[quoting someone else]
>> You'll never see it but you can bet that all kinds of pattern
>> analysis is taking place to discover which of us are communist err
>> ah I mean Democrats.
> Can't they get that kind of information much more simply by looking
> at voter registration records? Legally, even? Is the fact that I
> voted in the Republicrat primary rather than the Demican one public
> information? When primary time comes around, I get a lot more
> propaganda from candidates in the party primary that I last voted in
> than ones from the other party.
That specific information, yes, they can get much more easily from voter records, which are public information. In fact, if you put your unlisted telephone number on your voter registration -- at least in California -- your telephone number is now in the open public record. Very few people seem to realize that the phone number is optional on the voter registration form. I changed my registration to show my number as 415-555-1234, but the bastards matched my registration to other records and called me anyway. I'll save the rant about how the supposed "do not call" registry exempts political campaigns for another day, though.
Anyway, there are much more nefarious things the current administration in power -- whether that's the Republicans right now or the Democrats at some point in the future -- can hunt for in this kind of data. I heard a sound bite yesterday about trying to track down who is leaking information to journalists by analysing this kind of calling data. The Bush administration would not hesitate to claim such a purpose as "fighting al Qaeda," but I and others disagree.
The government has a history of abusing precisely this kind of ability. They ask me to trust that they will only use it for the common good, and I say no way.
Linc Madison * San Francisco, California * snipped-for-privacy@suespammers.org * primary e-mail: Telecom at LincMad dot com Read my political blog, "The Third Path" DO NOT SEND UNSOLICITED E-MAIL TO THIS ADDRESS. You have been warned.