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> Does the NSA store all text messages? Yes, more than likely. If the NSA is already storing all of the things, why do we keep having scandals about government
by joshuahedlund 13y ago
> Does the NSA store all text messages? Yes, more than likely.
If the NSA is already storing all of the things, why do we keep having scandals about government breaking rules to get records of things? Google publishes specific numbers of requests for records... There was a story a month or so ago about feds reprogramming a guy's smart card specifically to track him... AP just broke the story about the subpoena for two months of phone records... if the NSA already has all this stuff, why doesn't everyone in the government just secretly get it from them instead of going to all this extra trouble to get records from companies all the time? I'm concerned about all the above abusive surveillance stories, but doesn't the fact that we're having all these stories prove that they don't have total surveillance yet?
- dm2 13y agoPartially because that kind of information can't be used in court. The fact is that text messages are extremely insecure. If the US govt is willing to spend hundreds of billions on spy satellites and submarines, isn't it reasonable to assume that they would spend a couple million to gather all text messages? They're not supposed to spy on US citizens, but there are enough loopholes to allow it. Just because the NSA has huge amounts of data doesn't mean that the FBI has unlimited access to that data. The NSA historically doesn't share information with other agencies. Many claim that the NSA knew the details of 9/11 but were not allowed to share this information. Then the Patriot act and "secret patriot act" came along and more information is allowed to be shared between agencies, but not unlimited information, as far as the public knows.