Reread EO [On Topic!]

TC, you are again to be congratulated on the fine
craftmanship of Executive Orders. I just finished
re-reading it for the 4th or 5th time, and was as much
entertained as I was the first time. I knew how it came
out, but still found myself staying up late past my bedtime
reading it. Its still a page-turner....

A question or two:
You mention that the source and destination numbers of
every every phone call in the DC area is recorded--whether
domestic or long distance. Is this true? Where's the
documentation on this? As a plot device, this is how Pat
Martin found out that Aref Raman was a sleeper agent on
the Presidential Detail. But EO is the only place I've ever
seen any mention of this. Does anyone have any info about
this?

Why were there no subs in the Indian Ocean when
Task Force Comedy was formed? Certainly there
must be some US sub presence there or in the
Persian Gulf at all times. The Indian Navy could've
been kept at bay by single sub sticking its periscope
out of the water at an opportune moment. I know
that Jonesy and Mancuso were on the beach, but
surely there would be a new team to run the USS Dallas.
Whats the sailing time from the Taiwan Straits to
the Persian Gulf? Couldn't one of the subs monitoring
the PRC war games be detached for this--especially
after the CVN arrived?

Why were there no A10's in the action outside of
KKMC? Some of these have been forward-deployed
to Kuwait since DS1, and these pilots would've been
exempt from the quarantine. Even a single squadron
would've made short work of the UIR ground forces.
[A10's are my favorite airplane--I know they're obsolete,
but they look cool.]

There are always plenty of military forces in Hawaii,
including SpecOps units. Why were none of these
sent to Saudi? They too would've been exempt from
the quarantine. Any Marine forces that were out at
sea before and during the bio war would also be
exempt from the the quarantine. I suspect that the
Marines could've raised at least a brigade out of
exempt forces.

Anyone wanna comment?


Chris

"Chris Vail" <cvail RemoveThis @NOT_THIS.airmail.net> wrote in message
news:cookok$ufc@library2.airnews.net...
 > TC, you are again to be congratulated on the fine
 > craftmanship of Executive Orders. I just finished
 > re-reading it for the 4th or 5th time, and was as much
 > entertained as I was the first time. I knew how it came
 > out, but still found myself staying up late past my bedtime
 > reading it. Its still a page-turner....
 >
 > A question or two:
 > You mention that the source and destination numbers of
 > every every phone call in the DC area is recorded--whether
 > domestic or long distance. Is this true? Where's the
 > documentation on this? As a plot device, this is how Pat
 > Martin found out that Aref Raman was a sleeper agent on
 > the Presidential Detail. But EO is the only place I've ever
 > seen any mention of this. Does anyone have any info about
 > this?
 >

The source and destination number of every
phone call from everywhere is recorded, as a matter
of fact. It's how the phone company knows who
called who and how much to bill them. Even
when the calls are "free" to the subscriber, there
are still internal costs that need to be accounted for.
I spend at least an hour every day looking at
several hundred cellular call records as part of
my job. There are about 50 separate information
fields on each record. Like anything else, they can be
subpoenaed.

A land line record is a little simpler than a cellular
record, but equally obtainable when legally
required. I'd suspect the only real difference in the
DC area is a longer retention time.
--
Jack
<a style='text-decoration: underline;' href="http://jtmcdaniel.com" target="_blank">http://jtmcdaniel.com</a><!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->