Phonecalls and texts to be logged

[MarD]

odie1 "Doesn't need to as thats why UK govt spends Billions per year on computers to do it for them. "

What are the computers doing exactly? They are using individual voice recognition algorithms that can't record and analyse every word spoken?
The technology isn't there! And anyway anything that it thought suspicious would need to be then reviewed by a human. This is all fantasy stuff.
Has there ever been any case documented where someone randomly became a suspect because of something they said on a phone? Doubt it, not unless that communication was deliberately intercepted. I go back to my original point; slow labourious grunt work by the intelligence services build up suspects.

I'm sure MI5 and the CIA would like people to believe they have super computers whirring away analysing everything like the way it was said that the RUC and army had listening devices to pick up what you said as you approached a checkpoint!

[toxic avenger]

Unfortunately it was true and was covered in some detail in the media in Britain and in Ireland some years ago.. Not making a case either way as to whether they were right or wrong to do it, but its a statement of fact, it happened.

[toxic avenger]

See Richard Norton-Taylor in the Observer July 18th 1999.

[michael1965]

storing the content would be a massive leap in terms of infrastructure requirements for voice and video calls -

Text messages would be different though. They do store the content of those because they need to be held by the network until they are delivered to people's phones. I don't imagine the content is kept for very long, but they could easily keep it.

And I agree with MarD, it's not possible to listen in on all telephone calls, but it is certainly possible to illegally tap some phones.

[The Lighthouse Keeper]

Monitoring has always been there.
It's called ECHELON.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ECHELON

[jmcc]

This is all fantasy stuff.

Really? So as an Irish Times reader [1], you are an expert on this kind of stuff?

Has there ever been any case documented where someone randomly became a suspect because of something they said on a phone?

Well I don't think that intelligence organisations would actually release that kind of information.

Doubt it, not unless that communication was deliberately intercepted. I go back to my original point; slow labourious grunt work by the intelligence services build up suspects.

I think that you may know less about modern electronic intelligence gathering than you think.

I'm sure MI5 and the CIA would like people to believe they have super computers whirring away analysing everything like the way it was said that the RUC and army had listening devices to pick up what you said as you approached a checkpoint!

GCHQ is the main electronic/communications gathering organisation in the UK. And in the USA, NSA fulfills the same function.

Regards...jmcc
[1] Just a random guess. You could just as easily be a Daily Sun reader.

[michael1965]

Monitoring has always been there.
It's called ECHELON.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ECHELON

Echelon is a name used in western media and in popular culture to describe a signals intelligence collection and analysis network ... Its capabilities and political implications were later investigated by a committee of the European Parliament published in 2001.[2]

In its report, the European Parliament states ... that "the technical capabilities of the system are probably not nearly as extensive as some sections of the media had assumed"

It probably was a lot more useful up to the 1980's when most long distance international telephone calling was via satellite, which could be monitored easily. But nowadays, nearly all telephone calls (other than mobile) are through cables (either electric or fibre optic) which are practically impossible to monitor passively.

The example I quoted earlier where one of Vodafone's mobile network switches in Greece was hacked (more than likely by some foreign government) represents the extent of what is possible. ie. surveillance on a limited number of people for a limited period of time. But for most non-conspiracy theorists, the fact that this actually happened is alarming enough as it is.

[MarD]

jmcc - If the intelligence services are so brilliant at monitoring and tracking all these calls, where's Osama? Where's Tariq Aziz? Where are the Serb Generals with unpronounceable names hiding without contacting anyone by phone?
The Brits were able to track the Glasgow bombers after the failed London nightclub car bomb with their logged phone records, not by their conversations.
If this intelligence was so pervasive why couldn't they recall their phone calls for analysis? Why because they aren't doing it randomly but as I've said before following up grunt work on the ground and tapping specific suspects.

I know enough about current electronic voice recognition to know that completely automated computerised phonecall analysis is not possible with any statistical accuracy to make it useful for these purposes.