Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

NCTC Gets Vast Powers To Spy On U.S. Citizens

Posted by timothy on from the so-full-of-hope-for-change dept.

interval1066 writes "In a breathtaking new move by (another) little-known national security agency, the personal information of all U.S. citizens will be available for casual perusal. The 'National Counterterrorism Center' (I've never heard of this org) may now 'examine the government files of U.S. citizens for possible criminal behavior, even if there is no reason to suspect them.' This is different from past bureaucratic practice (never mind due process) in that a government agency not in the list of agencies approved to to certain things without due process may completely bypass due process and store (for up to 5 years) these records, the organization doesn't need a warrant, or have any kind of oversight of any kind. They will be sifting through these records looking for 'counter-insurgency activity,' supposedly with an eye to prevention. If this doesn't wake you up and chill you to your very bone, not too sure there is anything that will anyway."

8 of 332 comments (clear)

  1. Unconstitutional by kc67 · · Score: 5, Funny

    With enough media attention this will be shut down.

    1. Re:Unconstitutional by netwarerip · · Score: 2, Funny

      With enough media attention this will be shut down.

      I would love to mod this funny but am out of points.

    2. Re:Unconstitutional by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      Well they did takes steps to stop illegal warrantless wiretapping: they made it legal.

  2. Hey, hey gauise... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    Remember when people were screaming that Bush was the root of all evil? How's that whole Obama thing working out for you.

    1. Re:Hey, hey gauise... by lgw · · Score: 3, Funny

      I was tired of voting for the lesser of two evils, so I intended to vote Cthulhu. Since he wasn't on the ticket, I voted for Rosanne Barr, which amounts to the same thing.

      --
      Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
  3. In other news... by dpilot · · Score: 3, Funny

    They're banning loud sound in commercials today. Feed the sheeple, maybe they won't notice the NCTC, then.

    --
    The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
  4. Re:Fully Immersive Entertainment by dkleinsc · · Score: 5, Funny

    For the next incarnation of the government I vote we model it after something a little less dystopian, like Star Trek.

    At this point, I might be OK with strange women lying in ponds distributing swords.

    --
    I am officially gone from /. Long live http://www.soylentnews.com/
  5. What's Good For The Goose... by BlueStrat · · Score: 3, Funny

    ...Is good for the gander, right?

    We're on a site full of nerds and geeks, right?

    Start a distributed "People's Database" built on some of the same general principles as 'Freenet and TOR meets WikiLeaks and encrypted I2P'. Locate any vulnerable storage/control (although such system weaknesses should be minimized or eliminated) in a country that ignores US chest-thumping and threats.

    Collect every bit of data possible about government agencies, personnel, and activities. Use FOIA requests to get things like traffic-cam and security-cam data to aid in tracking individual movements. Build dossiers on every government employee, bureaucrat, and official, their movements/travel, any communications that can be acquired, dossiers on their families, associates/friends, financial/purchase/CC data, web histories, biometric data, anything and everything.

    Let's pitch-in to help them with that whole "transparency" thing.

    They seem like they could really, really use the help.

    Strat

    --
    Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.