Big Brother is watching you

[scipio]

***woosh***

That was the sound of either the joke going over your head or the joke going over my head.

I'm not sure which.

[Samantha]

I'm sure that I'll get blasted for this, but here goes anyway. The only people who truly have anything to fear from this are the ones committing illegal acts over the phone. Are you selling illegal drugs and using your phone to do so? Are you running a bookmaking operation? Are you purchasing illegal weapons and making plans to use them? Then be afraid. But if they want my phone records then let them have them because I have nothing to worry about.

I guess people who engaged in these acts before 2003 were crimminals and should be locked up: http://www.cnn.com/2003/LAW/06/26/scotus.sodomy/

Ok, I know there may not have been a federal law against this, it's no longer illegal, and it's extremely unlikely you'd get in trouble for it, but this is just to poke holes in the "you only have to worry if you're committing illegal acts" argument.

[Trogdor]

From my own judgement, people who say "if you got nothing to hide, you got nothing to fear".....not only is that wrong grammer wise, it shows to me that people like that have pretty much no brainpower of their own, they need to have someone connect the dots for them ( it's too adult of a puzzle for them it seems ) try to do as little thinking as possible.

People in authority LOVE IT when people are like that.


Seems like people these days don't care, so long as they have their beer & smokes, while strapping on a feedbag of buttered popcorn while watching the apprentice.



Keep up the good work, osteriches, keep those heads in the sand and follow big brother's rules and you'll be just fine

[Felicia Katt]

here is what another Loony from the left said about the domestic spying situation

I’m not going to defend the indefensible. The Bush administration has an obligation to level with the American people. And I'm prepared to defend a very aggressive anti-terrorist campaign, and I'm prepared to defend the idea that the government ought to know who’s making the calls, as long as that information is only used against terrorists, and as long as the Congress knows that it’s underway.

But I don’t think the way they've handled this can be defended by reasonable people. It is sloppy. It is contradictory, and frankly for normal Americans, it makes no sense to listen to these three totally different explanations

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2006/05/12.html#a8260

here is what another Moonbat has to say

Now, for liberals who've long been going against almost all of these issues to defend privacy, the news has to be disturbing. But no less so the conservatives who have fought national ID cards and gun registration for years out of fear of big government.

Now, whatever you consider yourself, friends, you should be afraid. You should be very afraid. With over 200 million Americans targeted, this domestic spying program is so widespread, it is so random, it is so far removed from focusing on al Qaeda suspects that the president was talking about today, that it's hard to imagine any intelligence program in U.S. history being so susceptible to abuse

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2006/05/12.html#a8261

Maybe its just my left leaning bleeding heart philosophy moving me to such treasonous mutterings, but I think everyone should be concerned about their privacy, and anyone who claims they are not, when they are anonymously closeted and lurking on a shemale chat board, is either a liar or a fool or both

FK

[NWVegan]

"The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either. " - Ben Franklin.

I would say that just about sums it up.

[White_Male_Canada]

Maybe its just my left leaning bleeding heart philosophy moving me to such treasonous mutterings, but I think everyone should be concerned about their privacy, and anyone who claims they are not, when they are anonymously closeted and lurking on a shemale chat board, is either a liar or a fool or both

FK

One could care less if Ronald Reagan himself came back from the dead,

and gave his OPINION on the subject at hand.

There is no debating those who have given themselves over to hysteria,

mere conjecture,and banal opinions.

The facts are clear. You DO NOT OWN your phone number. Data mining to connect phone numbers to known terrorist ones are legal. This is old case law:

U.S. Supreme Court

SMITH v. MARYLAND, 442 U.S. 735 (1979)
442 U.S. 735
SMITH v. MARYLAND.
CERTIORARI TO THE COURT OF APPEALS OF MARYLAND.

No. 78-5374.

Argued March 28, 1979.
Decided June 20, 1979.



The telephone company, at police request, installed at its central offices a pen register to record the numbers dialed from the telephone at petitioner's home. Prior to his robbery trial, petitioner moved to suppress "all fruits derived from" the pen register. The Maryland trial court denied this motion, holding that the warrantless installation of the pen register did not violate the Fourth Amendment. Petitioner was convicted, and the Maryland Court of Appeals affirmed.

Held:

The installation and use of the pen register was not a "search" within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment, and hence no warrant was required. Pp. 739-746.

(a) Application of the Fourth Amendment depends on whether the person invoking its protection can claim a "legitimate expectation of privacy" that has been invaded by government action. This inquiry normally embraces two questions: first, whether the individual has exhibited an actual (subjective) expectation of privacy; and second, whether his expectation is one that society is prepared to recognize as "reasonable." Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347 . Pp. 739-741.

(b) Petitioner in all probability entertained no actual expectation of privacy in the phone numbers he dialed, and even if he did, his expectation was not "legitimate." First, it is doubtful that telephone users in general have any expectation of privacy regarding the numbers they dial, since they typically know that they must convey phone numbers to the telephone company and that the company has facilities for recording this information and does in fact record it for various legitimate business purposes. And petitioner did not demonstrate an expectation of privacy merely by using his home phone rather than some other phone, since his conduct, although perhaps calculated to keep the contents of his conversation private, was not calculated to preserve the privacy of the number he dialed. Second, even if petitioner did harbor some subjective expectation of privacy, this expectation was not one that society is prepared to recognize as "reasonable." When petitioner voluntarily conveyed numerical information to the phone company and "exposed" that information to its equipment in the normal course of business, he assumed the risk that the company would reveal the information [442 U.S. 735, 736] to the police, cf. United States v. Miller, 425 U.S. 435 . Pp. 741-74

[scipio]

Give up people you will not convince him.

He keeps quoting the same laws that he doesn't understand, that essentially say it is legal for the equipment to be there (although it doesn't say it is legal for this information to be collected BY THE NSA without probably cause).

DAmn didn't I just say to give up? I'm incorrigible.

BTW Felicia shame on you for quoting such pinko commie liberals.... j/k

[White_Male_Canada]

Give up people you will not convince him.

He keeps quoting the same laws that he doesn't understand, that essentially say it is legal for the equipment to be there (although it doesn't say it is legal for this information to be collected BY THE NSA without probably cause).

DAmn didn't I just say to give up? I'm incorrigible.

BTW Felicia shame on you for quoting such pinko commie liberals.... j/k

You`re as thick as a brick. What don`t you get. A. You do not own your phone number. B. The Phone company does,therefore it is C. non-private information. D. Only phone numbers are being compared to known terrorist numbers. E.Its legal since Blackmun in `79.

The case is law there.

Quote me the law where it specifically states the NSA cannot data mine phone numbers,not names, phone numbers?

You can`t because you are guessing.Pure conjecture.

FYI: NSA is set up with the systems to do the job,the FBI is not.Otherwise I`d wager you`d be saying it was against some law you claim to know about that the FBI could not do the exact same thing.


The slogan of the new paranoid:
"Damn the facts , I substitute them with my own paranoid solipisms"

[NWVegan]

The appetite for information is boundless
The government sought no judicial authority to compile "the largest database ever assembled in the world"
Saturday, May 13, 2006
The Oregonian

W hat does the government know about us and when was it going to tell us?

Thanks to USA Today, the American public learned Thursday that the National Security Agency five years ago had persuaded three leading telephone companies to begin turning over telephone calling records for tens of millions of Americans, so it could look for patterns that might point to terrorism. The result, the report said, is "the largest database ever assembled in the world" -- a database full of information about who Americans called, for how long and when.

And the government neither told anybody about it, nor sought any court's permission to do it.

You can see why Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden, a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, called the report "eye-popping."

The story sent shock waves across the capital, the blogosphere and all around the country. The president rushed out to respond to the story by reassuring the public that the government was fighting terrorists, wasn't violating Americans' privacy and that it had briefed the appropriate people in Congress about its efforts.

The administration insists that no phones were actually wiretapped. But if conversations deserve privacy -- absent a court order -- so do the details of the calls Americans make.

Outside the government security operations, it seems the only people who knew about it were the executives of the country's large telecom corporations, who were essentially asked to open all their information to the government. Three of them -- AT&T, Verizon and Southern Bell -- meekly agreed to do so. Only Qwest, which covers much of the West and most of Oregon, refused.

Friday, an attorney explained that Qwest's CEO at the time "concluded that these requests violated the privacy requirements of the Telecommunications Act," and Qwest stuck with that position despite repeated requests and some veiled threats about its chances of getting government contracts.

"If Qwest was concerned, the administration should be concerned," Wyden said.

The Oregon senator said the intelligence committee will probe the matter in the course of its confirmation hearing for Air Force General Michael Hayden, nominated to be the next director of the Central Intelligence Agency. Hayden headed the NSA during and after Sept. 11, when the newspaper said the telephone data collection program began.

"He's going to have to explain what his role was," Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., agreed Friday. "To start with, did he put that program forward, whose idea was it, why was it started?"

The convergence of Hayden's nomination and the disclosures about the telephone records database puts Wyden's committee at the center of the most important debate taking place in America. Wyden and his colleagues must explore two sets of separate but equally critical questions about the government's conduct.

The first centers on the legality, appropriateness and effectiveness of the phone database program. The second centers on the government's accountability to the public and its elected representatives.

The executive branch has shown a crisp certainty about its pursuit of terrorist activity, even though it's not clear how effectively it has used surveillance to save American lives and property.

The executive branch also has demonstrated a certainty about its right to conduct such programs without disclosing them, at least beyond a very select inner congressional circle. Wyden said he's never been briefed about the calling database program.

What's missing is a certainty about the balance between fighting terrorism and protecting the rights of American citizens to live their lives without government supervision. The administration has argued that sensitive activities authorized by the president must be legal -- because they are authorized by the president.

Yet no president is above the law.
[/img]

[The American Nightmare]

"If you're not guilty of anything, you shouldn't have anything to hide."

Somebody should tell that to NSA.

>> NSA Operations Remain Opaque to Investigators <<
(click the listen button)

It's also pretty clear that the phone companies have broken the law. It's spelled out pretty clearly, >> here. <<

The justice department collaborated with the companies on this, so in a moral sense, they are just as guilty, in my opinion.

In a legal sense, it is irrelevant. No one will be punished over this.

On a side note, for those of you who support this program: Do you think any of this will actually help prevent a terrorist attack? Do you think any lives will be saved?

------------------------

"... A matter of internal security." The age-old cry of the oppressor.
- Captain Jean-Luc Picard