Slashdot Mirror
Majority of Americans Say NSA Phone Tracking Is OK To Fight Terrorism
An anonymous reader writes "While the tech media has gone wild the past few days with the reports of the NSA tracking Verizon cell usage and creating the PRISM system to peer into our online lives, a new study by Pew Research suggests that most U.S. citizens think it's okay. 62 percent of Americans say losing some personal privacy is acceptable as long as its used to fight terrorism, and 56 percent are okay with the NSA tracking phone calls. Online tracking is fair less popular however, with only 45 percent approving of the practice. The data also shows that the youth are far more opposed to curtailing privacy to fight terror, which could mean trouble for politicians planning to continue these programs in the coming years."
It's not true!
That the majority of the public are short term thinking morons?
It doesn't matter whether or not all that has been claimed of PRISM is true, they are happy to give up privacy and freedoms if it "helps fight terrorism"
This shows that 62% of Americans surveyed are morons and 56% of Americans have no clue how invasive this project is.
Stupidity at its finest - give'em bread and circuses and they will do exactly what you want...
Captcha: bewitch
The majority of Americans (1) don't understand the extent of the surveillance, and (2) don't understand why privacy is so important.
I totally believe this poll.
This article says that 70% of Americans don't know what the constitution is: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1368482/How-ignorant-Americans-An-alarming-number-U-S-citizens-dont-know-basic-facts-country.html
When you ask the right people the right question, you'll always get the right answer. "Majority of Americans", really? There is no way they managed to poll all voting Americans in this study.
Crimey
Click bait for the countless 14-yo libertarians who infest these boards.
What about the 14-yo non-libertarians who whine that there are countless 14-yo libertarians on Slashdot?
And who be just OUTRAGED, that somebody dared to point out that the government is the collective will of the people, and may actually have our interests and safety as their core mission
Collective will or no, the government isn't supposed to violate the constitution; the majority do not and should not have absolute power, and neither should the government. Individual rights need to be protected, and I probably couldn't even be considered a libertarian.
Most people are weak and prefer not to think about "bad things", and prefer security with freedom, they would not know what to do with it if they would have some...
This said it would be interesting to ask the same questions in the following way:
Assuming that of the two leading parties the one you like least has the majority in senat and house of representative, and presidential powers.
Would you agree to warrent-less investigations of phones calls, emails, instant messages, social network posting, microblogging posting, private forum messages in order to fight terrorism is:
- a good thing
- necessary
- undecided
- useless
- bad for the society
- where is my second amendment demonstrator !
No mention of when this most recently was conducted. I imagine most peoples' attitude was "Well, I know they aren't tracking me, I do nothing wrong (or bad enough)." I have a feeling that more people are starting to wake up to the fact that it doesn't matter if they did anything or not, they are under 24 hour surveillance.
Opinion poll can be easily be 'lead' into a specific conclusion.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0ZZJXw4MTA
You can strongly influence the result of questionnaire by using leading questions.
For example:
o Do you believe it's OK for the government to track and monitor private citizens email and phone calls so they can fight terrorism?
vs.
o Do you believe it's OK for the government to track and monitor private citizens email and phone calls?
The general population has been more or less brainwashed to give up their rights as soon as the phrase "fight terrorism" or "war on terror" is used.
--- Reality doesn't care about your opinions, it happens anyway and if you are in the way you'll get squished.
Know nothing of history.
... the first time someone commented re: PRISM and other NSA directives, along the lines of, "Whatever, as long as it prevents another 9/11!" Now that it's been a few more days, I'm starting to break the habit of facepalming. We as a nation are affirming our commitment to the implementation of a police state, in the name of preventing something that was already about as statistically impossible as getting hit by lightning while claiming your Powerball jackpot.
Inasmuch as this is the will of the majority and of the representatives in our Republic, you can bet I'll be claiming my winnings from within the safe confines of an OSHA-approved rubber suit.
Fer christ sake, more people die from nose hair complications than terrorism, what have we come to?
Most people fear things that are very unlikely to happen:
-Death from terrorism
-Death from oppressive government
We rant and shout with each other over which one is the bigger threat.
Meanwhile, most of us die from lack of proper personal health (diet, exercise, etc) or automobile wrecks, all of which are 100% within our ability to control.
Grammer Nazis - I mod you "troll" unless you actually add something on-topic. Yes, I know I have mispellings in my sig.
"Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
Benjamin Franklin
Just calling to see how that new-fangled "liberty" thing is working out for you?
Oh, you don't give a shit anymore?
Mind, people outside the US are also citizens (of their own nations). And they deserve some privacy also. Regarding only basic self-interest, maybe these people will be thinking twice before using US driven technologies...
Pew that study stinks.
My karma is not a Chameleon.
to purchase a little Temporary safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." -- Benjamin Franklin
This, this, a thousand times this.
I think that's because most of the prosecution under the BS Espionage act isn't very public. I think some celebrity should get sued by the government so that it would be written all over the popular trashy magazines... :)
Also opposed to curtailing privacy is loner computer nerds who fear their voracious appetite for kinky will be unveiled, many of whom are readers here.
That's the Daily Mail. It's a tabloid. Half of everything they say is made upi.
Use some common sense. If 70% of Americans didn't know what the constitution was, thhere wouldn't be so much a backlash evrytime someone mentions gun control.
Just like the Gallup poll that showed that 90% of Americans supported universal background checks, it takes a lot of mental gymnastics and creative verbiage to consider 550 people a "majority of Americans".
1004 people gives an error in determining the percentage response for the larger pool of "everyone in the USA" of 3.2%. Therefore a gap of more than 9.6% is statistically significant and reliable to indicate that there IS a gap and the majority accept tracking.
You would need to show that the sampling was biased toward those liable to accept or the wording was partisan and leading if you wish to call this study bullshit.
This makes me sick. If anything it only proves the Terrorism-Propaganda is working, now anytime the gov't wants to get something by the public, they strap a "for terrorism" label on it, and it flies right through. This is a sad time right now, I'm ashamed to be an "American" and sick that ANYONE could be complacent or accepting of this type of privacy intrusion.
is the lack of anything approaching a healthy reaction on a sufficiently large scale, by people, by officials, by media. Then you have the apologists for the current administration, and those who try to paint Snowden as some kind of traitor - many of them representatives of the US government (and notice my sardonic use of the word "representative"), and now this survey - I have seldom been more disgusted with my former country.
The government has been running a full-court press on the media and everyone else to get them to shut up and get in line. Yesterday there was a poll saying the exact opposite, like 59% saying the opposite across the partisan divide, and now magically it's the other way. I've been monitoring the blogs Left & Right and even Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh are tamping down since calling it a "coup d'etat" last week.
The government is scared at how nonpartisan the outrage has been. The Whitehouse and Congress are complicit in this all-out assault on the Constitution and the American Republic. They know that if they can cow the American people into swallowing this that they will then have carte blanche. But whether the people do swallow this or not, things go rapidly downhill from here.
And note, which party is in office is totally irrelevant here. The Republicans and Democrats have both been in on it.
I hug my family very close these days, because it's about to get very ugly and we all could lose everything.
Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
Seeing as you deserve to be modded down as a moron, I'm glad you aren't surprised.
The government stopped being about the will of the people as soon as corporations were allowed to buy laws...
Hush! Don't give the government its next pretext for an expansion of the police state! I can see it now: "nose hair complications are *deadlier than terrorism*"!
[Sir Garlon] is the marvellest knight that is now living, for he destroyeth many good knights, for he goeth invisible.
It's official then, it's not the land of the free anymore. Because if you don't want your freedom, you don't deserve it.
Oppressed people at least know that things should be different. They might lack the resources or resolve to fight the system right here and now, but they know things aren't right and just might stand up any moment.
The US, on the other hand - and to be honest, lots of the west - has become the worst kind of oppressive system, worse than 1984. The kind where the oppressed believe the lies they are told. Russians knew that Prawda wasn't telling them the truth. Way too many americans believe Fox does.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
Christians and Jews have done more to harm amerika than Muslims ever did. They're the ones we should be monitoring.
The article that you link to in the Daily Mail panders to a peculiar kind of 'stupid american' stereotype that we Brits cling to when we want to feel better about the end of empire and the decline of our military and industrial might. You could replace the questions with ones of similar obscurity from British history and get a similar set of responses from a random selection of British folk. Try going out onto any street in the UK and asking the yokels about the 1689 Bill of Rights. Or get them to point to the location of the Battle of Trafalgar / Waterloo / Balaclava on a map.
The average guy on the street is just as ignorant everywhere in the world.
Mission accomplished - brainwashing succeded.
Why are the government being so secretive? If they want to spy on everyone for the (supposed) benefit of the nation, then just say so. After all, "if you have nothing to fear, you have nothing to hide." Isnt that what they keep telling us?
Looking on the bright side of things, I believe that the opposition is far more angry than the supporters are enthusiastic. If there was massive protest against this, I find it hard to imagine a counter-demonstration supporting it.
The MSM is also doing their part to brainwash people into thinking it's all good. I don't watch TV, but I heard two stories on the radio this morning which were basically blowing the whole incident off and saying that public "might be" OK with this.
Well, as part of the minority, I'm at least going to be steadily e-mailing, calling and writing snail-mail to my elected asshats.
The story also suggested that certain members of Congress and the Senate were fully aware of this, but could not legally reveal the details. I'm trying to find out WHO exactly. Was it the entire intelligence committee in both houses? If your Rep or Senator was aware, maybe it's time for a recall? Or maybe have them arrested by the state police?
Well, did it?
READY.
PRINT ""+-0
So... the needs of the many outweigh the rights of the few?
No, the desires of the few (1%) outweigh the rights of the many (99%).
Is what it really comes down to. The older they get the more Americans want a "dad" or "mom" to take care of them. OMFG terrorists! Their chances of winning Lotto are better. Add in that older people remember a time when the government was preceived as "more trustworthy" (true or not) and you get these types of results. Not to disparrage Pew, but I have also seen surveys leaning slightly the other way. The real figure is probably a pretty even split.
The government can have access ... IF they have probable cause that you are involved in criminal activity AND they obtain a warrant precisely describing what information they want to seize.
They CANNOT just copy all of your personal data and save it for future use.
We fought a revolution partly because we didn't want the government to be able to arbitrarily spy on innocent people and the Fourth Amendment clearly elaborates this prohibitions on government.
Privacy is not a universal value. Different cultures have different notions of privacy. In some places, people use the toilet with the door open. In some other places, anonymous feedback is frowned upon, and people want to take responsibility for their criticism. :D
Slashdot must be completely detached from reality: the average person wants to be famous, voluntarily puts their entire life on Facebook etc.
People's lives are all the same and extremely boring. If you can't understand this, it's because you've never spied on people
Whenever I stumble upon people complaining about targeted advertising etc... I'm like... have these people never lived in a traditional place, bought their stuff at a traditional grocer, who knows everything about you and your parents and grandparents etc.?
Have you never lived in a small town where everybody knows each other? You do realize that is the norm, right?
Most cities are small, and truly large cities are an artifact of mechanized agriculture, having become widespread only in the past 50 years or so.
When you ask yourself, "Who watches the watchers?", do you not realize that you, yourself, are also a watcher? And that it is only by watching each other that social norms are enforced, so we don't descend into barbarity and chaos? Ever noticed how the anonymity of a rioting mob compounds upon itself and leads to more and more vandalism and looting? I could go on. Freedom is an illusion. You can only be truly free of obligations if you can isolate yourself from society and be totally self-sufficient. Which is not how normal people work.
Well, looks like its time to move.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
Actually the government always required a warrant to monitor communications, even under the Patriot act. That's what the Fisa court is for....in fact the Patriot act was amended when abuses were found to ensure warrants were obtained and that only terrorist related communications and not all communications monitored.
So your post is wrong.
It's rare that I quote a famous figure, as so often it's cliche to the point of deserving a cluebat-induced coma. However, I think this quote from Sam Adams accurately describes the state of America (better than the famous Franklin quote so often cited here) and how so many would sacrifice their rights to ensure their happy consumerist lifestyles:
It's very simple. Just make sure no American teenager studies the Constitution or their rights in school.
I conclude then that the majority of Americans are idiotic sheeple willing to give up their freedoms for only a small amount of security in return. I'm reminded of the saying, "Those that would willingly give up liberty for secure deserve none and get neither." That is somewhat paraphrased but you get the gist.
In 2011 this was ruled illegal by the FISC court, and they kept the ruling secret and did it anyway:
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/06/government-says-secret-court-opinion-law-underlying-prism-program-needs-stay
"the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC), the Justice Department today urged continued secrecy for a 2011 FISC opinion that found the National Security Agency's surveillance under the FISA Amendments Act to be unconstitutional. Significantly, the surveillance at issue was carried out under the same controversial legal authority that underlies the NSA’s recently-revealed PRISM program."
So the secret court designed to decide what was legal, said this was illegal. They kept the ruling secret and did it anyway.
When it comes to rights, you can't use public opinion polls. The Bill of Rights is designed to protect the minority from the majority. Phone tracking is not a threat to most people. The government has no reason to be concerned with them. But the few who are a concern have the right to live their lives without unnecessary oversight from the government.
That's why the number for online tracking is less popular.
"Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that."
- George Carlin (1937 - 2008)
Let me guess. This was asked of 1000 people at 14.00 on a Tuesday in the advertisements between Maury Povich and Americas Next Flop, right?
Finally had enough. Come see us over at https://soylentnews.org/
"Collecting records is not the same as targeting specific individuals"
Collecting records without a warrant is CLEARLY prohibited by The U.S. Constitution, Amendment #4. You're suggesting that it's OK from them to copy all of your hard drives and scan every piece of paper in your home is OK as long as they promise not to look at it without a warrant. Nonsense. The collection IS the violation.
Every elected or appointed official that knew about this and every government employee who participated should be investigated and prosecuted for treason.
This is the headtitle of some European editorials.
For the younger people: Stasi (Staatssicherheit) archived "information" on *everybody* in former DDR.
1 on 50 in former DDR was linked to Stasi as one of 90000 employees or 200000 informants.
Half of American households make $50520 or less a year. When my household was below median income, I know we had bigger things to worry about than privacy. It may be important but it isn't pressing for most people.
This comment is originally from Daniel Ellsberg...sorry to answer my own post.
I was one of those who was surveyed. I am happy to report that in this case I was one of the minority - in fact, I'd say this level of invasion is akin to terrorism itself, in that many are terrified that this egregious act of domestic espionage is only the tip of a very large iceberg.
For conscience is the wound, and there's naught to staunch it
The article that you link to in the Daily Mail panders to a peculiar kind of 'stupid american' stereotype that we Brits cling to when we want to feel better about the end of empire and the decline of our military and industrial might.
I'm surprised that a majority of Slashdotters are British. The 'stupid American' thing is very popular here too.
You could replace the questions with ones of similar obscurity from British history and get a similar set of responses from a random selection of British folk. Try going out onto any street in the UK and asking the yokels about the 1689 Bill of Rights. Or get them to point to the location of the Battle of Trafalgar / Waterloo / Balaclava on a map.
IIRC I have seen such polls. Could they also have been Daily Mail stories?
P.S. I confess to not knowing about the Battle of Balaclava. It sounds confusingly like the Battle of Baklava, but everybody fights over the last piece.
First they came for the terrorists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a terrorist.
Then they came for the criminals,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a criminal.
Then they came for me,
and there was no one left to speak for me.
I probably couldn't even be considered a libertarian
But are you 14? If so I'm glad they're still teaching Americans about the Bill of Rights.
And it wouldn't make it Constitutionally appropriate or legal. Luckily the Constitution serves to limit the powers from the Government. Secondly it also serves to other citizens who would seek to limit or impinge on the liberties framed in the Constitution from doing so. Our founding fathers knew how easily coerced people are.
If 70% of Americans didn't know what the constitution was, thhere wouldn't be so much a backlash evrytime someone mentions gun control.
[citation very much needed]
The urge to bear arms does not equate intimate knowledge of the constitution. That shouldn't be necessary to explain, but apparently it is.
Years ago we would call this communism. Strange how language changes. Orwell would be proud.
Wuddooeyeno? IITYWYBMAD? Like nuts? eclecticallyincorrect.com
The majority of Americans appear to be okay with rent-a-cops groping sick children flying to Disneyland. As long as it's to fight terrorists.
It's like "to fight terrorists" is some kind of magical key phrase which turns off higher brain functions.
Log in or piss off.
Another question that should have been asked in this poll: Are you aware that 9/11 could have been prevented if FBI headquarters had simply paid attention to reports from their field offices, and no dragnet monitoring would have been needed?
No, I'm not.
The privacy isn't about the average yokel. It's about people in power tracking and hassling political opposition.
Was nobody listening to this Snowden guy? He said he could start listening to conversations of anyone at any time, including powerful people, and proceeded to do so as a test. No alarm bells went off somewhere -- "Whoa! Phone tap but no warrant!". He didn't even worry about internal tracking.
It's not about you. It's about inserting an operative as one of hundreds of terrorist agents, but who listens to opposition conversations, or, hell, business discussions for that matter.
By asking, "Do you care if they track your phone?" you've already missed the point.
I feel like Willy Wonka sarcastically admonishing kids for the umpteenth time, sighing and pointlessly mumbling halfheartedly, "Stop. Come back. Don't do it."
We are violating the American principle of not allowing the tools of tyrrany to be built in the first place.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
the "Majority of Americans Say..." let me get this right... 51% like/approve/or are ambivalent about "X" so the other 49% MUST submit
Of course most people will say that. It's about Terrorism, after all, and they are not Terrorists, so the government is only spying on Other People, right?
And it's not so bad that other bad people give up a little of their privacy to keep US safer.
Paul "Say no to feeping creaturism"
"They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."
- Benjamin Franklin
It doesn't matter if a majority thinks it's ok. It violates my constitutional rights, so it's illegal. That's what the constitution is for, to prevent the idiot masses from doing shit like this. And lets not forget, as long as we're allowing the NSA to do crap like this, we can't trust ANYTHING we hear in the media.
I'm reading these questions and they are completely misleading:
"Should the government be able to monitor emails if it prevents future terrorist attacks?"
How much more misleading could it get? At the very least it should read:
"Should the government be able to read YOUR emails in an attempt to find terrorist activity?"
or better yet:
"Would you give up your constitutional rights and the rights of your children and grandchildren to change your chances of dieing in terrorist attack from 1 in 20 million to 1 in 20.1 million?"
These people are just not thinking through the issue. If you asked the question, "Should the president be given the power to track all of the phone calls of his political rivals?" you would get a different response from these people. Yet, that is precisely the power that the president wields now that this program is in place.
Proverbs 21:19
I thought I'd never type the above words, but on this morning's Today Show, Bill O'Reilly was on and talking about Snowden and the NSA spying. He said that if Snowden is right and the NSA is spying on everyone then Snowden is a hero and the NSA is wrong. If Snowden is lying, then, then what he did was very wrong. O'Reilly went on to say that it is not acceptable to spy on everyone just to catch a few terrorists (if this is even effective... there's no transparency at all so we don't know) and there should be measures in place to ensure that they only collect data on people they need to spy on (e.g. suspects).
Do you see what you've done, Obama and NSA? You've got me agreeing with Bill O'Reilly! Surely, this is one of the signs of the apocalypse!
(In all seriousness, I'm sure O'Reilly supported programs like this under Bush and is only opposed to them now because Obama's doing it. I'm also sure that, had I listened to the interview a bit more I'd have disagreed with him on something - or he toned down his rhetoric for the Today Show audience. Still agreeing with him for as long as I did was scary.)
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
I'm not sure that respondents to such a poll would be as confident of this if the line of questioning got more specific.
I also think that most Americans at this point have clearly not familiarized themselves with our founding fathers or our Constitution.
In SOVIET RUSSIA... erm...NSA AMERICA, the Internet logs onto YOU!
The federal government was never designed or intended to be the will of the people. It has always been about regulation commerce between the states, settling disputes between the states, and providing a unified face to foreign affairs for the United States as well as protection from enemies. That's why the state department deals with international and foreign matters rather then the state.
Within those bounds, the house of representatives are supposed to represent the people and commerce in their districts (not their political party). The senate is supposed to represent the state's interest (not their political party's), and the president is supposed to represent the country itself which at times absolutely means going against the will of the people but generally following it (not the party line). In all that, the economic health and well being of the country and states are part of the duty- even if it seems to not be what the people want.
This all started to change after the civil war and has been eroded ever since to the point that no one is happy with the federal government all the time, nor do they understand its intended role. Most of the will of the people is beyond the scope of the federal government- yet pandering for reelection seems to muddle that fact.
The Pew Research Center is one of the many "Think Tank" beltway bandits in Washington DC. They will "create" data for whatever "research" the government pays them to.
Not enough time has passed to do a mail survey; they are forbidden by law from cold calling anyone on the Federal "do not call list", which will skew any results since these are generally people most concerned with privacy; "man on the street" interviews have too small a sample to be considered valid research; and I personally have received enough political questionnaires to know that the questions are deliberately worded to produce the desired results. I thus find their results highly dubious at best.
No offense, but I'm disappointed. I was really hoping it was evidence that "they're still teaching Americans about the Bill of Rights". I should also add, that despite the "are you 14" crap one always hears on Slashdot, there is no reason a thoughtful person of any age shouldn't post.
That article can't seem to make up its mind. First the caption for the first image says, "In the U.S. citizenship test, only 38 per cent of Americans passed [...]", and then below that it says "Although the majority passed, more than a third - 38 per cent - failed [...]". Which one is it? Did 38% fail, or did 38% pass? If Americans don't understand their government then apparently the Brits don't understand numbers, or at least are willing to ignore their meaning if it means a juicier headline.
There's no America left to defend.
Of course the Pew poll showed a majority in favor. I mean, how do you think they conducted this poll? Over the PHONE! (cue dramatic music)
So basically this means that 56% of the people surveyed either believe that this is OK, or believe that their answers to the pollster are being monitored and may be used to target them.
Pound! Bang! Bin! Bash! is this a shell script or a Batman comic?
You can't make a wrong right with a poll.
In the instant case, they phrased the question wrong. They should have asked "Are you willing to give your government utter and total access to the most intimate details of your life, empowering it to extort you into complying with anything it desires, in order to give terrorists exactly what they seek: the destruction if your freedom?"
PRISM affects far more than just americans. Of course, as they don't vote (not that americans vote mean or will accomplish anything, unless they are called Lester), they will act. That should give with time a big push to foreing search engines, social networks and open source software (specially mobile one)
...that we Brits cling to when we want to feel better about the end of empire and the decline of our military and industrial might.
...whereas anyone who has read Oscar Wilde will know that the reason why the sun never set on the British Empire was because God couldn't trust an Englishman in the dark.
No law supersedes the U.S. Constitution. They absolutely need a warrant and probably cause for this monitoring. It's clearly elaborated in the Fourth Amendment.
The criminal government has been ducking this issue by refusing to allow lawsuits challenging this power to proceed, so there isn't even a court ruling on whether or not the Bush program was legal or illegal.
Sorry to pick on your terminology, but governments do not have "rights" they have "powers.
It sounds confusingly like the Battle of Baklava, but everybody fights over the last piece.
On the other hand, it might be entertaining to watch a bank robbery where the participants wear baklava. A sticky business...
This type of snooping is only practiced in states like the 3rd Reich, the DDR and Northern Korea. US Americans seems to be unaware what extreme risks come with it.
Also, this does not help against terrorism at all. No, not one bit.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
Dangerous subversive thinking these days it seems:
Those who would trade in their freedom for their protection deserve neither. Those who give up their liberty for more security neither deserve liberty nor security.
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Benjamin_Franklin
ACLU Petition to Stop Massive Government Spying Program
Please sign that petition. Or Write your Representative or Write your Senators. They are easy enough to find. Seriously. If you aren't telling the people that represent you how wrong, awful, and downright unacceptable the NSA actions are they have no reason to stick their neck out to change it.
Nobody is asking you to fight a war, like previous generations of Americans have. Just sign a petition. Write a letter. It is that easy to improve this country. Whether you think that is true or not, remember that an outcry from a small group of people have altered politics before and it can happen again. The only thing preventing this country from getting better is silence.
It's a step in the right direction to actually have a Bill of Rights. A quick check at Wikipedia shows European countries being (largely) well-represented, but there are some conspicuous absences. It isn't good enough to say that the existing legal system works "well enough" without one.
A population is easy to control if you keep them poor and ignorant. Mix in some government controlled media to tell the plebes what to think and how to vote and now you have full control without anyone really knowing or caring. The dissidents can be silenced and shunned by the majority as the nationalistic ideals emerge that true patriotism is doing what uncle sam tells you to do.
Der Tod ist der einzige Weg hier raus!
Nothing to hide is really "out of site out of mind." If an Ameri-fine man can understand the spy tech then he won't like it since he can Middling Mind it and imagine what it is. - sore on
The American 2-Party system of corrupt politicians have done more to harm amerika than Muslims ever did. They're the ones we should be monitoring.
FTFY
sudo make me a sandwich
Hey Cousins,
Can we get a refund? I don't have the receipt anymore, but I would like to at least get some store credit.
From, An American subject
sudo make me a sandwich
"We must sacrifice our freedoms, in order to secure our freedoms."
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
Maybe they should first define terrorism before polling people about tracking phone use to prevent it. Terrorism used to be things like blowing up subways or flying planes into buildings for a political purpose. Now it has been expanded to all sorts of domestic violence (meaning on our homeland, not in our homes), to get around things like existing laws on surveillance, wiretapping, etc. Just like the RICO laws have been abused by using them against other groups than organized crime, so have the terrorism laws.
Another issue is how are the questions phrased? If asked if tracking people's phone use to prevent another 9/11 is okay, you will probably get a different response than asked if it is okay for the government to monitor your phone conversations to make sure you are not a terrorist. The first is in regards to generic people out there. The second is about you, yourself and implies if you don't have anything to hide, you don't have anything to worry about. But that isn't a sign of a free people, but instead a controlled people.
It was James Madison who said "I believe there are more instances of the abridgement of freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments by those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations."
They only say this because they have absolutely no idea of what is actually going on and they believe the claims the government is only collecting meta data which is a outright lie.
"GET / HTTP/1.0" 200 51230 "-" "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; Setec Astronomy)"
No sir, no sir, none of mine.
None for the government
None for the corps.
None to stop the war crimes,
Ours or yours.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
From TFA:
The analysis in this report is based on telephone interviews conducted June 6-9, 2013, among a national sample of 1,004 adults 18 years of age or older living in the continental United States (501 respondents were interviewed on a landline telephone, and 503 were interviewed on a cell phone, including 247 who had no landline telephone).
Is it really reasonable to survey the public's opinion of telephone spying via telephone?
It's not good enough to just have a warrant, though, and that's really the entire problem.
This stupid headline is not accurate. A sample was based on a few thousand people, if that; a few thousand out of more than 300 million. Give me a break.
um. you are saying the "bluest of the blue" (which I read as "liberal") would be more likely to agree that PRISM (or whatever surveillance program is de' jour) is acceptable? Really?
Why? Because that 'liberal' Obama (PRISM, ) is for it? Or maybe that 'liberal' Bush (TIA, Patriot Act, TSA)? which one?
This is not a conservative vs. liberal problem. This is a all government becomes corrupt problem.
Until you get 2/3rds of both houses of congress to repeal the 4th amendment of the US constitution, it doesn't matter what a survey says. Interesting thing about the legal foundations of our country – it's designed to protect the minority's rights.
I think the issue is that people voted for Obama, under the auspices he'd reverse those decisions. Not further, and expand them.
Seriously, Obama is Dubya III & IV
Can we, as a world, just be done with America already? Can we get say North Korea, or Cuba to invade and give them back the human rights they've lost?
It is just beyond reason that a country that is so willing to completely fuck itself up is in the position of power that they are in..
the other 95% of the world is just getting tired of it.
What a spit in the face of whistleblowers, especially Snowden. Those who sacrifice themselfs for whom they love, will end hating who they sacrificed for.
Anonymous my ass, this was planted by some government drone specifically to make the justifiably worried sheeple think its ok.
Well, this is one of those sheeple who doesn't think its ok. Not on this planet,not even in this universe.
When our, and other governments are carrying on such activities in the name of safety, go back to a traitor named Benjamin Franklin, who once said that those who would give up a little liberty for safety, will have neither. Ben wasn't exactly a dummy. As for the traitor part, I expect the King of England considered him a traitor, to be hung where ever he could be found. So were a lot of the other names on our Declaration of Independence.
We have already apparently given up, because it seemed convenient and less hassle to the sheeple to let it happen than to go find somebody (or be that somebody) who would actually do something about what has become in my lifetime, a nearly complete dictatorship simply because it was too much trouble to call the trouble makers out and remove them from public office by whatever means that reduced them to standing on the corner shouting about some subject they aren't qualified to pronounce. If they still sucked air enough to do that.
We now have all these 3 letter agencies that don't have to answer to anybody, not even the president, costing us untold billions, even trillions in productivity interference of the public at large, each justifying their existence on selling this magic thing called safety.
What has this so-called safety got us? Because we are disarmed for the most part (in the name of safety of course), we get the Columbines and Sandy Hook scenes simply because somebody who needed to be contained or stopped long before their thinking became that errant, wasn't stopped with a busted butt or nose when it would have done some good, but today some idiots can't be stopped until they actually DO something, at which point its too late.
I can imagine that 100 years ago, these similar personalities likely would have not made it past their first drink in a bar as they would have been 'educated' right then and there by somebody who did know the difference between right and wrong. But we can't do that today because we'd spend 20 to life in a lock-up for removing such a person from the gene pool before he/she went on a rampage, taking 10 + other lives before somebody decides its time to stop them by whatever means is hanging on the belt, or on the back window gun rack of the pick-up truck.
As for the terrorists, lets all agree that the 2nd amendment says exactly what it says. And let nature take its course, get the law the hell out of judging who's right or wrong in such cases. I'll help them meet those 72 Virginians they are so hell bent on meeting, its absolutely not a problem to me.
So lets hear it from those who do give a shit about freedoms. Pew Research indeed. Figures lie, and liars figure out the stats they way they want them to be, every time. And I think this is one of those times.
the samples can't stand for all the netizens.
So why did they need to hide it? Why all the secrecy?
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
Or similarly: :D
http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=3005#comic
Hmm, the humour and sarcasm seem to have been be lost on you.
I didn't get a vote. I call bullshit.
Jack of all trades,master of none
A simple majority and their ideals are screwed over in the name of "safety". We are so fucked!
Everyone who hates the US is loving this news, just like they cheered when they heard we all have to take off our shoes and have our nuts inspected at airports.
http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/1fv4r6/i_believe_the_government_should_be_allowed_to/caeb3pl
This guy sums up why, even if you think you have nothing to hide, you should still have a BIG problem with this.
TL;DR- your fate is not your own. You do not determine how 'the public' percieves you. All someone has to do is portray you in a bad light, or associate you with a few bad labels (suspected terrorist, enemy of the state, etc - whether true or not doesn't matter) and they can turn the masses against you, allowing the government to do whatever they want to you in the name of the 'public good'- blackmail, kidnapping, or even murder.
I don't know about that. I live in Missouri on the border with Kansas. Folks around love their guns and hate the government and all that, but oh my are they war hawks and terror haters. They all think "I don't have anything to hide; If it gets them turban headed bad guys I'm in favor of it". The far right in Kansas is in favor of not paying taxes and guns without boarders, but they support both the military and security industrial complexes.
No sigs in BETA. Beta SUCKS.
...to thunderous applause.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
Most of this stuff is old news to those of us who've been complaining about it for at least 10 years. More contemporaneously (before this story broke), about a month ago I watched Erin Burnett laughing it up with an ex-FBI guy over how the government was storing all of our phone conversations and could retrieve them later. There was zero concern then and the media was obviously aware this was going on.
I just read a commentor on another forum suggesting the MSM got pissed off when they found out their precious privileges no longer apply (a valid concern when you need anonymous sources), so now they've launched a full-court press to get the public on board getting privacy rights reinstalled.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
Pretty sad that, from what I saw in the comments, only one or two of you are smart enough to realize that 1,004 people DOES NOT constitute, nor do they speak for, the majority of U.S. citizens. I HATE polls like this. 1,004 people? Really? That's only a few more people than ONE college graduating class. And they speak for MILLIONS of citizens.
Here's a super accurate poll. I interviewed 20 of my friends, they all disagree with govt. tracking, there for 100% of U.S. Citizens do not support it.
Get real people.
Through appropriate Statistical Sampling methodologies, accurate assessments of an entire population can be made based on responses from just a small group within the population.
I suggest you educate yourself, lest you become the poster boy for "It's better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to speak and remove all doubt." Oops. Too late.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
So, let's all go file a billion copyright violation lawsuits against the U.S. government...would cripple them to the point they would not be doing much else for a very long time.
Aside from either side of the same ruling class sniping at each other and spying on us, what exactly has the government been doing? Well, aside from kowtowing to their corporate masters, not much IMHO.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
Anyone happen to notice a bunch of bomb threats today? Princeton, an airliner....
/s
Thank Red State God, the Security Organs are doing the Lords work to keep us sheeple safe.
Or... sorry, the other way around. The NRA has been fantastically successful at defending second amendment rights. (Full disclosure--I'm a former member, having quit during the Bush years when they repeatedly failed to hold Republicans, esp. the president, accountable according to the same standards.) While many will say that the NRA's success is predicated on gun industry funds, this is only part of the story. They've 5 million members, regular citizens for the most part, who pay into their coffers. If everyone of these paid annual dues (many pay a larger lump sum to become lifetime members, but just to get an idea of what they might be working with) they'd end up with a gross income of 175 million. They've got the cash. They've got members who care passionately about gun rights. Above all, these members are happy to give to an organization that will generously support or strongly oppose a candidate on the basis of their treatment of the second amendment.
I've given money to the EFF and I hope you have as well. But I wonder what might be done to enhance its profile. With enough support for the EFF, could we turn it into the NRA (in terms of efficacy) for the first and fourth amendments?
I wonder if the polls will tell a different story when further revelations come out from the Guardian. They say there is more to the story.
The second thing I wonder, is why some politicians act the way they do. So much support for the capture and use of secret information. Could it be that the NSA has some dirt on those politicians and they know better than to piss off the NSA. And how high does it go? Lets ask Darrel Issa to start and investigation, when he finishes finding out where exactly Benghazi is.
one of those 'studies' crafted with the results already determined??
lets see the data , the demographics, the sample counts, the questions asked, the order and manner delivered
statistics like this are usually BS - 1700 people are supposed to determine the opinion of 300 million
this statistical methodology is flawed as it was meant for things as simple as nuts and bolts NOT PEOPLE
jits ust another way of lying to people ...
Americans have a lot of confidence so they don't know they are ignorant and stupid.
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
From my daily interactions with lots of customers, I venture to say that most people under the age of 50 don't even have a landline phone at home.Most people are using cellphones exclusively and it's illegal for pollsters to call them. This leaves out vast numbers of people that will never be asked their opinion on anything. Therefore, I don't give polls much credibility.
This is a rather extreme sentiment, but it has a point.. Democracy is an experiment, one that is easily broken. People and governments are fickle creatures. Seasons change, and one might find themselves under unwanted scrutiny. A lot of lives were destroyed because of their political affiliations (Frank Oppenheimer lost his physics professorship, etc) Nixon has his enemies list, and now we find out that the IRS specifically targeted Tea party organizations. I can understand the want and need for information, but it can too easily be abused. Perhaps now so much in our current environment, but it can set a bad future precedent.
The government's logic is dead simple.
A. The 4th amendment says nothing about digital/electronic possessions or privacy.
B. Therefore anything you have of yours that's "digital or electronic" does not apply at all, it's fair game.
C. Everything in our lives now, and more so in the future, will be digital/electronic.
D. The forth amendment has not been violated, simply circumvented, since it no longer applies.
E. Do the math
A nice road into the future we are paving, don't you think?
And the vast majority of those polled are what I like to call "Low Information Voters." Benjamin Franklin is rolling in his grave! Is this America 2013, or Germany 1938? I can't tell anymore.
Should be taken and shot. They don't deserve the freedoms they have.
I am Bennett Haselton! I am Bennett Haselton!
Funny how now we sit here and they are doing exactly that and we are allowing it.
And oh look that whole "to fight terrorism" it isn't working.
I am Bennett Haselton! I am Bennett Haselton!
What a fucking Mess this is.
I think the best that can be said of all of it is that the Feds are just out of control. Where are the adults?
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
The scared masses will do anything to feel safer, for the children, and their children's children. We restrict the ability of the rabid hordes with just laws, rules, and a system that was supposed to make passing laws at the national level a major pain. Unfortunately that system has failed and we are left with mandatory sexual molestation at airports. But hey, if it saves just one life, it's worth it.
... and emphatically NOT fine with PRISM or its derivatives.
To a Lisp hacker, XML is S-expressions in drag.
"a new study by Pew Research [and paid for by the security people] suggests that most U.S. citizens think it's okay".
Who paid for this study. What was the nature of this study. What questions were asked and in what order. How was the sample population chosen.
AccountKiller
The "Moody's" of public rating/opinon
Pew research and their ilk are no different than Moody's who classifies complete junk as AAA best credit ratings - that is - they are parasitic manipulators of society and public opinion. They both have their functions and are very useful tools for the powers that be. But make no mistake about it, they are all bullshit, completely manipulated, to keep you enslaved by your "public opinions", and keep the powers that be, in power.
"The question is also flawed because we don't know if this really "helps fight terrorism". Do they need to tap everyone's phones and internet?
.. :)
And it's well known that terrorists use email and mobile phones to communicate
AccountKiller
especially if you spend a week lying in the media beforehand.
If that was true, my sexlife would be a lot kinkier and there would be a lot more of it.
If you had more money, it would be.
"What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public." -Ray Zalinsky (Tommy Boy)
Well since there are 7,000,000 muslims in the USA, of course ">millions of Americans" should be monitored. These people follow a belief that explicitly calls for the destruction of non-Muslim societies and the establishment of a world-wide caliphate, and are responsible for many terrorist attacks, so it would be daft not to monitor them. Most other Americans are not a threat to society so monitoring them is not justified.
And all Catholics are members of a religion that forbids sex before marriage and the use of contraception. So obviously Catholics never have sex before marriage and never use birth control. Am I doing it right?
"What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public." -Ray Zalinsky (Tommy Boy)
The phone company records this already. My cell phone bill includes a list of every phone number and the cities we were in.
If the phone company is recording and saving this, why wouldn't the Government have access to it if they needed it?
Needed it for what?
"What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public." -Ray Zalinsky (Tommy Boy)
Isn't it still required to study it? It was mandatory for graduation from 8th grade for me.
Moral relativism is the theory that Morality is a subjective component and, thusly, relative to the viewer. Moral Relativism is directly antithetical to theological morality. Moral Relativism, as a theory, is that Morality does not exist and as such... it says nothing about Homosexuality being wrong.
Recent [in 1999] remarks to CIA veterans by the head of staff of the US House of Representatives Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, ex CIA officer John Millis illustrate how NSA views the same issues:
"Signals intelligence is in a crisis. ... Over the last fifty years ... In the past, technology has been the friend of NSA, but in the last four or five years technology has moved from being the friend to being the enemy of Sigint.
The media of telecommunications is no longer Sigint-friendly. It used to be. When you were doing RF signals, anybody within range of that RF signal could receive it just as clearly as the intended recipient. We moved from that to microwaves, and people figured out a great way to harness that as well. Well, we're moving to media that are very difficult to get to.
Encryption is here and it's going to grow very rapidly. That is bad news for Sigint ... It is going to take a huge amount of money invested in new technologies to get access and to be able to break out the information that we still need to get from Sigint".
http://www.cyber-rights.org/interception/stoa/ic2kreport.htm#_Toc448565560
They got their budgets *and* general approval from the public, who would rather fantasize about "justice" as portrayed in superhero and spy fiction.
Are you kidding me??? WHO ASK "THE MAJORITY OF AMERICANS"???????? You telling me they asked more than 200 million people about this in less than a week???? Just cause some website on the internet ask its users what they think about what the NSA did does not mean that is " the majority of americans" you are talking about a huge number of people and just cause 1,000 said it was ok does not mean more than 200 million people agree. Posts like this really bother me because whoever post this just doesnt show any respect for people's intelligence.
.... I did my survey on 2 people, the one who answer they love NSA phone tracking get a carrot from me.
Hey Cousins,
Can we get a refund? I don't have the receipt anymore, but I would like to at least get some store credit.
From, An American subject
I suspect a refund won't be possible: you see, you threw overboard quite an amount of good tea that remained unpaid to this day. Considering the compound interest and the duration, your account with the Brits is still in red.
From
a heartless multinational banker
Questions raise, answers kill. Raise questions to stay alive.
... to this plane of existence. As I wrote:
http://www.pdfernhout.net/a-rant-on-financial-obesity-and-Project-Virgle.html
----
Or as I wrote elsewhere in my own words: ... I agree with the sentiment of the Einstein quote [That we should approach the universe with compassion], but that sentiment itself is only part of a larger difficult-to-easily-resolve situation. It become more the Yin/Yang or Meshwork/Hierarchy situation I see when I look out my home office window into a forest. On the surface it is a lovely scene of trees as part of a forest. Still, I try to see *both* the peaceful majesty of the trees and how these large trees are brutally shading out of existence saplings which are would-be competitors (even shading out their own children). Yet, even as big trees shade out some of their own children, they also put massive resources into creating a next generation, one of which will indeed likely someday replace them when they fall. I try to remember there is both an unseen silent chemical war going on out there where plants produce defense compounds they secrete in the soil to inhibit the growth of other plant species (or insects or fungi) as a vile act of territoriality and often expansionism, and yet also the result is a good spacing of biomass to near optimally convert sunlight to living matter and resist and recover from wind and ice damage. I try to recall that there is the most brutal of competition between species of plants and animals and fungi and so on over water, nutrients (including from eating other creatures), sunlight, and space, while at the same time each bacterial colony or multicellular organism (like a large Pine tree) is a marvel of cooperation towards some implicitly shared purpose. I see the awesome result of both simplicity and complexity in the organizational structure of all these organisms and their DNA, RNA, and so on, adapted so well in most cases to the current state of such a complex web of being. Yet I can only guess the tiniest fraction of what suffering that selective shaping through variation and selection must have entailed for untold numbers of creatures over billions of years. To be truthful, I can actually *really* see none of that right now as it is dark outside this early near Winter Solstice time (and an icy rain is falling) beyond perhaps a silhouette outline, so I must remember and imagine it, perhaps as Einstein suggests as an "optical delusion of [my] consciousness". :-)
So much for "world peace" when even the tranquil seeming forests have so much Yin-Yang complexity going on within and around the trees. :-) The best I feel we can hope for is balance (like Ursula K. Le Guin's writings):
http://www.ursulakleguin.com/
or maybe, transcendence to some form of universe certainly way beyond our present understanding; example, with its own flaws:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Metamorphosis_of_Prime_Intellect
But still, no matter what examples the universes sets before us, or in what proportion, as *ethical* and *spiritual* beings, we humans can choose a different way, and at least approximate world peace among ourselves as best we can. Something I learned from an old and wise biologist (Larry Slobodkin) who studied both philosophy and nature.
What a dangerous game life is, especially living in "interesting times". :-(
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_you_live_in_interesting_times
The good news is, no one will get out of this infinite game alive anyway, so we might as well have some fun with it 'till then. :-)
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
There is no such thing as "terrorism." It isn't a country, or even a large group. This so called "terrorism" is just one or two criminals (or small groups) that try to incite terror. Fighting "terrorism" is like fighting murder, or any other type of crime. They make this sound like these "terrorists" are out to destroy our country and way of life, and yet this is exactly what the NSA is doing, destroying our way of life.
Boehner, the speaker of the house, claims Snowden is a traitor, saying Snowden is hurting national security. Boehner also said that, while they collected the data, they won't use it, unless they find a connecton... The problem is Boehner took an oath of office, promising to defend the Constitution, against ALL enemies. Instead he is supporting the attackers of the Constitution, and attacking the defenders of it. Boehner is the one who is a traitor.
I remember most of the arguments against were about seizure and locking up people for doing nothing. Technological surveillance however does not require the use of seizure. This leaves the argument of locking people up for doing nothing - As I understand, despite the fact the NSA is doing surveillance on a massive scale, they don't appear to be locking up a significant amount of people for doing nothing?
Do you think it is possible that because the impact cannot be felt as directly anymore (search and seizure as opposed to the new 'spying' methodology) that people don't mind as much and would be more willing to live with this?
Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
"Never do anything against conscience even if the state demands it." -- Albert Einstein
Casteism
Those who would trade Liberty for security, deserve neither. ~ Benjamin Franklin
I made a complaint against the city of minneapolis way before I put my most recent video out. My phone was tapped and they were very bold about it as they put what I was saying on the phone on the internet via google adsense and various other methods. They showed me all the corporations in on their bullshit government stalking and spying game. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FmUuMsazO38
Baaaaa....
56% are okay with the NSA tracking their calls because nobody uses phones for making calls these days.
As we all know, the NSA metadata, combined with their other data collection methodology, easily allows them to track all interactions by people at gun shows and gun stores, based on your cell location and interfaced with video feeds.
What second amendment?
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
In this clip from the political series, you see how the questions asked before the central question is raised force the person to come up with the 'right' answer http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0ZZJXw4MTA Enjoy
Given how easy it is to skew the results by the questions before the actual one, as demonstrated by this clip from Yes Prime Minister, poll results need to be treated with great caution http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0ZZJXw4MTA
Resistance in the forests of Lithuania to the Soviet occupiers lasted for SEVEN YEARS after WWII before being finally crushed.
As this clip demonstrates, it can easily be tweaked to the right result http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0ZZJXw4MTA
to see how to bias a poll to the 'right' result http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0ZZJXw4MTA (3 mins)
at the cost of decades of further enslavement for others. The British Empire got rid of slavery in the 1830s, the USA in the 1860s. But don't let that inconvenient truth rain on your parade...