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NEWS OF NSA EAVESDROPPING PROGRAM PROMPTS DATA MINING SPECULATION

The New York Times revealed that the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) has been conducting a White-House-approved program of eavesdropping on telephone calls and emails occurring between people in the United States and other countries. The case has led many in the technical and policy communities to speculate about the technology involved and whether or not it constitutes data mining. A recent NY Times article (free reg. req'd) has more information about the potential scope, context, and legality of the NSA program; see

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/21/politics/21nsa.html

Apart from the legal aspects of the case, there are a number of technical concerns surrounding the NSA program as well. For example, given the globalized nature of today's telecommunications infrastructure, how difficult is it to determining what constitutes an "international" email, phone call, cell phone call, or VoIP call? In addition, another recent NY Times article suggests that the program tapped "directly into some of the American telecommunication system's main arteries" and that "the N.S.A. has gained the cooperation of American telecommunications companies to obtain backdoor access to streams of domestic and international communications." See the following URL for the full article:

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/24/politics/24spy.html