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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsUsing a phone to do political phone banking - NSA revelations should concern you
As the election day nears, many of us at Du are doing phone banking. One way we can contribute to whatever cause or person we deem worthy of our efforts is by doing phone banking.
Ten years ago, this meant meeting up inside a campaign office and using the candidate's phones. But these days, more and more of us are using our own phones, while we lounge on our comfy family room couch or sit in the backyard, weather permitting.
But in calling hundreds of phone numbers, we make it more likely that we inadvertently will hit a number that is now being monitered by the NSA. This puts us those "six degrees from Kevin Bacon" except it is not Kevin Bacon I am worried about, but what happens to you when you dial the ph number for Rasheed Navi Sumar, and it turns out that individual is being watched by the NSA.
Now you are among his phone contacts, and that allows the NSA to follow YOU! (And you may not even be trying to call that person's phone, as the name on the list you're trying to reach is Mary O'Brien's, but when Mary's home was foreclosed four years ago, she quit payng for her phone, and now Rasheed has her number.)
The TV show "The Good Wife" had several plots based on these notions. Alicia Florrick tried very hard to help a young woman in trouble with immigration. That young woman happened to be of Middle Eastern decent, and she was related to an indiviudal on the NSA watch list. So in making several calls to this young woman, Alicia now became a target of the NSA. And so, when one of ALiia's other clients, a king pin in the drug trade, needed to talk to Alicia, his conversations were noted by the NSA, and now they could legitimately follow him as well.
Recently EFF has had a column up and running about other insidious business in light of what Greenwald has had to say in his book about the NSA:
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/05/how-nsa-transforming-law-enforcement
The NSAs role in ordinary investigations is not new information. But every document that expands on the NSAs involvement in anything domestic, and not national security related, should ring alarm bells for everyone in the United States. We know now that:
The NSA data is fed to the Drug Enforcement Agencys Special Operations Division. The DEA in turn uses this information in ordinary investigations, while cloaking the source even from judges and prosecutors.
The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court authorized the NSA to share unminimized data with the FBI, as well as the CIA, with the Raw Take order. Prior to this agencies [had] to 'minimize' private information about Americans deleting data that is irrelevant for intelligence purposes before providing it to others.
Information sharing between the FBI, NSA, and CIA has been routinized through software which would automatically gather a list of tasked PRISM selectors every two weeks to provide to the FBI and CIA. (slide31.jpg). Similarly, the NSA sends operational PRISM news and guidance to the FBI and CIA so that their analysts could task the PRISM system properly, be aware of outages and changes, and optimize their use of PRISM.
And, most recently, we learned that the NSA partners with the DEA to record nearly all cell phone calls in the Bahamas but not for national security purposes. This surveillance helps to locate international narcotics traffickers and special-interest alien smugglerstraditional law-enforcement concerns, but a far cry from derailing terror plots or intercepting weapons of mass destruction. In fact, a 2004 memo discusses the NSAs integral role in the war on drugs.
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There is much other decent information contained by going to the link above.
Skittles
(153,160 posts)you may want to say political phone banking
truedelphi
(32,324 posts)Skittles
(153,160 posts)I would never do political phone banking (or regular banking, for that matter) from my cell but it's a good warning to those who do
1StrongBlackMan
(31,849 posts)for years ... and have never used, or been asked to use, my personal phone.
I call BS.
truedelphi
(32,324 posts)Decent causes have a bank roll of - Wait for IT - 00.00
You may call up the Lake County Registrar of Voters and ask her how much money the "Campaign for Measure P " people have.
1StrongBlackMan
(31,849 posts)in Lake County, California, phone bankers are calling from their personal phones?
truedelphi
(32,324 posts)You were on ignore.
Which has happened right NOW.
1StrongBlackMan
(31,849 posts)I'll take that as a "No. But it could happen!"
DisgustipatedinCA
(12,530 posts)1StrongBlackMan
(31,849 posts)your personal phone to do political phone banking?
Wait. First things first ... have you ever done any political phone banking?
DisgustipatedinCA
(12,530 posts)1StrongBlackMan
(31,849 posts)I doubt anyone, anywhere, is at risk of the NSA 6-degrees of separation ... because I doubt anyone is being asked to phone bank from their personal phones.
DisgustipatedinCA
(12,530 posts)Wait, first things first: have you ever used a phone?
1StrongBlackMan
(31,849 posts)But that said, I impressed that you can copy and paste Nightwatchers link. Kudos.
DisgustipatedinCA
(12,530 posts)If I posted the same link someone else did, it's very likely due to the fact that it was at the very top of the Google results. You in no way indicated to me that you were wrong. You were very insulting, and that bullshit won't fly. Now in addition to your earlier sleight, you're accusing me of using someone else's link? If say that indicates that me and one other poster have enough wherewithal to perform a simple search on the Internet, a skill that appears to elude you. A person with a small modicum of class would apologize.
1StrongBlackMan
(31,849 posts)mean to you?
DisgustipatedinCA
(12,530 posts)You never found the courage to direct that statement to me; you were speaking to someone else. For me, you just decided to accuse me of never having phone-banked (which has absolutely nothing to do with anything). Then you followed up by accusing me of using someone else's link. A simple 'my bad' directed at me would have been so much easier, but you have a need to be right even when you're not. I don't believe that you are conducting yourself with integrity, and I don't want to talk to you anymore.
frazzled
(18,402 posts)But I have been asked to use my personal phone in recent years. This was in 2008 and 2012 at the IL Obama campaign headquarters. They simply didn't have enough phones for all the volunteers. Granted, the place was overflowing with more volunteers than they knew what to do with.
It is a problem--but not for the reasons the OP cites. (That's just paranoia and NSA ooga booga ... sort of on the "I might get ebola if I walk outside" level.) When you call from your personal phone, the person you call has your personal cell number. Not always a great idea.
In 2012, mr frazzled and I phone banked from the Obama campaign office using our own phones: we were calling supporters to make sure they knew the date of the election, and checking whether they knew the location of their polling places and the open and close times. (Surprisingly, many didn't and were happy to have us look up their precinct polling places for them). We were asked to get them to commit to the time of day they'd be voting (morning, afternoon) etc. so that call-backs could be made on election day to make sure they actually went to the polls.
At any rate, a few days after this session my husband's cell phone rings at like 7 am. It's a guy from Milwaukee saying "Did you call me Saturday"? My husband said he'd been calling for the campaign to see if he knew when and where to vote, and the guy says, "You know, I don't know where my polling place is and I'd like to vote." Mr. Frazzled looked it up for him on the Internet and the guy was really grateful.
That was a happy story. However, some creep might decide to call you back. I'd rather use an official campaign phone.
1StrongBlackMan
(31,849 posts)maybe it's just my being in the political sticks.
NightWatcher
(39,343 posts)Is when someone you call doesn't recognize your number and waits till the middle of the night to call you back and angrily ask "Who's been calling me?".
Be careful using your own number. If you use a number blocker, most people will not answer your call. If some people do not know the number, they won't answer your call. If someone gets mad because you've called them to pitch for a candidate or policy position that they disagree with, they now have your phone and can find your name, address....
Play it safe and use the phones provided by the candidates at centralized phone banks if you can.
1StrongBlackMan
(31,849 posts)NightWatcher
(39,343 posts)1StrongBlackMan
(31,849 posts)NightWatcher
(39,343 posts)but I guess his organization didn't worry what would happen to you. They just wanted to get the word out. What kills me is that I got called about a dozen times. Calling people who are solid Dems and are definitely going to vote, just wastes volunteers and starts to piss off the recipients.