Metadata is more revealing than you’d think, that’s because voice content is hard to process. The National Security Agency could quickly drown itself, if it had too much voice content.
Not a bad idea, but I digress.
On the other hand, metadata and computer analysis are perfect for each other. And the more metadata, the better the analysis.
Metadata is information about who we are and the relationships between us. Collecting all the records of everyone in the U.S is like a map filled with push-pins and string showing who we’re connected too, how, why, where and why.
For example: You call your doctor and talk to him or her for five minutes, and then you call your local pharmacy and speak with the clerk for two minutes. Next you get in your vehicle and go to the pharmacy, and using your debit card pay for a tube of Valacyclovir.
Those three events, though seemingly benign, are now recorded.
A computer can analyze who you called, for how long, where you went, what you bought, how much you paid and it extrapolates — you have a disease. The information is then targeted and routed to the Internal Revenue Service and downloaded into your medical records.
By the way, the medicine you bought — Valacyclovir is an antiviral medicine used to treat genital herpes. Jus’ what you want your friendly, neighborhood IRS agent to know.
It comes down to behavior patterns and groupings, and that makes it more insidious than actually having someone eavesdrop on our most intimate conversations. If you hold to the “six-degrees of separation” theory, you are only six mouse-clicks away from a terrorist.
On the upside, you’re also six people away from knowing Kevin Bacon, too.
The Old Blog in the Desert 
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