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Today's NY Times (Dec 24) has a story that shouldn't surprise Sunbelt
folks. Seems like the US Nationul Securty Ag is analyzing communication
patterns to gather clues on who is calling whom, and origins/destinations
of phone calls and emails.

NYT calls this "large data mining operation" "pattern analysis" in quotes.

Sounds like SNA to me.
I heard 2 years ago that the NS Ay had an "Office of Social Network
Analysis," I've met spooks from different agencies at the Sunbelt in the
past few years (including a few non-Americans).

It would be nice if this could be a public service. For example, who did
CHaney call when setting energy prices; who called the Bin-Ls when they
left the US in a hurry right after 9/11?

Speaking of energy and oil; tomorrow is the first day of Chanukkah, when
unlike the US, the Maccabees made the oil last 8 times longer.

Have a nice holiday!
 Barry
 _____________________________________________________________________

  Barry Wellman         Professor of Sociology        NetLab Director
  wellman at chass.utoronto.ca  http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~wellman

  Centre for Urban & Community Studies          University of Toronto
  455 Spadina Avenue    Toronto Canada M5S 2G8    fax:+1-416-978-7162
	     To network is to live; to live is to network
 _____________________________________________________________________

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