Metro Jacksonville

Doesn't get much worse than this.

Between this, the IRS fiasco, and the AP phone record grab, Obama deserves to be removed from office immediately.

Every bit as bad as Bush at this point.

QuoteNSA collecting phone records of millions of Verizon customers daily
Exclusive: Top secret court order requiring Verizon to hand over all call data shows scale of domestic surveillance under Obama

The National Security Agency is currently collecting the telephone records of millions of US customers of Verizon, one of America's largest telecoms providers, under a top secret court order issued in April.

The order, a copy of which has been obtained by the Guardian, requires Verizon on an "ongoing, daily basis" to give the NSA information on all telephone calls in its systems, both within the US and between the US and other countries.

The document shows for the first time that under the Obama administration the communication records of millions of US citizens are being collected indiscriminately and in bulk â€" regardless of whether they are suspected of any wrongdoing.

The secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (Fisa) granted the order to the FBI on April 25, giving the government unlimited authority to obtain the data for a specified three-month period ending on July 19.

Under the terms of the blanket order, the numbers of both parties on a call are handed over, as is location data, call duration, unique identifiers, and the time and duration of all calls. The contents of the conversation itself are not covered.

The disclosure is likely to reignite longstanding debates in the US over the proper extent of the government's domestic spying powers.

Under the Bush administration, officials in security agencies had disclosed to reporters the large-scale collection of call records data by the NSA, but this is the first time significant and top-secret documents have revealed the continuation of the practice on a massive scale under President Obama.

The unlimited nature of the records being handed over to the NSA is extremely unusual. Fisa court orders typically direct the production of records pertaining to a specific named target who is suspected of being an agent of a terrorist group or foreign state, or a finite set of individually named targets.

The Guardian approached the National Security Agency, the White House and the Department of Justice for comment in advance of publication on Wednesday. All declined. The agencies were also offered the opportunity to raise specific security concerns regarding the publication of the court order.

The court order expressly bars Verizon from disclosing to the public either the existence of the FBI's request for its customers' records, or the court order itself.

"We decline comment," said Ed McFadden, a Washington-based Verizon spokesman.

The order, signed by Judge Roger Vinson, compels Verizon to produce to the NSA electronic copies of "all call detail records or 'telephony metadata' created by Verizon for communications between the United States and abroad" or "wholly within the United States, including local telephone calls".

The order directs Verizon to "continue production on an ongoing daily basis thereafter for the duration of this order". It specifies that the records to be produced include "session identifying information", such as "originating and terminating number", the duration of each call, telephone calling card numbers, trunk identifiers, International Mobile Subscriber Identity (IMSI) number, and "comprehensive communication routing information".

The information is classed as "metadata", or transactional information, rather than communications, and so does not require individual warrants to access. The document also specifies that such "metadata" is not limited to the aforementioned items. A 2005 court ruling judged that cell site location data â€" the nearest cell tower a phone was connected to â€" was also transactional data, and so could potentially fall under the scope of the order.

While the order itself does not include either the contents of messages or the personal information of the subscriber of any particular cell number, its collection would allow the NSA to build easily a comprehensive picture of who any individual contacted, how and when, and possibly from where, retrospectively.

It is not known whether Verizon is the only cell-phone provider to be targeted with such an order, although previous reporting has suggested the NSA has collected cell records from all major mobile networks. It is also unclear from the leaked document whether the three-month order was a one-off, or the latest in a series of similar orders.

The court order appears to explain the numerous cryptic public warnings by two US senators, Ron Wyden and Mark Udall, about the scope of the Obama administration's surveillance activities.

For roughly two years, the two Democrats have been stridently advising the public that the US government is relying on "secret legal interpretations" to claim surveillance powers so broad that the American public would be "stunned" to learn of the kind of domestic spying being conducted.

Because those activities are classified, the senators, both members of the Senate intelligence committee, have been prevented from specifying which domestic surveillance programs they find so alarming. But the information they have been able to disclose in their public warnings perfectly tracks both the specific law cited by the April 25 court order as well as the vast scope of record-gathering it authorized.

Julian Sanchez, a surveillance expert with the Cato Institute, explained: "We've certainly seen the government increasingly strain the bounds of 'relevance' to collect large numbers of records at once â€" everyone at one or two degrees of separation from a target â€" but vacuuming all metadata up indiscriminately would be an extraordinary repudiation of any pretence of constraint or particularized suspicion." The April order requested by the FBI and NSA does precisely that.

The law on which the order explicitly relies is the so-called "business records" provision of the Patriot Act, 50 USC section 1861. That is the provision which Wyden and Udall have repeatedly cited when warning the public of what they believe is the Obama administration's extreme interpretation of the law to engage in excessive domestic surveillance.

In a letter to attorney general Eric Holder last year, they argued that "there is now a significant gap between what most Americans think the law allows and what the government secretly claims the law allows."

"We believe," they wrote, "that most Americans would be stunned to learn the details of how these secret court opinions have interpreted" the "business records" provision of the Patriot Act.

Privacy advocates have long warned that allowing the government to collect and store unlimited "metadata" is a highly invasive form of surveillance of citizens' communications activities. Those records enable the government to know the identity of every person with whom an individual communicates electronically, how long they spoke, and their location at the time of the communication.

Such metadata is what the US government has long attempted to obtain in order to discover an individual's network of associations and communication patterns. The request for the bulk collection of all Verizon domestic telephone records indicates that the agency is continuing some version of the data-mining program begun by the Bush administration in the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 attack.

The NSA, as part of a program secretly authorized by President Bush on 4 October 2001, implemented a bulk collection program of domestic telephone, internet and email records. A furore erupted in 2006 when USA Today reported that the NSA had "been secretly collecting the phone call records of tens of millions of Americans, using data provided by AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth" and was "using the data to analyze calling patterns in an effort to detect terrorist activity." Until now, there has been no indication that the Obama administration implemented a similar program.

These recent events reflect how profoundly the NSA's mission has transformed from an agency exclusively devoted to foreign intelligence gathering, into one that focuses increasingly on domestic communications. A 30-year employee of the NSA, William Binney, resigned from the agency shortly after 9/11 in protest at the agency's focus on domestic activities.

In the mid-1970s, Congress, for the first time, investigated the surveillance activities of the US government. Back then, the mandate of the NSA was that it would never direct its surveillance apparatus domestically.

At the conclusion of that investigation, Frank Church, the Democratic senator from Idaho who chaired the investigative committee, warned: "The NSA's capability at any time could be turned around on the American people, and no American would have any privacy left, such is the capability to monitor everything: telephone conversations, telegrams, it doesn't matter."

Additional reporting by Ewen MacAskill and Spencer Ackerman

Here's the CNN story (above is from the Guardian, who broke the story this morning):

Quote(CNN) -- The U.S. government has obtained a top secret court order that requires Verizon to turn over the telephone records of millions of Americans to the National Security Agency on an "ongoing daily basis," the UK-based Guardian newspaper reported.

The four-page order, which The Guardian published on its website Wednesday, requires the communications giant to turn over "originating and terminating" telephone numbers as well as the location, time and duration of the calls -- and demands that the order be kept secret.

If genuine, it gives the NSA blanket access to the records of millions of Verizon customers' domestic and foreign phone calls made between April 25, when the order was signed, and July 19, when it expires.

While the report infuriated people across the country -- former Vice President Al Gore called the idea "obscenely outrageous" -- a senior official in the Obama administration defended the idea of such an order early Thursday.
Report: U.S. phone records go to the NSA

Without acknowledging whether the order exists, the administration official emphasized that such an order does not include collection of "the content of any communications or the name of any subscriber. It relates exclusively to metadata, such as a telephone number or the length of a call."

"Information of the sort described in the Guardian article has been a critical tool in protecting the nation from terrorist threats to the United States, as it allows counterterrorism personnel to discover whether known or suspected terrorists have been in contact with other persons who may be engaged in terrorist activities, particularly people located inside the United States," the unnamed official said in a written statement to media.

The official also insisted that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act authorizes intelligence collection. Activities "are subject to strict controls and procedures under oversight of the Department of Justice, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the FISA Court, to ensure that they comply with the Constitution and laws of the United States and appropriately protect privacy and civil liberties."

7 things to know

That response was unlikely to quell the quickly growing criticism.

"While I cannot corroborate the details of this particular report, this sort of widescale surveillance should concern all of us and is the kind of government overreach I've said Americans would find shocking," said Sen. Mark Udall, D-Colorado, who serves on the Senate Intelligence Committee.

Gore, in a tweet, also criticized the move.

"In the digital era, privacy must be a priority. Is it just me, or is secret blanket surveillance obscenely outrageous?" he said.

Verizon spokesman Edward McFadden declined to comment on the report.

According to the document published by The Guardian, Judge Roger Vinson of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) Court signed a "secondary order" granting an FBI request for access to the records.

The FBI did not respond to a CNN request for comment. The NSA told CNN it will respond "as soon as we can."

The order does not say why the request was made, but it bans the government and Verizon from making the contents public.

It says the order will be declassified in April 2038.

Analyst: How the order might help fight terrorism

Former FBI Assistant Director Tom Fuentes, a CNN contributor, suggested one way such an order might help fight terrorism.

"If a phone number comes up being connected to someone of suspicion, then (investigators) can go back and look at all of the numbers that phone number called or was called by, how long the calls were, what location the calls were made from, that type of information," he said on CNN's "Starting Point."

"It's not that someone or some group of analysts can sit there and monitor 50 million phone calls going through the computers. But it would create the ability to go back and see if you could connect phone calls."

For example, he said, it could allow investigators to go back and look at phone records of Boston bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev. Normally, phone companies would not maintain those records for long due to storage capacity, Fuentes said. With such an order, the records will be maintained by the NSA and "held for future investigations."

'Beyond Orwellian'

But some organizations that track privacy issues say they're unaware of the government having ever taken such sweeping action.

"As far as we know, this order from the FISA court is the broadest surveillance order to ever have been issued: it requires no level of suspicion and applies to all Verizon subscribers anywhere in the U.S.," the Center for Constitutional Rights said in a statement.

The American Civil Liberties Union called for an immediate end to the order and a congressional investigation.

"It's a program in which some untold number of innocent people have been put under the constant surveillance of government agents," said Jameel Jaffer, the ACLU's deputy legal director.

"It is beyond Orwellian, and it provides further evidence of the extent to which basic democratic rights are being surrendered in secret to the demands of unaccountable intelligence agencies."

It is not the first time such an action has been taken.

In 2006, it was revealed that the NSA was secretly collecting telephone records as part of an effort to root out potential terror plots.

At that time, Verizon denied reports that it was providing the NSA with data from customers' domestic calls. The company said that while it is committed to helping the government protect against terrorist attacks, "we will always make sure that any assistance is authorized by law and that our customers' privacy is safeguarded."

The news about the Verizon order comes as the Obama administration is under fire following revelations that the Justice Department seized two months of telephone records of a number of Associated Press reporters and editors, saying the requests were part of an investigation into the leak of classified information.

Justice officials haven't specified the leak that triggered the probe, but the AP has said it believes the investigation focuses on its account of a foiled plot to bomb a U.S. airliner in May 2012.

Bush, Obama, congress and the judiciary all in on as routine. As naive as the libertarians are about most issues I will stand with them against this crap.

Can you please explain why you lay this at the foot of President Obama?

Quote from: rvrsdediva on June 06, 2013, 12:12:26 PM
Can you please explain why you lay this at the foot of President Obama?

He just found out about it........low level employee...........you tube video.......Bushs fault

Quote from: rvrsdediva on June 06, 2013, 12:12:26 PM
Can you please explain why you lay this at the foot of President Obama?

(http://www.truthmove.org/workspace/photos-content/figa-2.gif)

So depending on how you look at this chart there's about 5 levels between the president and the NSA, still not getting it.

These scandals are getting to be almost comedic.  O is really screwing up - he has too many LARGE scandals under his belt now to claim some scenario of plausible deniability.

(http://cdn.memegenerator.net/instances/400x/37919445.jpg)

Quote from: rvrsdediva on June 06, 2013, 12:12:26 PM
Can you please explain why you lay this at the foot of President Obama?

guess the buck doesn't stop there?

Quote from: rvrsdediva on June 06, 2013, 12:12:26 PM
Can you please explain why you lay this at the foot of President Obama?

If you don't believe President Obama was aware of this, I have a bridge I'd like to sell you. 

The Senate was kept in the loop and was aware of this according to Diane Feinstein.  To think that the President didn't know is naive

I never said the president didn't know.  I asked for an explanation as to why someone would think him solely responsible.  Of course he knew, the Patriot Act has been in effect for years.

Wait, so everyone is against this now? I thought this has been public knowledge for years and it was deemed a great thing.

Quote from: rvrsdediva on June 06, 2013, 04:18:40 PM
I never said the president didn't know.  I asked for an explanation as to why someone would think him solely responsible.  Of course he knew, the Patriot Act has been in effect for years.

He is the person in charge, the buck stops with him, since he was aware of it, he is ultimately responsible for it.  This isn't some staffer acting independently.  He has the power to shut it down, he chose not to.  He spoke out against this when he was a US Senator.  What made it wrong then, but OK now?

If you want to defend him, fine, but don't pretend he isn't responsible for it , nor pretend he isn't a bigger hypocrite than the previous occupant of the White House.

Quote from: simms3 on June 06, 2013, 01:34:59 PM
These scandals are getting to be almost comedic.  O is really screwing up - he has too many LARGE scandals under his belt now to claim some scenario of plausible deniability.

I disagree.
First off this isn't a scandal it is bad policy in which both parties, The last two presidents , congress and the judiciary all have and still support. (and a good deal of the public too).

Benghazi fake controversy.

Media snooping again not a scandal it is the current bad policy both parties support and all of the other culprits from the first answer as well.

IRS that one is big and a different story real meat, real controversy and really bad.  However it is going to be impossible to pin this one on the President officially and probably with most of the public.

The Media is mad at the President right now but the jobs numbers tomorrow and over the rest of his term will be what keeps or loses his political clout and ability to get things done.

I think the Republicans have a real issue of over playing their hand so much with respect to Benghazi that lots of people are tuning out the bad policy issues and the real IRS scandal.

Trying to politicise this is the worst thing you can do. Its distracting from the real issue.  The problem isnt who did this, its that this is completely legal.  You should be outraged, but you should focus that energy on pushing for the Patriot Act and FISC to be repealed. 

This isn't even news in terms ofdomestic spying.  There is so much more that goes under the radar cause we're so used to this shit by now.  If you think this is bad, realize programs and power like this grow every year.

Contact your congressmen and women.  Try to not politicize it with Dems/Reps.

Good post^^^

It gets worse. http://www.businessinsider.com/prism-spying-program-nsa-fbi-mine-data-yahoo-facebook-google-2013-6

Wait until we're all wearing Google glasses. Facial recognition software And video of everywhere available 24 seven for snooping.

Collecting records just to find out that....

we are either talking about the Bachelorette

or talking about the NBA Finals.......

NSA will release a report that says "Phone records show that Americans are just as bored and mundane as we expected"

Quote from: Bridges on June 06, 2013, 06:51:09 PM
Trying to politicise this is the worst thing you can do.
...
Contact your congressmen and women.  Try to not politicize it with Dems/Reps.

I disagree, I think it's important that people realize democrats are just as bad on human rights as republicans (worse with this president in my opinion).

It won't be until people realize the 2 parties are the same this stuff will continue.

Anyone see the front page of the huffington post? (traditionally a liberal site)
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/
Here's a screenshot:
(http://i.imgur.com/8jeN1Sg.jpg?1)

Maybe people will wake up....

I don't think they will I do not think most Americans have a problem with it. 

Quote from: stephendare on June 06, 2013, 10:46:30 PMKen, werent you one of the ones asking what people had to hide way back when this was first an issue?  Or was that someone else?

Quite the opposite, actually :D

From 2009:

Quote from: KenFSU on February 03, 2009, 03:05:59 PM

QuoteI see nothing wrong with the cameras unless you plan on doing something illegal you shouldnt be worried.

With all due respect, I think there should be a special key on the keyboard that automatically outputs this catchphrase each time the issues of civil liberties and privacy are raised. People, such as myself, don’t deplore surveillance systems like this because they are street hooligans hell bent on “doing something wrong.”

Privacy is a person’s most sacred right. It’s not the ability to commit crime without consequence, but rather the freedom to be a human being. I work hard during the day, but I tense up when my boss is looking over my shoulder. I stress over what websites I visit at the office during my lunch break and censor my emails. I drive safely, but my blood pressure increases when a police officer is following me closely. Stress under scrutiny is one of the most fundamental aspects of human nature. It’s why your pulse is rarely accurate at the doctor’s office. You might be fine with it, but I do not accept being reduced to a lab rat in a maze on streets that my tax dollars fund, and find “the roads are public” to be thin rationalization for it.

Call it a police state, call it a nanny state, call it whatever. These surveillance grids are going up all over the country, thanks in no small part to grants from the Department of Homeland Security. Sure, a few dozen cameras downtown might not seem like a big deal. A few dozen more at intersections. A few dozen more at public parks and communal areas around town. It’s a slippery slope though. Look no further than England. They started putting up a few cameras here and there a decade ago, and now there are cameras on the streets of London with built-in speakers for the police to yell at citizens for jaywalking or littering. Their schools have cameras in the bathrooms. And ironically enough, a law was just passed this week in England making it a criminal offense, carrying up to ten years in prison, to photograph or film police officers. That’s not what America needs.

There is an old saying that goes: “Absolute power corrupts absolutely.” Quite frankly, I don’t trust the United States government. With Congressional approval ratings as low as 9% in the last year, it appears as if I am not alone. I don’t trust the Department of Homeland Security and NSA. With illegal prisons around the world, White House-authorized torture, rendition practices, and arbitrary abuse of every type of surveillance on the book, they can’t even seem to get themselves a conviction to back it all up. I have no reason to trust them either.

And God knows I don’t trust the City of Jacksonville. You want to trust the same people to monitor your behavior each and every day that can’t even fix a freakin fountain?

It in no way takes a “conspiracist” to come to the conclusion that Americans are being surveilled in record numbers. It’s black and white fact, backed up by the most trusted news organizations in America. Your phone calls are fair game. Your emails are fair game. Your IM’s, text messages, credit card records, financial transaction, bank statements, library logs, website visits, travel information. All being pumped directly to the NSA. Some it is delivered from the telecoms and financial institutions. Much of it is delivered from cooperative local agencies, who send your information to the NSA through regional Department of Homeland Security Fusion Centers. Ours is in Tallahassee.

The NSA is gathering and permanently databasing information, not on criminals or overseas threats, but on American Citizens just like me and you. Journalists are prime targets. As our those engaged in anti-war or civil liberties groups. Some people’s information is culled and archived simply because they happened to place a couple of phone calls in one day that lasted less that a minute (terrorists tend to make short calls, says the CIA).

To imply that this information is somehow exclusive to conspiracists is instead an acknowledgement that one has simply failed to read a decent newspaper in the last five years.

Once the cameras go up, they aren’t coming down. Historically, they’ll follow the same pattern of suburban sprawl as our fine citizens have as well. You want to permanently cede that type of power over and trust that your local, regional, state, and federal authorities will never abuse it? Be my guest. Even better, you’ll get to fund it yourself. But, if we are foolish enough to use something as slip-shod as “history” as a basis for decision making, these things never tend to end well.

The only "shocking" part of this story is why it took a Brit newpaper to "break" the story...

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/06/06/why_the_nsa_needs_your_phone_calls?page=0,0

Quote
Why the NSA Needs Your Phone Calls…

… and why you (probably) shouldn't worry about it.

BY STEWART BAKER |JUNE 6, 2013

Suddenly, the national security establishment is drowning in data. On June 5, the Guardian released what appears to be a highly classified order issued by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, known as the FISA Court, to collect Verizon customers' phone records of calls made to or by Americans. On June 6, the Washington Post revealed the existence of PRISM, which allows the collection of Internet data on a massive scale. Does this mean the end of privacy, law, and the Constitution?

Nope. There are a lot of reasons to be cautious about rushing to the conclusion that these "scandals" signal a massive, lawless new intrusion into Americans' civil liberties. Despite this apparent breadth, and even if we assume that the leaked FISA order is genuine, there are a lot of reasons to be cautious about rushing to the conclusion that it signals a massive, lawless new intrusion into Americans' civil liberties.

Let's start with the order. It seems to come from the court established to oversee intelligence gathering that touches the United States. Right off the bat, that means that this is not some warrantless or extrastatutory surveillance program. The government had to convince up to a dozen life-tenured members of the federal judiciary that the order was lawful. You may not like the legal interpretation that produced this order, but you can't say it's lawless.

In fact, it's a near certainty that the legal theory behind orders of this sort has been carefully examined by all three branches of the government and by both political parties. As the Guardian story makes clear, Sen. Ron Wyden has been agitating for years about what he calls an interpretation of national security law that seems to go beyond anything the American people understand or would support. He could easily have been talking about orders like this. So it's highly likely that the law behind this order was carefully vetted by both intelligence committees, Democrat-led in the Senate and Republican-led in the House. (Indeed, today the leaders of both committees gave interviews defending the order.) And in the executive branch, any legal interpretations adopted by George W. Bush's administration would have been carefully scrubbed by President Barack Obama's Justice Department.

Ah, you say, but the scandal here isn't what has been done illegally -- it's what has been done legally. Even if it's lawful, how can the government justify spying on every American's phone calls?

It can't. No one has repealed the laws that prohibit the National Security Agency (NSA) from targeting Americans unless it has probable cause to believe that they are spies or terrorists. So under the law, the NSA remains prohibited from collecting information on Americans.

On top of that, national security law also requires that the government "minimize" its collection and use of information about Americans -- a requirement that has spawned elaborate rules that strictly limit what the agency can do with information it has already collected. Thus, one effect of "post-collection minimization" is that the NSA may find itself prohibited from looking at or using data that it has lawfully collected.

I would not be surprised to discover that minimization is the key to this peculiarly two-party, three-branch "scandal." That is, while the order calls for the collection of an enormous amount of data, much of it probably cannot actually be searched or used except under heavy restrictions. (If I'm right, the administration is likely to find itself forced quite quickly to start talking about minimization, perhaps in considerable detail.)

But why, you ask, would the government collect all these records, even subject to minimization, especially when Wyden was kicking up such a fuss about it? And, really, what's the justification for turning the data over to the government, no matter how strong the post-collection rules are?

To understand why that might seem necessary, consider this entirely hypothetical example. Imagine that the United States is intercepting al Qaeda communications in Yemen. Its leader there calls his weapons expert and says, "Our agent in the U.S. needs technical assistance constructing a weapon for an imminent operation. I've told him to use a throwaway cell phone to call you tomorrow at 11 a.m. on your throwaway phone. When you answer, he'll give you nothing other than the number of a second phone. You will buy another phone in the bazaar and call him back on the second number at 2 p.m."

Now, this is pretty good improvised tradecraft, and it would leave the government with no idea where or who the U.S.-based operative was or what phone numbers to monitor. It doesn't have probable cause to investigate any particular American. But it surely does have probably cause to investigate any American who makes a call to Yemen at 11 a.m., Sanaa time, hangs up after a few seconds, and then gets a call from a different Yemeni number three hours later. Finding that person, however, wouldn't be easy, because the government could only identify the suspect by his calling patterns, not by name.

So how would the NSA go about finding the one person in the United States whose calling pattern matched the terrorists' plan? Well, it could ask every carrier to develop the capability to store all calls and search them for patterns like this one. But that would be very expensive, and its effectiveness would really only be as good as the weakest, least cooperative carrier. And even then it wouldn't work without massive, real-time information sharing -- any reasonably intelligent U.S.-based terrorist would just buy his first throwaway phone from one carrier and his second phone from a different carrier.

The only way to make the system work, and the only way to identify and monitor the one American who was plotting with al Qaeda's operatives in Yemen, would be to pool all the carriers' data on U.S. calls to and from Yemen and to search it all together -- and for the costs to be borne by all of us, not by the carriers.

In short, the government would have to do it.

To repeat, this really is hypothetical; while I've had clearances both as the NSA's top lawyer and in the top policy job at the Department of Homeland Security, I have not been briefed on this program. (If I had, I wouldn't be writing about it.) But the example shows that it's not that hard to imagine circumstances in which the government needs to obtain massive amounts of information about Americans yet also needs to remain bound by the general rule that it may only monitors those whom it legitimately suspects of being terrorists or spies.

The technique that squares that circle is minimization. As long as the minimization rules require that all searches of the collected data must be justified in advance by probable cause, Americans are protected from arbitrary searches. In the standard law enforcement model that we're all familiar with, privacy is protected because the government doesn't get access to the information until it presents evidence to the court sufficient to identify the suspects. In the alternative model, the government gets possession of the data but is prohibited by the court and the minimization rules from searching it until it has enough evidence to identify terror suspects based on their patterns of behavior.

That's a real difference. Plenty of people will say that they don't trust the government with such a large amount of data -- that there's too much risk that it will break the rules -- even rules enforced by a two-party, three-branch system of checks and balances. When I first read the order, even I had a moment of chagrin and disbelief at its sweep.

But for those who don't like the alternative model, the real question is "compared to what"? Those who want to push the government back into the standard law enforcement approach of identifying terrorists only by name and not by conduct will have to explain how it will allow us to catch terrorists who use halfway decent tradecraft -- or why sticking with that model is so fundamentally important that we should do so even if it means more acts of terrorism at home.

That article is exactly what has me so concerned.  The "this is nothing, stop worrying" approach.   We've already internalized spying on our citizens in our country.  Already, Glenn Greenwald has discovered that some of this information was used to seek personal vendettas by the individuals in the NSA.  He mentioned it on NPR's Morning Edition this morning. 

This type of surveillance happened under the Bush Administration, but he disclosed most of it.  Now it's happening under the Obama Administration, with less disclosure.  The slope has proven itself slippery.  Now is the time to make the changes, cause when the next administration or the one after that takes over, this will be harder to stop. 

QuoteThat article is exactly what has me so concerned.  The "this is nothing, stop worrying" approach.   We've already internalized spying on our citizens in our country.

But... that is not what the article is saying.  It is outlining what the program can and cannot do and the checks and balances that are supposed to safeguard our rights.  The author even says...

QuotePlenty of people will say that they don't trust the government with such a large amount of data -- that there's too much risk that it will break the rules -- even rules enforced by a two-party, three-branch system of checks and balances. When I first read the order, even I had a moment of chagrin and disbelief at its sweep.

I certainly understand your concerns about the "slippery slope"... and I am sure you share the same concerns regarding guncontrol and government control of healthcare...

2007:

http://www.youtube.com/v/B6fnfVJzZT4

The article states:

QuoteIt can't. No one has repealed the laws that prohibit the National Security Agency (NSA) from targeting Americans unless it has probable cause to believe that they are spies or terrorists. So under the law, the NSA remains prohibited from collecting information on Americans.

Except, that, that's what they've been doing.  Listen to Glenn Greenwald talk about it http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2013/06/07/189446096/profound-questions-about-privacy-follow-latest-revelations (http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2013/06/07/189446096/profound-questions-about-privacy-follow-latest-revelations)

Not to mention that PRISM revealed deeper levels of spying. 
http://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/us-intelligence-mining-data-from-nine-us-internet-companies-in-broad-secret-program/2013/06/06/3a0c0da8-cebf-11e2-8845-d970ccb04497_story.html (http://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/us-intelligence-mining-data-from-nine-us-internet-companies-in-broad-secret-program/2013/06/06/3a0c0da8-cebf-11e2-8845-d970ccb04497_story.html)

Quote from: BridgeTroll on June 07, 2013, 08:49:05 AM
I certainly understand your concerns about the "slippery slope"... and I am sure you share the same concerns regarding guncontrol and government control of healthcare...

Yes, every issue is the same, always.  No nuance to any of it.  Spying is the same as healthcare.  And spying indiscriminately and sweeping like this is the same as closing gun show loopholes. 

Of course, this is exactly the kind of BS that makes us distracted from issues.  Comparison from "my side" and "I told you so".   

In my eyes... the Prism issue may be more sinister and "in the dark" than the telephony issue.  Regarding the slippery slope... it is interesting that some slopes are slipperyer that others... depending on the viewpoints of those who are sliding down it... 8)

Quote from: JeffreyS on June 06, 2013, 07:21:35 PM
Wait until we're all wearing Google glasses. Facial recognition software And video of everywhere available 24 seven for snooping.

That's the day I move to Canada!

If people haven't been able to follow this story closely, the basic nutshell version is that:

1) The NSA has collected and archived records of every single phone call made in the United States in the last seven years. Verizon, AT&T, and Sprint all cooperated.

2) The United States government, through a top secret program called PRISM leaked by a horrified career intelligence office, has been harvesting and archiving citizens' data, including but not limited to emails, photographs, video, audio, and documents, with backdoor access granted by Facebook, Apple, Microsoft, Google, AOL, Skype, YouTube, Yahoo, and others, with DropBox joining next.

The even more basic version:

Nothing is private, digitally.

Rest assured that Uncle Sam has access to your Skype calls, your private Facebook correspondence, your email accounts, your bank records, your web history, your dirty pictures you thought were between you and your partner, whatever.

And we're only talking about the stuff that has leaked.

PRISM is really bad, with horrible implications for American freedom, even if you're note a privacy advocate.

The UK is apparently in on it as well. http://www.theverge.com/2013/6/7/4405906/uk-government-is-allegedly-involved-in-us-internet-spying-program

This is fucking crazy. Its clear we've passed the point of no return with this stuff. The country needs an enema.

I feel sorry for the NSA guy that has to go through my internet history.

12:00PM - Cat pictures
12:01PM - Stuff about guns
12:03PM - reddit.com/r/murica
12:04PM - Google search for "blue waffle"
12:05PM - Youtube search for "reactions to blue waffle"
12:06PM - Cat pictures

Lather, rinse, repeat, etc..

Well all of this phone data and PRISM stuff stopped those two crazy brothers who were going to set off bombs at the Boston Marathon so it's OK.  Right?

I'm not... as long as the agreed upon safeguards are in place, working, and being audited.  I am saying... is if this particular program is functioning as I think it is... then it should be not surprising to anyone.

The Prism program though... seems at this point to be outside any agreed upon legislation...

Quote from: stephendare on June 07, 2013, 12:16:13 PM

Quote from: BridgeTroll on June 07, 2013, 07:50:33 AM
The only "shocking" part of this story is why it took a Brit newpaper to "break" the story...

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/06/06/why_the_nsa_needs_your_phone_calls?page=0,0

Quote
Why the NSA Needs Your Phone Calls…

… and why you (probably) shouldn't worry about it.

BY STEWART BAKER |JUNE 6, 2013

Suddenly, the national security establishment is drowning in data. On June 5, the Guardian released what appears to be a highly classified order issued by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, known as the FISA Court, to collect Verizon customers' phone records of calls made to or by Americans. On June 6, the Washington Post revealed the existence of PRISM, which allows the collection of Internet data on a massive scale. Does this mean the end of privacy, law, and the Constitution?

Nope. There are a lot of reasons to be cautious about rushing to the conclusion that these "scandals" signal a massive, lawless new intrusion into Americans' civil liberties. Despite this apparent breadth, and even if we assume that the leaked FISA order is genuine, there are a lot of reasons to be cautious about rushing to the conclusion that it signals a massive, lawless new intrusion into Americans' civil liberties.

Let's start with the order. It seems to come from the court established to oversee intelligence gathering that touches the United States. Right off the bat, that means that this is not some warrantless or extrastatutory surveillance program. The government had to convince up to a dozen life-tenured members of the federal judiciary that the order was lawful. You may not like the legal interpretation that produced this order, but you can't say it's lawless.

In fact, it's a near certainty that the legal theory behind orders of this sort has been carefully examined by all three branches of the government and by both political parties. As the Guardian story makes clear, Sen. Ron Wyden has been agitating for years about what he calls an interpretation of national security law that seems to go beyond anything the American people understand or would support. He could easily have been talking about orders like this. So it's highly likely that the law behind this order was carefully vetted by both intelligence committees, Democrat-led in the Senate and Republican-led in the House. (Indeed, today the leaders of both committees gave interviews defending the order.) And in the executive branch, any legal interpretations adopted by George W. Bush's administration would have been carefully scrubbed by President Barack Obama's Justice Department.

Ah, you say, but the scandal here isn't what has been done illegally -- it's what has been done legally. Even if it's lawful, how can the government justify spying on every American's phone calls?

It can't. No one has repealed the laws that prohibit the National Security Agency (NSA) from targeting Americans unless it has probable cause to believe that they are spies or terrorists. So under the law, the NSA remains prohibited from collecting information on Americans.

On top of that, national security law also requires that the government "minimize" its collection and use of information about Americans -- a requirement that has spawned elaborate rules that strictly limit what the agency can do with information it has already collected. Thus, one effect of "post-collection minimization" is that the NSA may find itself prohibited from looking at or using data that it has lawfully collected.

I would not be surprised to discover that minimization is the key to this peculiarly two-party, three-branch "scandal." That is, while the order calls for the collection of an enormous amount of data, much of it probably cannot actually be searched or used except under heavy restrictions. (If I'm right, the administration is likely to find itself forced quite quickly to start talking about minimization, perhaps in considerable detail.)

But why, you ask, would the government collect all these records, even subject to minimization, especially when Wyden was kicking up such a fuss about it? And, really, what's the justification for turning the data over to the government, no matter how strong the post-collection rules are?

To understand why that might seem necessary, consider this entirely hypothetical example. Imagine that the United States is intercepting al Qaeda communications in Yemen. Its leader there calls his weapons expert and says, "Our agent in the U.S. needs technical assistance constructing a weapon for an imminent operation. I've told him to use a throwaway cell phone to call you tomorrow at 11 a.m. on your throwaway phone. When you answer, he'll give you nothing other than the number of a second phone. You will buy another phone in the bazaar and call him back on the second number at 2 p.m."

Now, this is pretty good improvised tradecraft, and it would leave the government with no idea where or who the U.S.-based operative was or what phone numbers to monitor. It doesn't have probable cause to investigate any particular American. But it surely does have probably cause to investigate any American who makes a call to Yemen at 11 a.m., Sanaa time, hangs up after a few seconds, and then gets a call from a different Yemeni number three hours later. Finding that person, however, wouldn't be easy, because the government could only identify the suspect by his calling patterns, not by name.

So how would the NSA go about finding the one person in the United States whose calling pattern matched the terrorists' plan? Well, it could ask every carrier to develop the capability to store all calls and search them for patterns like this one. But that would be very expensive, and its effectiveness would really only be as good as the weakest, least cooperative carrier. And even then it wouldn't work without massive, real-time information sharing -- any reasonably intelligent U.S.-based terrorist would just buy his first throwaway phone from one carrier and his second phone from a different carrier.

The only way to make the system work, and the only way to identify and monitor the one American who was plotting with al Qaeda's operatives in Yemen, would be to pool all the carriers' data on U.S. calls to and from Yemen and to search it all together -- and for the costs to be borne by all of us, not by the carriers.

In short, the government would have to do it.

To repeat, this really is hypothetical; while I've had clearances both as the NSA's top lawyer and in the top policy job at the Department of Homeland Security, I have not been briefed on this program. (If I had, I wouldn't be writing about it.) But the example shows that it's not that hard to imagine circumstances in which the government needs to obtain massive amounts of information about Americans yet also needs to remain bound by the general rule that it may only monitors those whom it legitimately suspects of being terrorists or spies.

The technique that squares that circle is minimization. As long as the minimization rules require that all searches of the collected data must be justified in advance by probable cause, Americans are protected from arbitrary searches. In the standard law enforcement model that we're all familiar with, privacy is protected because the government doesn't get access to the information until it presents evidence to the court sufficient to identify the suspects. In the alternative model, the government gets possession of the data but is prohibited by the court and the minimization rules from searching it until it has enough evidence to identify terror suspects based on their patterns of behavior.

That's a real difference. Plenty of people will say that they don't trust the government with such a large amount of data -- that there's too much risk that it will break the rules -- even rules enforced by a two-party, three-branch system of checks and balances. When I first read the order, even I had a moment of chagrin and disbelief at its sweep.

But for those who don't like the alternative model, the real question is "compared to what"? Those who want to push the government back into the standard law enforcement approach of identifying terrorists only by name and not by conduct will have to explain how it will allow us to catch terrorists who use halfway decent tradecraft -- or why sticking with that model is so fundamentally important that we should do so even if it means more acts of terrorism at home.

Surely you of all people arent criticizing the surveillance are you Bridge Troll?

Didnt you claim it was necessary to give up this freedom because, liberty?

Certainly this administration would never use any information for political gain. It would be like targeting people/groups through the IRS and that would never happen.

Quote

Quote from: stephendare on June 07, 2013, 12:30:44 PM

Quote from: BridgeTroll on June 07, 2013, 12:25:38 PM
I'm not... as long as the agreed upon safeguards are in place, working, and being audited.  I am saying... is if this particular program is functioning as I think it is... then it should be not surprising to anyone.

The Prism program though... seems at this point to be outside any agreed upon legislation...

hmm.  that sure isnt the tune you were singing under Bush.

We have to understand what this particular program does... and doesnt do...

QuoteNo one has repealed the laws that prohibit the National Security Agency (NSA) from targeting Americans unless it has probable cause to believe that they are spies or terrorists. So under the law, the NSA remains prohibited from collecting information on Americans.

On top of that, national security law also requires that the government "minimize" its collection and use of information about Americans -- a requirement that has spawned elaborate rules that strictly limit what the agency can do with information it has already collected. Thus, one effect of "post-collection minimization" is that the NSA may find itself prohibited from looking at or using data that it has lawfully collected.

It appears Microsoft, Apple, Google et al deny any knowledge of Prism... THAT is the one that seems out of bounds as of now...

Quote from: KenFSU on June 07, 2013, 11:00:43 AM
If people haven't been able to follow this story closely, the basic nutshell version is that:

1) The NSA has collected and archived records of every single phone call made in the United States in the last seven years. Verizon, AT&T, and Sprint all cooperated.

2) The United States government, through a top secret program called PRISM leaked by a horrified career intelligence office, has been harvesting and archiving citizens' data, including but not limited to emails, photographs, video, audio, and documents, with backdoor access granted by Facebook, Apple, Microsoft, Google, AOL, Skype, YouTube, Yahoo, and others, with DropBox joining next.

The even more basic version:

Nothing is private, digitally.

Rest assured that Uncle Sam has access to your Skype calls, your private Facebook correspondence, your email accounts, your bank records, your web history, your dirty pictures you thought were between you and your partner, whatever.

And we're only talking about the stuff that has leaked.

PRISM is really bad, with horrible implications for American freedom, even if you're note a privacy advocate.

And people think those who want to live off the grid are nuts, they may be the only sane people out there now. 

What is "metadata"?

Do you use Google?  Does Amazon "suggest" books and music you may like?  How about iTunes or any other shopping engine/website?  Has your credit card company ever called and asked you if charges on your card were yours?

All of these things and many more use "metadata"... and most of it is not targeting you specifically.  It is a compilation of data fed through logarithms that spit out trends and likelyhoods.

Quote from: stephendare on June 07, 2013, 12:54:07 PM

Quote from: BridgeTroll on June 07, 2013, 12:36:16 PM

Quote

Quote from: stephendare on June 07, 2013, 12:30:44 PM

Quote from: BridgeTroll on June 07, 2013, 12:25:38 PM
I'm not... as long as the agreed upon safeguards are in place, working, and being audited.  I am saying... is if this particular program is functioning as I think it is... then it should be not surprising to anyone.

The Prism program though... seems at this point to be outside any agreed upon legislation...

hmm.  that sure isnt the tune you were singing under Bush.

We have to understand what this particular program does... and doesnt do...

QuoteNo one has repealed the laws that prohibit the National Security Agency (NSA) from targeting Americans unless it has probable cause to believe that they are spies or terrorists. So under the law, the NSA remains prohibited from collecting information on Americans.

On top of that, national security law also requires that the government "minimize" its collection and use of information about Americans -- a requirement that has spawned elaborate rules that strictly limit what the agency can do with information it has already collected. Thus, one effect of "post-collection minimization" is that the NSA may find itself prohibited from looking at or using data that it has lawfully collected.

It appears Microsoft, Apple, Google et al deny any knowledge of Prism... THAT is the one that seems out of bounds as of now...

But you said that this was necessary, and that we were fools to underestimate the terrorists, didnt you?

Be specific Stephen... This what?  The telephone meta-data data collection? Yes... I said so above... as long as the proper safeguards are in place.  Prism?  This one seems to be something outside the bounds of bipartisan supported legislation... But I don't know enough about that one yet.  It seems neither do the major players like Google, Microsoft, and Apple.  If true it looks to me like Mr Obama has went further than Mr Bush had even dreamt of...

Quote from: stephendare on June 07, 2013, 12:55:01 PM

Quote from: bill on June 07, 2013, 12:32:57 PM

Quote from: stephendare on June 07, 2013, 12:16:13 PM

Quote from: BridgeTroll on June 07, 2013, 07:50:33 AM
The only "shocking" part of this story is why it took a Brit newpaper to "break" the story...

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/06/06/why_the_nsa_needs_your_phone_calls?page=0,0

Quote
Why the NSA Needs Your Phone Calls…

… and why you (probably) shouldn't worry about it.

BY STEWART BAKER |JUNE 6, 2013

Suddenly, the national security establishment is drowning in data. On June 5, the Guardian released what appears to be a highly classified order issued by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, known as the FISA Court, to collect Verizon customers' phone records of calls made to or by Americans. On June 6, the Washington Post revealed the existence of PRISM, which allows the collection of Internet data on a massive scale. Does this mean the end of privacy, law, and the Constitution?

Nope. There are a lot of reasons to be cautious about rushing to the conclusion that these "scandals" signal a massive, lawless new intrusion into Americans' civil liberties. Despite this apparent breadth, and even if we assume that the leaked FISA order is genuine, there are a lot of reasons to be cautious about rushing to the conclusion that it signals a massive, lawless new intrusion into Americans' civil liberties.

Let's start with the order. It seems to come from the court established to oversee intelligence gathering that touches the United States. Right off the bat, that means that this is not some warrantless or extrastatutory surveillance program. The government had to convince up to a dozen life-tenured members of the federal judiciary that the order was lawful. You may not like the legal interpretation that produced this order, but you can't say it's lawless.

In fact, it's a near certainty that the legal theory behind orders of this sort has been carefully examined by all three branches of the government and by both political parties. As the Guardian story makes clear, Sen. Ron Wyden has been agitating for years about what he calls an interpretation of national security law that seems to go beyond anything the American people understand or would support. He could easily have been talking about orders like this. So it's highly likely that the law behind this order was carefully vetted by both intelligence committees, Democrat-led in the Senate and Republican-led in the House. (Indeed, today the leaders of both committees gave interviews defending the order.) And in the executive branch, any legal interpretations adopted by George W. Bush's administration would have been carefully scrubbed by President Barack Obama's Justice Department.

Ah, you say, but the scandal here isn't what has been done illegally -- it's what has been done legally. Even if it's lawful, how can the government justify spying on every American's phone calls?

It can't. No one has repealed the laws that prohibit the National Security Agency (NSA) from targeting Americans unless it has probable cause to believe that they are spies or terrorists. So under the law, the NSA remains prohibited from collecting information on Americans.

On top of that, national security law also requires that the government "minimize" its collection and use of information about Americans -- a requirement that has spawned elaborate rules that strictly limit what the agency can do with information it has already collected. Thus, one effect of "post-collection minimization" is that the NSA may find itself prohibited from looking at or using data that it has lawfully collected.

I would not be surprised to discover that minimization is the key to this peculiarly two-party, three-branch "scandal." That is, while the order calls for the collection of an enormous amount of data, much of it probably cannot actually be searched or used except under heavy restrictions. (If I'm right, the administration is likely to find itself forced quite quickly to start talking about minimization, perhaps in considerable detail.)

But why, you ask, would the government collect all these records, even subject to minimization, especially when Wyden was kicking up such a fuss about it? And, really, what's the justification for turning the data over to the government, no matter how strong the post-collection rules are?

To understand why that might seem necessary, consider this entirely hypothetical example. Imagine that the United States is intercepting al Qaeda communications in Yemen. Its leader there calls his weapons expert and says, "Our agent in the U.S. needs technical assistance constructing a weapon for an imminent operation. I've told him to use a throwaway cell phone to call you tomorrow at 11 a.m. on your throwaway phone. When you answer, he'll give you nothing other than the number of a second phone. You will buy another phone in the bazaar and call him back on the second number at 2 p.m."

Now, this is pretty good improvised tradecraft, and it would leave the government with no idea where or who the U.S.-based operative was or what phone numbers to monitor. It doesn't have probable cause to investigate any particular American. But it surely does have probably cause to investigate any American who makes a call to Yemen at 11 a.m., Sanaa time, hangs up after a few seconds, and then gets a call from a different Yemeni number three hours later. Finding that person, however, wouldn't be easy, because the government could only identify the suspect by his calling patterns, not by name.

So how would the NSA go about finding the one person in the United States whose calling pattern matched the terrorists' plan? Well, it could ask every carrier to develop the capability to store all calls and search them for patterns like this one. But that would be very expensive, and its effectiveness would really only be as good as the weakest, least cooperative carrier. And even then it wouldn't work without massive, real-time information sharing -- any reasonably intelligent U.S.-based terrorist would just buy his first throwaway phone from one carrier and his second phone from a different carrier.

The only way to make the system work, and the only way to identify and monitor the one American who was plotting with al Qaeda's operatives in Yemen, would be to pool all the carriers' data on U.S. calls to and from Yemen and to search it all together -- and for the costs to be borne by all of us, not by the carriers.

In short, the government would have to do it.

To repeat, this really is hypothetical; while I've had clearances both as the NSA's top lawyer and in the top policy job at the Department of Homeland Security, I have not been briefed on this program. (If I had, I wouldn't be writing about it.) But the example shows that it's not that hard to imagine circumstances in which the government needs to obtain massive amounts of information about Americans yet also needs to remain bound by the general rule that it may only monitors those whom it legitimately suspects of being terrorists or spies.

The technique that squares that circle is minimization. As long as the minimization rules require that all searches of the collected data must be justified in advance by probable cause, Americans are protected from arbitrary searches. In the standard law enforcement model that we're all familiar with, privacy is protected because the government doesn't get access to the information until it presents evidence to the court sufficient to identify the suspects. In the alternative model, the government gets possession of the data but is prohibited by the court and the minimization rules from searching it until it has enough evidence to identify terror suspects based on their patterns of behavior.

That's a real difference. Plenty of people will say that they don't trust the government with such a large amount of data -- that there's too much risk that it will break the rules -- even rules enforced by a two-party, three-branch system of checks and balances. When I first read the order, even I had a moment of chagrin and disbelief at its sweep.

But for those who don't like the alternative model, the real question is "compared to what"? Those who want to push the government back into the standard law enforcement approach of identifying terrorists only by name and not by conduct will have to explain how it will allow us to catch terrorists who use halfway decent tradecraft -- or why sticking with that model is so fundamentally important that we should do so even if it means more acts of terrorism at home.

Surely you of all people arent criticizing the surveillance are you Bridge Troll?

Didnt you claim it was necessary to give up this freedom because, liberty?

Certainly this administration would never use any information for political gain. It would be like targeting people/groups through the IRS and that would never happen.

You also thought this was necessary bill.  you know, because of the 'criminal elements'.

Never commented one way or another. I do think the previous admin had enough integrity and respect for the american people to not use this info to attack people for their views. This one not so much.

Quote from: stephendare on June 07, 2013, 01:19:58 PM
Bridge, remember when you, not now and the like thought this guy was a moron? 

http://www.youtube.com/v/fHVOMSqCFHE

It is unlikely that I called anyone a moron... I will leave the name calling to those who seem more prone to it...

Quote from: stephendare on June 07, 2013, 01:19:58 PM
Bridge, remember when you, not now and the like thought this guy was a moron? 

http://www.youtube.com/v/fHVOMSqCFHE

The people of Wisc thought enough of him to make sure he does not have to go to DC anymore.

http://www.youtube.com/v/-isKhdB9jYo


Are you calling him a liar?  Two presidents in a row!  Unless you got Bill in there also... are ya gonna go for 4?

Quote from: BridgeTroll on June 07, 2013, 01:40:11 PM
http://www.youtube.com/v/-isKhdB9jYo


Are you calling him a liar?  Two presidents in a row!  Unless you got Bill in there also... are ya gonna go for 4?

Quote from: BridgeTroll on June 07, 2013, 01:44:18 PM

Quote from: BridgeTroll on June 07, 2013, 01:40:11 PM
http://www.youtube.com/v/-isKhdB9jYo


Are you calling him a liar?  Two presidents in a row!  Unless you got Bill in there also... are ya gonna go for 4?

Quote from: stephendare on June 07, 2013, 01:42:06 PM
Back when people like Robert Byrd were actually talking about the real Constitution, all of you ridiculed anyone who spoke out for American principles in favor of your partisan hysteria.

Perhaps you were too busy coming up with harebrained rationales about Health Care being 'unconstitutional' to care about the real problems going on in this country.

http://www.youtube.com/v/yxWfawiufK0

Was that Byrd talking about his membership in the KKK or his strong opposition against the 1964 civil rights movement?

It is strange that all of a sudden we are no longer cheering for this stuff. This is great news but it might be a little late.

Quote from: stephendare on June 07, 2013, 01:52:08 PM

Quote from: bill on June 07, 2013, 01:49:29 PM

Quote from: stephendare on June 07, 2013, 01:42:06 PM
Back when people like Robert Byrd were actually talking about the real Constitution, all of you ridiculed anyone who spoke out for American principles in favor of your partisan hysteria.

Perhaps you were too busy coming up with harebrained rationales about Health Care being 'unconstitutional' to care about the real problems going on in this country.

http://www.youtube.com/v/yxWfawiufK0

Was that Byrd talking about his membership in the KKK or his strong opposition against the 1964 civil rights movement?

Just cant forgive him for retiring the hood and robes, can you bill?

You are the one espousing him

Quote from: stephendare on June 07, 2013, 01:53:23 PM

Quote from: Lunican on June 07, 2013, 01:51:21 PM
It is strange that all of a sudden we are no longer cheering for this stuff. This is great news but it might be a little late.

by six years.  Its literally stomach churning to read some of these newfound believers.

Stuff?  Kinda vague Dan.  If you are refering to Prism... yeah... Until I know more... Not sure I am for it.  The metadata telephony thing looks like it is what most thought it was... and has been legal for quite awhile...

I thought that everyone was already aware of the NSA's spying activities. It actually wasn't a huge secret. They were touting their new data centers a few years ago.

QuoteThe NSA’S SPY NETWORK
Once it’s operational, the Utah Data Center will become, in effect, the NSA’s cloud. The center will be fed data collected by the agency’s eavesdropping satellites, overseas listening posts, and secret monitoring rooms in telecom facilities throughout the US. All that data will then be accessible to the NSA’s code breakers, data-miners, China analysts, counterterrorism specialists, and others working at its Fort Meade headquarters and around the world. Here’s how the data center appears to fit into the NSA’s global puzzle.

QuoteHe explains that the agency could have installed its tapping gear at the nation’s cable landing stationsâ€"the more than two dozen sites on the periphery of the US where fiber-optic cables come ashore. If it had taken that route, the NSA would have been able to limit its eavesdropping to just international communications, which at the time was all that was allowed under US law. Instead it chose to put the wiretapping rooms at key junction points throughout the countryâ€"large, windowless buildings known as switchesâ€"thus gaining access to not just international communications but also to most of the domestic traffic flowing through the US.

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/03/ff_nsadatacenter/2/

Quote from: Lunican on June 07, 2013, 02:48:47 PM
I thought that everyone was already aware of the NSA's spying activities. It actually wasn't a huge secret. They were touting their new data centers a few years ago.

QuoteThe NSA’S SPY NETWORK
Once it’s operational, the Utah Data Center will become, in effect, the NSA’s cloud. The center will be fed data collected by the agency’s eavesdropping satellites, overseas listening posts, and secret monitoring rooms in telecom facilities throughout the US. All that data will then be accessible to the NSA’s code breakers, data-miners, China analysts, counterterrorism specialists, and others working at its Fort Meade headquarters and around the world. Here’s how the data center appears to fit into the NSA’s global puzzle.

QuoteHe explains that the agency could have installed its tapping gear at the nation’s cable landing stationsâ€"the more than two dozen sites on the periphery of the US where fiber-optic cables come ashore. If it had taken that route, the NSA would have been able to limit its eavesdropping to just international communications, which at the time was all that was allowed under US law. Instead it chose to put the wiretapping rooms at key junction points throughout the countryâ€"large, windowless buildings known as switchesâ€"thus gaining access to not just international communications but also to most of the domestic traffic flowing through the US.

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/03/ff_nsadatacenter/2/

Agreed... read about this months ago

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/03/ff_nsadatacenter/all/ (http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/03/ff_nsadatacenter/all/)

QuoteThe spring air in the small, sand-dusted town has a soft haze to it, and clumps of green-gray sagebrush rustle in the breeze. Bluffdale sits in a bowl-shaped valley in the shadow of Utah’s Wasatch Range to the east and the Oquirrh Mountains to the west. It’s the heart of Mormon country, where religious pioneers first arrived more than 160 years ago. They came to escape the rest of the world, to understand the mysterious words sent down from their god as revealed on buried golden plates, and to practice what has become known as “the principle,” marriage to multiple wives.


Today Bluffdale is home to one of the nation’s largest sects of polygamists, the Apostolic United Brethren, with upwards of 9,000 members. The brethren’s complex includes a chapel, a school, a sports field, and an archive. Membership has doubled since 1978â€"and the number of plural marriages has tripledâ€"so the sect has recently been looking for ways to purchase more land and expand throughout the town.

But new pioneers have quietly begun moving into the area, secretive outsiders who say little and keep to themselves. Like the pious polygamists, they are focused on deciphering cryptic messages that only they have the power to understand. Just off Beef Hollow Road, less than a mile from brethren headquarters, thousands of hard-hatted construction workers in sweat-soaked T-shirts are laying the groundwork for the newcomers’ own temple and archive, a massive complex so large that it necessitated expanding the town’s boundaries. Once built, it will be more than five times the size of the US Capitol.

Rather than Bibles, prophets, and worshippers, this temple will be filled with servers, computer intelligence experts, and armed guards. And instead of listening for words flowing down from heaven, these newcomers will be secretly capturing, storing, and analyzing vast quantities of words and images hurtling through the world’s telecommunications networks. In the little town of Bluffdale, Big Love and Big Brother have become uneasy neighbors.

It even has a visitors center...lol

QuoteOnce the communications are intercepted and stored, the data-mining begins. “You can watch everybody all the time with data- mining,” Binney says. Everything a person does becomes charted on a graph, “financial transactions or travel or anything,” he says. Thus, as data like bookstore receipts, bank statements, and commuter toll records flow in, the NSA is able to paint a more and more detailed picture of someone’s life.

The NSA also has the ability to eavesdrop on phone calls directly and in real time. According to Adrienne J. Kinne, who worked both before and after 9/11 as a voice interceptor at the NSA facility in Georgia, in the wake of the World Trade Center attacks “basically all rules were thrown out the window, and they would use any excuse to justify a waiver to spy on Americans.” Even journalists calling home from overseas were included. “A lot of time you could tell they were calling their families,” she says, “incredibly intimate, personal conversations.” Kinne found the act of eavesdropping on innocent fellow citizens personally distressing. “It’s almost like going through and finding somebody’s diary,” she says.

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/03/ff_nsadatacenter/all/

Quote from: stephendare on June 07, 2013, 02:21:37 PM

Quote from: bill on June 07, 2013, 01:55:52 PM

Quote from: stephendare on June 07, 2013, 01:52:08 PM

Quote from: bill on June 07, 2013, 01:49:29 PM

Quote from: stephendare on June 07, 2013, 01:42:06 PM
Back when people like Robert Byrd were actually talking about the real Constitution, all of you ridiculed anyone who spoke out for American principles in favor of your partisan hysteria.

Perhaps you were too busy coming up with harebrained rationales about Health Care being 'unconstitutional' to care about the real problems going on in this country.

http://www.youtube.com/v/yxWfawiufK0

Was that Byrd talking about his membership in the KKK or his strong opposition against the 1964 civil rights movement?

Just cant forgive him for retiring the hood and robes, can you bill?

You are the one espousing him

Yes I admire people who can admit the error of their ways and work as hard as Byrd did to mend them. 

When it becomes politically expedient. You a big fan of George Wallace also?

Disclaimer: I have not read the past 5 pages of posts.

I will say this: the only surprising thing about this whole mess is that people are surprised...and acting shocked!

Is this kind of stuff not the logical conclusion, if not necessity, of the predicate laid by the Patriot Act (which so many on this forum, and elsewhere, were rah-rah-ing?)..

America, the Passive..by Salon

http://www.salon.com/2013/06/07/america_the_passive/ (http://www.salon.com/2013/06/07/america_the_passive/)

I am somewhat flabbergasted, but not really surprised, to see that illegal acts which appear to be violating the fourth amendment perpetrated by the Federal Government are...all my fault (according to "those who will not be questioned").  I am just now trying to get my head around how the IRS targeting conservative groups with government power is somehow OK "because a Republican was in charge".   

Abuse of power, even criminal acts,  and the deaths of diplomats....this administration takes no responsibility and is not held accountable by many in the media and many private citizens as we see in these pages.  These are indeed dangerous times.

Don't worry, it was really just a few low level employees in the Cincinnati office.  Nothing to see here, move along.  I'm familiar with your talking points.

And the subject of this thread is really old news.  Everybody knew about it, right?  It's Bush's fault. 

Elections really do matter, don't they?

Quote from: NotNow on June 07, 2013, 08:18:36 PM
Elections really do matter, don't they?

Not in this case as Diane Finstein and Lindsey Graham are on the same side of this one.

Quote from: stephendare on June 07, 2013, 08:25:19 PM

Quote from: NotNow on June 07, 2013, 08:18:36 PM
Don't worry, it was really just a few low level employees in the Cincinnati office.  Nothing to see here, move along.  I'm familiar with your talking points.

And the subject of this thread is really old news.  Everybody knew about it, right?  It's Bush's fault. 

Elections really do matter, don't they?

What on earth are you talking about with Cincinatti?  What talking points?  Seriously?  Is this another one of those FOX things?

And no, unlike you, those of us with actual principles get to be angry about this issue.

But one would think you guys would worry about being exposed as hypocrites and partisan hacks for you to be angry about the enforcement of an issue that you personally cheerled.
[/quo

Quote from: stephendare on June 07, 2013, 08:25:19 PM

Quote from: NotNow on June 07, 2013, 08:18:36 PM
Don't worry, it was really just a few low level employees in the Cincinnati office.  Nothing to see here, move along.  I'm familiar with your talking points.

And the subject of this thread is really old news.  Everybody knew about it, right?  It's Bush's fault. 

Elections really do matter, don't they?

What on earth are you talking about with Cincinatti?  What talking points?  Seriously?  Is this another one of those FOX things?

And no, unlike you, those of us with actual principles get to be angry about this issue.

But one would think you guys would worry about being exposed as hypocrites and partisan hacks for you to be angry about the enforcement of an issue that you personally cheerled.

I am familiar with your "principles".  That is why I am not surprised by your attempts to blame me and other posters for the sins of the administration that you drooled about.  You might try actually getting angry about this issue and spending a little less time laying the blame off on people who had nothing whatsoever to do with the acts.

You guys are all fucking idiots. Bush is to Blame. Obama is to blame.... Who gives a shit. Just don't pay attention to the man behind the curtain, and sure as hell don't stop blaming each other for things you were never actually a part of long enough to stop and realize that your are being screwed. We are all being fleeced by the banks, spied on by our government, but by all means, please continue blaming each other and mindlessly backing your own ideological horses while this happens in front of your eyes. Its super productive and really makes it all OK.

Meh

mmm....and the same treatment was given to left leaning organizations?  Like "Organizing for Action"?

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_IRS_scandal

Beginning in March 2010, the IRS more closely scrutinized certain organizations applying for tax-exempt status under Section 501(c)(4) of the Internal Revenue Code by focusing on groups with certain words in their names.[34] These words were generally associated with the political right in the US, an ideological screen. In May 2010, some employees of the "Determinations Unit" of the Cincinnati office of the IRS, which is tasked with reviewing applications pertaining to tax-exempt status, began developing a spreadsheet that became known as the "Be On the Look Out" list. This list, first distributed in August 2010, suggested intensive scrutiny of applicants with names related to the Tea Party movement and other conservative causes. Eventually, IRS employees in at least Cincinnati, Ohio; El Monte, California; Laguna Niguel, California; and Washington, D.C.[35] applied closer scrutiny to applications from organizations that:[36][37][38]
referenced words such as "Tea Party," "Patriots," or "9/12 Project" in the case file;
outlined issues in the application that included government spending, government debt, or taxes;
involved advocating or lobbying to "make America a better place to live";
had statements in the case file that criticized how the country is being run;
advocated education about the Constitution and the Bill of Rights;
were focused on challenging the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act â€" known by many as Obamacare;
questioned the integrity of federal elections.
Over the two years between April 2010 and April 2012, the IRS essentially placed on hold the processing of applications for 501(c)(4) tax-exemption status received from organizations with "Tea Party," "patriots," or "9/12" in their names. While apparently none of these organizations' applications were denied during this period,[Note 2] only 4 were approved.[40] During the same general period, the agency approved applications from several dozen presumably liberal-leaning organizations whose names included terms such as "progressive," "progress," "liberal," or "equality."[40][41] (However, the IRS also targeted several progressive- or Democratic-leaning organizations for increased scrutiny, leading to at least one such organization, called Emerge America, being denied tax-exempt status.[39])

How did this thread devolve into something about the IRS? 

Then when a terrorist attack happens, the same people who's bitching about this phone tap crap would be saying why wasn't more things done to protect Americans. Even though it's safe to say that Demosthenes's post was pretty vulgar, I agree with alot what he said. People need to quit acting like their lives are so damn important, that the government really cares about their meaningless conversations. The only ones who should have something to fear are people who have something to hide, terrorists, etc. I really believe that some things are best left unknown. Be in denial, but many controversial government practices (droning, torture etc) saved countless American lives. So what's better, an a-hole terrorist getting worked over in a dark room somewhere, or a nuked America for the sake of ethics?   

^^^You're welcome.

^^^36. I smell a condescending age related put-down coming just for having an opinion...

Yes, because being right is far more important than being free.

Quote from: stephendare on June 08, 2013, 10:08:38 PM
Im sorry, i didnt actually see an opinion anywhere.  And Im almost never condescending about a persons actual age.  Just the maturity level or that standard inflexibility that sometimes comes to older bright people who have stopped their own process of inquiry.

Yup, a typical Stephen post. Thanks Stephen, you never disappoint...

^^^My bad, I misunderstood you when you said that "you didn't see an opinion anywhere" throughout the top post on this page. I get it that you disagree with it, and that's fine. I just think that many people are way too paranoid for nothing.

Quote from: stephendare on June 08, 2013, 10:36:29 PM
thats not really an opinion is it?

I mean your opinion is that we shouldnt have opinions and stay uninformed.  Its literally the exact opposite of what the site was founded for.

Nice wordplay stephen. Okay, by the same token can say the same thing; You don't have an opinion because it's an simple 'given' that everyone who posts on this thread better be outraged and raising hell with this Verizon situation on one accord. So a differing opinion = to not having one, haha, that's a good one. BTW, I never said that people shouldn't have opinions and they should stay uninformed, I just added my lil 2, that's all Stephen not that hard to understand.

Quote from: I-10east on June 08, 2013, 08:49:57 PM
Then when a terrorist attack happens, the same people who's bitching about this phone tap crap would be saying why wasn't more things done to protect Americans. Even though it's safe to say that Demosthenes's post was pretty vulgar, I agree with alot what he said. People need to quit acting like their lives are so damn important, that the government really cares about their meaningless conversations. The only ones who should have something to fear are people who have something to hide, terrorists, etc. I really believe that some things are best left unknown. Be in denial, but many controversial government practices (droning, torture etc) saved countless American lives. So what's better, an a-hole terrorist getting worked over in a dark room somewhere, or a nuked America for the sake of ethics?   

I just don't see how anyone with a firm grasp on world history can say something like "the only ones who should have something to fear are people who have something to hide." This is reckless, and oblivious to centuries of horrific abuses that inevitability follow a government obtaining sweeping surveillance powers over its population. I've read your posts for years, you seem very smart, but how can you honestly believe that demanding privacy means "having something to hide." And further, you can't possibly suggest that there is anything wrong or sinister about wanting to keep your personal affairs private. Is it Uncle Sam's business if you buy viagra online? If you're out of town and have a steamy phone or Skype session with your wife? If you search the internet for embarrassing things? If you've got a particular fetish? If your daughter has an abortion? If you're unhappy with the President or your Congressman?

NO ONE is getting nuked or not nuked because the government is archiving what activist or political groups you and your loved ones "like" on Facebook.

Watch just the first 45 seconds of the below clip, from the reporter who broke the Guardian story that set this whole thing off, and tell me doesn't send a chill down your spine:

http://www.youtube.com/v/pHRMxLCfU8A

Link is above doesn't work: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pHRMxLCfU8A

How is this necessary?

The implications are just SO MUCH greater than giving the government blanket access to your "meaningless conversations."

Finally, here's a great quote from Reddit yesterday that is a great counter to the "nothing to hide" argument. Time and time and time again throughout history, this rings true.

QuoteI actually get really upset when people say "I don't have anything to hide. Let them read everything." People saying that have no idea what they are bringing down on their own heads. They are naive, and we need to listen to people in other countries who are clearly telling us that this is a horrible horrible sign and it is time to stand up and say no.

I live in a country generally assumed to be a dictatorship. One of the Arab spring countries. I have lived through curfews and have seen the outcomes of the sort of surveillance now being revealed in the US. People here talking about curfews aren't realizing what that actually FEELS like. It isn't about having to go inside, and the practicality of that. It's about creating the feeling that everyone, everything is watching. A few points:

1) the purpose of this surveillance from the governments point of view is to control enemies of the state. Not terrorists. People who are coalescing around ideas that would destabilize the status quo. These could be religious ideas. These could be groups like anon who are too good with tech for the governments liking. It makes it very easy to know who these people are. It also makes it very simple to control these people.

Lets say you are a college student and you get in with some people who want to stop farming practices that hurt animals. So you make a plan and go to protest these practices. You get there, and wow, the protest is huge. You never expected this, you were just goofing off. Well now everyone who was there is suspect. Even though you technically had the right to protest, you're now considered a dangerous person.

With this tech in place, the government doesn't have to put you in jail. They can do something more sinister. They can just email you a sexy picture you took with a girlfriend. Or they can email you a note saying that they can prove your dad is cheating on his taxes. Or they can threaten to get your dad fired. All you have to do, the email says, is help them catch your friends in the group. You have to report back every week, or you dad might lose his job. So you do. You turn in your friends and even though they try to keep meetings off grid, you're reporting on them to protect your dad.

2) Let's say number one goes on. The country is a weird place now. Really weird. Pretty soon, a movement springs up like occupy, except its bigger this time. People are really serious, and they are saying they want a government without this power. I guess people are realizing that it is a serious deal. You see on the news that tear gas was fired. Your friend calls you, frantic. They're shooting people. Oh my god. you never signed up for this. You say, fuck it. My dad might lose his job but I won't be responsible for anyone dying. That's going too far. You refuse to report anymore. You just stop going to meetings. You stay at home, and try not to watch the news. Three days later, police come to your door and arrest you. They confiscate your computer and phones, and they beat you up a bit. No one can help you so they all just sit quietly. They know if they say anything they're next. This happened in the country I live in. It is not a joke.

3) Its hard to say how long you were in there. What you saw was horrible. Most of the time, you only heard screams. People begging to be killed. Noises you've never heard before. You, you were lucky. You got kicked every day when they threw your moldy food at you, but no one shocked you. No one used sexual violence on you, at least that you remember. There were some times they gave you pills, and you can't say for sure what happened then. To be honest, sometimes the pills were the best part of your day, because at least then you didn't feel anything. You have scars on you from the way you were treated. You learn in prison that torture is now common. But everyone who uploads videos or pictures of this torture is labeled a leaker. Its considered a threat to national security. Pretty soon, a cut you got on your leg is looking really bad. You think it's infected. There were no doctors in prison, and it was so overcrowded, who knows what got in the cut. You go to the doctor, but he refuses to see you. He knows if he does the government can see the records that he treated you. Even you calling his office prompts a visit from the local police.
You decide to go home and see your parents. Maybe they can help. This leg is getting really bad. You get to their house. They aren't home. You can't reach them no matter how hard you try. A neighbor pulls you aside, and he quickly tells you they were arrested three weeks ago and haven't been seen since. You vaguely remember mentioning to them on the phone you were going to that protest. Even your little brother isn't there.

4) Is this even really happening? You look at the news. Sports scores. Celebrity news. It's like nothing is wrong. What the hell is going on? A stranger smirks at you reading the paper. You lose it. You shout at him "fuck you dude what are you laughing at can't you see I've got a fucking wound on my leg?"

"Sorry," he says. "I just didn't know anyone read the news anymore." There haven't been any real journalists for months. They're all in jail.

Everyone walking around is scared. They can't talk to anyone else because they don't know who is reporting for the government. Hell, at one time YOU were reporting for the government. Maybe they just want their kid to get through school. Maybe they want to keep their job. Maybe they're sick and want to be able to visit the doctor. It's always a simple reason. Good people always do bad things for simple reasons.

You want to protest. You want your family back. You need help for your leg. This is way beyond anything you ever wanted. It started because you just wanted to see fair treatment in farms. Now you're basically considered a terrorist, and everyone around you might be reporting on you. You definitely can't use a phone or email. You can't get a job. You can't even trust people face to face anymore. On every corner, there are people with guns. They are as scared as you are. They just don't want to lose their jobs. They don't want to be labeled as traitors.

This all happened in the country where I live.

You want to know why revolutions happen? Because little by little by little things get worse and worse. But this thing that is happening now is big. This is the key ingredient. This allows them to know everything they need to know to accomplish the above. The fact that they are doing it is proof that they are the sort of people who might use it in the way I described. In the country I live in, they also claimed it was for the safety of the people. Same in Soviet Russia. Same in East Germany. In fact, that is always the excuse that is used to surveil everyone. But it has never ONCE proven to be the reality.

Maybe Obama won't do it. Maybe the next guy won't, or the one after him. Maybe this story isn't about you. Maybe it happens 10 or 20 years from now, when a big war is happening, or after another big attack. Maybe it's about your daughter or your son. We just don't know yet. But what we do know is that right now, in this moment we have a choice. Are we okay with this, or not? Do we want this power to exist, or not?

You know for me, the reason I'm upset is that I grew up in school saying the pledge of allegiance. I was taught that the United States meant "liberty and justice for all." You get older, you learn that in this country we define that phrase based on the constitution. That's what tells us what liberty is and what justice is. Well, the government just violated that ideal. So if they aren't standing for liberty and justice anymore, what are they standing for? Safety?

Ask yourself a question. In the story I told above, does anyone sound safe?

I didn't make anything up. These things happened to people I know. We used to think it couldn't happen in America. But guess what? It's starting to happen.

^^^Okay, if it was 'unknown' you wouldn't have an opinion on it now would you? So that does not equal to 'having an opinion' when there's no news to be heard. You're right though, if I can retroactively keep government matters secret for the sake of national security, I'm all for that; That's all irrelevant of course because the news is out. I'm not sure why you highlighted "Be in denial". It's a fact that 'unethical' practices saved lives, so just like I said, be in denial about it if you wanna.

Quote from: KenFSU on June 08, 2013, 10:52:52 PM
I just don't see how anyone with a firm grasp on world history can say something like "the only ones who should have something to fear are people who have something to hide." This is reckless, and oblivious to centuries of horrific abuses that inevitability follow a government obtaining sweeping surveillance powers over its population. I've read your posts for years, you seem very smart, but how can you honestly believe that demanding privacy means "having something to hide." And further, you can't possibly suggest that there is anything wrong or sinister about wanting to keep your personal affairs private.

Thanks for being cordial Ken. Maybe all of this snooping on people is too unethical. I'm definitely not the voice of overall American affairs on this thing. Myself personally, I can care less about public cameras in the street, the Illuminati with some secret plan of world domination, Big Brother interested in my personal business etc. IMO, we all have became a nation of overly fear mongering. I guess that I (a) don't care about alot of personal business being discreet (short of a criminal going into my account, identity theft etc) (b) I'm not an overly complex person with extreme political views (eco-activist, rights on political organizations that aren't in the interest of America etc. In the eyes of Big Brother, I'm very uninteresting, and that's a good thing. 

Quote from: KenFSU on June 08, 2013, 10:52:52 PM

Quote from: I-10east on June 08, 2013, 08:49:57 PM
Then when a terrorist attack happens, the same people who's bitching about this phone tap crap would be saying why wasn't more things done to protect Americans. Even though it's safe to say that Demosthenes's post was pretty vulgar, I agree with alot what he said. People need to quit acting like their lives are so damn important, that the government really cares about their meaningless conversations. The only ones who should have something to fear are people who have something to hide, terrorists, etc. I really believe that some things are best left unknown. Be in denial, but many controversial government practices (droning, torture etc) saved countless American lives. So what's better, an a-hole terrorist getting worked over in a dark room somewhere, or a nuked America for the sake of ethics?   

I just don't see how anyone with a firm grasp on world history can say something like "the only ones who should have something to fear are people who have something to hide." This is reckless, and oblivious to centuries of horrific abuses that inevitability follow a government obtaining sweeping surveillance powers over its population. I've read your posts for years, you seem very smart, but how can you honestly believe that demanding privacy means "having something to hide." And further, you can't possibly suggest that there is anything wrong or sinister about wanting to keep your personal affairs private. Is it Uncle Sam's business if you buy viagra online? If you're out of town and have a steamy phone or Skype session with your wife? If you search the internet for embarrassing things? If you've got a particular fetish? If your daughter has an abortion? If you're unhappy with the President or your Congressman?

NO ONE is getting nuked or not nuked because the government is archiving what activist or political groups you and your loved ones "like" on Facebook.

Watch just the first 45 seconds of the below clip, from the reporter who broke the Guardian story that set this whole thing off, and tell me doesn't send a chill down your spine:

http://www.youtube.com/v/pHRMxLCfU8A

Link is above doesn't work: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pHRMxLCfU8A

How is this necessary?

The implications are just SO MUCH greater than giving the government blanket access to your "meaningless conversations."

Finally, here's a great quote from Reddit yesterday that is a great counter to the "nothing to hide" argument. Time and time and time again throughout history, this rings true.

QuoteI actually get really upset when people say "I don't have anything to hide. Let them read everything." People saying that have no idea what they are bringing down on their own heads. They are naive, and we need to listen to people in other countries who are clearly telling us that this is a horrible horrible sign and it is time to stand up and say no.

I live in a country generally assumed to be a dictatorship. One of the Arab spring countries. I have lived through curfews and have seen the outcomes of the sort of surveillance now being revealed in the US. People here talking about curfews aren't realizing what that actually FEELS like. It isn't about having to go inside, and the practicality of that. It's about creating the feeling that everyone, everything is watching. A few points:

1) the purpose of this surveillance from the governments point of view is to control enemies of the state. Not terrorists. People who are coalescing around ideas that would destabilize the status quo. These could be religious ideas. These could be groups like anon who are too good with tech for the governments liking. It makes it very easy to know who these people are. It also makes it very simple to control these people.

Lets say you are a college student and you get in with some people who want to stop farming practices that hurt animals. So you make a plan and go to protest these practices. You get there, and wow, the protest is huge. You never expected this, you were just goofing off. Well now everyone who was there is suspect. Even though you technically had the right to protest, you're now considered a dangerous person.

With this tech in place, the government doesn't have to put you in jail. They can do something more sinister. They can just email you a sexy picture you took with a girlfriend. Or they can email you a note saying that they can prove your dad is cheating on his taxes. Or they can threaten to get your dad fired. All you have to do, the email says, is help them catch your friends in the group. You have to report back every week, or you dad might lose his job. So you do. You turn in your friends and even though they try to keep meetings off grid, you're reporting on them to protect your dad.

2) Let's say number one goes on. The country is a weird place now. Really weird. Pretty soon, a movement springs up like occupy, except its bigger this time. People are really serious, and they are saying they want a government without this power. I guess people are realizing that it is a serious deal. You see on the news that tear gas was fired. Your friend calls you, frantic. They're shooting people. Oh my god. you never signed up for this. You say, fuck it. My dad might lose his job but I won't be responsible for anyone dying. That's going too far. You refuse to report anymore. You just stop going to meetings. You stay at home, and try not to watch the news. Three days later, police come to your door and arrest you. They confiscate your computer and phones, and they beat you up a bit. No one can help you so they all just sit quietly. They know if they say anything they're next. This happened in the country I live in. It is not a joke.

3) Its hard to say how long you were in there. What you saw was horrible. Most of the time, you only heard screams. People begging to be killed. Noises you've never heard before. You, you were lucky. You got kicked every day when they threw your moldy food at you, but no one shocked you. No one used sexual violence on you, at least that you remember. There were some times they gave you pills, and you can't say for sure what happened then. To be honest, sometimes the pills were the best part of your day, because at least then you didn't feel anything. You have scars on you from the way you were treated. You learn in prison that torture is now common. But everyone who uploads videos or pictures of this torture is labeled a leaker. Its considered a threat to national security. Pretty soon, a cut you got on your leg is looking really bad. You think it's infected. There were no doctors in prison, and it was so overcrowded, who knows what got in the cut. You go to the doctor, but he refuses to see you. He knows if he does the government can see the records that he treated you. Even you calling his office prompts a visit from the local police.
You decide to go home and see your parents. Maybe they can help. This leg is getting really bad. You get to their house. They aren't home. You can't reach them no matter how hard you try. A neighbor pulls you aside, and he quickly tells you they were arrested three weeks ago and haven't been seen since. You vaguely remember mentioning to them on the phone you were going to that protest. Even your little brother isn't there.

4) Is this even really happening? You look at the news. Sports scores. Celebrity news. It's like nothing is wrong. What the hell is going on? A stranger smirks at you reading the paper. You lose it. You shout at him "fuck you dude what are you laughing at can't you see I've got a fucking wound on my leg?"

"Sorry," he says. "I just didn't know anyone read the news anymore." There haven't been any real journalists for months. They're all in jail.

Everyone walking around is scared. They can't talk to anyone else because they don't know who is reporting for the government. Hell, at one time YOU were reporting for the government. Maybe they just want their kid to get through school. Maybe they want to keep their job. Maybe they're sick and want to be able to visit the doctor. It's always a simple reason. Good people always do bad things for simple reasons.

You want to protest. You want your family back. You need help for your leg. This is way beyond anything you ever wanted. It started because you just wanted to see fair treatment in farms. Now you're basically considered a terrorist, and everyone around you might be reporting on you. You definitely can't use a phone or email. You can't get a job. You can't even trust people face to face anymore. On every corner, there are people with guns. They are as scared as you are. They just don't want to lose their jobs. They don't want to be labeled as traitors.

This all happened in the country where I live.

You want to know why revolutions happen? Because little by little by little things get worse and worse. But this thing that is happening now is big. This is the key ingredient. This allows them to know everything they need to know to accomplish the above. The fact that they are doing it is proof that they are the sort of people who might use it in the way I described. In the country I live in, they also claimed it was for the safety of the people. Same in Soviet Russia. Same in East Germany. In fact, that is always the excuse that is used to surveil everyone. But it has never ONCE proven to be the reality.

Maybe Obama won't do it. Maybe the next guy won't, or the one after him. Maybe this story isn't about you. Maybe it happens 10 or 20 years from now, when a big war is happening, or after another big attack. Maybe it's about your daughter or your son. We just don't know yet. But what we do know is that right now, in this moment we have a choice. Are we okay with this, or not? Do we want this power to exist, or not?

You know for me, the reason I'm upset is that I grew up in school saying the pledge of allegiance. I was taught that the United States meant "liberty and justice for all." You get older, you learn that in this country we define that phrase based on the constitution. That's what tells us what liberty is and what justice is. Well, the government just violated that ideal. So if they aren't standing for liberty and justice anymore, what are they standing for? Safety?

Ask yourself a question. In the story I told above, does anyone sound safe?

I didn't make anything up. These things happened to people I know. We used to think it couldn't happen in America. But guess what? It's starting to happen.

Interesting stuff Ken, thanks.   

I-10, there are hard won historical lessons here.  I encourage you to read the Constitution and the Federalist Papers.  These documents establish the United State's governments basis in personal liberty and limited government.  It has been perverted and misunderstood many times, and our founding fathers would not recognize the country we live in today.  Only by returning to the fundementals established in these documents can we ensure a free America for our children and grandchildren. 

When you are a hammer, you want everything to be a nail.

But that aside, here is an excerpt from an article that appeared in the chronicles of Higher Education entitled "why privacy matters", which you will have to go to in order to read the full article because I will not repost such long articles here.

QuoteWhen the nothing-to-hide argument is unpacked, and its underlying assumptions examined and challenged, we can see how it shifts the debate to its terms, then draws power from its unfair advantage. The nothing-to-hide argument speaks to some problems but not to others. It represents a singular and narrow way of conceiving of privacy, and it wins by excluding consideration of the other problems often raised with government security measures. When engaged directly, the nothing-to-hide argument can ensnare, for it forces the debate to focus on its narrow understanding of privacy. But when confronted with the plurality of privacy problems implicated by government data collection and use beyond surveillance and disclosure, the nothing-to-hide argument, in the end, has nothing to say.

http://chronicle.com/article/Why-Privacy-Matters-Even-if/127461/

Okay if we're done arguing who is Inconsistent now from where they have been passed even though we agree nowââ,¬Â¦.

I would like us to change the conversation little bit to where Do we draw the line now between the government monitoring keeping its eyes open so to speak and investigating where there is a need for probable clause.

And I hate to give it a week start but I'm not exactly sure where that line should be.

Quote from: stephendare on June 09, 2013, 08:01:06 AM

Quote from: NotNow on June 09, 2013, 02:22:12 AM

I-10, there are hard won historical lessons here.  I encourage you to read the Constitution and the Federalist Papers.  These documents establish the United State's governments basis in personal liberty and limited government.  It has been perverted and misunderstood many times, and our founding fathers would not recognize the country we live in today.  Only by returning to the fundementals established in these documents can we ensure a free America for our children and grandchildren.

And yet everything that you have cheered and supported has led us to the near police state in which we now live.

How do you explain that, Notnow?

I have cheered and supported the Constitution.  Your continuing misrepresentation of my views is not welcome.  If you question something that I said, or want to make an issue of it, then post the quote.  Don't presume to speak for me, and I will not do so for you.

Am I to assume from your earlier posts in this thread that you do not believe that the IRS abused their governmental power?

Are you still an Obama supporter and if so, how do you explain his policies which are directly opposed to his campaign rhetoric?

Will you offer anything to the conversation other than personal attacks using your own ideas of what other posters and I have supported?   Or is your intention simply to divert the focus of the conversation?  I believe you used the term "political hack".   

As for the subject of the thread, I can not support a data mining program as I do not trust this administration to follow both the intent or the letter of the law.  The legal constraints against abuse are obviously not sufficient and any law allowing such activity must now be abolished in the wake of these abuses.  I don't believe the PRISM project is authorized by the current law, and should be abolished as well.  As for invasion of content in any electronic format in a DOMESTIC case, then the Constitution applies and a warrant should be obtained from the courts in the normal manner. 

Jeffrey, I hope this answers your question. 

As I have repeatedly asked...if you wish to take issue with any opinion I have expressed, please quote me.  This habit of telling me what I think is annoying and rude.  Use those date mining skills and at least attempt to quote me out of context!  At least then there is a semblance of credibility to your criticisms.

How about that Obama administration?   Working out like you dreamed?  :)

Quote from: stephendare on June 09, 2013, 12:23:25 AM
You really are this deluded arent you?  Like, its not a schtick is it?

Not a single thing you said in this post was true.  Nothing.  Not even the pronouns or indefinite articles.

But you just forge ahead with your comments anyways. 

Astounding.

Your ability to not acknowledge facts while trying to ramp up the benefit of your argument is what's truly astounding. Yeah, keep on the Matador role going off course, condescendingly knit-picking with my use of pro nouns, adverbs etc; That only for the benefit of your argument also of course. So what your are gonna do about this Stephen? Go to your congressman? Go off the grid? Employ a fleet of carrier pigeons? Maybe hire some OBL-style couriers? What really 'scares me' is outside threats to this country (extreme Islam etc.) but of course talking about that on this thread is only an unpopular inconvenient truth.

Quote from: NotNow on June 09, 2013, 02:22:12 AM
It has been perverted and misunderstood many times, and our founding fathers would not recognize the country we live in today.

With all due respect NotNow, many complex issues (national security etc) in the world that we live in today, our forefathers could have not foreseen.

Quote from: I-10east on June 09, 2013, 12:23:54 PM

Quote from: NotNow on June 09, 2013, 02:22:12 AM
It has been perverted and misunderstood many times, and our founding fathers would not recognize the country we live in today.

With all due respect NotNow, many complex issues (national security etc) in the world that we live in today, our forefathers could have not foreseen.

I understand your concern, and we certainly need to use modern techniques against modern threats.  But I believe that the truths of individual rights and small central government found in our Constitution are timeless.  The best government is STILL local government.  I favor using our federal assets and diplomatic corps to further the interests of the United States.  I am not under any illusions as to the designs of the current threats to the US.  As I have stated many times, I believe that any person or person who conspires, attempts, or successfully kills US citizens  or conduct terror should be dealt with aggressively.  I DO NOT believe that the Constitutional rights of US citizens need be, or could be, ignored, suspended, or modified in any way.  These views are not diametrically opposed. 

We are forgetting some of the lessons we should have learned from history.  If military force is warranted, use it.  Completely dominate and defeat your enemy.  "Police actions" or "graduated war" are prelims to defeat or endless conflict.  Asymmetric warfare is nothing new.  Study the history of such conflict and utilize that knowledge to win.  Winning saves lives (at least American lives) in the long run. 

There have always been, and there will always be threats to our nation and our way of life.  Emergency measures may be needed on a rare basis and should be immediately withdrawn upon successful mitigation of the threat.  But we should maintain the freedom and responsibility gained through the sacrifices of those Americans who fought the fight before us. 

(http://i.imgur.com/ex5xzI6.jpg)

Quote from: stephendare on June 09, 2013, 02:05:58 PM

Quote from: NotNow on June 09, 2013, 12:17:05 PM

How about that Obama administration?   Working out like you dreamed?  :)

To be honest, The Obama Administration has performed better than I originally assumed that they would be able to.  And the opposition has been much much worse than I actually dreamed possible.  Even after the humiliating spectacle of the Clinton Blow Job Impeachment that made me realize that the Republicans were going down a strange road indeed.

I am proud of the country for choosing an unknown third way over the diseased power system that the Delay/Frist/Gingrich/Bush years produced. 

Im happy that we have made moves towards a rational health care policy, im happy that the racist anti immigrant mayhem has been confronted and pushed back.  Im happy that gay people are being granted actual civil rights across the country.

Im happy that the government isnt uniformly helmed by stupid and/or evil people, of the John Yoo, David Addington, Tom Delay, George Bush mold.

I am unhappy that the evil legacy of the presidency you supported and the policies you cheered are still in place.

I think Obama tried to close Guatanamo.  He got us out of Iraq.  We are disengaging from Afghanistan.

He kept us out of the war with Iran that every neocon in America was pushing, and he has managed to govern in such a way that the Republicans who oppose him are not being called cowards, traitors or a menace to the united states every ten minutes.

I would like to see an immediate end to the drones until there is vigorous public debate on how to handle that.

I think the PATRIOT ACT should be completely repealed and open for review to the american people.  I do not think that law should be formulated in secret with rationales of shaky legitimacy that are also classified and secret from the majority of the legislators that are being expected to vote on it---regardless of the party affiliation.

Our form of government was never meant to revolve around the trust that 535 politicians have in the undebatable opinion of 7 members of secret committees that arent allowed to discuss what they know.  In fact that is an abomination in my opinion.

These are all things that I have repeatedly said, and I wil continue to stand by.

It is disappointing to me that Obama has chosen to continue the drones and the surveillance, but I do have to remark on the stark difference between how the Bush Admin handled these issues and how the Obama Admin has.  here we are having the conversation.  Under Bush, half of the posters would be calling us traitors for questioning it.

MMM.   Seems to me that we have suffered a much greater loss of our liberties under the Obama administration.  Although I agree more than I like with the earlier poster who called me an idiot and to wake up to the fact that both parties are taking away our liberties.   I think President Obama has shown himself to be quite the old school politician, including the "anything it takes" mantra to keep/increase power.  Not surprisingly I see W. in a kinder light than you.  Faced with an emergency security situation, his administration took measures that they thought were needed at the time.    I didn't disagree with them.  As our security situation changes then those measures should be reassessed.  What the Obama administration has done is ignore that same security threat (to the detriment of our Benghazi diplomats), yet use and expand the security apparatus developed to counter that outside threat for political purposes.  I think the PATRIOT ACT  has been abused and expanded in ways that it should not, and I agree it is time for repeal.  The Obama administration has even gone far beyond that in using the power of government to bully, coerce, and spy on US citizens.   I would also repeal the onerous "affordable health care act" that is already reducing our health care system to a mediocre shell of what it once was.  The war in Iraq has not yet had its final act and we have yet to see all of the results from that early and complete withdrawal.  Afghanistan is also unfinished.  Hopefully, our children won't be in Asia finishing what we didn't.  We'll see.  I won't call the President Obama and his people "stupid" or "evil", as I find that kind of language to be....somewhat dramatic.  But suffice it to say, I am convinced that we need new leadership in this country.

Quote from: stephendare on June 09, 2013, 04:42:48 PM

Quote from: NotNow on June 09, 2013, 04:36:23 PM

Quote from: stephendare on June 09, 2013, 02:05:58 PM

Quote from: NotNow on June 09, 2013, 12:17:05 PM

How about that Obama administration?   Working out like you dreamed?  :)

To be honest, The Obama Administration has performed better than I originally assumed that they would be able to.  And the opposition has been much much worse than I actually dreamed possible.  Even after the humiliating spectacle of the Clinton Blow Job Impeachment that made me realize that the Republicans were going down a strange road indeed.

I am proud of the country for choosing an unknown third way over the diseased power system that the Delay/Frist/Gingrich/Bush years produced. 

Im happy that we have made moves towards a rational health care policy, im happy that the racist anti immigrant mayhem has been confronted and pushed back.  Im happy that gay people are being granted actual civil rights across the country.

Im happy that the government isnt uniformly helmed by stupid and/or evil people, of the John Yoo, David Addington, Tom Delay, George Bush mold.

I am unhappy that the evil legacy of the presidency you supported and the policies you cheered are still in place.

I think Obama tried to close Guatanamo.  He got us out of Iraq.  We are disengaging from Afghanistan.

He kept us out of the war with Iran that every neocon in America was pushing, and he has managed to govern in such a way that the Republicans who oppose him are not being called cowards, traitors or a menace to the united states every ten minutes.

I would like to see an immediate end to the drones until there is vigorous public debate on how to handle that.

I think the PATRIOT ACT should be completely repealed and open for review to the american people.  I do not think that law should be formulated in secret with rationales of shaky legitimacy that are also classified and secret from the majority of the legislators that are being expected to vote on it---regardless of the party affiliation.

Our form of government was never meant to revolve around the trust that 535 politicians have in the undebatable opinion of 7 members of secret committees that arent allowed to discuss what they know.  In fact that is an abomination in my opinion.

These are all things that I have repeatedly said, and I wil continue to stand by.

It is disappointing to me that Obama has chosen to continue the drones and the surveillance, but I do have to remark on the stark difference between how the Bush Admin handled these issues and how the Obama Admin has.  here we are having the conversation.  Under Bush, half of the posters would be calling us traitors for questioning it.

MMM.   Seems to me that we have suffered a much greater loss of our liberties under the Obama administration.  Although I agree more than I like with the earlier poster who called me an idiot and to wake up to the fact that both parties are taking away our liberties.   I think President Obama has shown himself to be quite the old school politician, including the "anything it takes" mantra to keep/increase power.  Not surprisingly I see W. in a kinder light than you.  Faced with an emergency security situation, his administration took measures that they thought were needed at the time.    I didn't disagree with them.  As our security situation changes then those measures should be reassessed.  What the Obama administration has done is ignore that same security threat (to the detriment of our Benghazi diplomats), yet use and expand the security apparatus developed to counter that outside threat for political purposes.  I think the PATRIOT ACT  has been abused and expanded in ways that it should not, and I agree it is time for repeal.  The Obama administration has even gone far beyond that in using the power of government to bully, coerce, and spy on US citizens.   I would also repeal the onerous "affordable health care act" that is already reducing our health care system to a mediocre shell of what it once was.  The war in Iraq has not yet had its final act and we have yet to see all of the results from that early and complete withdrawal.  Afghanistan is also unfinished.  Hopefully, our children won't be in Asia finishing what we didn't.  We'll see.  I won't call the President Obama and his people "stupid" or "evil", as I find that kind of language to be....somewhat dramatic.  But suffice it to say, I am convinced that we need new leadership in this country.

It is already America's longest war.  And where do you think our liberties have been reduced under the Obama Administration?  Many of the most onerous and controversial parts of the PATRIOT ACT (that you personally cheered for at the time, despite the fact that exactly these outcomes were predicted before its passage) were repealed under Obama.

I don't begrudge you your feelings and intuitions about Obama, I know I certainly had a bunch of them about Bush.  But let me ask you to explain what you base them on.  And I promise that I wont return your treatment of the rest of us when the roles were reversed by 'weeping' for the country, calling you a traitor, or questioning your manhood or integrity based on your opinion.

The Obama administration is currently working to abridge the 1st, 2nd, and 4th amendments of the Constitution.  They are doing this by aggressively pursuing news outlets (the FOX and AP affairs) and are SELECTIVELY prosecuting "leaks" at a higher rate than any previous administration.  They are pursuing gun "control" laws that have no basis in science and clearly violate the meaning of the 2nd amendment.  The President intends to sign the UN arms control agreement in direct opposition to the US Senate, and in spite of provisions in the treaty which clearly violate the 2nd amendment (documentation of gun ownership and control of ammunition stores).  We have previously discussed the 4th amendment violations of this administration.

I am always concerned for my country, and I will "weep" for it when the founding tenants are assaulted.  Traitor?  I don't remember calling you a traitor, but your comments on US military units...calling them cowardly, false accusations of war crimes and murder, sensational reporting of falsehoods as well as your usual comments on operations, all without any military experience whatsoever...leaves me thinking that your agenda is not about the best interests of the US.

I am not concerned about your "manhood" either.  But the quote from Theodore Roosevelt applies:

"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better.

The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat."

SO basically this conversation has devolved into a NotNow and Dare airing out their dirty laundry?

Yep.

Quote from: stephendare on June 09, 2013, 04:44:45 PM
by the way, obamacare is already reducing costs around the country as well as making health care affordable to millions more people.  Im not sure where you are getting your information, although I have my suspicions, but the nations most populous state saw their private bids recently and the general cost was slashed across the board to the consumers. 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/06/06/california-is-the-white-houses-proof-that-obamacare-is-working/

QuoteWith the focus in recent months on the law’s shaky rollout and continuing political battles, the president wants to draw attention to a state that has embraced the law and yielded some good news: Officials in the Democrat-led state recently released figures that show insurers expect to charge lower-than-expected premiums for individual policies sold under the law.
On the eve of his comments, however, a different story emerged from Ohio. Officials in the Republican-led administration Thursday released details about rates proposed by insurers there, estimating that they represented an 88 percent increase in the cost of coverage that would likely lead to a substantial increase in premiums.

“We have warned of these increases,” Ohio Lt. Gov. Mary Taylor (R) said in a statement. “The Department’s initial analysis of the proposed rates show consumers will have fewer choices and pay much higher premiums for their health insurance starting in 2014.”

The competing narratives illustrate the deep political divide that colors virtually every aspect of the health law three years after its passage and the difficult task Obama faces as he seeks to promote it a few months before its key provisions kick in.
Obama’s comments in San Jose, to be delivered while the president is on a fundraising swing, come as the administration is ramping up efforts to promote the law, which faces a major test this fall. The health insurance “exchanges” are supposed to open for business Oct. 1. These exchanges are designed to be online marketplaces where people can find and compare plans and get government subsidies for their purchases.

Seventeen states, including California, are setting up their own exchanges, as was intended by the law. But 27 states, most of them Republican-led, have left the task to the federal government, saddling the administration with an enormous and unexpected job. The rest of the states will form partnerships with the federal government to create the exchanges.
Further complicating the administration’s efforts are the number of states that have rejected the law’s expansion of Medicaid, the state-federal health program for the poor and disabled. The law called for a substantial broadening of Medicaid â€" which would put the administration more than halfway toward its goal of extending coverage to 30 million Americans over the next 10 years. But more than a dozen states, all Republican-led, are refusing to expand Medicaid.

Ohio is among the states taking a different tack than California. It has declined to set up its own exchange, letting the federal government set one up instead, and Republicans there remain divided over whether to expand Medicaid. It is the first Republican administration to release the rates being requested by insurers on its exchange.

California, by contrast, has long been a leader in implementing the law. It was the first state to create a health exchange under the law and is among the 23 states committed to expanding Medicaid.

“I don’t think the Affordable Care Act can succeed unless it succeeds in California,” Drew Altman, president of the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation, said. “It’s not often we’re saying as goes California, so goes the nation. But it’s true this time.”

Of the 2.7 million young and healthy people the White House wants to sign up for insurance next year, one-third live in Texas, Florida and California. Altogether, California has 7 million uninsured people, the highest number in the country.
Covered California, the state agency implementing the law, last month announced that 13 plans would be available on its exchange and that the average monthly premium would be about $321. That is significantly lower than predicted by the Congressional Budget Office when the law was passed in 2010, and for most people, the cost will be at least partly offset by subsidies.

The state has not released an estimate of how the proposed rates compare with current rates. The law’s supporters say even if the new plans are more expensive, it is because they offer better benefits than the old plans.

But some insurance experts have warned that healthy males in their 20s are likely to face higher costs. And people with existing, bare-bones private plans could see their rates jump. In Ohio, for example, one plan now costs as little as about $30 a month, according to Ohio officials.

In California, officials say they aggressively negotiated with insurers to keep the rates low. They also said that competition among the insurers is holding rates down.

If healthy people choose to skip coverage and instead pay the mandated tax penalty, it could hurt the government’s efforts to bring enough healthy people into the insurance pool. Those healthy people are needed to offset the cost of sick people; insurers are expecting an influx of them.

While California has touted the rates proposed by insurers, some say the news is not all good. Some large national insurance companies, including Aetna and UnitedHealth, are not offering plans on the state exchange. And many of the plans on the exchange offer a narrow choice of doctors and hospitals.

Some experts say the political atmosphere is casting a shadow over each state’s reaction to the insurance rates.
“Ohio is too upset, and California is too happy,” said Micah Weinberg, senior policy adviser to the Bay Area Council, a business group that supports the health law.

“I suppose the question is, are we finally getting a release without spin, or are we getting Republican spin?” said Robert Laszewski, a health-care consultant and former insurance executive. “Like California, we are getting the data they want us to see.”

CORRECTION: A prior version of this article said that Ohio officials on Thursday released rates proposed by insurers for plans to be sold on the Ohio exchange. The state released insurers’ estimates of their increased costs of providing coverage, and state officials said premium rates likely would track closely.

You just have to google to find the criticisms of the plan, including the man who wrote it.  Surely you have friends who have already been affected.  Businesses are already limiting hours and insurance costs are going through the roof.  Many employers have already told their employees that their insurance will go away when this law is fully implemented.

I will be curious to see California insure that 7 million currently uninsured at $315 a month.  That is less than I pay now with my employer.

Quote from: stephendare on June 08, 2013, 10:37:55 PM

Quote from: stephendare on June 08, 2013, 10:36:29 PM

Quote from: I-10east on June 08, 2013, 10:23:57 PM
^^^My bad, I misunderstood you when you said that "you didn't see an opinion anywhere" throughout the top post on this page. I get it that you disagree with it, and that's fine. I just think that many people are way too paranoid for nothing.

thats not really an opinion is it?

I mean your opinion is that we shouldnt have opinions and stay uninformed.  Its literally the exact opposite of what the site was founded for.

although at least thats more honest and direct than demosthenes, who thinks we should all just shut the fuck up and let things get done by unknown persons who make bold decisions and dont bother with stupid shit like 'consensus'.

You are sickeningly disingenuous. Perhaps if you all dropped the partisan crap, and stopped backing a horse based on the letter after their name, you would all see that you are being tricked into supporting bad things. I'm not calling for you to "shut the fuck up" at all, but rather, when you speak up, do it against abuses by our government and the leaders, regardless of their party, instead of attacking someone else who also got suckered into the same game by the guy with a different letter behind his name.

Its time the American people set aside the political rhetoric for a little while and kick this government in the ass instead.

Quote from: ben says on June 09, 2013, 05:29:54 PM
SO basically this conversation has devolved into a NotNow and Dare airing out their dirty laundry?

Normally I come to his rescue on these, but jesus I've never been more disappointed in someone I've voted for in my life. I was decidedly pleased with his social reforms, mildly unhappy that the healthcare bill got passed despite being stripped of the part that made the whole thing competitive (the public option), more than a bit peeved that he wanted to continue playing world-cop and bombing random countries, but then that all went out the window with this wiretap mess. I'm flabbergasted that the NSA/CIA/FBI can (and, apparently, do) listen to my, your, anyone's phone calls on a whim and without a warrant, apparently just because they can. This place is turning into a 1960s soviet union, and I'm sick of it. I'd much rather someone blow up a building and however many people die, than start down the path of this kind of invasive and government-controlled society, with the reason being that it means the terrorists indeed won. There, I said it.

This was exactly the type of thing I was hoping would fade away with the Bush administration. I guess I take solace in the fact that after the Bush debacle I'd have voted a straight democratic ticket even if it had included Hitler, or I can justify to myself that McCain or Romney probably would have done the same thing, but then that's really the point here, isn't it. This guy was supposed to be different.

Quote from: ben says on June 09, 2013, 05:29:54 PM
SO basically this conversation has devolved into a NotNow and Dare airing out their dirty laundry?

Looks like it, and a handful of others. I came back to see if the partisan circle jerk was still going on. It is. This thing is much bigger than that, but some people can't turn it off it would seem.

Carry on, fellows.

Some pretty damn long posts in this thread

(http://i3.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/000/049/561/tldr_pope.jpg)

Allright, allright.  I'll shut up!   :)

The 29-year old NSA systems administrator who blew the whistle on PRISM has deliberately outed himself to warn Americans about what is going on. INCREDIBLY brave man, who is in for the smear campaign of a lifetime.

While people engage in short-sighted partisan arguments about who was right and who was wrong, an apparatus continues to take hold that can only end in complete control over the American populace, whether now or fifty years from now. This is so much bigger than Bush vs. Obama.

Snowden on why he leaked this information and fled for his life:

QuoteQ: "Why should people care about surveillance?"

A: "Because even if you're not doing anything wrong you're being watched and recorded. The storage capability of the systems increases every year consistently by orders of magnitude where it's getting to the point you don't have to have done anything wrong. You simply have to eventually fall under suspicion by somebody - even by a wrong call. Then they can use the system to go back in time and scrutinise every decision you've ever made, every friend you've ever discussed something with and attack you on that basis to sort of derive suspision from an innocent life and paint anyone into context of a wrongdoer."

http://www.youtube.com/v/5yB3n9fu-rM

QuoteQ: Why did you decide to become a whistleblower?

A: "The NSA has built an infrastructure that allows it to intercept almost everything. With this capability, the vast majority of human communications are automatically ingested without targeting. If I wanted to see your emails or your wife's phone, all I have to do is use intercepts. I can get your emails, passwords, phone records, credit cards.

"I don't want to live in a society that does these sort of things … I do not want to live in a world where everything I do and say is recorded. That is not something I am willing to support or live under."

Q: But isn't there a need for surveillance to try to reduce the chances of terrorist attacks such as Boston?

A: "We have to decide why terrorism is a new threat. There has always been terrorism. Boston was a criminal act. It was not about surveillance but good, old-fashioned police work. The police are very good at what they do."

Q: Do you see yourself as another Bradley Manning?

A: "Manning was a classic whistleblower. He was inspired by the public good."

Q: Do you think what you have done is a crime?

A: "We have seen enough criminality on the part of government. It is hypocritical to make this allegation against me. They have narrowed the public sphere of influence."

Q: What do you think is going to happen to you?

A: "Nothing good."

Q: Why Hong Kong?

A: "I think it is really tragic that an American has to move to a place that has a reputation for less freedom. Still, Hong Kong has a reputation for freedom in spite of the People's Republic of China. It has a strong tradition of free speech."

Q: What do the leaked documents reveal?

A: "That the NSA routinely lies in response to congressional inquiries about the scope of surveillance in America. I believe that when [senator Ron] Wyden and [senator Mark] Udall asked about the scale of this, they [the NSA] said it did not have the tools to provide an answer. We do have the tools and I have maps showing where people have been scrutinised most. We collect more digital communications from America than we do from the Russians."


Snowden is a 29-year-old former technical assistant for the CIA
Q: What about the Obama administration's protests about hacking by China?

A: "We hack everyone everywhere. We like to make a distinction between us and the others. But we are in almost every country in the world. We are not at war with these countries."

Q: Is it possible to put security in place to protect against state surveillance?

A: "You are not even aware of what is possible. The extent of their capabilities is horrifying. We can plant bugs in machines. Once you go on the network, I can identify your machine. You will never be safe whatever protections you put in place."

Q: Does your family know you are planning this?

A: "No. My family does not know what is happening … My primary fear is that they will come after my family, my friends, my partner. Anyone I have a relationship with …

I will have to live with that for the rest of my life. I am not going to be able to communicate with them. They [the authorities] will act aggressively against anyone who has known me. That keeps me up at night."

Q: When did you decide to leak the documents?

A: "You see things that may be disturbing. When you see everything you realise that some of these things are abusive. The awareness of wrong-doing builds up. There was not one morning when I woke up [and decided this is it]. It was a natural process.

"A lot of people in 2008 voted for Obama. I did not vote for him. I voted for a third party. But I believed in Obama's promises. I was going to disclose it [but waited because of his election]. He continued with the policies of his predecessor."

Q: What is your reaction to Obama denouncing the leaks on Friday while welcoming a debate on the balance between security and openness?

A: "My immediate reaction was he was having difficulty in defending it himself. He was trying to defend the unjustifiable and he knew it."

Q: What about the response in general to the disclosures?

A: "I have been surprised and pleased to see the public has reacted so strongly in defence of these rights that are being suppressed in the name of security. It is not like Occupy Wall Street but there is a grassroots movement to take to the streets on July 4 in defence of the Fourth Amendment called Restore The Fourth Amendment and it grew out of Reddit. The response over the internet has been huge and supportive."

Q: Washington-based foreign affairs analyst Steve Clemons said he overheard at the capital's Dulles airport four men discussing an intelligence conference they had just attended. Speaking about the leaks, one of them said, according to Clemons, that both the reporter and leaker should be "disappeared". How do you feel about that?


A: "Someone responding to the story said 'real spies do not speak like that'. Well, I am a spy and that is how they talk. Whenever we had a debate in the office on how to handle crimes, they do not defend due process â€" they defend decisive action. They say it is better to kick someone out of a plane than let these people have a day in court. It is an authoritarian mindset in general."

Q: Do you have a plan in place?

A: "The only thing I can do is sit here and hope the Hong Kong government does not deport me … My predisposition is to seek asylum in a country with shared values. The nation that most encompasses this is Iceland. They stood up for people over internet freedom. I have no idea what my future is going to be.

"They could put out an Interpol note. But I don't think I have committed a crime outside the domain of the US. I think it will be clearly shown to be political in nature."

Q: Do you think you are probably going to end up in prison?

A: "I could not do this without accepting the risk of prison. You can't come up against the world's most powerful intelligence agencies and not accept the risk. If they want to get you, over time they will."

Q: How to you feel now, almost a week after the first leak?

A: "I think the sense of outrage that has been expressed is justified. It has given me hope that, no matter what happens to me, the outcome will be positive for America. I do not expect to see home again, though that is what I want."

Quote from: stephendare on June 09, 2013, 11:08:23 PM
I think Snowden is a true patriot, btw.

But I do wonder if you are a subscriber to the whole trilateral commission conspiracy or something similar to it?

These 'partisan' arguments, unfortunately are the slow water through which the gears of our society are operated.  It is a democracy after all, and people have to come to their own conclusions for their own reasons.

And as the years pass, i am actually coming to appreciate this basic wisdom.  I dislike these Change on a Dime, Shock Doctrine kind of policy making that has characterized the recent decade.  It will come to no good end.

Let people make their case, let it be argued out, let the debates, both large and small be had and let the slow common sense of the People drive change whenever possible.  I have to believe that people are on the whole, Good.  And that they will eventually do the right thing.

I certainly hope that you share that basic optimism with me.

I subscribe to history.

In this case, two famous quotes have held true time and time again:

1) Those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it.
2) Absolute power eventually corrupts absolutely.

When the balance of powers shifts so dramatically that our elected officials can access, without warrant, anything we say or do, history says that this is going to end very, very badly for many of us or our children. There are some very scary warning signs in place. In the last two months alone, we've seen the government abuse these powers to go after journalists and political organizations, and this week we have the telecom dragnet and PRISM stories leak. The reason I don't believe this is a partisan issue is because both sides of the political spectrum have allowed this to not only go on, but increase in scope. And I have no faith that the next Republican or Democratic mainstream Presidential candidate is going to do anything other than accelerate the surveillance.

While I largely agree that the population overall are good people who will eventually do the right thing, I also believe that we're rapidly approaching a point of no return, if we haven't already gotten there. I hope we get the opportunity to turn this thing around. I genuinely hope people fight back against this gross abuse of power, but sadly, I have little confidence that the population has the attention span to continue to see this thing through once the 5-hour news cycle flushes it down the toilet and moves on to something else :/

Quote from: ChriswUfGator on June 09, 2013, 06:33:53 PM

Quote from: ben says on June 09, 2013, 05:29:54 PM
SO basically this conversation has devolved into a NotNow and Dare airing out their dirty laundry?

Normally I come to his rescue on these, but jesus I've never been more disappointed in someone I've voted for in my life. I was decidedly pleased with his social reforms, mildly unhappy that the healthcare bill got passed despite being stripped of the part that made the whole thing competitive (the public option), more than a bit peeved that he wanted to continue playing world-cop and bombing random countries, but then that all went out the window with this wiretap mess. I'm flabbergasted that the NSA/CIA/FBI can (and, apparently, do) listen to my, your, anyone's phone calls on a whim and without a warrant, apparently just because they can. This place is turning into a 1960s soviet union, and I'm sick of it. I'd much rather someone blow up a building and however many people die, than start down the path of this kind of invasive and government-controlled society, with the reason being that it means the terrorists indeed won. There, I said it.

This was exactly the type of thing I was hoping would fade away with the Bush administration. I guess I take solace in the fact that after the Bush debacle I'd have voted a straight democratic ticket even if it had included Hitler, or I can justify to myself that McCain or Romney probably would have done the same thing, but then that's really the point here, isn't it. This guy was supposed to be different.

Couldn't agree more

Good article... explaining the process... and the safeguards... and where the rules could be strengthened...

http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/technology/2013/06/the_nsa_s_phone_call_database_a_defense_of_mass_surveillance.single.html

Quote
What’s wrong with the National Security Agency’s phone surveillance program? The answer, according to civil libertarians, is its scope. Edward Snowden, the ex-NSA contractor who exposed the program, calls it “omniscient, automatic, mass surveillance.” Glenn Greenwald, the Guardian reporter who broke the story, accuses the U.S. government of  “collecting the phone records of all Americans, regardless of any suspicion of wrongdoing … monitoring them, keeping dossiers on them.” Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., says the feds are “trolling through billions of phone records.”

It sounds as though NSA goblins have been studying everyone’s phone calls. But that isn’t how the program works. It’s a two-stage process. The first stageâ€"collectionâ€"is massive and indiscriminate. The second stageâ€"examination of particular recordsâ€"is restricted. We can argue over whether this two-tiered policy is too intrusive. But either way, our debate about it has focused on the wrong stage. The problem isn’t the data collection. It’s how the data are used.

The first document published by the Guardian, an order from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, instructs Verizon to “produce” to the NSA electronic copies of “all call detail records” related to phone calls within, to, or from the United States. Although the order pertains only to the date, length, and phone numbers involved in each callâ€"not to what was saidâ€"it’s still a colossal demand. But what happens to the data once the NSA gets it? James Clapper, the director of national intelligence, gives this account:

“The collection is broad in scope because more narrow collection would limit our ability to screen for and identify terrorism-related communications. Acquiring this information allows us to make connections related to terrorist activities over time. … By order of the FISC, the Government is prohibited from indiscriminately sifting through the telephony metadata acquired under the program. … The court only allows the data to be queried when there is a reasonable suspicion, based on specific facts, that the particular basis for the query is associated with a foreign terrorist organization. … Only a very small fraction of the records are ever reviewed because the vast majority of the data is not responsive to any terrorism-related query.”

In other words, the rules that most of us would apply at the collection stageâ€"reasonable suspicion, specific facts, court approvalâ€"are applied instead at the query stage. Michael Hayden, the former head of the NSA, CIA, and national intelligence office under President Bush (no, he didn’t hold all three of those jobs at once), describes how the program operates. “The government acquires records … from the telecom providers, but then doesn't go into that database without an arguable reason connected to terrorism to ask that database a question,” Hayden explained on Fox News Sunday. For instance, “You roll up something in Waziristan. You get a cell phone. It's the first time you've ever had that cell phone number. You know it's related to terrorism because of the pocket litter you've gotten in that operation. Here's how it works: You simply ask that database, ‘Hey, any of you phone numbers in there ever talked to this phone number in Waziristan?’ ”

Note the indefinite past tense. The analyst asks whether any of the numbers in the database has ever talked to the number in Waziristan. That’s why the database is colossal: Its aspiration is to capture and preserve records of every call so that no potential lead is missed. Big Brother isn’t watching you. But he does want your records in the database so that if any number you called later surfaces in a plot, he can look back through history, spot the connection, and check you out.

The magnitude of this projectâ€"a permanent, comprehensive library of which phones called which other phones, when, and for how longâ€"means that no record is deleted. Chris Wallace asked Hayden, “What do you do with all the records, the billions of records that you have on all of us law-abiding citizens?” Hayden replied: “Nothing. … You get the cell phone with that [Waziristan] number six months from now. You want to know the history of that number. … So you do retain the information so that you can ask questions of it in the future.”

In some ways, this process resembles traditional law-enforcement analysis of phone calls to and from a suspect. But there’s a big difference. On Face the Nation, Rep. Mike McCaul, R-Texas, the chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, observed:

“When I was a counterterrorism federal prosecutor, we could take the number and run them through the phone companies, through a national security letter or subpoena. Now what has happened is they have literally taken all these phone records and maintained them, taken them out of the private sector and maintained them in the public sector within the NSA. … It's the warehousing of all the phone records from all the major carriers within the federal government …”

Why would the NSA do this? Why not wait till we snag that phone in Waziristan and then order Verizon to turn over records of the calls going in and out? On This Week, Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Mich., chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, offered this explanation:

“After 9/11, we realized there was a big hole in our ability to fully identify all of the players in that terrorist plot. And [part] of it was by the fact that these business records, the phone billing information, is destroyed by these companies. They can'tâ€"expense-wise, it's really difficult for them to hold them. So this is what happened: The [FISA] court said, 'Put all of that information in a box, and hold that information. And when you want to access that information, you have to use this very specific court-ordered approval process.'”

That’s the concept: Collect the companies’ records so they’re never lost. Later, when we have a suspicious phone number, we can scan the universe of records to find every number connected to that number. Your records are never purged from the database, because being in the database doesn’t mean you’re under suspicion. It’s simply the default.

The catch is that your records are now in the government’s hands. Civil libertarians are right to worry about that. The reason this is still a free country, 237 years later, isn’t that our public servants are such wonderful people. The reason is that we constantly improvise systems to block or catch them when they try to abuse power.

Clapper, President Obama, and the heads of the Congressional Intelligence Committees swear that the NSA has safeguards to prevent abuse of the phone data. They point to congressional oversight and judicial veto power through the FISC. I’m sympathetic to that defense. But they can’t just assert that these safeguards exist. They have to tell us more about them. Why should we trust a secret court that rarely turns down the government’s demands? Why should we rely on senators who don’t even attend briefings on surveillance programs?

If we don’t get satisfactory answers to these questions, we don’t have to reject the NSA’s database. We just have to build in sensible, visible restrictions. One strategy is to divide the informationâ€"which numbers you’ve called, on which dates, and through which cell towersâ€"so that no individual analyst can know everything about your calls. That’s how we protect your privacy in naked airport scanning: The officer who sees your body can’t see your face or your name. The NSA query system could be set up so that numbers don’t even appear on the analyst’s screen unless they’re triggered, through a connection in the database, by the manual input of a number from a court-approved list. The FISC could be monitored by a public advocate or inspector general whose reports go immediately to the intelligence committees and are later declassified so the public can evaluate the oversight.

For all we know, the NSA is already doing some of these things. What’s absurd is that we don’t know, because the government won’t tell us. That’s bad for civil liberties and for security. It breeds suspicion and overreaction. If we can’t trust the government to manage surveillance data through publicly understood procedures that inhibit abuse, we won’t let it have the data to begin with.

Well, keep believing their narrative if you want to. But the barn door is open now. I am guessing that this is just a taste of what they are really doing.

And I know the political landscape on this Forum leans left for the most part. I would hope you would not let your political loyalties cloud your vision on this NSA spying on us revelation. This is both parties, both Bush and Obama, it is how our Gov't operates.
If you accept that both parties are in on this maybe it will allow you to show some anger and not keep quiet because it happened on your guy's watch.

Point is: It doesn't matter who is in charge, this is not acceptable and should not be tolerated.

If you think it is acceptable then we will respectfully have to disagree.

Quote from: marksjax on June 11, 2013, 12:16:07 PM
Well, keep believing their narrative if you want to. But the barn door is open now. I am guessing that this is just a taste of what they are really doing.

And I know the political landscape on this Forum leans left for the most part. I would hope you would not let your political loyalties cloud your vision on this NSA spying on us revelation. This is both parties, both Bush and Obama, it is how our Gov't operates.
If you accept that both parties are in on this maybe it will allow you to show some anger and not keep quiet because it happened on your guy's watch.

Point is: It doesn't matter who is in charge, this is not acceptable and should not be tolerated.

If you think it is acceptable then we will respectfully have to disagree.

This issue is certainly making for "strange political bedfellows"... as we seem to have people from either side of the spectrun both for and against.  I am trying to keep an open mind and looking at this pragmatically rather than emotionally.

As I have said before... your "metadata" is collected and stored every day by banks, internet browsers, credit companies, grocery stores, book sellers, music sellers, etc... under less secure and more accessible means than NSA's program.  This is unlikely to stop as this information is constantly used, crunched, recrunched, and used again.

What we need are acceptable safeguards to this information.  We can certainly agree that these safeguards need to be reviewed and monitored.  It is a question of trust I guess... and the government has given us plenty of reason lately to distrust it...

So maybe the lack of outrage by regular citizens is less about their politics and more about complacency.
"Why bother forming a protest march when you can vent on the internet" (I'm guilty of that right now!).
We have gotten lazy and haven't been paying attention and this type of stuff is the result.
They (the Gov't) just make these decisions knowing that no one is going to really stand up to them.
If you do then you are a traitor or criminal.
It is really sickening.

From our friends at Wikipedia I offer you this:

Totalitarianism (or totalitarian rule) is a political system in which the state holds total authority over the society and seeks to control all aspects of public and private life whenever necessary.[1]

Quote from: marksjax on June 11, 2013, 12:59:01 PM
So maybe the lack of outrage by regular citizens is less about their politics and more about complacency.
"Why bother forming a protest march when you can vent on the internet" (I'm guilty of that right now!).
We have gotten lazy and haven't been paying attention and this type of stuff is the result.
They (the Gov't) just make these decisions knowing that no one is going to really stand up to them.
If you do then you are a traitor or criminal.
It is really sickening.

From our friends at Wikipedia I offer you this:

Totalitarianism (or totalitarian rule) is a political system in which the state holds total authority over the society and seeks to control all aspects of public and private life whenever necessary.[1]

I guess I do not understand who "we" are angry at.  Is it the President who has said on more than one occasion that your calls are not being listened to? (more than one person here is claiming the President has lied) Is it Congress who say the same thing?  Is it the rotating panel of Federal judges who approve warrants based on probable cause?

Do you (we) not trust any of the above?  To me... it seems the distrust is because of a lack of understanding of the process.  This is certainly understandable as the guts of the program have been classified due to the sources and methods involved.

I wish to have a discussion of this topic without the acrimony and name calling that often times accompany these topics.  I certainly respect your opinions Mark...

I wish to have a discussion of this topic without the acrimony and name calling that often times accompany these topics.  I certainly respect your opinions Mark...

Quote from: stephendare on June 11, 2013, 02:26:32 PM

Quote from: BridgeTroll on June 11, 2013, 02:02:49 PM
I wish to have a discussion of this topic without the acrimony and name calling that often times accompany these topics.  I certainly respect your opinions Mark...

I think I remember making the same request 7 years ago, BT.  And, I do have to say that since your own responses were marked with a generous dose of very conscientous civility, let me please openly recognize that and return the same treatment to you.

Ok, putting that past aside, I do think the problem here is in not recognizing that the only legitimate authority who can make these decisions are the American People themselves.  This is not a matter for secret negotiation, nor is it a matter for restricted deliberations.  It strikes at the very root of the notions of individual liberties, and the much maligned Constitutional Pnembra of Privacy.

But if you would like to have a serious discussion about this issue, then may I offer another point, equally grave, to consider?

Much of the very same information that has been collected is already available for sale to private and commercial concerns.

Is the real crime here that the Feds simply refused to pay full commercial rates for the information, and decided to do so with the enormously less expensive medium of a court order and subpoena?

This is one of the arguments that surfaced during the Bush Administration as well, incidentally, and I have to say that it rather took the wind out of my sales on the specifics of the NSA.

I do think that there is a profound difference in the nature of the intended use of the information being collected, but isnt it also true that as long as this information is also available for a price that the government will still be able to legally acquire the same information, except with greater costs and a little delay?

Is it possible that it is time to solidify and correct the basic Constitutional issue of merely having a pnumbra of privacy, and amend the document to create the enumerated Right to Privacy, and make this kind of information gathering a Consitutional Felony, regardless of the purpose?

Thank you for your response Stephen... as tempting as it is to reply to you I will not.  You have already today called me a "right wing Jackass"... which apparently puts me in the same group as Diane Feinstein and Barack Obama.  I would be happy to engage you in discussions about Jacksonvilles downtown woes and strengths... or light rail vs streetcars in our city.  You, me, and national politics do not get along very well...

At the risk of coming off tea-partyish (I am a registered Independent with some Libertarianism mixed in there I suppose):
The who are 'we' upset with is me speaking for myself. I would hope there are more than me and that would be the we part.

Anyway, it's about being upset or mad or expressing outrage and frustration of
the whole: (paraphrasing what is and has been going on for decades)

'We (meaning the Feds) didn't tell/show the public about that (enter example) as it would have upset them, or they wouldn't understand (we're idiots is that what they are implying?) or we didn't need to know based on the vague 'it is a matter of national security', etc.

When Congress is getting lied to who can you really trust? They are passing laws with bad info? "Garbage in/garbage out"

The 'Machine' (war/industrial and now evidently information technology complex) is running the show and we are the schmuck's paying the bill.   

This _hit is probably much worse than what we plebeians are allowed to see/hear about. So when one guy goes 'rogue' and shines a light on their dirty deeds it is a brief glimpse behind the curtain (a la The Wizard of Oz).

That both Pelosi and Boehner are defending this so vehemently is indicative that they are all aware and are ok with it.

I like the ACLU's comment (and to be honest, on many of their causes I tend to disagree):

'Beyond Orwellian"

Scary times these...

And the PR campaign from our 'leaders' has officially begun:

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/lindsey-graham-thought-censoring-mail-necessary-suggest-182932835.html?.nx=count%3D5%26sortBy%3DhighestRated%26isNext%3Dtrue%26offset%3D5%26pageNumber%3D1

A confidential briefing held yesterday on possiblyl illegal NSA surveillance was skipped by over HALF of all US Senators.

Disgraceful.

http://mobile.theverge.com/2013/6/15/4433504/senators-skipped-confidential-briefing-on-nsa-surveillance

Well, so much for the "domestic surveillance was a response to 9/11" excuse:

QuoteBush-Cheney began illegal NSA spying before 9/11, says telcom CEO

Contradicting a statement by ex-vice president Dick Cheney on Sunday that warrantless domestic surveillance might have prevented 9/11, 2007 court records indicate that the Bush-Cheney administration began such surveillance at least 7 months prior to 9/11.

The Bush administration bypassed the law requiring such actions to be authorized by FISA court warrants, the body set up in the Seventies to oversee Executive Branch spying powers after abuses by Richard Nixon. Former QWest CEO John Nacchios said that at a meeting with the NSA on February 27, 2001, he and other QWest officials declined to participate. AT&T, Verizon and Bellsouth all agreed to shunt customer communications records to an NSA database.

In 2007 the Denver Post reported:"Nacchio suggested that the NSA sought phone, Internet and other customer records from Qwest in early 2001. When he refused to hand over the information, the agency retaliated by not granting lucrative contracts to the Denver-based company, he claimed."

Other sources corroborate the former CEO's allegations, which were made in the course of his legal defense against insider trading charges. Both Slate.com and National Journal have published reports in which sources are quoted which support the former CEO's claims.

Speaking on "FOX News Sunday" this weekend in defense of the Obama administration's NSA PRISM program, which has caused a national uproar over the sweeping intrusion by the government into American citizens' emails, live chats, and other electronic communications, Cheney said:

"Now, as everybody has been associated with the program said if we had this before 9/11, when there were two terrorists in San Diego, two hijackers, able to use that program, that capability against the target, we might have been able to prevent 9/11,"

However, the presence of such powers in the hands of the present administration did not succeed in preventing the Boston Marathon attacks, even though the suspects were already well-known to the FBI, and one allegedly told law enforcement, while in the hospital, that they were able to "download plans for pressure cooker bombs from the Internet.

In the same interview on "Fox news Sunday" Cheney called NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden a "traitor."

In 2004, an AT&T technician filed a class action lawsuit against AT&T for engaging in an illegal domestic-surveillance program at the behest of the government. The Bush administration accessed major routers owned by telecommunications companies, in cities such as San Francisco, to divert traffic onto NSA mirror sites in order to capture vast volumes of data.

The Bush-Cheney administration fought fiercely to pass legislation which granted telecommunications companies immunity from prosecution for violating Americans' Fourth Amendment rights under the Constitution. The legislation was passed in 2008. UK Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald argued that the unprecedented "retroactive" immunity would also give the Bush administration immunity as well, by preventing lawsuits from moving forward into the discovery phase, where wrongdoing was likely to be uncovered.

Nevertheless, political accountability activists continue to press for action against the Bush, and now the Obama, administrations for violations of the Constitution and settled law. On April 19th of this year a California attorney, Inder Comar, filed two lawsuits in the Northern District of California against George W. Bush, Richard Cheney, Colin Powell, Donald Rumsfeld, Condoleezza Rice and Paul Wolfowitz for planning and waging a "war of aggression" against Iraq, in violation of laws set down at the Nuremberg Trials in 1946. A radio interview of Comar can be heard on peace activist Cindy Sheehan's radio show HERE.

Read more: http://digitaljournal.com/article/352455#ixzz2Z8XpWvnC

Dont want to leave the US Post Office out of the fun...

http://reason.com/blog/2013/07/03/us-post-office-taking-pictures-of-all-ou

Quote
U.S. Post Office Taking Pictures of All Our Mail for Database

Brian Doherty|Jul. 3, 2013 1:51 pm

More for that warm feeling of total security, as reported in the New York Times, about:

the Mail Isolation Control and Tracking program, in which Postal Service computers photograph the exterior of every piece of paper mail that is processed in the United States — about 160 billion pieces last year. It is not known how long the government saves the images....

The Mail Isolation Control and Tracking program was created after the anthrax attacks in late 2001 that killed five people, including two postal workers. Highly secret, it seeped into public view last month when the F.B.I. cited it in its investigation of ricin-laced letters sent to President Obama and Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg. It enables the Postal Service to retroactively track mail correspondence at the request of law enforcement. No one disputes that it is sweeping.

"In the past, mail covers were used when you had a reason to suspect someone of a crime," said Mark D. Rasch, the former director of the Justice Department's computer crime unit, who worked on several fraud cases using mail covers. "Now it seems to be 'Let's record everyone's mail so in the future we might go back and see who you were communicating with.' Essentially you've added mail covers on millions of Americans."

Law enforcement crows about how important the program has been to find a ricin-mailer, a prostitution ring, and drug smugglers (the latter two the kinds of crime for which surveillance is so often needed, as it often lacks victims).

Don't worry, they need a warrant to open the mail. (Unless they don't):

Law enforcement officials need warrants to open the mail, although President George W. Bush asserted in a signing statement in 2007 that the federal government had the authority to open mail without warrants in emergencies or foreign intelligence cases.

Seems very similar to what I understood NSA to be doing.  Collecting the Meta data and storing it in case a need arises.  They are not opening the mail... or reading the contents.

I wish I could talk to you more about it... but as I dislike being labled a racist or right wing jackass I will let this be my only comment to you about this particular issue.  8)

Quote from: BridgeTroll on July 15, 2013, 01:59:13 PM
Seems very similar to what I understood NSA to be doing.  Collecting the Meta data and storing it in case a need arises.  They are not opening the mail... or reading the contents.

But now we know that they aren't just collecting meta data.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jul/11/microsoft-nsa-collaboration-user-data

Quote from: BridgeTroll on July 15, 2013, 01:52:17 PM
Dont want to leave the US Post Office out of the fun...

http://reason.com/blog/2013/07/03/us-post-office-taking-pictures-of-all-ou

Quote
U.S. Post Office Taking Pictures of All Our Mail for Database

Brian Doherty|Jul. 3, 2013 1:51 pm

More for that warm feeling of total security, as reported in the New York Times, about:

the Mail Isolation Control and Tracking program, in which Postal Service computers photograph the exterior of every piece of paper mail that is processed in the United States — about 160 billion pieces last year. It is not known how long the government saves the images....

The Mail Isolation Control and Tracking program was created after the anthrax attacks in late 2001 that killed five people, including two postal workers. Highly secret, it seeped into public view last month when the F.B.I. cited it in its investigation of ricin-laced letters sent to President Obama and Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg. It enables the Postal Service to retroactively track mail correspondence at the request of law enforcement. No one disputes that it is sweeping.

"In the past, mail covers were used when you had a reason to suspect someone of a crime," said Mark D. Rasch, the former director of the Justice Department's computer crime unit, who worked on several fraud cases using mail covers. "Now it seems to be 'Let's record everyone's mail so in the future we might go back and see who you were communicating with.' Essentially you've added mail covers on millions of Americans."

Law enforcement crows about how important the program has been to find a ricin-mailer, a prostitution ring, and drug smugglers (the latter two the kinds of crime for which surveillance is so often needed, as it often lacks victims).

Don't worry, they need a warrant to open the mail. (Unless they don't):

Law enforcement officials need warrants to open the mail, although President George W. Bush asserted in a signing statement in 2007 that the federal government had the authority to open mail without warrants in emergencies or foreign intelligence cases.

Our bridges and roads continue to crumble, but at least Big Brother knows that I remembered to pay my JEA bill this month.

Quote from: Lunican on July 15, 2013, 02:19:14 PM

Quote from: BridgeTroll on July 15, 2013, 01:59:13 PM
Seems very similar to what I understood NSA to be doing.  Collecting the Meta data and storing it in case a need arises.  They are not opening the mail... or reading the contents.

But now we know that they aren't just collecting meta data.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jul/11/microsoft-nsa-collaboration-user-data

This appears to be correct Lunican.  The more I learn the more I distrust the government.  Waaay back... when these types of "monitoring" operations began... It was understood by me to be a collection of meta data that could be recalled and the contents looked at when the FISA court granted a search warrent for specific crimes or investigations of crimes.  As long as there was oversight and a system of check and balance I am OK with the collection...

BUT...

More and more "evidence" is appearing to show that they are looking at more than meta data... without oversight and/or checks and balances.  If this is proven to be the case I will be as angry as as some others regarding these practices.  Statements by mr snowden to not constitute proof for me...

Though I'm not surprised, I feel the government has been watching us since the 50's, I would question the credibility of the article stating 7 months before 9/11.  That would put it at before 2/11 only a little more than 20 days after they took office. Not saying it isn't true, just question it.

Per Broadband Reports.com:

http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/US-Appeals-Court-Declares-NSA-Phone-Record-Collection-Illegal-133683 (http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/US-Appeals-Court-Declares-NSA-Phone-Record-Collection-Illegal-133683)

U.S. Appeals Court Declares NSA Phone Record Collection Illegal

A federal appeals court in New York today ruled that the NSA's once-secret bulk phone records collection program is illegal. According to the ruling, the bulk collection of US citizen metadata well exceeds what Congress has technically allowed under the Patriot Act. That's something even the author of the Patriot Act himself has been arguing for several years.

The ruling comes as the fight has ramped up over whether or not to renew Section 215 of the act, which expires in June and the NSA broadly interprets as legal justification of their massive domestic spying practices.

"We hold that the text of § 215 cannot bear the weight the government asks us to assign to it, and that it does not authorize the telephone metadata program," stated the three-judge panel of the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan.

"We do so comfortably in the full understanding that if Congress chooses to authorize such a far‐reaching and unprecedented program, it has every opportunity to do so, and to do so unambiguously. Until such time as it does so, however, we decline to deviate from widely accepted interpretations of well‐established legal standards."

A lower court judge had previously thrown out the case, which was filed by the ACLU. The appeals court declared the lower court had erred in declaring that the NSA's behavior was legal. This ruling reinstates that case and sends it back to the lower court, declaring that the NSA's interpretation of the law relies on "bits and shards of inapplicable statutes, inconclusive legislative history, and inferences from silence."

Thank you, Mr. Assange!