Three Degrees of Separation from the NSA

If everyone is only six degrees of separation away from Kevin Bacon, according to the rules of the old game, how many degrees of separation do you think you are from a terrorist?  Officials at the NSA have admitted to a Congressional panel that they claim the prerogative to spy on everyone within three degrees of communicative separation from an individual they believe (with 51% certainty) may have a connection to some kind of terrorist activity.  That's a lot of people.  From the Guardian:

The National Security Agency revealed to an angry congressional panel on Wednesday that its analysis of phone records and online behavior goes exponentially beyond what it had previously disclosed.

John C Inglis, the deputy director of the surveillance agency, told a member of the House judiciary committee that NSA analysts can perform "a second or third hop query" through its collections of telephone data and internet records in order to find connections to terrorist organizations.

"Hops" refers to a technical term indicating connections between people. A three-hop query means that the NSA can look at data not only from a suspected terrorist, but from everyone that suspect communicated with, and then from everyone those people communicated with, and then from everyone all of those people communicated with.

Inglis did not elaborate, nor did the members of the House panel – many of whom expressed concern and even anger at the NSA – explore the legal and privacy implications of the breadth of "three-hop" analysis.

Source:http://blog.agupieware.com/2013/07/three-degrees-of-separation-from-nsa.html