EPU = Evil Parallel Universe, the place to which the posts at the bottom of an old thread go to unravel, once a new thread has started . . .

. . . like perhaps this one.

Unless the phone numbers are somehow randomized, this isn’t possible. There’s something called a “reverse directory” that is pretty easy to obtain (I once got a call from a lawyer who used one to track down one of my neighbors). If the numbers are randomized and the relationship between real and random numbers is erased, which is the only way I can think of to keep this information private, there’s no way of checking out whatever patterns the NSA thinks it might be detecting. There’s the rub.

But in any event, the idea that you can identify terrorist networks by analyzing calling patterns makes absolutely no sense.

Neither do many things that are actually true. To travel at the speed of light, for instance, you would have to convert all the matter in the universe into energy, and then you’d still not quite be there. Counter-intuitive and crazy, but true. Oh, and all that energy would be added to the mass of your spacecraft.

You can’t go by what makes sense, because in mathematics the thing that doesn’t make sense is often what’s true.

My position is that such theories, if they even exist, certainly cannot be proved if what the government says is true, and that I’ve never heard of a theory that could be useful. Perhaps someone has written a defense of this program that explains how it could work, but I certainly haven’t heard of it, and neither have the various blowhards who are defending the NSA programs.

2. Jane, Christy, and all the other wonderful posters, includint all the commentators. You are the mainstream media. The so called MSM has become the SRM (State Run Media) with some exceptions, of course, but those are individuals who are apparently tolerated.

Thank you.

And that wasn’t a criticizim, you all seem to bring up so much more critical points that I do. That was insane jealousy!

If the king has forgotten that, it is up to us to remind him of it. As you know, Christy, there is always a way around bad law in the courtroom. As Nizer used to say “So he told the clerk to strike that from the record, and he balled me out and sustained my opponent’s objection…..but the jury still heard it!