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The NSA: Never Not Watching
Trailrunner7 writes "For many observers of the privacy and surveillance landscape, the revelation by The Guardian that the FBI received a warrant from the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to require Verizon to turn over to the National Security Agency piles of call metadata on all calls on its network probably felt like someone telling them that water is wet. There have been any number of signals in the last few years that this kind of surveillance and data collection was going on, little indications that the United States government was not just spying on its own citizens, but doing so on a scale that would dwarf anything that all but the most paranoid would imagine." And now the Obama administration has defended the practice as a "critical tool."
Not only is the Executive branch in favor, but there's strong bipartisan support in the Legislative branch: immediately after this leak, both parties' ranking members on the Senate Intelligence Committee (Dianne Feinstein for the Democrats, Saxby Chambliss for the Republicans) held a press conference to defend the necessity of this kind of dragnet surveillance, and to claim that it's not a big deal since it's "just" metadata.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
As someone who frequently gets accused of having the tinfoil hat on a little snug, this is pretty much the worst case scenario.
"We're going to monitor everything, and maybe we'll get lucky" -- and how long before the technology progresses to the point that they can come back and say "hey, we see from phone records you called this alleged drug dealer 5 years ago, so we'll be charging you".
If this isn't about as Orwellian as you can get, I don't know what would be. Give up all your freedoms so we can make sure you keep your freedom is a joke -- Freedom is Slavery, War is Peace.
America is quickly ceasing to be free. And I'm pretty sure this doesn't pass Constitutional muster -- everything nowadays is driven by "we have an opinion which says this is ok, so we're going to do it".
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
In this case, the "critical tools" are Obama, Eric Holder, or who-ever is behind this large-scale invasion of privacy. I know plenty of people (mostly liberals) complained when the warrant-less wiretaps happened under Bush. It appears that these are considerably larger in scope.
You should be a lot more afraid of the government than of terrorists. Your probability of being affected by a terrorist attack is approximately zero (odds of being killed by terrorists are about one in 20 million for Americans). Your probability of being affected by your government is approximately one.
[Sir Garlon] is the marvellest knight that is now living, for he destroyeth many good knights, for he goeth invisible.
I'm a progressive. Not in the rebranded liberal sense, but in the T. Roosevelt, get your government and big business out of my business or I'll kick your ass sense. I don't oppose Obama because I'm a reflexive Tea Party guy who ridiculously, famously, calls him a muslim and radical Christian, socialist and fascist, at the same time.
But the US government is beyond out of control. Elections don't matter. Courts don't matter. The press is as much the problem, as the problem itself. Every peaceful avenue for reform and redress has been shut off or co-opted. Meanwhile, the thieving classes, meaning the 1%, are doubling down on their behavior thinking that no one in the 99% will ever hold them to account.
That means the clock is ticking for an American Spring. We are not hapless, disarmed Libyans. We are heavily armed Americans who have been raised from birth to believe we have a God-given right to be free. Those in the army are our brothers, sisters, and cousins. They are us. So if the 1% truly believe that they'll simply follow orders and drop napalm on the neighborhoods where their friends and family live, then they are due for an extremely rude awakening.
Go ahead, 1%'ers, move all your wealth to the British Virgin Islands and secrete yourselves there. Much good it will do you. Justice is coming, it's coming very soon, and you have a giant target painted on your ass.
YMMV
Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
Because telling Bin Laden
Everybody of significance involved in planning 9/11 is dead, at least those listed by the non-redacted portion of the 9/11 Commission Report.
What's going on now is not that. Maybe we should be asking what it is, exactly?
According to some, it's a hunt for every person in the world who may not in the future submit to the will of the US Government. War without End, in other words.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
or you'll get audited by the IRS
or you'll have OSHA drop by
or you'll have the NLRB prevent you from opening an office in another state...
The regulatory power of the executive is enough of a threat.
"They were even advised that seeking a lawyer's advice before complying would be a crime."
I would love to see how that would play out in court.
No matter where you go, there you are.
The ultimate goal of any police state is merely to justify more spending and expand the business of government. Power and control are merely the stepping stones to riches, not a goal in itself. Many people have trouble accepting this, because they focus on the injustice and assume that injustice is the goal. Or they focus on the power and control and assume that power and control are the goals. Or they focus on the failures and assume that the "intentions" are correct but the "implementation" is wrong.
On the contrary, intentions are the smokescreen, power is the stepping stone, injustice is the "collaterage damage", and money is the goal.
At a certain level, yes. But that is not the top level. Do you think a Rockefeller wants more money? Once you have multi-billions, it's not about the money anymore; you couldn't go broke if you tried. Once you're in the upper echelon it is very much about power and control. Haven't you ever wanted to remake the world as you see fit? There are some who operate at that level.
"What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public." -Ray Zalinsky (Tommy Boy)
I work for a phone company. You are VERY wrong. The fines for us releasing this kind of information without a warrent are so serious that many people that I work with refuse to take positions where they have access to this kind of data. One poorly written SQL query and you're getting walked out the door. We're talking hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines for even small infractions.
The ECPA also added new provisions prohibiting access to stored electronic communications
*snip*
The 'electronic communication' means any transfer of signs, signals, writing, images, sounds, data, or intelligence of any nature transmitted in whole or in part by a wire, radio, electromagnetic, photoelectronic or photooptical system that affects interstate or foreign commerce
*snip*
Title II of the ECPA, the Stored Communications Act (SCA), protects communications held in electronic storage, most notably messages stored on computers.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_Communications_Privacy_Act
The information the NSA is collecting is the data portion of your conversation.
This is clearly a violation of the 4th amendment.