PLAYTHINGS OF THE GODS
Let's look at an example of how you might be affected by pen register data. Let's say you are in thefront yard watering the grass or something and someone has car trouble and asks to use the phone to callhome for help. You let them use your cordless phone. Now say one of their kids is known to the policefor being involved in drugs. The pen register will show a call made from your house to the suspect'shouse and therefore you will be put on a secret police watch list as a suspected drug dealer and placedunder surveillance. All this will be secret and you have no way to know it has happened and no way todo anything about it. To take it further, say your mate is being considered for a sensitive job. But, nowthe FBI file will have a note about suspected drug activities so they won't get the job and you will neverfigure out why and it is all secret.
This is how the pen register surveillance system works.
WATER AND DRAIN PIPES
When you talk, your voice vibrates things around the house. The NSA [National Security Agency]people have been doing parallel research for years inventing and perfecting unique gadgets that no oneknows exist so they can spy on people. They are so concerned that no one figures out what they havecome up with that employees must agree to die rather than let the secret information be compromised.When they fly their spy planes, the crew understands that they must blow up the plane rather than letsome foreign power find the secret equipment. This is usually not necessary because all of the spyequipment is designed to self destruct into a pile of useless rubble before anyone could get their handson it. However, if this can not be accomplished or accomplished fast enough, the crew understands thatthey must distort the plane and themselves with it. This is how serious they are about the revolutionarystuff they have invented which suggests that it is "real good stuff".
Now, back to the pipes. In this spy method, it is possible to connect to a drain pipe or water pipe in aneighborhood and detect the conversations going on in the houses which the pipes connect to. Secretequipment is able to filter and select so that only one particular house on the pipe network is monitored.This level of sophistication of signal selection and filtering is, of course, one of the secrets. Theinformation has always been there for the taking but no one had the means to use it.
X-RAY VISION
Originally, only Superman had it. Now, we all can have it because it is for sale. This once secrettechnique involved equipping an acceptable vehicle [phone trucks are popular] with x-ray equipment.Then the police would pull up in front of your house and this equipment would let them see insidewithout ever knocking. They could see who was home and where they were in the house. If theythought you could resist them, they could just lock on to your position and shoot thru the wall and killyou while you were watching TV or whatever. Later, after they trashed your house, they could make upsome story that you resisted them.
Now, declassified, anyone can buy this stuff. Just go to www.radarvision.com and have your credit