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Feds Warrantlessly Tracking Americans' Real Time Credit Card Activity
PatPending writes "A 10-page Powerpoint presentation (PDF) that security and privacy analyst Christopher Soghoian recently obtained through a Freedom of Information Act Request to the Department of Justice reveals that law enforcement agencies routinely seek and obtain real-time surveillance of credit card transactions. The government's guidelines reveal that this surveillance often occurs with a simple subpoena, thus sidestepping any Fourth Amendment protections."
We don't have privacy because we don't deserve it. We must accept that we are peasants to large financial institutions. They own our souls.
By the government, commercial data mining firms, and my employer. As Zuckerberg said, "There is no privacy in the modern world, Learn to live with it."
How does a subpoena violate the 4th amendment? Subpoenas are granted by a judge - that's exactly what the 4th amendment is meant to require.
By his own words, that guy meets all the requirements for a paranoid schizophrenic diagnosis. I had a girlfriend once who complained that her ex used to break into her house on a regular basis and inventory her underwear drawer. Logic dictates that the costs/benefits of paying a staff to do 24/7 harassment of an ex-employee just don't make sense.
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
And sadly none of that should have to be the norm for living free, and living in a country founded on liberty and privacy and mutual respect.
In another note, we've traced you through our subpoena to /. message databases, and we found your IP. I'd watch what you download, if I were you.
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
Business records aren't "papers"? Are you clinically retarded or just a Big Brother Lover? Business records is exactly the kind of thing the Founding Fathers were thinking about, not your collection of Japanese scat porn.
The records detailing the service provided by your credit card provider/bank should be just as private as the records of a business you run. The whole point of the 4th amendment is to stop Government fishing expeditions (by requiring evidence of probable cause) which is exactly what this is.
The only way you can defend this is if you are a short sighted fool who thinks unlimited surveillance by the Government is the only way to stop the terrorists taking your freedoms (at least this objective would be achieved as the terrorists wouldn't want your freedoms after the Government has left muddy boot prints all over them).
Also get back to me when politicians, police, and prosecutors give disclosure of their business records on request so the public can be sure they aren't taking money from criminal activity. Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
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CINC, 4th Penguin Legion
Well, the email log at my email provider is also owned by my email provider, not me. But I certainly consider the contents as private information.
And why do you think the AOL search scandal a scandal? The data was owned by AOL, but they still need to handle it confidentially.
Same with credit card transactions. I am pretty sure that they are private here in Denmark. I remember asking my bank about a transaction, and being told that the employees could only see the amount of the transactions, not the accompanying text.
As law abiding citizens we get sexually assaulted by the TSA, and have our privacy constantly violated by every 3 letter government parasite, and when we complain we are told that its all in the name of "Greater Good" and the ole Family Guy "Everything changed on 911..... EVERYTHING!!!", but when guy like Assange basically does what American news agencies do for ratings suddenly even the most staunch conservatives call for his head ignoring our own constitution and the international laws. Boooooooogles teh mind!
I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed or numbered. My life is my own.
Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
It is a falsehood to claim that because bad situation A is worse than unrelated bad situation B, that B is therefore acceptable. As you would be well aware if you had been falsely accused of anything.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.