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Its easy to figure out how dangerous this can be.
The defense is we just have phone numbers. Well all you have to do then is match the phone calling database to any phone directory, which at that level could easily be mined from other commercial or government databases. And presto, now you have the full map of everyone's communications for the past 5 years.
Its really bad for anyone in any kind of criminal enterprise. You could see all the people that keep calling a known drug dealer's cell phone to determine his customers. And then who that guy is buying from.
You could see if all the CEO's of oil companies are calling each other in a regular pattern as gas prices move inexplicably out of sync with reality to supplies to see if there is collusion and price fixing occuring.
You could see all the calls to the New York Times or Washington Post for example to figure out where the leaks are coming from.
You could find out who gambles in illegal sports betting by matching the known bookie numbers to their patterns of call ins.
You could figure out who is in cohoots with who on virtually anything you wanted to simply by connecting the dots.
You could see who are the instigators of political movements and all the people involved in organizing marches just by looking at the connected calls.
You could see who is behind virtually any conspiracy by seeing who the people who did the crime got the orders from.
You could see who in any government position of secrets is calling foreign government numbers and possibly engaged in espionage.
You could see what companies have an influential relationship with congressmen.
Its basically unlimited what you could determine by having the power of every landline, fax, cellphone and e-mail record and that is what they have.
There are going to be huge lawsuits from this and the phone companies are going to be innundated with litigation.
There could also be a big revival for the pay phone business. Remember those? Now people will be worried about making calls for sensitive things on a number that could be tracked back to them and will seek out ways to communicate more anonymously.
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