influence over the manufacturers of voting machines, and heads of county boards of election, and newscasters, Jeb could be President in 2008 no matter how low his brother's approval polls go or how few people actually vote for him.
I'm sorry. I'm not one to resist progress. But any database that can change America from a democracy into a monarchy--much less a dictatorship--even if that's not the intention--is too big.
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