Cubelogic Improv

“Loose Change” is probably the best documentary about the 9/11 mistery: watch it online (google video) or buy it from the makers.

Detailed evidence is provided at the website. In addition, I’m linking here some additional press articles cited by the movie (link).

I think I just read the scariest thing ever.

Soon after 9/11 The National Security Agency started building a database of telephone calls records, aimed at collecting data of every call ever made within the nation’s borders [gasp!]. The agency worked with Bellsouth, Verizon and AT&T (and SBC), under a payed contract, so for these corporation it was a profitable deal. Qwest refused to collaborate.

At the time the deal was made, the cited corporations were headed by:

AT&T, by C. Michael Armstrong;
SBC, by Ed Whitacre;
BellSouth, by F. Duane Ackerman;
Verizon, by Ivan Seidenberg.

Those corporations were asked to turn over a complete listing of the calling histories of their 200+ millions of customers. This includes phone numbers and conversation times. It does not include the actual conversations, nor the people names, although that can be easily gathered with non-classified databases. In addition, the NSA also wanted the carriers to provide updates… just to keep the DB in sync with the calling habits of the nation.

This made up what is today the largest database on Earth.

I for one will try to adopt counter-measures. Qwest only provides service to 14 States (not including California) and anyway even if they are “good” now I have no way to know if they’ll continue to be good. The plan, or “a” plan could be to avoid telephone altogether, and just use VOIP. All we need is a reliable internet connection (which I don’t have right now because Earthlink sucks), good encryption software (like Zfone and others), and a VOIP hard phone (I’ll have to investigate the best choice for the latter). A solution for the cell phone use case might be harder.

There’s work to do, but we can’t live like this. I’ll try to log ideas and solutions as I think them out.

Sources:
usatoday (may 11 ’06) –
usatoday (feb 5 ’06) –
slashdot (may 11 ’06) –
beppegrillo.it (may 14 ’06

Related:
Bruce Shneier on AT&T Trillion Call DB (mar 3 ’06)
NYT story on NSA shopping for technologies in the Valley, Feb. 25 ’06)

The Italian website contains all the info about the white phosphor inquiry. There’s also a link to Jeff Englehardt’s blog. Democracy Now! also has a very intersting interview with him, Lieutenant Colonel Steve Boylan (spokesperson for the U.S. military in Iraq), and Maurizio Torrealta, producer of the italian show. I watched the movie “I Heart Huckabees”, Jeff seems a guy who has opened his eyes.

Today, after hearing the news on CNN, I sent them this letter:

Dear CNN,

today, at 12:50 Pacific time, I was watching your news report on the CNN Headlines News channel. One of the titles was about the liberation of the Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena in Iraq, and the death of Nicola Calipari (Sgrena’s bodyguard). They were both shot by US gunfire.

The news just didn’t sound right: more or less it was, “Sgrena was liberated and injured by US gunfire after she failed to stop at a check point”. With a headline like that, everything sounds “ok”, everythang’s cool, simple, normal, in a logical sequence of events: simply put, it sounds acceptable. But the thing is, forgive my language, this event is NOT fucking acceptable! That’s the “key” point here. And as journalists you have to communicate this “no acceptance” thing, this unacceptable tragedy.

Therefore, dear CNN, I feel like I have a few things to ask you to do in the future (and I’m gonna break it down for you guys):

1. when you have to report the death of an innocent Italian man by means of “friendly” US gunfire in Iraq, please don’t fail to highlight that an innocent Italian man was actually killed by his supposed allies.
2. also, please don’t make every tragedy sound like it’s acceptable, when it’s not. I believe American people are incredibly resourceful people, and they can handle the blow and the sadness.
3. generally speaking, when you make headlines please don’t forget to include the “key points”. For instance, the death of Calipari is definitely a key point (although unsettling, see (1) and (2)). If you fail to report it in the titles, you are not doing a good job.

That’s it. I rely on you guys for some decent news. I don’t want to put you in the same league of the ghouls at Fox News.

Ettore Pasquini

On November 10th, 2004, during a peaceful demonsration, two large U.S. military tanks drove past the protestors on Wilshire Boulevard two times. The second time, the tanks stopped directly in front of a group of about 50 protestors for nearly five minutes.
La visione di carri armati a Los Angeles durante una protesta civile è strana. Qui c’è un filmato:
http://la.indymedia.org/uploads/tanks-on-la-streets.mov. (If download fails, email me.)