Why Spying On Metadata Is Even More Intrusive than Listening to Content | Global Research

Why Spying On Metadata Is Even More Intrusive than Listening to Content | Global Research

The government has sought to reassure us that it is only tracking “metadata” such as the time and place of the calls, and not the content of the calls.

There is substantial evidence from top whistleblowers that the government is recording the content of our call … word-for-word.

And former CIA deputy director – and White House NSA spying panel member – Mike Morrell says thatmetadata is content.

But even accepting the government’s claims at face value, technology experts say that “metadata” can bemore revealing than the content of your actual phone calls.

For example, ARS Technica notes:

The ACLU filed a declaration by Princeton Computer Science Prof. Edward Felten to support its quest for a preliminary injunction in that lawsuit. Felten, a former technical director of the Federal Trade Commission, has testified to Congress several times on technology issues, and he explained why “metadata” really is a big deal.

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There are already programs that make it easy for law enforcement and intelligence agencies to analyze such data, like IBM’s Analyst’s Notebook. IBM offers courses on how to use Analyst’s Notebook to understand call data better.