#268 - You Woke Me Up for This?

Driving in to work this morning, the local radio talking heads were all aflutter over the NSA compiling a massive database with every phone call logged through three of four major telecomm companies in the United States.

[yaaaaaawn]

Pardon me. Bit sleepy this morning.

Anyway, seems the NSA, along with wiretapping calls to or from suspected terrorists, have also now - 'scuse me...

[yaaaaaaaaaaawn! Goodness!]

Sorry! They've been compiling this data with only one major company, QWEST, refusing to play along. Something about privacy laws, or some such thing. All I can say... all I can... sorry!...

[YAAAAAAWN!!]

Oh, gosh, I'm tired this morning.

As I was about to say, I really don't know what the big deal is. It's always disturbed me that the phone companies themselves even track my phone calls to begin with. Opening my phone bill (back in the day when I used to get printed phone bills) was a little like watching Big Brother tell you exactly why you were being punished. After a while, though, you get... get... wait...

[yaaawn!]

[slap!]

That feels better.

Anyway, you sorta get used to it after a few years. Where is this any worse or more invasive than your average identity theft? If anything, I feel better about the NSA having my phone calls in a database than I do about some employers regularly losing personal data on stolen laptops so crooks can access my bank accounts and help themselves to my vast fortune of - lessee now - about $200.

In any case, I don't know why this should shock anyone these days. Has nothing to do with national security, anyway. Unless I'm mistaken, the NSA could only have gotten this data from one of two sources. The phone companies...

...or telemarketers.

On balance, I think I'm grateful they're getting it from the phone companies.

Pardon me. I need to [yaaawn] take a quick nap.