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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."
It's what authorizes legitimate government. Anyone think this is authorized? 4th amendment? Anyone?
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
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.
If our government believes throwing out the Constitution is what it takes to protect our nation from terrorist threats, I'm less scared of the terrorists than I am of the government.
In SOVIET RUSSIA... erm...NSA AMERICA, the Internet logs onto YOU!
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.
Metadata isn't data - it's data about your data. So it's not really subject to protection, because it's not what you're doing, it's information about what you're doing. It's not an illegal search, because we just want to know about what you're doing, not what you're actually doing. OK?
It's not like we're listening in on your calls, we're just watching to whom and when you call. I mean, it's not like we're doing a database join to find out who's on the other end of the call. That would be an invasion of your privacy. It's just their phone number, IMEI, network identifier, and the start/end geopoints. That's OK. I mean if your parents were at home they could see your phone bill and see who you called too. So we're like your parents that way. We would't give that data to another agency either. Well, unless they asked for it. But they probably won't do that.
So you see, you really have nothing to worry about. It's not a violation of your rights, it's a strengthening of your rights. Because like other government agencies, we only have your best interests at heart. Well other agencies that aren't the IRS. But you know what I mean.
they joined the Verizon Share Everything plan.
This large scale surveillance bullshit has been so useful against terrorism that nothing happened in Boston.
They've built something which is demonstrably (unable || unwilling) to do its job.
Whatever they say its job is.
And now the Obama administration has defended the practice as a "critical tool."
I might be willing to believe that if they would explain what they are doing and why and do so like we are all adults. Instead we get nonsense like the TSA claiming that someone is somehow going to blow up a plane with 4oz of liquid but it would be too dangerous to actually explain and details of this improbable threat to our safety. Frankly I just don't find their explanations (when they bother to provide them) satisfactory and so I'm forced to conclude that they are not acting in manner consistent with appropriate respect for my civil rights.
If there is a genuine threat out there I expect our government to explain what they are doing and why in terms that a reasonable adult can understand. I'm willing to extend some amount of trust to our elected leaders but that trust has very sharp limits and is contingent on continued evidence that they are behaving in a rational and respectful manner. I've seen rather little of that in recent days.
Finally, the truth wins out. All of us "gun lovers" have been trying to tell everyone that Dianne Feinstein is anti-freedom, anti-civil-rights, ant-privacy, and anti-American.
Of course they're bored stiff. That's not the point. My boring life is my own. I'm no man's slave; no man's property. Yet with so much surveillance over people, control becomes possible. We become an increasingly servile state as we become a police and surveillance state. Not because we're necessarily doing anything wrong, but precisely because we are watched. The whole world becomes Foucault's panopticon.
"You've grown up hearing voices that incessantly warn of government as nothing more than some separate, sinister entity that's at the root of all our problems," Obama said. "You should reject these voices. Because what these suggest is that somehow our brave, creative, unique experiment in self-rule is just a sham with which we can't be trusted."
Got Code?
Some news sources have speculated that this program was related to the Boston Marathon Bombing. However The Washington Post sys that
... the order appears to be a routine renewal of a similar order first issued by the same court in 2006. The expert, who spoke on the condition
of anonymity to discuss sensitive issues, said that the order is reissued routinely every 90 days and that it is not related to any particular investigation by the FBI or any other agency.
This particular order was classified as Top Secret/NoForn/SI. The routine nature of the order was likewise highly classified.
Ordinary people-- those not initiated into the orders of nobility associated with "clearances"-- cannot select their government based on real, verifiable information. They have no means to judge the effectiveness, or lack of effectiveness of their political candidates. Instead, they must have faith that their government is either incompetent, or competent.
Do you believe that your government is doing its best to protect you? Surely its effectiveness would be diminished if carefully guarded secrets like this got out, and were use by enemies of the nation and of the state?
Do you believe that the government is doing its best to cynically exploit the security apparatus for its own political benefit? Surely this is but the tip of the iceberg. Were it not for classification, the entire enterprise would be exposed as a cesspool of corruption and criminality.
But in the absence of good solid, reliable data, both of these viewpoints can be freely adopted by any voter who chooses to have an opinion on the matter. Instead of a mass of peoples carefully using their judgements to select the good leaders over the bad, the entire electorate, kept in ignorance, has been reduced to flipping coins.
Government, it seems, is to important to be left to the governed.
I would like to ask that before anybody goes off on a pseudo-rage rant about this.... Take just a second and read about what must be done in order to use FISA data in a criminal prosecution of a US citizen.
Not that this whole situation is trivial... It's just not really as bad as some FUD mongers are making it out to be.
Ok FUD is dead. It's been so overused that it has no meaning - meaning, FUD is used as an implicit ad hominem now. OK?
Also,
Take just a second and read about what must be done in order to use FISA data in a criminal prosecution of a US citizen
Like what?!?
We have seen over the last few years the SCOTUS back up the cops just about every time. Ask me when they didn't, and I'd be hard pressed to find an example. For cases of where they OKay'd what the cops did just requires hitting the Slashdot "older" articles button at the bottom there.
We need to get into out heads that we need - MUST- question authority EVERY time and hold their feet to the fire.
Ask them WHY are you doing what you are doing and JUSTIFY IT.
Blanket statements of "War on Drugs" or War on Terrorism" or "THink of the Children" CANNOT and MUST NOT be an excuse.
Speaking as someone who voted for Obama - I am PISSED!
And to head off the "YOu should have voted for Romney" guys - Fuck you! It would be more of the same times 911. I was HOPING that the BLACK dude would stick to the MAN but he IS the MAN.
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.
This has been going on at least since 2005 and its more than just phone call records - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A
"Room 641A is located in the SBC Communications building at 611 Folsom Street, San Francisco, three floors of which were occupied by AT&T before SBC purchased AT&T.[1] The room was referred to in internal AT&T documents as the SG3 [Study Group 3] Secure Room. It is fed by fiber optic lines from beam splitters installed in fiber optic trunks carrying Internet backbone traffic[3] and, as analyzed by J. Scott Marcus, a former CTO for GTE and a former adviser to the FCC, has access to all Internet traffic that passes through the building, and therefore "the capability to enable surveillance and analysis of internet content on a massive scale, including both overseas and purely domestic traffic. Former director of the NSA’s World Geopolitical and Military Analysis Reporting Group, William Binney, has estimated that 10 to 20 such facilities have been installed throughout the United States.[2]"
Those who can, do. Those who cannot, sue.
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 believe the puppet on the left shares MY beliefs, well i believe the puppet on the right has My interests at heart...hey wait a minute, there is one guy working both puppets!"..Bill Hicks.
Can we PLEASE just accept that the whole "left versus right" thing is nothing but kayfabe to give the sheep the illusion of choice? I mean why do you think Obama kept ALL the crap about Bush that the left hated? because its the same corporate masters behind the curtain pulling the strings, he was told to STFU and read the cue cards and play his part. Ventura said being a politician was no different than wrestling, you pretend to hate the guy while the camera rolls and when it stops you have lunch together. Why do you think Goldman Sachs has stayed in control of the fed no matter if there is a D or R in the white house? Why do you think the press drums up and pushes the hell out of "issues' like gay rights when most don't give a fat fuck about that either way? because these things the corps don't give a fat fuck about either, so no matter what the population chooses it won't affect them.
So can we PLEASE finally end the lie that voting is gonna do jack shit in a two party system? Obama kept every bit of the jack booted bullshit dubya started and then some, and no matter whom you "choose" (which is in and of itself a scam, look up "Jon Stewart Ron Paul" to see how many hoops the press went through just to make sure that Paul had no chance during the primary, or the behind the scenes video Alex Jones got of the RNC where the outcome of the voice vote shows up on the prompter BEFORE the vote was called) all you are gonna get is coke in a can versus coke in a bottle, only pre-approved corporate shills need apply.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.