studiocritic

this was on slashdot a few days ago.. i've been busy:

gollum123 writes to mention a CNN article, reporting on an FBI information release. The number of secret subpoenas the Bureau filed last year reached 3,501. These documents allowed access to credit card records, bank statements, telephone records, and internet access logs for thousands of legal citizens without asking for a court's permission. From the article: "The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, the same panel that signs off on applications for business records warrants, also approved 2,072 special warrants last year for secret wiretaps and searches of suspected terrorists and spies. The record number is more than twice as many as were issued in 2000, the last full year before the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001."

This is the reply I wrote in the thread:

From the article: 2,072 from FISC, 3,501 from FBI... in 2005.

2072+3501=5573.

Also from the article:
"more than twice as many as were issued in 2000".

Let's focus on 2000-now.

Let's assume that in 2000, exactly half of the number issued in 2005 were issued.. 5573/2 ~= 2787.

Now.. some quick math tells us that's a ~15% increase per year.

So from 2000-2006: 2787, 3233, 3750, 4350, 5046, 5773, 6697.. total: 31,636.

Here comes the fun part. The "B" side of all these conversations that are monitored. No one talks to themselves on the phone/internet, right?

The average person (according to data I found, no source, insert your own number here) has 17.33 "regular " acquaintances.

That's 548,252 US citizens/residents being monitored.

There were 217,766,271 18+ citizens as of 2003. (source: Census Bureau)

In 2005 the population growth rate was 0.95%. (source: CIA Factbook)

Assuming the pop. growth was the same for 2004, 2005, 2006 there are now 224,031,757 citizens.

548252/224031757 = 408.

1:408.

ONE IN FOUR HUNDRED AND EIGHT US CITIZENS ARE BEING SPIED ON.

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