Stephen Walt amusingly suggests that since the NSA has now been caught illegally spying on Americans in America, why not turn its massive powers for good and not evil by using it to track down, identify, and put out of business all those robocallers that annoy the hell out of people?
Here’s an idea: Use the NSA’s vast trove of phone information to put these guys out of business. If the NSA really does have access to all that phone data and is good at using computer algorithms to sift and sort it as everyone seems to think, why not use it to build an unassailable case against the organizations and businesses that are violating all those “do not call” laws? I mean: If the NSA really can eavesdrop on an al Qaeda conference call, surely documenting abuse of the “do not call” law would be child’s play.
I get these calls all the time every day, sometimes two or three times in close succession from the same outfit. And this has been going on for months. I fail to understand the psychology behind it. Do they really think that after fifty calls have been hung up on by an enraged person, on the fifty first they are going to change their minds and sign up?
Here’s an idea: Use the NSA’s vast trove of phone information to put these guys out of business.
The phone companies already have systems that can do that. They don’t. Why? The robocallers are bigger customers than the annoyed people that they harrass, wake up on weekends, and interrupt during dinner.
I leave my ringer off, now, and have a voice message that says “tell me what you want and I’ll call you back”
It’s pretty convenient and has made most of my friends switch to texting me. I keep thinking I really don’t need the land line any more.
and interrupt during dinner …
which is not the worst thing they can interrupt. Cf. the beginning of Tristram Shandy.
I have Caller ID, but that is so easlily spoofed that consumers should start up a class action lawsuit against the phone companies for failing to enforce it.
The NSA, with access to both phone records and Internet records, should be technologically in a good position to address Caller ID spoofing.
In my country, you can sign up to a register to not receive these calls. It then becomes the responsibility of the calling party to adhere to this list, otherwise face prosecution. It works great.
When you say robo calling, I presume you mean a computerized message. But wouldn’t they have to give a company name away if they were trying to sell anything?
But I anyway, yes, the NSA could do what you suggest in two seconds.
Never happen. Think about it.
1. NSA gets 3 hops.
2. These useless robocallers are a hop.
If they actually wanted only directly useful data they would have shut these guys down before most of us had heard of them. But that’s not what you’re after when you build a ridiculous “intelligence” architecture that looks like it was designed by Rube Goldberg’s cynical and controlling Big Brother.
Everyone thinks they don’t need a landline, but then who do you call when you get arrested?
That’s been the case in the USA as well for nearly 10 years. Prior to the law, it was common to get 8-10 calls per evening. The law initially worked really well but lack of enforcement has cause the situation to get worse again over the past few years. Still, 4-5 calls a week is better than 8-10 a night.
What’s really bad is that the calls are pretty much universally for outright scams. When you’re a criminal to begin with, you don’t care much about breaking one more law.
Having the NSA track down these scum is a GREAT idea. Too bad it’ll never happen.
It requires some amount of effort on their part to take you off the list, and they don’t benefit from doing it. The marginal effort of taking one more person off the list is small, but if they dispose of the whole removal process entirely, they could see significant cost savings.
Actually, I get about 4-5 call a day.