On 2006-02-12T11:15:11+0000, Eugen Leitl wrote:
I am quite convinced that the primary goal was to collect political intelligence. They probably were getting good intel on the Kerry campaign, on some tight Senate races, and on the overall Democratic Party operations. Since the Google-like search technology allows the system's user to search for essentially anything, and play back just the calls of interest, they had access to a wealth of political information.
How do FISA-approved wiretaps work, anyway? All these NSA-bound collection points... are they always enabled, listening for any interesting traffic? Is non-FISA-warranted intel ditched prior to collection, ditched at NSA, or never ditched? Is the FISA process just: 0. Listen to some conversations. 1. Find something of interest. 2. Go to FISA with a tap request for the parties involved 3. Start flagging subsequently-collected intel with "FISA Approved" 4. Let certain people search the database at any time, but classify anything not FISA-approved as TS/SCI. -- The six phases of a project: I. Enthusiasm. IV. Search for the Guilty. II. Disillusionment. V. Punishment of the Innocent. III. Panic. VI. Praise & Honor for the Nonparticipants.