National Security Agency Probes: Americans Love Giving Up Private Information

By: Steve Yuhas

Here we go again with the National Security Agency and people believing that their phone records and library cards are being violated while at the same time they willingly give far more private information to the government in the form of tax returns or driver’s license applications.  Americans are known to be a giving people and although that mantra typically is reserved for our generosity after a disaster; it has to be pointed out that gathering phone records is hardly an invasion of privacy.

After September 11, 2001 (for those of you who forgot that was the day that Islamic terrorists killed about 3,000 people by turning American planes into missiles) the NSA began compiling what some people “close” to the program (close defined by USA Today) billions of “call-detail” records.  All that means is that telephone companies gave to the NSA telephone records of millions of people and the NSA began the almost impossible task of looking for patterns between calls dialed out and calls being answered by people suspected to be associated with terrorism.

Think back if you can to the 9-11 hearings when it became public knowledge that had the NSA been listening to the phone calls of people in Florida, San Diego and Virginia that the attacks could have been revealed.  The widows who hate President Bush claimed he did not do enough to stop the attacks from coming so since the first set of terrorists against our nation used telephones it seems a logical place to start looking for the next sets.

Unfortunately, the timing of the anonymous reports from people the USA Today calls “people with direct knowledge of the arrangement” comes a week after President Bush nominated General Michael Hayden to lead the Central Intelligence Agency.  Strange that these awful telephone number collections were going on for nearly five years and only after the head of the NSA is nominated to be chief of the CIA do these anonymous sources come out of the woodwork.

You would have thought if these “people with direct knowledge” were so concerned about the program of collecting information about telephone calls they would have gone to a newspaper much sooner, but they waited five years so one has to ask if this is just politics or if it is genuine concern.

For the latter to be true the sources would have had to come forward much earlier than this week because sitting on the knowledge they allegedly have was ostensibly causing them discomfort, but they waited until General Hayden was in the public eye before coming forward.

The timing of this story alone makes it suspect and the motives of those involved in disclosing it even more so, but what Americans fail to understand is that they give away more of their information every day than was mined from phone records obtained to stop another September 11th.

On April 15th every year most of America sends the Internal Revenue Service more private information than could ever be collected by people looking for patterns in a phone bill.  The chances of your information being misused by an employee of the IRS is far greater than someone from the NSA coming out and leaking that you called your mother last Mother’s Day.

Every credit application, mortgage loan, many banking transactions, state applications for virtually anything, federal student aid for students or their parents, military records and court cases including everything from custody hearings to bankruptcy down to small claims are reported to the government and open to the public.  Now Congress is feigning outrage that a bunch of telephone records were collected by the NSA to make sure that someone who was calling Osama was caught?

Give me a break.  Congress loves to collect data, they love the idea of making sure they have sufficient data to confiscate your money in the form of taxes and they are in complete awe of the idea that they have subpoena power over anything they desire.  The fact is that when it comes down to it Americans gave away their privacy a long time ago and the idea that one government agency using telephone records to find out who is talking to terrorists is reason for outrage is obtuse at best.

There is no way to catch a terrorist or those working with them unless an agency does what is necessary to find out who is who.  During World War II telephones were used by Japanese spies in Hawaii to call information in and out about what ships were where and we saw what happened on December 7, 1941.  The same is true about September 11, 2001 when terrorists called each other and chatted online about what they were planning for that beautiful fall day.

When it came out that the terrorists were communicating using our own telephone system and our libraries with internet service Americans were truly outraged, but it appears that some in Congress have forgotten that our own assets can be used against us.

Troubling too is the fact that every time America uses a program designed to catch terrorists, whether it is a secret prison system or the NSA listening program, people who allegedly know about the program and are upset about it wait for an opportune time to disclose it.  There is no loyalty to the nation or concern that their revelations will tell the bad guys what we’re doing – only a selfish desire to bring down an administration and to help taint the character and image of a life long officer and public servant like General Hayden.

Americans give away more data and information about themselves every day in the form of applications for credit or federal or state programs or necessities than they do in their phone call logs and even the supposed “in the know” sources say quite clearly that the call-detail rosters are not cross checked for names and addresses or any other information mined from them.  All that is happening is that dedicated people at the NSA are working hard to see if anyone on your street or mine is calling someone associated with terrorism and that is something that I believe government should be doing.

Just imagine an attack in the next years that happens and it comes out later that on May 12, 2006 a telephone call was made between the terrorist and his handler where the whole plan is discussed in great detail.  If that happens the nation will be in uproar, but the President would be able to wash his hands and blame those who (1) exposed the program and (2) people in Congress who scuttled it because they saw a political issue rather than a national security one.

For those who gave the program and the details to USA Today: on behalf of al Qaeda and other terrorists who want to kill American civilians and our troops overseas – thank you.  For myself I have quite another reaction and it is not printable and I couldn’t say it on the radio for fear of FCC complaints.

And for those of you on the fence about whether or not you should be outraged or thankful that perhaps your phone records were being cross referenced with someone else’s who happened to be involved with terrorism: be thankful and don’t fall for the Democratic and (tragically) some Republican talking points that say pretend to be upset because you know as well as I do that you gave more information opening your credit account at Neiman Marcus than the NSA would ever get from looking at your phone bill.

Steve Yuhas is a columnist and radio talk show host on KOGO AM 600 and may be reached at www.steveyuhas.com or steve@steveyuhas.com