Are Terrorists Buying Disposable Cellphones?
Conservatives are jumping all over this story from ABC News which reports:
At least this particular blogger is willing to wait until after conviction to execute the leakers. That's what passes for a "measured response" on the right side of blogosphere these days.
In all seriousness, though, the ABC News article does raise some issues that are worth discussing. Most right wing blogs have quickly jumped to the conclusion that A) there is a spike in purchases of disposable cell phones and B) this spike is best explained by domestic terrorist cells reacting to the contents of the New York Times story on warrantless wiretapping.
Needless to say, there are some questionable assumptions embedded in this analysis.
1) As the ABC story makes clear, disposable cell phones were already the favorite tool of terrorists and criminals before the NSA story even surfaced. The al Qaeda members who planned and executed the Madrid bombings, for instance, uses these kind of phones. It seems likely that any hardcore criminal or terrorist types would already be using these phones, regardless of what is printed in the New York Times.
2) The New York Times story said nothing about disposable cell phones, and no one has explained why calls made to or from disposable phones would not be caught up in the same data-mining net as every other call. Plus, the government has the authority to conduct roving wiretaps, meaning wiretaps tied to a person, not a specific phone.
3) The story doesn't actually say that sales of disposable cell phones have increased: it merely cites a handful of anecdotal reports of recent "large" purchases by Middle-Eastern looking men. It's entirely possible that such purchases have been happening all the time but that they are only being noticed now because of the publicity surrounding the NSA controversy. Would anyone have thought twice if they saw some guy buying a bunch of cell phones a few months ago?
4) Even assuming there is a connection between the NSA story and these purchases, there might well be a totally benign explanation. I would not be surprised if average Americans (particularly those of Middle-Eastern origin) who regularly place calls overseas are looking for ways to do so without the government eavesdropping on them. While terrorists likely expect the government to try to listen in on their conversations (and therefore long ago took protective measures), average law-abiding citizens likely do not. The revelation that the government is engaged in warrantless wiretapping may have caused people who never before worried about their privacy being invaded to seek ways of avoiding that invasion. People may have all sorts of reasons totally unrelated to terrorist activity to want to minimize the likelihood of being spied on.
I can already see wingnuts taking this last argument out of context, so let me be extra clear about what I'm saying. Terrorists surely know that the government is attempting to surveil them and indeed that it has a duty to do so. So their behavior is not likely to be affected by knowing whether or not warrants are being used. Either way, they have a strong incentive to communicate via the safest, least traceable method possible. But ordinary citizens do not expect to be surveilled, and therefore do not normally take any precautions to prevent such surveillance. At least until recently, they expected that our laws and warrant procedures would protect them from groundless government snooping. So the revelation that the NSA is engaged in warrantless domestic spying, with no judicial oversight, might well affect their behavior. Now they may fear (whether justifiably or not) that anyone, not just terrorists, can potentially be spied upon. That might well cause regular people, particularly those who value their privacy, to seek alternative methods of communication.
Federal agents have launched an investigationThe Drudge Report quickly picked up on the story and before long conservative bloggers were ranting away. Here's a typical response:
into a surge in the purchase of large quantities
of disposable cell phones by individuals from
the Middle East and Pakistan, ABC News has
learned.
The phones--which do not require
purchasers to sign a contract or have a credit
card--have many legitimate uses, and are
popular with people who have bad credit or
for use as emergency phones tucked away in
glove compartments or tackle boxes. But
since they can be difficult or impossible to
track, law enforcement officials say the
phones are widely used by criminal gangs
and terrorists.
Though this is circumstantial, it is HIGHLY
SUGGESTIVE that the leak alerted the
sleeper cells HERE (and perhaps elsewhere),
and that they are adapting their SOP's as a
result; thus, they are making it tougher for
us to prevent an attack. . . .
By exposing the NSA intercept program,
the leakers and their comrades at the
NYTIMES have CONFIRMED valuable
information to the enemy, alerted the
enemy to the information, and NOW - AS
A RESULT - the enemy has adjusted.
Therefore, the leakers and the NYTIMES
have endangered the lives OF MILLIONS
of Americans, and our entire economy and
also the world's economy (which after all
depends on the US economy). They should
ALL be charged, tried, convicted, and
executed for TREASON.
At least this particular blogger is willing to wait until after conviction to execute the leakers. That's what passes for a "measured response" on the right side of blogosphere these days.
In all seriousness, though, the ABC News article does raise some issues that are worth discussing. Most right wing blogs have quickly jumped to the conclusion that A) there is a spike in purchases of disposable cell phones and B) this spike is best explained by domestic terrorist cells reacting to the contents of the New York Times story on warrantless wiretapping.
Needless to say, there are some questionable assumptions embedded in this analysis.
1) As the ABC story makes clear, disposable cell phones were already the favorite tool of terrorists and criminals before the NSA story even surfaced. The al Qaeda members who planned and executed the Madrid bombings, for instance, uses these kind of phones. It seems likely that any hardcore criminal or terrorist types would already be using these phones, regardless of what is printed in the New York Times.
2) The New York Times story said nothing about disposable cell phones, and no one has explained why calls made to or from disposable phones would not be caught up in the same data-mining net as every other call. Plus, the government has the authority to conduct roving wiretaps, meaning wiretaps tied to a person, not a specific phone.
3) The story doesn't actually say that sales of disposable cell phones have increased: it merely cites a handful of anecdotal reports of recent "large" purchases by Middle-Eastern looking men. It's entirely possible that such purchases have been happening all the time but that they are only being noticed now because of the publicity surrounding the NSA controversy. Would anyone have thought twice if they saw some guy buying a bunch of cell phones a few months ago?
4) Even assuming there is a connection between the NSA story and these purchases, there might well be a totally benign explanation. I would not be surprised if average Americans (particularly those of Middle-Eastern origin) who regularly place calls overseas are looking for ways to do so without the government eavesdropping on them. While terrorists likely expect the government to try to listen in on their conversations (and therefore long ago took protective measures), average law-abiding citizens likely do not. The revelation that the government is engaged in warrantless wiretapping may have caused people who never before worried about their privacy being invaded to seek ways of avoiding that invasion. People may have all sorts of reasons totally unrelated to terrorist activity to want to minimize the likelihood of being spied on.
I can already see wingnuts taking this last argument out of context, so let me be extra clear about what I'm saying. Terrorists surely know that the government is attempting to surveil them and indeed that it has a duty to do so. So their behavior is not likely to be affected by knowing whether or not warrants are being used. Either way, they have a strong incentive to communicate via the safest, least traceable method possible. But ordinary citizens do not expect to be surveilled, and therefore do not normally take any precautions to prevent such surveillance. At least until recently, they expected that our laws and warrant procedures would protect them from groundless government snooping. So the revelation that the NSA is engaged in warrantless domestic spying, with no judicial oversight, might well affect their behavior. Now they may fear (whether justifiably or not) that anyone, not just terrorists, can potentially be spied upon. That might well cause regular people, particularly those who value their privacy, to seek alternative methods of communication.
posted by A.L. at 3:54 PM
5 Comments:
The particularly dumb thing about this is that prepaid phones probably don't elude the NSA program at all. We KNOW that NSA has the ability to snoop on anyone, whether they've got a longstanding phone account or no. There's is a technical ability, not a bueaucratic one. So if NSA is doing large-scale data mining, they're doing whether you own the phone or not (indeed, in Bush's statements on this, the throwaway phones are one of the things the NSA program is an attempt to control).
More likely, a bunch of people--of all colors--have discovered what John Aravosis have. That our cell companies are selling our phone records to brokers, and that anyone can get our records for $100. Seems like a more logical reason to get a throwaway than the NSA program.
You know what you sound like? A traitor.
Just kidding.
On target. I spotted a story in Indiana where a swindler was regularly committing fraud using the disposable phones and just changing numbers every month. Seems like the bad guys of all stripes are well aware of disposables, and have been for quite a while.
Such silliness. The whole tech angle on season 3 of HBO's The Wire was figuring out how to tap into the disposable cell phones the Balto drug dealers had started using - this was broadcast a year ago...thekeez
What seems odd about this debate, is the underlying current of thought that seems to animate some, that a good portion of the nation, who opposed the President's policies, are some how against protecting the country. It makes no sense. This idea that some people ate soft on terror, is just strange. You can understand an argument being advanced along those lines, cynically for a soundbite, but for some to actually believe that is a new step.
Post a Comment
Links to this post:
Create a Link
<< Home