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Who’s Your Buddy? NSA Gathering Hundreds of Millions of Contact Lists and “Buddy Lists” From Americans

President_Barack_Obama200px-national_security_agencysvgThe Obama Administration — with the clear support of Democratic and Republic leadership — has continued to eviscerate privacy in the United States despite recent controversies over NSA spying on Americans. The most recent report details how the National Security Agency is collecting hundreds of millions of contact lists from personal e-mail and instant messaging accounts, including those of Americans. The reported collection program is a new operation that intercepts e-mail address books and “buddy lists” from instant messaging services. It is the latest effort by the Obama Administration to turn this into a fishbowl society where citizens and their associations are entirely transparent to the government. Once again, the most amazing aspect of this story is the complete lack of response or outcry. President Obama has succeeded, it seems, in changing the expectations of privacy in our society — a change that is unlikely to be reversed to the great detriment of civil liberties in America. It is the latest example of why it is increasingly curious for Americans to refer to this country as “the land of the free” as we construct a massive internal security state and unchecked executive powers.


The report states that the NSA is gathering contact lists in large numbers that amount to a sizable fraction of the world’s e-mail and instant messaging accounts. In single day last year, the NSA’s Special Source Operations branch has reportedly collected 444,743 e-mail address books from Yahoo, 105,068 from Hotmail, 82,857 from Facebook, 33,697 from Gmail and 22,881 from unspecified other providers. This includes a daily collection of an estimated 500,000 buddy lists on live-chat services as well as from the “in-box” displays of Web-based e-mail accounts. That would translate to a staggering collection rate of more than 250 million per year.

These programs are creating a government databank system that allows the government to observe and track virtually every contract and association of a person’s life. It is the total awareness system that we thought we had killed under Bush. Of course, it is now Barack Obama creating this security state so Democrats are not just silent but supportive of the effort. He will of course leave office at some point and leave this security system as his legacy. He will be able to claim (if he was willing to admit it) that he left this country less free than he found it. And Democrats will have secured a place of unrivaled hypocrisy if they try to later oppose the same powers in a Republican president.

Source: Washington Post

106 thoughts on “Who’s Your Buddy? NSA Gathering Hundreds of Millions of Contact Lists and “Buddy Lists” From Americans”

  2. …“We’re not spying on Americans” is accurate. – some person who calls himself/herself a scholar

    It’s not accurate. Not even close. And I’m in a position to know. You’re welcome.

  4. Gene,
    Unless it’s associated with “Who’s on First?”

    Someone could ask, “Is that Who’s cap you’re wearing?”

  5. randyjet,

    “So I WILL become concerned when the drones kill US Muslim students in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Yemen who are enjoying the beaches on spring break in those countries.”

    Do you think there’s much danger of US Muslim students being killed on the beaches of Afghanistan, on spring break?

    I’d be concerned, also.

  8. barkindog,

    Jerry Jeff Walker didn’t do an album entitled “Good Old Boys.”

    Randy Newman has an album by that name.

  9. To those of you unfamiliar with the English language, “who’s” is the contraction of “who is”, sometimes “who has”.

    “Whose” is the possessive of “who”.

    “Who’s” is grammatically correct in the headline.

    “Who is your buddy?”

    “Who’s your buddy?”

    “Whose shoes are these?”

    You’re welcome.

  10. And to other commenters:

    Data collection is not spying. So technically “We’re not spying on Americans” is accurate.

    You’re welcome.

  11. Ummm… Jonathan,

    “Who’s Your Buddy.” Not good to put up illiterate headlines.

  13. Will RandyJet be so supportive of drone strikes when his family is killed because Sumatra (or any other country on this planet) targets his neighbor’s house for death because his neighbor wrote bad things about his home country?

    1. Paul I see that you live in another planet than ours since there is NO such country as Sumatra. You also forget that 9/11 ever happened and that it came from those areas where the drones are operating. To answer your silly question, if I knew my neighbor was attacking the biggest military power on Earth, I would MOVE OUT of that neighborhood. If I chose to stay there, then I would be digging a big bomb shelter like we did back in the bad old days of the Cold War. I sure as hell would not blame any power for seeking to kill the people who are attacking the US.

      If you put a machine gun on top of a hospital and shoot at planes, you have NO grounds for being upset that the hospital gets bombed. In FACT it is the ones who put the machine gun there who is responsible for any casualties, NOT the planes.

  14. “We don’t have a domestic spying program.” -Obama

    Remember those words.

  16. Ah, Nal. Thanks. So it was baaaassssstards* that was hanging it up. Will this do it?

    “This, alas, is some of what results from the unthinking adulation of the troops. This is a product of the steady militarization of our national political pageant and of our large national spectacles, especially the sporty ones. (If she were alive today, Leni Riefenstahl would be working for NFL Films.) There has been an unhealthy suspension of democratic skepticism in this very important area.

    That being said, these revelations are going explode in a lot of directions. (If I had to bet a decent longshot, I’d say this story will get folded into the fauxtrage about the WWII Memorial as an example of how the press, those liberal baaaassssstards*, hate the troops.) Landay has earned the benefit of a couple hundred doubts. This is a helluva piece of work.” -Charles Pierce (refer to his Esquire piece, if interested)

    (…baaaasssstards* is my doing… Will WP accept?)

  19. anonymously posted,

    The four words that are forbidden:

    b-word (female dog)
    b-word (child of unmarried parents)
    f-word
    a-word (everyone has one, not an opinion)

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