Confiscating the Phone Records of US Citizens

[Gaspar]

JCnOwasso,
Here we must simply disagree.  The United States Government has no legal right to violate its own charter.  Until the people's representatives in congress vote to repeal the 4th amendment, and the president signs such a repeal, this act is unconstitutional, and their is no logical or emotional rationale that would make it so.

As for Snoden's status as a government contractor, he obviously had more of a picture than the public, and the information he presented was indeed a complete picture and the administration has admitted such.  He points his finger at HIS government because there is no other actor.

Yes, we are indeed data-mined every day, but that is by our own choice. Becoming a member of Google, or Facebook, or signing a contract with a service provider, in many cases gives them the right to use your data, but they must disclose that to you, along with the purpose for that data and wether or not they intend to provide your data to others.  If they violate that contract they are liable and you are eligible for appropriate damages.

When the federal government collects your private information, they are not doing so with your permission.  The intent of the gathering is to identify and build evidence for prosecution, or to build some form of legal leverage against you.  It is no different than if the government were to search your home or your car every day and catalog your possessions.

FISA (and remember the F stands for Foreign) is a law which prescribes procedures for the physical and electronic surveillance and collection of "foreign intelligence information" between "foreign powers" and "agents of foreign powers" (which may include American citizens and permanent residents suspected of espionage or terrorism).  There is no prevision within the law to allow for a "blanket warrant" to collect private data on all Americans.

So, wether you are perfectly comfortable with the government keeping an eye on you or not, is irrelevant.  It is not legal, nor does the establishment of the Patriot Act or FISA make it legal.

[Townsend]

No matter what happens, aside from all electronic technology ceasing to operate,  this activity will never stop.

[JCnOwasso]

Fair enough, sir.  To be clear, I never intended to change your mind on the subject... I respect the fact that you disagree.  I understand exactly what you are saying, and, in fact, I agree, for the most part.

 

 

[Gaspar]

No matter what happens, aside from all electronic technology ceasing to operate,  this activity will never stop.

To just surrender to government is never the answer.  Though many are growing more comfortable with the idea of statism, we are not yet there as a country, and our constitution still remains strong.

There are tens of thousands of people that work for agencies like NSA who must have knowledge of their government committing crimes against its own people.  Snowden may have just gotten the ball rolling.  We will have to see how fearful others have become.  I suspect this is just the beginning.

[Gaspar]

Fair enough, sir.  To be clear, I never intended to change your mind on the subject... I respect the fact that you disagree.  I understand exactly what you are saying, and, in fact, I agree, for the most part.

You are typically fair in your discourse, and I look forward to exploring this topic more as the issue matures.

I think we have much more to learn for Snoden over the next couple of months, unless he is disappeared or accidentally tripps over a hellfire missile.  I also suspect others will emerge.

[Townsend]

To just surrender to government is never the answer.  Though many are growing more comfortable with the idea of statism, we are not yet there as a country, and our constitution still remains strong.

There are tens of thousands of people that work for agencies like NSA who must have knowledge of their government committing crimes against its own people.  Snowden may have just gotten the ball rolling.  We will have to see how fearful others have become.  I suspect this is just the beginning.

So you think someone will say "Okay you guys, knock it off." and this will stop?

[JCnOwasso]

Not sure what to think of the website or the author, but this is pretty interesting

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/timstanley/100221535/is-edward-snowdens-story-unravelling-why-the-guardians-scoop-is-looking-a-bit-dodgy/

Now that the dust has settled after the Edward Snowden affair, it's time to ask some tough questions about The Guardian's scoop of the week. Snowden's story is that he dropped a $200,000 a year job and a (very attractive) girlfriend in Hawaii for a life in hiding in Hong Kong in order to expose the evils of the NSA's Prism programme. But bits of the story are now being questioned.

1. Why did he go to China? It was always an odd aspect of his plan that he should choose as his refuge from tyranny a totalitarian state that happily spies on its own people and imprisons dissenters. True, Hong Kong itself has a tradition of resistance to dictatorship, but it also has a treaty with the US that would make it relatively easy for America to extradite their guy back. Perhaps Snowden simply has the worst lawyers in history?

2. Snowden's backstory is not entirely accurate. Booz Allen says that his salary was 40 per cent lower than thought and a real estate agent says that his house in Hawaii was empty for weeks before he vamoosed. Does the fact that he only worked for three months with Booz Allen and the NSA suggest he was planning a hit and run all along – that he took the job with the NSA with the intention of stealing the documents?

3. The administration is pushing back on the definition of what Prism actually is – that it's not a snooping programme but a data management tool. The call logging accusations are pretty much beyond doubt (and reason enough to scream Big Brother) but the Prism angle is a little less clear. Extremetech points out that it is a programme that has hidden in public sight, that Prism is in fact, "the name of a web data management tool that is so boring that no one had ever bothered to report on its existence before now. It appears that the public Prism tool is simply a way to view and manage collected data, as well as correlate it with the source." This is not to say that there isn't a scandal to investigate here: "What is much more important is to pay attention to what data is being collected, and how." But Prism might not be the smoking gun.

None of this debunks outright Snowden's claims that the NSA is gathering data, that it has extraordinary power or that it has lied to Congress about it. But it does smack of a lack of fact checking on the part of The Guardian and it risks giving credibility to those who think this is a lot of fuss about nothing (and I'm not one of them). As Joshua Foust of Medium.com suggests, the problem probably rests with Snowden. He first approached the Washington Post via a freelancer and demanded that they publish everything without time for fact checking or government comment. The Post hesitated – so Snowden went to The Guardian instead. This forced the Post to speed up publication of its own story. Frost: "Both papers, in their rush, wound up printing misleading stories." If so, they're in trouble.

[patric]

Coburn, R-Okla., a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said Americans would be proud and amazed by the work being done by the National Security Administration and would have no concerns that their civil liberties were being violated.

I think Coburn's response was delayed a few days, as it took time to travel from whatever planet it was sent from.



http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-57589012-38/nsa-surveillance-retrospective-at-t-verizon-never-denied-it

[heironymouspasparagus]

I am not saying that I agree with the whole wire tapping thing.  I didn't much like it when Bush did it and I don't much like it now.  However, I understand that if lives can be saved by intercepting information about an upcoming terrorist attack, I would be more ticked off to find out we had the ability to stop it but didn't because they didn't want to tap phones or pull records.  
 

What a country of Wookies we have become.....


Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.

[Ed W]

There are always unanticipated complications with new uses for technology, and in this case, the accused just may have a valid use for the data:

...Louis argued in court Wednesday that the government should be forced to turn over phone location records for two cellphones Brown may have used because it could prove he was not present for one of the attempted bank robberies, on July 26 on Federal Highway in Lighthouse Point.

http://boingboing.net/2013/06/13/accused-bank-robber-wants-nsa.html

OK, there's an obvious flaw because the data would show where the cellphones were, not necessarily where the accused was.

What are his chances of getting the data?

[JCnOwasso]

What a country of Wookies we have become.....


Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.

At what point in our life do we look at the things that were said in the 17 and 1800's and realize that they may have been useful and true for that time, but today we have to handle things differently.  When do we realize that our todays self would have invaded our yesteryear self for the forced relocation and in some case, slaughter, of the natural inhabitants of the land, or slavery, or allowing Justin Beiber to enter the states.  Kind of like the ten commandments, probably great in their time, but today it is just kind of "hey, how bout that", it is more a symbol than a guideline.  Like if you don't know it is bad to kill, you have mental issues.  Seeing the ten commandments isn't going to cause you to realize "Holy Smile, I didn't realize I should not kill".     

[heironymouspasparagus]

At what point in our life do we look at the things that were said in the 17 and 1800's and realize that they may have been useful and true for that time, but today we have to handle things differently.  When do we realize that our todays self would have invaded our yesteryear self for the forced relocation and in some case, slaughter, of the natural inhabitants of the land, or slavery, or allowing Justin Beiber to enter the states.  Kind of like the ten commandments, probably great in their time, but today it is just kind of "hey, how bout that", it is more a symbol than a guideline.  Like if you don't know it is bad to kill, you have mental issues.  Seeing the ten commandments isn't going to cause you to realize "Holy Smile, I didn't realize I should not kill".    

In all cases it was government policy to engage in genocide and extermination of the native inhabitants....just so we are crystal clear on that point.

And how would you know it is bad to kill - actually, to commit murder as the real definition means - without the training, education, and growing up with the infrastructure the society provides for such things?  Goes to one of the points I have hammered on incessantly here - we have no sense or knowledge of history.  (Perhaps in part because of attitudes as expressed just above - "may have been useful and true for that time....".)  Well, the platitude the really applies is "those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it...."  (As an aside - here is an interesting little historical tidbit -  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edmund_Burke)  The Ten Commandments is an exceptional item as a guide to life, regardless of time or space, or whether attached to a religious doctrine or not.  The only thing I would add to make complete would be the Golden Rule.  That's all ya need....even if your God is Buddha or Shintoism or you feel your Creator is a cosmic gamma ray burst - the first still applies.

Of course, if the Ten Commandments had been considered at all, by any of the "Christian" countries that colonized it, this country would not exist as you experience it today....  (stealing, murder, covet, false witness, adultery - as in rape and pillage, just to name a few.)


I can tell you with no reservation or doubt that human nature has not changed substantially in 200 years.  Nor in 2,000 or even 3,000.  What has changed is the available technology to allow one group to dominate and make submissive another group.  That is all.

[Gaspar]

I can tell you with no reservation or doubt that human nature has not changed substantially in 200 years.  Nor in 2,000 or even 3,000.  What has changed is the available technology to allow one group to dominate and make submissive another group.  That is all.

I notice you've been taking your smart pills lately.  Or more likely, I have failed to recognize your intelligence, and for that I am sorry. 

[Gaspar]

At what point in our life do we look at the things that were said in the 17 and 1800's and realize that they may have been useful and true for that time, but today we have to handle things differently.  When do we realize that our todays self would have invaded our yesteryear self for the forced relocation and in some case, slaughter, of the natural inhabitants of the land, or slavery, or allowing Justin Beiber to enter the states.  Kind of like the ten commandments, probably great in their time, but today it is just kind of "hey, how bout that", it is more a symbol than a guideline.  Like if you don't know it is bad to kill, you have mental issues.  Seeing the ten commandments isn't going to cause you to realize "Holy Smile, I didn't realize I should not kill".     

We have the right to amend that wich no longer applies, but the establishment of what we consider as rights changes little.  You can't simply say that people no longer have a right to their own privacy, or speech, or any of the other things that we accept as part of our liberty, simply because technology makes those rights easier to violate.

The limits we place on government are very important. The Constitution does not grant rights to people.  The constitution restricts Government.   

The Constitution is a "barbed-wire entanglement" designed to interfere with, restrict, and impede government officials in the exercise of political power. – Jacob Hornberger

Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add "within the law," because law is often but the tyrant's will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual. – Thomas Jefferson

The main point of a constitution is to put limits on what aspects of life are subject to majority rule. – Ronald Bailey

[JCnOwasso]

We have the right to amend that wich no longer applies, but the establishment of what we consider as rights changes little.  You can't simply say that people no longer have a right to their own privacy, or speech, or any of the other things that we accept as part of our liberty, simply because technology makes those rights easier to violate.

The limits we place on government are very important. The Constitution does not grant rights to people.  The constitution restricts Government.   

The Constitution is a "barbed-wire entanglement" designed to interfere with, restrict, and impede government officials in the exercise of political power. – Jacob Hornberger

Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add "within the law," because law is often but the tyrant's will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual. – Thomas Jefferson

The main point of a constitution is to put limits on what aspects of life are subject to majority rule. – Ronald Bailey

I am fairly positive it is the Constitution that empowers the Government, not restricts.  Now it could be said that the Constitution was the list of guidelines for our republic and how it should function overall.  But I am sure that we mean the same thing.

Now, the part I have changed to red... so does this mean that the right believes that marriage is subject to majority rule?

Heir, I completely agree, I am just saying that just because we did something back then does not make it right... and in many/most cases, what we did was horribly wrong.  I can't really agree that human nature has changed significantly over 200 or even 2000 years.  Somethings are the same or have slightly varied, but there is so much that has drastically changed.  But I think it has been technology that has caused human nature to change.  I really think we have to approach things different these days.  When the enemy is living among you and utilizing everything that you utilize I believe that at some point you have to change your approach.  I know that not everyone feels this way, but I am pretty sure the Government could give two craps less about my daily life and what I have to say. 

Now as for how did I know I shouldn't kill someone?  It is just one of those things you know, but I understand what you mean.  Had I grown up differently, I wouldn't have understood that.  Honestly, the only thing that I think should be needed is the golden rule.  Regardless of race, creed, religion, sex or sexual preference; you should treat others as you wish to be treated.