Judge orders Verizon to hand over all cell phone call data to NSA

[chanson78]

The only way to take back power is to deflate the power of the parties. Leave, stop giving them money and more than anything stop voting for their crap candidates just because they are in your party.

I think that is a noble thing. However I also feel there truly are some situations where voting for the third party is worse than voting for one of the candidates from the two major parties due to the fact that the other guy really is that heinous. It is truly a sad state in America that the last 4 elections I have voted in have never been about voting for someone, its always that I am voting against some other jerkface.

 

[chanson78]

I think I posted this awhile back, but this made the news back in March of 2012. Everyone is all up in arms about the fact that this stuff has been going on as if they are just now finding out about it. My only response is, what in the world would the NSA ever need a 1M/sq-ft data center for if they weren't logging everything?

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

In the process—and for the first time since Watergate and the other scandals of the Nixon administration—the NSA has turned its surveillance apparatus on the US and its citizens. It has established listening posts throughout the nation to collect and sift through billions of email messages and phone calls, whether they originate within the country or overseas. It has created a supercomputer of almost unimaginable speed to look for patterns and unscramble codes. Finally, the agency has begun building a place to store all the trillions of words and thoughts and whispers captured in its electronic net. And, of course, it’s all being done in secret. To those on the inside, the old adage that NSA stands for Never Say Anything applies more than ever.

 

[92tide]

I think I posted this awhile back, but this made the news back in March of 2012. Everyone is all up in arms about the fact that this stuff has been going on as if they are just now finding out about it. My only response is, what in the world would the NSA ever need a 1M/sq-ft data center for if they weren't logging everything?

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

silly rabbit, its a warehouse to store all of the ammunition the feds are hoarding

 

[TideEngineer08]

Found this on reddit.

Where did that guy go?

 

[mittman]

I think the biggest problem is that too many of us secretly want this. How many times have you heard something like "With all of the technology we have why didn't they stop this?" or "Surely this was caught on a camera somewhere." With all of the money we spend on NSA, FBI, CIA, and various other acronyms people have unrealistic expectations of what is actually doable. When they try to do what is expected, we get this.

Don't get me wrong. This is overreach, but it is enabled overreach.

My hope is all of these scandals will result in a "Contract with America" style (whether it is from the left or right) flush of congress that may scare them into at least appearing to be a more responsible government. But it is probably a pipe dream.

 

[Bamabuzzard]

Where did that guy go?

Unfortunately liars don't tell you they're lying.

 

[TideEngineer08]

Unfortunately liars don't tell you they're lying.

It would be nice if we could get a law passed for that. We're passing laws everywhere else. How about require all liars to warn you that they are about to tell a lie?

 

[cbi1972]

How many times have you heard something like "With all of the technology we have why didn't they stop this?" or "Surely this was caught on a camera somewhere."

I never hear this and if I did, the speaker would get a rhetorical kick in the junk

 

[Jon]

I think that is a noble thing. However I also feel there truly are some situations where voting for the third party is worse than voting for one of the candidates from the two major parties due to the fact that the other guy really is that heinous. It is truly a sad state in America that the last 4 elections I have voted in have never been about voting for someone, its always that I am voting against some other jerkface.

Which guy has really been that much more heinous than any other though? Serious question here. Who is worse Obama or Bush? From my point of view they are the same. Both treat the Constitution as if it were a bunch of suggestions. Sure they both throw a bone to their party base now and again and they both do everything they can to insure their party will retain power but outside of the "bread and circuses" they are not really all that different.

 

[swoop10]

6 pages in and we are already doing an Us versus Them (R Vrs D) blame fest.

They don't even have to try and divide us, we do it to ourselves. The party means nothing, don't believe Limbaugh or Maddow. Both sides are slight variations on the same thing. Both grow government, both ignore the Constitution when they feel like it. Sure you may like the stated motivation (though it is rarely their true motivation) of one side or the other but ultimately it's all about gaining more power for them at the expense of us.


If you are a Republican and honest with yourself you can easily see how Bush went against "Conservative Principals" throughout his tenure as President. If you are a Democrat and honest with yourself it should be increasingly obvious that your guy is full of crap too. When the next election comes up try and recall this and go a different direction.

I'm not trying to pit us against them, I'm just trying to get people who support Obama and were against this when Bush was President that they should be against it now. Some seem to be against it but we don't hear them like we heard them from 01-08. IMO, the party in power should hold their party responsible. I agree that Republicans didn't do a good job of this while Bush was President but does that mean Democrats shouldn't do it now? I don't think so. Bush opened my eyes, he was more of a progressive Republican than a Conservative. You can be assured that the next time a Republican is in office I will try to hold his feet to the fire the way I wish Democrats would hold Obama's.

 

[92tide]

I'm not trying to pit us against them, I'm just trying to get people who support Obama and were against this when Bush was President that they should be against it now. Some seem to be against it but we don't hear them like we heard them from 01-08. IMO, the party in power should hold their party responsible. I agree that Republicans didn't do a good job of this while Bush was President but does that mean Democrats shouldn't do it now? I don't think so. Bush opened my eyes, he was more of a progressive Republican than a Conservative. You can be assured that the next time a Republican is in office I will try to hold his feet to the fire the way I wish Democrats would hold Obama's.

at first glance the blogosphere, opinion writers, media etc. seem to be freaking out about this (i would guess that every one of these would be considered "obama supporter"
http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entry/nyt-editorial-board-slams-obama-on-tracking-administration

http://dish.andrewsullivan.com/2013/06/07/the-fbi-may-have-your-emails/



http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entry/glenn-greenwald-suggests-more-revelations-are-coming-shortly?ref=fpb

http://www.ajc.com/weblogs/jay-bookman/2013/jun/07/surveillance-state-becomes-clearer-still/

many more that i cant link because the comment sections would not pass the language test on NS. also, NPR has been running several stories on this.

 

[swoop10]

at first glance the blogosphere, opinion writers, media etc. seem to be freaking out about this (i would guess that every one of these would be considered "obama supporter"
http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entry/nyt-editorial-board-slams-obama-on-tracking-administration

http://dish.andrewsullivan.com/2013/06/07/the-fbi-may-have-your-emails/



http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entry/glenn-greenwald-suggests-more-revelations-are-coming-shortly?ref=fpb

http://www.ajc.com/weblogs/jay-bookman/2013/jun/07/surveillance-state-becomes-clearer-still/

many more that i cant link because the comment sections would not pass the language test on NS. also, NPR has been running several stories on this.

Sorry but this has been going on since Bush and Obama's whole term. It took media from another country to bring it back to life. The media here are reactors not news gathers especially when it comes to this President. It took the listening of phone calls by this administration of the AP to get them interested in any of this at all so excuse me if I'm not really impressed with your usual attempt to cover liberal apathy towards Obama.

 

[92tide]

Sorry but this has been going on since Bush and Obama's whole term. It took media from another country to bring it back to life. The media here are reactors not news gathers especially when it comes to this President. It took the listening of phone calls by this administration of the AP to get them interested in any of this at all so excuse me if I'm not really impressed with your usual attempt to cover liberal apathy towards Obama.

wow. you live in a special place don't you (and no, im not talking about valdosta )

 

[chanson78]

Which guy has really been that much more heinous than any other though? Serious question here. Who is worse Obama or Bush? From my point of view they are the same. Both treat the Constitution as if it were a bunch of suggestions. Sure they both throw a bone to their party base now and again and they both do everything they can to insure their party will retain power but outside of the "bread and circuses" they are not really all that different.

I agree that the differences between Bush and Obama are few and far between. However I do believe if Bush had been in office with Cheney behind him (fictional scenario, say Bush got another 4 years), we would likely have troops in Iran and Syria now. I will give a slight edge to Obama primarily because I don't think we need to be empire building.

My heinous comment was with regards to voting for Obama instead of Romney. I voted for Obama because in Romney I actually saw for the first time someone who wasn't afraid to tell the nation what he thought of them and still expected to get elected because the sheep were too dumb to know better.

 

[chanson78]

Sorry but this has been going on since Bush and Obama's whole term. It took media from another country to bring it back to life. The media here are reactors not news gathers especially when it comes to this President. It took the listening of phone calls by this administration of the AP to get them interested in any of this at all so excuse me if I'm not really impressed with your usual attempt to cover liberal apathy towards Obama.

To be fair, don't you think this is likely more tied to the fact that the news outlets are owned by a very few news corporations who are beholden to larger corporations due to advertising and what not? For example I don't think anyone would accuse the media in the big three (ABC, NBC, CBS) of currently being very favorable to Obama right now.

I also believe that some of this belief in bias is self confirming. If a primarily biased news network tells its biased viewers that all the other media outlets are biased the other direction it makes those viewers feel better about themselves for "seeing the truth" and allows their audience to clap themselves on the back.

Anyways, just a little science regarding media bias, albiet during the run up to the Obama/McCain election from Scientific American. Granted this is just a small window into media bias for a small time slice but it proves that it isn't always roses and lolipops for our newly appointed Inquisitor in Chief.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=media-bias-presidential-election

This past summer, just as the view that journalists were going softer on Barack Obama than on John McCain was becoming widely accepted, CMPA issued a report showing that 72 percent of the statements in TV news reports about Obama in late spring and early summer were negative, whereas 57 percent of the statements about McCain were negative.

I don't really have a good segue into this next story but I think it has some bearing on your argument and the fact that many people don't realize that the news organizations are not beholden to the American people. They are shoveling the slop that our corporate betters want us to hear about.

Here is a story about a ruling in 2003 that essentially said there was no requirement for a news organization to actually tell the truth. This is how we are able to get the likes of Fox, MSNBC, CNN etc. I am going to link to the wikipedia page, as you can find the resources from there. It is quite an eye-opening story.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Akre

Wikipedia paraphrases the decision that forever changed the media landscape.

In 1997, Wilson and Akre began work on a story regarding the agricultural biotechnology company Monsanto and recombinant bovine growth hormone (rBGH), a milk additive that had been approved for use by the Food and Drug Administration but also blamed for a number of health issues. Wilson and Akre planned a four-part investigative report on Monsanto's use of rBGH, which prompted Monsanto to write to Roger Ailes, president of Fox News Channel, in an attempt to have the report reviewed for bias and because of the "enormous damage that can be done" as a result of the report.

WTVT did not run the report, and later argued in court that the report was not "breakthrough journalism." Wilson and Akre then claimed that WTVT's actions constituted the news broadcast telling lies, while WTVT countered that it was looking only for fairness. According to Wilson and Akre, the two rewrote the report over 80 times over the course of 1997, and WTVT decided to exercise "its option to terminate their employment contracts without cause," and did not renew their contracts in 1998. WTVT later ran a report about Monsanto and rBGH in 1998, and the report included defenses from Monsanto.

...snip...

An appeal was filed, and a ruling in February 2003 came down in favor of WTVT, who successfully argued that the FCC policy against falsification was not a "law, rule, or regulation", and so the whistle-blower law did not qualify as the required "law, rule, or regulation" under section 448.102 of the Florida Statutes.

 

[92tide]

from 2011

Wyden (d-or) eyes legislation to limit warrantless cell phone tracking

the GPS act

 

[gmart74]

It would be nice if we could get a law passed for that. We're passing laws everywhere else. How about require all liars to warn you that they are about to tell a lie?

actually we have the opposite
http://vigilantcitizen.com/latestne...anda-and-disinformation-on-american-citizens/

New Bill Legalizes Government Propaganda and Disinformation on American Citizens

 

[Bamaro]

I've been away for the last few days so I haven't read the previous 97 posts.
On this I have to agree with Lindsey Graham. If they weren't listening in and just seeing who called who, I have no major problem with this.

 

[Jon]

So, we may be trampling all over the Constitution and violating the law but prosecuting us or stopping us from doing it will impact national security so we're going to do it anyway. The arrogance of these people is sickening

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/07/us-government-special-privilege-scrutiny-data

 

[Jon]

I've been away for the last few days so I haven't read the previous 97 posts.
On this I have to agree with Lindsey Graham. If they weren't listening in and just seeing who called who, I have no major problem with this.

through cell metadata they can track your movements and the movements of everyone with a phone for as long as they have records, reportedly 7 years. Are you are ok with the feds having a history of you exact whereabouts at every moment since 2006?