Was Gonzales truthful? Shortly after the warrantless eavesdropping program began, then-NSA Director Michael V. Hayden and Ashcroft made clear in private meetings that the president wanted to detect possible terrorist activity before another attack. They also made clear that, in such a broad hunt for suspicious patterns and activities, the government could never meet the FISA court's probable-cause requirement, government officials said. So it confused the FISA court judges when, in their recent public defense of the program, Hayden and Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales insisted that NSA analysts do not listen to calls unless they have a reasonable belief that someone with a known link to terrorism is on one end of the call. At a hearing Monday, Gonzales told the Senate Judiciary Committee that the "reasonable belief" standard is merely the "probable cause" standard by another name.
posted by caddis on Feb 8, 2006 - 47 comments

Surreptitious cell phone stalking tracking. Stalkers are no longer limited to just your call history. For a small fee and with a few minutes access to her cell phone the author was able to track his girlfriend's cell phone location within a hundred yards or so and the cell phone provides no trace that it was happening. Traceamobile.com appears to be one site offering such a service. Mologogo was discussed here previously but does not appear to be surreptitious. (Appears to be limited to UK for right now.)
posted by caddis on Feb 4, 2006 - 21 comments