More NSA Stuff

A detail in this post from Ars Technica, regarding a tip to ABC about getting new cell phones quick. It suggests the willingness to use intelligence resources for political purposes.

The post goes into some more technical detail about the likely sources the NSA is using, and quotes a William Arkin bit in the WaPo, listing some of the NSA's software tools. Here are the just the ones begining with the letters Ca- Ce.

• C2PC
• CADRE (Continuous Analysis and Discovery from Relational Evidence)
• CamStudio
• Camps
• Capri
• Carillon
• CART
• CASIAT (Computer Assisted Security Investigative Analysis Tool)
• Categorizer/Tree Studio
• CATEIS (Counterintelligence Automated Tactical Exploitation & Information Software)
• CCDB (Consolidated Counterdrug Data Base)
• CCIP (Counterterrorism Collaboration Interoperability Project)
• CCM
• Centrifuge
• CETA

(The comments of Isengard.gov's actual computer experts would be highly valued here too.)

From the Ars Technica post:

First up is a possible bombshell from two ABC news reporters that has been making the rounds of both sides of Blogland. The two reporters who originally broke the CIA secret prisons story state that they were told by a "senior federal law enforcement official" to change their cell phones, because the CIA has been tracking their calls as part of its ongoing leak investigation.

"It's time for you to get some new cell phones, quick," the source told us in an in-person conversation.

ABC News does not know how the government determined who we are calling, or whether our phone records were provided to the government as part of the recently-disclosed NSA collection of domestic phone calls.

Other sources have told us that phone calls and contacts by reporters for ABC News, along with the New York Times and the Washington Post, are being examined as part of a widespread CIA leak investigation.