Mercy! Mercy! That Dang Nabed PERCY!

Communications 103

Communications 103

At the end of Phase 1 the analyst would have compiled a list of say one hundred numbers of Persons of Interest (POI). If these POIs reside overseas then there is no constraint on proceeding into phase 2, active listening. Intelligence agencies are free to listen in on the emissions of non-Americans. Now this is an interesting point because if NSA is cooperating with a foreign government there might be a reciprocal workaround between the two. For example the British carry the US workload and the US might do the same for them. This would allow for the workaround of various laws that protect citizen’s privacy rights. Both countries could shrug and say they have no control of the espionage activities of the other. Clearly this would be a convenient arrangement for two partners with a mutual trust in one another. I will call this the unconstrained listening mode (UCM) and since I believe this is pervasive will use this capability unless saying otherwise.

So we have an analyst now with one hundred telephone numbers and they want to get a better sense for what is being discussed than the data elements routinely captured by a private carrier system. To do this the technique would be a bit different for satellite carriers as opposed to cable carriers. Again I will be assuming satellite carriers, even though the two switch into each other with transparent ease. In developing countries however, the advantage to cell phones and satellite based systems is that they require little to no developed telecommunications infrastructure.

Electronic intelligence gathering means have been used for a long time and grown ever more sophisticated. In spy movies there is the ever-present van listening around the corner and a receiver planted in lamp. The operatives drink coffee and listen for the occasional conversation that might be of interest. Then there is the old bug in the phone trick everyone is familiar with. In addition was the telephone companies growing ability to track perverts making harassing phone calls to customers. Then we see criminals make a phone call from a public telephone booth short so the call can’t be tracked. This is old technology.

During the drug wars against the cartels in South America the US used airborne trackers with CB like scanners to locate, track and monitor drug dealers and thereby seriously disrupt the cartels. This same approach was no doubt used to good effect in Iraq and Afghanistan. Terrorists love to use cell phones and apparently don’t realize that they are the bane of their existence. Any Terrorist organization that allows an emitter of any kind into their midst is asking for trouble. It is like waving a red flag in the electromagnetic spectrum. One of the things that have made it easier to get away with cell phones in urban areas is the huge amount of calls that are being propagated. For example in a major city the sheer volume makes it difficult to separate the wheat from the chaff, however, if you have a telephone number it greatly simplifies the process. With a telephone number it is possible to have a light flash on a monitor every time a call is made. From here it is a simple matter to monitor a call and using a voice-translating program listen in and glean the gist of the conversation. If the conversation identifies a new POI there are now two telephone numbers to investigate.

What gets the analyst to salivating however is when the call goes out of country. I’ll be talking conceptually about that later in the week.