USA Today reports that three big telecommonication companies, AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth, have delivered and are delivering all call detail records (CDRs) of domestic and international phonecalls to the NSA. Quest as the fourth biggest provider did not deliver such records, for doubts on the legality and fear of fines, even as it was pressured to do so.

CDRs include the callers telephone number, the number called, the start time and the end time of a call. They do not include the call content, i.e. the talk. The companies deny to have delivered additional information, like addresses or customer names. USA Today only reported on fixed phone lines. But we can reasonably assume that cell phone and voice over Internet call data is also used.

The NSA, as someone tells USA Today is, "to create a database of every call ever made". That can be done. But how useful might this attempt be?

Cont. reading: A Useless Program

If you don´t comment, Cambone will win!

Billmon:

When Liberals Attack

Billmon:

Some dynasties repeat their mistakes; others keep inventing new ones. The Bushes have demonstrated a real knack for doing both, which is why Jeb isn’t ever likely to have the chance to prove he’s the break in the pattern. He may be the smart Bush, but he’s definitely not the lucky one.

End of the Line

Billmon:

Of course, it may be that conning the simple minded — i.e., holding the base — is all the Pentagon propaganda technicians are trying to accomplish here, or all they think is reasonable to shoot for. If the Powerlie bundists are clutching at straws, so, too, is Donald Rumsfeld. It seems one of the hallmarks of a failing authoritarian regime is its ability to go on fooling itself, and its followers, long after the rest of the world has stopped even paying attention.

Hook, Line and Sinking

by anna missed
(lifted from a comment)

This report by Con Coughlin, "the Judy Miller of the UK", might be a harbinger of what is in store for the entire OIF:

A natural conclusion to be drawn from this latest flare-up in the
delicate balance of relations between the British military and the
local population it is seeking to protect is that Britain’s continued
presence in Iraq is no longer tenable, and that its forces should be
withdrawn forthwith.

Cont. reading: Nothing Left

Billmon:

No, I’m afraid the only connotation the nickname Nine Fingers raises in my mind comes from Tolkien, not Chester Gould, and it’s Frodo the Nine Fingered, praised with great praise in too many stanzas of pseudo-Norse saga. But that would only work if Frodo had gone over to the Dark Lord and spent a career running death squads into Gondor — before retiring to serve as staff director to one of the Nazgul. And J.R.R. still would have had to shoehorn those prostitute and poker parties in somewhere, maybe in that scene in the Orc fortress.

Finger to the Wind

Billmon:

Yes, that’s right: Hillary Clinton is now more popular than George W. Bush. And cholera and crab lice are moving up fast in the outside lanes.

Roaring 20s

There is some serious spin going on in the Hayden nomination for CIA director.

House Speaker Hastert, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Pete Hoekstra and other Republicans have come out against this candidate. Hayden is happy to be endorsed by  the Democrat Senator Diana Feinstein.

The repubs argue that a military officer as the head of the civil spy agency would be bad at a time where the Pentagon, which already has 85% of all spying budgets, is trying to grab even more powers in this area.

Cont. reading: Spinnig Hayden

The "lefty" news aggregator RawStory currently has this snippet on its frontpage.

So Ahmadinejad bans women from soccer games? Didn´t I read the opposite just some days ago?

Cont. reading: These Little Things Add Up

Billmon:

The point is, when you get down to 31% approval in a Gallup Poll, and your disapproval rating is trying to poll vault over the record high set by Richard Nixon just before he resigned in disgrace, it means the American people essentially think you’re the political equivalent of crab lice. At that point, they’re probably going to hate anything and everything you do — even if they actually agree with it — just because you’re the one doing it.

Nobody Fears You When You’re Down and Out

Billmon:

Why Big Media Hates Us

I got my eyes upon you, and all the things that you do
Some close they eyes but mine can see, all the evil surroundin´ me
Paris: Evil

Last Thursday Reuters had this frightening story: Islamists using U.S. video games in youth appeal

The makers of combat video games have unwittingly become part of a global propaganda campaign by Islamic militants to exhort Muslim youths to take up arms against the United States, officials said on Thursday.

The gaming industry shuddered.

Cont. reading: Strategic Communication

If you don´t comment, Rove will win.

Billmon:

The next day was election day again. The congressman had a nice steak dinner at the Monocle, and after that he felt much better. Now he wasn’t hungry anymore — and he wasn’t a little congressman anymore. He was a big fat congressman.

The Very Hungry Congressman

Billmon:

Now, doesn’t that make you feel more secure?

Rumsfeld Uber Alles

original size

Reading the NYT article I add up at least nine dead and at least nineteen wounded in "Copter Crash and Attack in Basra" and more dead and wounded elsewhere. Five of them children.

Cont. reading: Some Don’t Count

Billmon:

II:

What’s been happening over the past decade — or longer, according to Andrew Bacevich — has been a relentless expansion in the authority and functions of the military services, and of their civilian overlords in the Secretary of Defense’s office, at the expense of the CIA, the State Department, the NSC and the other bits of alphabet in the national security soup. Years ago I saw an editorial cartoon that showed the Pentagon attached to the White House as its new west wing. We may be nearing the day when it’s actually the other way around.

The Night Porter Checks Out

I:

Tales of Covert Love and Passion

Company Man

Vice President Dick Cheney, visiting Kazakhstan Friday, said that Iran should follow the example the Central Asian set several years ago in renouncing nuclear weapons.
Cheney Says Iran Should Renounce Nukes, WaPo, May 5, 2006

The Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has issued the Fatwa that the production, stockpiling and use of nuclear weapons are forbidden under Islam and that Iran shall never acquire these weapons, it added.
Iran, holder of peaceful nuclear fuel cycle technology, IRNA, Aug 10, 2005

by beq
20"x20"  – pastel and sumi ink on paper
full view (300kb)

Says beq:

Cont. reading: Fish Tails aka Sushi Tonight