Privacy

They do it, too!

   Surprise! Your phone logs are available to police and government. Anyone who watches the Law & Order TV series knows cops do this all the time, and can track how many calls were made from number X to number Y  on any given day or week, and how long each call lasted. This is not to say they monitor the content, and listen in on who said what to whom. Such monitoring (supposedly) requires a warrant from a court. Even so, it's done, as is the hacking into email and other electronic communication. The defense is that such tactics are needed during investigations.
   Similar arguments are used in defense of international tracking of communication logs of political leaders worldwide. The latest media storm is over allegations that the U.S. government is doing this to leaders of other governments, including Germany, France, Spain, Brazil and others.
   This latest revelation comes after the news that Washington has been tracking the phone records of major American telecommunications companies for years., in the name of looking for patterns of communication among known or potential terrorists.
   It seems that telecoms routinely allow investigators access to millions upon millions of communication records. Supposedly without listening in or monitoring the content, but only looking for patterns.
   So far, such tracking has been legal, at least in the U.S. In other countries, however, privacy laws are much more strict, and such tactics are illegal. And legal in one country doesn't always mean legal in another.

   The issue, then, is not whether communication monitoring is being done, but should it be done.