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NSA Collected Americans' Phone Records Despite Law Change, Says Report (reuters.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: The U.S. National Security Agency collected more than 151 million records of Americans' phone calls last year, even after Congress limited its ability to collect bulk phone records, according to an annual report issued on Tuesday by the top U.S. intelligence officer. The report from the office of Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats was the first measure of the effects of the 2015 USA Freedom Act, which limited the NSA to collecting phone records and contacts of people U.S. and allied intelligence agencies suspect may have ties to terrorism. It found that the NSA collected the 151 million records even though it had warrants from the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance court to spy on only 42 terrorism suspects in 2016, in addition to a handful identified the previous year. The report came as Congress faced a decision on whether to reauthorize Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which permits the NSA to collect foreign intelligence information on non-U.S. persons outside the United States, and is scheduled to expire at the end of this year.
They want to track us. We want to know about it. And so proceeds ad infinitum.
Terrorists need to be well funded if they make that many phonecalls
It's been going on even before that. The metadata of a call is of course calling, called, date, time, duration and in the case of mobile phones location. You can put together a fairly comprehensive case with just those.
It's not spying if it's done with automated means! It only becomes surveillance and spying if people compile a report of it with meanings attached. -- Your neighborhood friendly three letter agency
He was in charge. No repercussions. That's all you need to know.
If they are still doing this the whole agency should be brought up on charges including every individual working there.
Trump
Batshit crazy
Okay, three. I mean, five. Wait, uh, 10!
42 warrants, 151 million conversations collected. Maybe it's time to downsize NSA? When an agency operates outside of its legal scope it's receiving a much larger budget than necessary, is not operating with the public consent and it is therefore illegal. You can not do anything you want and attempt to hide under the guise of national security, cowards do that. I don't want to think of my government as being run by cowards. Those kind of numbers are not just alarming, they prove we are currently living in a West Germany style country. Mass surveillance is unacceptable in any democratic country that has any semblance of right and wrong. This kind of program is untenable and unacceptable for a democratic country.
You forgot the metadata (ones and zeros) that makes up the voice part of the phone call. Yes, they store all that too.
the CIA has been breaking laws for quite some time. It will take a GIANT public stink before the CIA stops blatantly breaking laws in the name of well...whatever it wants to justify it's behavior with at the time. (Now it's "national security" back in the 50-60's it was "fighting communism"). When Kennedy tried to get the CIA on more government reins...well we know what happened to him.
"Imagination is more important than knowledge" - Einstein
How many billions of Muslims are there in the World who hate America - much of it for our unwavering and unquestioning support of Israel - sending money to organizations that support their Muslim brothers?
Our decades of Real Politik is biting us in our asses. We will never know peace Again - ever. We have doomed this country to insecurity for the rest of its existance. We will slowly decline and under the weight of defense spending - while domestic programs like Social Security and Medicare get starved - and we will have to have taxes return to Eisenhower era levels.
Despite the mounting evidence that the phone surveillance was in full force even last year, most of the news media will still pretend that those 151 million phone records couldn't possibly include Donald Trump or his associates. Obama allowed and expanded the surveillance despite promisingâ during his campaign to abolish it. It should be clearer than ever that Obama was indeed responsible for monitoring the phones of Trump and his associates.
Trump's allegation was that he was specifically wiretapped at the orders of Obama. Not that his conversations were swept up in a dragnet. Not that expect him to actually stand by what he says, because he's Donald Trump and changes positions daily. But the rest of us can at least be clear.
"What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public." -Ray Zalinsky (Tommy Boy)
There's no way an honest group of people like the NSA would ever do such a thing!
I tend to rant.
There was an undisclosed meeting in Trump tower in December. This was the one Kushner was questioned about. They were watching a known Russian FSB agent, Sergey Gorkov. This was one of the leaks to the press that upset Trump.
NSA spied on one Sergey Gorkov. He's head of a Russian bank, Vnesheconombank, and it was caught running spy rings in New York in early 2015. As a result spies were arrested, prosecuted the ones with diplomatic immunity were expelled.
This was not blanket surveillance, Russia was under sanctions, Sergey Gorkov is a trained FSB agent, a close ally of Putin's. FBI ran some stings on people he employed to find out what he was up to, they were offering lots of money for casino property deals in exchange for help getting sanction lifted. TRUMP WAS LIKELY ONE OF THESE, since a Casino deal in Russia was a long time wish. This project started in 2012, long before he ran for President BTW.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-russian-spies-charges-idUSKBN0KZ29X20150126
"Monday's charges are linked to Buryakov's alleged covert work on behalf of Russia's foreign intelligence service, known as the SVR, according to a criminal complaint....Buryakov, 39, masked this work by posing as a banker for Russia's Vnesheconombank..."
"...Prosecutors said the case was built on physical and electronic surveillance of dozens of meetings, including several in which Buryakov met with an FBI agent posing as a wealthy investor who hoped to develop casinos in Russia."
And of course the whiney sack of shit is involved and was likely involved:
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-russian-spies-charges-idUSKBN0KZ29X20150126
Sergey Gorkov visited Trump towers in December for a meeting. Jared Jushner says it was a meeting about Trump-Putin diplomacy. Sergey Gorkov says it was a business meeting about property loans (!).
You know, when you have a known spy and he's trying to do property deals for lifting sanctions, and he's smuggled into Trump towers and there's a company Chicago Unit Acquisition LLC, and it lends money tens/hundreds of millions $$$ to Trump, yet it claims no assets (not even the loan to Trump), and no income (not even interest payments), and no details of its loans can be found....Then you have a money laundering conduit that needs investigating.
It's not blanket surveillance to go look at that, its basic prudance.
"But Trump is lying when he says Obama was spying on him!"
- Said someone who hasn't heard of Edward Snowden
Things like this seriously undermine the credibility of anyone who claims that the US is still a 'nation under the rule of law'.
'The Economy' is a giant Ponzi scheme whose most pitiable suckers are the youngest among us and the yet-unborn.
If there are no repercussions for agencies that break laws then they will just continue breaking them. If you allow agencies to continue breaking laws then your government loses credibility. Governments without credibility are prone to upheaval and a loss of the rule of law.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
Not that expect him to actually stand by what he says, because he's Donald Trump...
That's actually funny. Let me correct it for you:
Not that [anyone with a brain] would expect any president to stand by what they say... for myriad reasons; not the least of which is that they'd quickly catch a bullet in the brain, JFK-style.
And people will be going to prison for this in 3, 2, 1....
Shit. Let's try again. Like any other person violating the CFAA they will be held accountable in 3, 2, 1....
Shit, still nothing. How about violations of the 4th amendment? 3, 2, 1...
Nope.
Well, I guess that's that. they are truly above the law.
Nothing to worry about. They only skim ordinary peoples's emails, it's the Muslims they are concentrating on.
The whole point of the massive NSA datacenter in Utah is that they collect _everything_. The argument from the NSA and Federal Government was that they would only look at data where they had a warrant. Our argument back was that there is no way to ensure data is only viewed by warrant, especially when they were looking at ways of cataloguing data they could see, and trying to crack encryption on what they could not.
We were right, they were dishonest. Nothing new in terms of Government abusing power, and nobody should be surprised that the more we give them the more they abuse.
Since the hardware is already in place to copy all traffic to the NSA, law changes which impact collection of data would have to tackle that particular issue. Good luck with that. ISPs and Telecom providers get paid massive tax dollars to provide the service, so you know that they won't complain.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
Not that expect him to actually stand by what he says, because he's Donald Trump...
That's actually funny. Let me correct it for you:
Not that [anyone with a brain] would expect any president to stand by what they say... for myriad reasons; not the least of which is that they'd quickly catch a bullet in the brain, JFK-style.
Fair enough. But are you seriously arguing that Trump's complete and total inconsistency is just like any other President? Sure, other Presidents have changed direction, for various reasons. Hell, the Republicans were on Obama's nuts for years because he said, "If you like your health insurance, you can keep your health insurance". On the other hand, Trump says something in the evening that is the opposite of what he said in the morning.
In this case he accused the previous President of committing a crime by wiretapping him. When asked for his evidence of such a serious charge he was basically like, "I don't know, Congress should look into it." If you don't see why that's not a good thing, I don't know what to tell you.
"What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public." -Ray Zalinsky (Tommy Boy)
Remember, location is usually implicit for landline calls. Usually.
Do not doubt they perform disambiguation for landline calls where location is not assured to be exact. Mobile phones are not special cases, save that location may change during a call.
And we haven't been told what they collect for text messages. Sure they do.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
Lets be honest here.
Yes, let's. Trump accused Obama, not the FBI, of wiretapping Trump Tower, not surveilling members of his campaign. It was a specific claim. There has been no evidence published that it is true.
Pretty cut and dry. Trump made a claim, there is a FISA warrant as proof that his claim is true. And here you are calling him a liar.
Again, it is not cut and dry, because the FBI getting a FISA warrant to investigate a member of the campaign is not the same thing as Obama illegally ordering a wiretap of Trump Tower, which is what Trump claimed. I'm not calling Trump a liar. He isn't lying, he simply has no idea what he is talking about.
"What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public." -Ray Zalinsky (Tommy Boy)
This is what allows Susan Rice to "unmask" US citizens: using the power of the state against its citizenry.
The meeting, the one between the Russian spy and Trump and Kushner in Trump towers in December (see my comment below).
1. Kushner says it was Putin related diplomacy and Trump wasn't present.
2. Sergey Gorkov's spokemansky says it was related to funding for a property deal.
3. Trump says 'whaa whaa whaa, Obama tapped my phones in Trump Tower, whaa whaa whaa, it's like Nazi Germany whaa whaa whaa, I am such a victim whaa whaa whaa'.
Go back and re-examine his comment based on what has since been revealed about the meeting.
You can see from Trump's reaction to the surveillance, that he was there at that meeting, most likely a phone-in participant. He was frightened that the FBI listened in on that call.
What he got from his twitter attack:
1. He go reassurance that no warrant existed to spy on his phones in Trump tower, so no record likely exists of that call.
2. He labelled any information they leak as political, i.e. a pre-emptive attack should embarrasing details be revealed.
Hell, the Republicans were on Obama's nuts for years because he said, "If you like your health insurance, you can keep your health insurance".
Republicans where after Obama on this because he KNEW what he was saying wasn't true when he said it, but the bill had to pass so it was about PR over truth.
Because no one ever uses the President's name to refer to the action of an administration?
If every conversation is swept-up in a dragnet, it makes no sense to physically tap a phone connection, you just query the Utah Data Repository under the guise of "National Security" and with the blessing of the FISA court's rubber-stamp warrant.
We do know, with absolute certainty (because she herself admitted it on camera) was that Susan Rice, in her capacity as National Security Advisor, repeatedly and specifically asked for the redaction of Trump campaign workers and known associates during the campaign. Why did she do it, because she needed "context". We are to believe that Susan "A YouTube video caused Benghazi" Rice was conducting her own investigations out of her office, because she doesn't trust the FBI, CIA, etc. to do their jobs...
What I want to know is what did Peter Schiff see in the SCIF that made him stop attacking Repubicans and their "Politically-motivated witch hunt"?
Nothing suspicious there, perfectly normal - every National Security Advisor in recent administrations has been a part-time sleuth.
Ken
Anonymous Coward's complete lack of surprise.
They are trying VERY hard to normalize Trump's behaviour, so yes they will say it's exactly the same as with other Presidents. Except that it's not.
Honestly, I did not foresee the rise of Trump muppets here on SlashDot every day since he got elected, gaslighting and pushing their alt-right bullshit.
How much jail time for the guys responsible? That's all I want to know. 1 yr per incident? That would be fine.
Assume 100 yrs per life and start at the top, arresting, trying and jailing everyone in the organization.
The NSA is clearly going to do whatever they feel like doing, laws be damned.
Congress needs to take a break from legislation and focus on enforcement for awhile. Then once the NSA is back to actually following the laws they pass, then get back to legislating. Until then, you're just wasting your time passing new laws. Don't renew their inch, they're just going to laugh at you and take another foot. If you're not going to hold them accountable, at least show them the "power of the purse" - cut their funding so they simply can't afford to keep breaking the law.
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
So, you're going to blame Trump for everything his administration does, but the one true Obama only takes credit for what his department does, no blame for what his underlings did.
Obama is responsible for everything his cabinet appointees did and approved. He was the head of the executive branch, it's his responsibility. Trump is responsible now for everything his cabinet appointees do. He's responsible for everything the executive branch does. Yup, it's a big responsibility, but you gotta put on your big boy britches when you ask for the job.
If there was a law change. Then that means that mass surveilling people is a violation of the computer fraud and abuse act.
Go and arrest these guys, prosecute them, then put them in prison for 5 to 10 years.
Which kind of brings up an interesting point and another parallel. Just like when Rand Paul had a spat with the TSA, when our elected leaders start brushing up (negatively) against those controversial policies of the government, the more likely those policies will be changed.
I had hoped (maybe still hoping) that if Trump's conversations were picked up in dragnet and he learned about it that he would want to publicize those to eventually end those kind of practices or at least force them inline with the law. Just like Rand Paul and the TSA (Rand Paul was always a critic of the TSA but after that spat he stepped up his efforts to reign in on the agency).
Let's be honest, more and more elected representatives and judges will come into contact with these policies and I would hope that many of them won't like it and begin the slow churn of changes in government.
Hell, the Republicans were on Obama's nuts for years because he said, "If you like your health insurance, you can keep your health insurance".
Republicans where after Obama on this because he KNEW what he was saying wasn't true when he said it, but the bill had to pass so it was about PR over truth.
Perhaps so. The problem with Trump is that he doesn't seem to consider whether or not something is true when he says it. He just says whatever sounds good at the time.
"What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public." -Ray Zalinsky (Tommy Boy)
So Trump will be ending this, right? He's going to stop the Patriot Act from renewing during his term as well, right?
Because no one ever uses the President's name to refer to the action of an administration?
No, because Trump specified it himself. "Just found out that Obama had my "wires tapped" in Trump Tower just before the victory." He said "Obama had my wires tapped". That means Obama specifically ordered his communications to be monitored.
"What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public." -Ray Zalinsky (Tommy Boy)
But are you seriously arguing that Trump's complete and total inconsistency is just like any other President?
Yes. The man has been in media for sometime and obviously he understands it by running successful media endeavors and a successful presidential campaign against a better funded and more experienced opponent. Obviously, there is method to his madness even if you or CNN don't understand it. His "inconsistency" I think is part of that method and I think many of his ardent supporters rationalize it to "deal making" or some other favorable trait that they admire even if they don't agree with the way it is done or the outcome.
It isn't right or wrong it is just different.
Who the fuck said anything about illegal? Not Trump's tweet, not anyone else. The only illegal thing I've seen is Comey lying under oath to Congress.
So you have to literally MAKE UP what Trump claims and then prove what you said he claims is false?
You are an outright liar and not to be trusted. Your comments are defamation of character with intention to smear reputation. This is why people support Trump. He is so evil and horrible the ONLY things people can say about bad about him are easily proven lies.
Your mistress Hillary lost, get over it.
It's been going on even before that.
It has been going on for a long time. But here is the thing, Obama made campaign promises to start ripping the system down, and instead, as revealed by several cases, used it to spy on Americans and Journalists. And that makes him actually worse than GWB who did a lot of it. At least we knew what we were getting with GWB, Obama ended up being a backstabbing weasel.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
Dragnet caught Trump vs Obama was spying on Trump directly, the result is the same, so you're arguing semantics. Further, Rice's request to unmask and then leak that information was clearly a breach of the spirit of the law, if not breaking the law.
But keep telling yourself that the Obama Administration farted rainbows.The fact that this wasn't the FIRST time Obama admin spied on Americans. Or the second.
Again, don't let the repeated offenses bother you.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
Records -- not content.
Smith v Maryland (1979) holds that phone call records, as "business records" provided to a third party, do not have an expectation of privacy and are not protected by the Fourth Amendment. In order for this to change, Congress needs to act, or SCOTUS will need to speak again on the matter -- the nature of which admittedly has changed in the ensuing 38 years.
Targeted collection of communications *content* of US Persons anywhere in the world requires an individualized warrant.
Additionally, there are over 1 trillion cell phone calls made in the US annually, which means this record collection represents 0.015% of total domestic wireless calls.
This issue and its handling is a lot more complex and nuanced than the contemporaneous articles would lead an observer to believe...
Well yeah but look at it this way. A standard voice channel is roughly 64kbps then multiply that time the number of people they tapped, and possible durations of calls and you've got one hell of a data store.
Honestly, I did not foresee the rise of Trump muppets here on SlashDot every day since he got elected, gaslighting and pushing their alt-right bullshit.
That is a error in judgment you made because you assumed they were all just unpaid volunteers, doing it in their free time. They aren't unpaid though. They aren't volunteers. They didn't vote for Trump; they're not even American.
(And they will mod this thread down to -1 with their banked sock-puppet mod points.)
I have no doubt that some highly moral people join the NSA with the idea that they can be a good guy. Just like most cops join the force to protect and server their community, and most military people join to serve their country and protect our Constitution.
The immorality at the higher levels breaks the delusion,and people either conform to a morality they disagree with to maintain a job or they leave.
All absolutely normal human behavior, well documented, and full of historical references.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
Voice can be compressed quite a bit before losing intelligibility. If you don't have to prove authenticity of the recording later on, you can save on storage.
Of course. And Trump used an old term, "Wire tapping" which, if you were born before 1980, meant that the wire on your phone was tapped, interestingly enough. However, this is not necessary anymore with VOIP.
His allegation was that he was wiretapped by Obama [presumably by Obama's orders]. This happened.
Yes, the obsolete expression wiretapping was the first give away that he was just talking allegorically, as he likes to do.
He said "Obama had my wires tapped". That means Obama specifically ordered his communications to be monitored
No, it doesn't. It means Obama's administration ordered and carried it out. Wiretapping and chasing down warrants are not the job of POTUS -- but they are absolutely the jobs of people who directly work for POTUS. I am sure you know there are 100,000's of people working in the executive branch of government and every single one of them ultimately reports to POTUS.
I am honestly surprised that any reasonable person would think that Obama personally ordered the wiretap and personally installed it himself.....that....isn't...what Presidents do
Carter Page had a FISA warrant on him, from the FBI, which reports to Obama
Susan Rice, who's office was down the hall from Obama, admitted to spying on Trump transition
Michael Flynn's conversations were leaked to the press, OBVIOUSLY he was spied on.
Why do you keep lying? There is overwhelming evidence Obama's administration spied on Trump, even the woman in the office next door to him. The only question at this point was it outright illegal and who specifically ordered it. Seeing as Comey LIED under oath when questioned about it, I going to have to assume Obama ordered it himself and Comey was covering for him. Until I see evidence differently, and since they are REFUSING to comply with Congressional investigations, that is not likely to happen.
All you are accomplishing is convincing more people the left outright lie, like you are doing, and there is actually a cover up because of all the lying involved.
Can you find a section of the CFAA waiving sovereign immunity for agencies of the federal government engaged in activities covered under it in the course of their official duties? I sure can't.
There's an argument to be made that Clapper would be liable for civil damages individually under a Bivens action, or that at some point he could end up in jail for perjury or Contempt of Congress, but it ain't the CFAA that will put him there.
Take a look at CODEC2. Very good intelligibility with about 5600 bits/sec. Easily implemented on FPGA that can handle Terabits/sec
A standard voice channel is roughly 64kbps
It's only voice and bandwidth limited to about 3000Hz. It could be stored using a MUCH lower bitrate.
I saw a news article that the metadata included the trunk identifier for the call.
If so, why would that be useful except for gathering the call audio?
This totally wouldn't be happening if Hillary had been elected.
Sarcasm aside, I hope more and more people are starting to get that we're being screwed by both sides of the aisle.
Bleh.
It's much bigger than that.
This is only for the specified intel programs.
They didn't include the mil side intel.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
So blatantly lying and making up stuff off the top of your head isn't wrong?
Way to be a sympathizer. I bet you believe everything he says. Smh.
Obama isn't the fucking president anymore. Jesus Christ. Stop trying to blame him for stupid shit trump does and says.
Trump is a liar, a cheat, and a fraud. Regardless of what Obama did or has done. This can't be disputed. The man tells a almost blatantl lie almost every single day.
So let me get this straight. We know he was tapped and that people looked at it.
But you're saying that unless Obama signed an order to illegally wiretap him, it doesn't really count?
Sure, you were wiretapped, but it doesn't count! It was only metadata.
Actually his accusations were accurate, they did unmask his data and his teams data after paying a UK crap spy to create a document that they knew was false but used anyway. Your clearly anti trump. Your not being analytical at all unless it matches your purposes, I'd almost say your a Correct the Record hack.
They have fully infested this board and have been manipulating it for years. Notice anyone that knows anything has moved to other sites.
Right now, the truth is out, the media is ignoring the FACTS, and your the posterboy for pushing the false narrative.
What you should all be pissed about is the CFR eugenics guys running the whitehouse under Trump, but your still whining about wire tapping that has already been exposed but not being prosecuted by swamp creatures.
is prosecutions for breaking the law. You can't prosecute somebody if they didn't break the law. If you don't like it call your congress critter. While you're at it tell them to end the war in Iraq & Afghanistan. Finally, tell you you vote, vote in primaries, and if you don't hear that they've done what you told them you'll be voting against them in the primary. Congress folks don't care about the General, they've gerrymandered their districts so they'll always win. They're terrified of losing their primaries.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
How about blaming him for what his Administration did, which was spy on Americans (not once or even twice). And I don't give a shit about politicians lying, that ship sailed when Clinton wagged is finger at every American a lied, and the left didn't give a shit, because they thought a blowjob was funny .. or whatever.
Liberals have standards, all double.
So, ignore the obvious, Obama spied on Americans all the time, we know this because we've caught him at least three times doing it. Obama isn't the saint the left wants him to be. Both parties are filled with douche bags
Pointing to bad behavior to excuse or misdirect other bad behavior doesn't fly with me.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
It should be clearer than ever that Obama was indeed responsible for monitoring the phones of Trump and his associates.
If this is the best you can do, and the extent of your ability to construct logical arguments, you should just give up now.
People who say "sheeple" have about as much sophistication as an AOL user, and in fact are probably actually AOL users.
A chi town politician being a corrupt backstabbing weasel? Say it ain't so.
Obama ended up being a backstabbing weasel.
But he's *OUR* backstabbing weasel, and don't you forget it, ingrate! You should be thanking Obama!
Once again, nothing is going to change and it is going to be business as usually until these criminals start going to prison.
So, like Correct The Record?
You forgot the metadata (ones and zeros) that makes up the voice part of the phone call. Yes, they store all that too.
True, but technically that's not metadata. That's data.
If I can be modded down for being a troll, can I be modded up for being an orc, or a balrog?
Unfortunately the "we promise not to peek" dishonesty passed these laws. It would take the Supreme Court ruling them unconstitutional, not new politicians. Indirectly a Presidential appointment does have impact, which is frankly why many people voted for Trump. A liberal justice who believes in a "living constitution" instead of what we are supposed to have tends to vote in favor of Government.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
They aren't afraid of any consequences?
There have been, and are, no consequences for their illegal betrayal of the entire country. They are only technically not committing treason group of them because they *are* the terrorists and not simply aiding and abetting an external group - to our knowledge at least.
But nothing happens.
None of them are in jail. None of them have seen their families executed for their heinous acts. None of them have been tried for myriad crimes they have knowingly and willingly committed in an abuse of power of a scale never before seen in history.
They've barely even had mentioned to them that what they did is bad and maybe if they're willing they could possibly-feel-bad-but-they-don't-have-to.
We can't stop them by simply letting them continue unpunished. We've already tried that. It only made things worse. Then we tried it again. It didn't work. And again. And again.
Punishment. It needs to fit the crime.
I guess the paid non Americans also won the election, right?
So blatantly lying and making up stuff off the top of your head isn't wrong?
Every president has lied to you. Sorry to break that to you. A smooth talking liar is still a liar even if it sounds good. Obama is the better orator but that doesn't mean that Obama didn't lie to you. He did. Lots of times.
Way to be a sympathizer. I bet you believe everything he says. Smh.
I have been called everything because I don't fall inline with the Trump hate. It was no different on Obamas election/re-election for me. Everyone is trying to convince you of something. Why is this any different?
I don't need to believe everything he says to know there are a lot of people still very bitter over the election. That bitterness makes it difficult for them to see any silver lining or to see the world without a projected failure for any and everything. All critical thinking goes out the window as soon as Trumps name is uttered. It was dumb when it was Obama it is dumb now.
I'm not.
Dead on balls accurate sir. Thank you.
When the only tool you have is a claw hammer every problem starts to look like the back of someone's skull.
You forgot the metadata (ones and zeros) that makes up the voice part of the phone call. Yes, they store all that too.
True, but technically that's not metadata. That's data.
Part of the admitted "legal" NSA collection program includes automated searching of internet traffic for key words including the *content* of emails. If that is legal, then how can the automated searching of voice calls not also be legal? The Department of Justice's position is that automated searches which do not involve a human are not "searches" for 4th amendment purposes. I am not sure how that gets around having "seized" the data by making a copy to search but apparently it does.
The only metadata of an IP packet is contained in the IP header. It includes the source address, destination address, time to live, etc. which is what the ISP needs to route the packet. Does anybody think the NSA and other agencies are inspecting, seizing, and retaining only data contained in the IP header?
What the NSA, other agencies, and Congress want to create is the illusion of privacy so that people will continue to use insecure communications. If you want privacy, then use end to end encryption.