If You Know Someone Who Knows Someone

According to a recent New York Times article, telecommunications companies supplied FBI phone records investigations with community-of-interest information until 2005. This means that if you were associated in nearly any way with a terror suspect, your name could be included on an investigation list. The article states that the investigations were limited to “once-removed” contacts, though in many instances names and records would appear on national security letters but were “not necessarily the actual subject of a terrorism investigation and may not [have been] suspected at all.”

This is scary for several reasons.

Telecommunications companies have a history cooperating with the government and have been rewarded for it (think deregulation of monopolies). It is not surprising that they have supplied the FBI with community-of-interest information. However, telecommunication companies have been gathering this information for years. Why do these companies need to keep track of our personal social networks?

If the FBI investigates once-removed contacts now, what’s to stop them from investigating twice-removed contacts? Given that everyone can generally be linked socially in six degrees or less (especially Kevin Bacon), wouldn’t that mean that nearly everyone belongs to a terrorist’s community-of-interest?

Once your name is associated with a national security threat, it is nearly impossible to rid yourself of the stigma. This has many repercussions, not limited to professional, financial, and travel complications.

No bueno.