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BS: The NSA Scandal/Snowden
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Subject: RE: BS: The NSA Scandal From: number 6 Date: 11 Jun 13 - 10:29 PM Good try Bobert on worming your way out of that one ... it doesn't cut the cheese pal. biLL ;) |
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Subject: RE: BS: The NSA Scandal From: number 6 Date: 11 Jun 13 - 10:27 PM GfS ... this whole Patriot Act / NSA stuff is sheer lunacy and of course it is unconstitutional, it purposely destroys the whole foundation of freedom and democracy on the guise of creating an unknown fear onto the populace ... but what is really frightening is how all Dems and Republican Tea Party folks are all pointing fingers and blaming each each for the same damned thing. Sheer idiocy ! As I mentioned earlier in this thread it's like Hanlon's razor .. "You have attributed conditions to villainy that simply result from stupidity" btw ... I like the analogy of 'homeland' in that clip ... is homeland the same thing as fatherland ? biLL |
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Subject: RE: BS: The NSA Scandal From: GUEST Date: 11 Jun 13 - 10:23 PM The Patriot Act is bad legislation. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The NSA Scandal From: Bobert Date: 11 Jun 13 - 10:21 PM Oh, bullshit... Here's the deal here, folks... Yes, the Patriot Act was written by a bunch of people who were reacting, okay, over reacting to 9/11... That is history now... What we have is a program that does nothing more than scan traffic and see if there are folks here in the US talkin' with folks who have a history of trying to fuck us up??? Where's the beef here, ya'll??? Don't make this about the entire Patriot Act... That's cheap... B~ |
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Subject: RE: BS: The NSA Scandal From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity Date: 11 Jun 13 - 10:08 PM From biLL('number 6's post'..quoting Bobert's post..""Ya know what scares me the most about the Patriot Act??? Well, it was written by a bunch of folks who campained all throughout the south on themes of too much government in "your life"... Yeah, these are the folks who prreach and campaign about the excesses of governemnt but when you turn yer back on them for one minute they find yet another way 1984 ya'.." Yeah, we know...It was written by Joe Biden in 1995! and check this out...... ..with an interesting link... GfS |
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Subject: RE: BS: The NSA Scandal From: Don Firth Date: 11 Jun 13 - 09:43 PM I know lots of normal, intelligent, "with-it" people, Goofy. But, being a gregarious guy, I know LOTS of people. A few people I'm acquainted with are a bit flakey. It's simple statistics. As to "normal, intelligent, 'with-it' people," you're not one of them. Don Firth |
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Subject: RE: BS: The NSA Scandal From: number 6 Date: 11 Jun 13 - 09:41 PM Bobert .... Osama Bin Laden is dead now back in June of 2005 you Bobert was somewhat concerned about the Patriot Act ... in fact you were scared of this Orwellian 1984'sh process that the Government was now going to use to spy on people. here's a quote from you Bobert from June 2005 in a thread labeled Patriot Act unconstitutional. "Ya know what scares me the most about the Patriot Act??? Well, it was written by a bunch of folks who campained all throughout the south on themes of too much government in "your life"... Yeah, these are the folks who prreach and campaign about the excesses of governemnt but when you turn yer back on them for one minute they find yet another way 1984 ya'..." well ... that was back in 2005 and Osama Bin Laden was still alive and terrorizing the western world, and Bush was sheriff back then and he was going to save us all. well ... go figure biLL ;) |
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Subject: RE: BS: The NSA Scandal From: Songwronger Date: 11 Jun 13 - 09:30 PM From the World Socialist Website: What Edward Snowden has revealed ...The fury with which the political and media establishment has responded to the leaks reveals its justifiable concern that with each new revelation, the legitimacy of the American government and the entire state apparatus is further undermined—at home and abroad. The ruling class is driving toward a police state, but it does not yet have one. It fears for the stability of its rule.... ...On the one side stands the financial aristocracy, which, in its social instincts and political outlook, is authoritarian. It looks on the population as a whole as a hostile force, and every citizen as a potential enemy. And with good reason. The corporate and financial elite is well aware that the policies it is pursuing are deeply unpopular. The aim is to intimidate and blackmail an entire society. As Snowden noted, after the state has gathered, on a permanent basis, data from everyone, "You simply have to eventually fall under suspicion from somebody, even by a wrong call. And then they can use this system to go back in time and scrutinize every decision you've ever made, every friend you've ever discussed something with." Such methods will be employed against any and all political opposition. With the information it has already assembled, the government can readily construct a detailed social and political profile of nearly every individual in the United States. http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2013/06/11/pers-j11.html Who Rules America? Obama presides over a country in which the president can—and does—unilaterally order the extra-judicial assassination of people all over the world, including US citizens; where entire cities, such as Boston, can be placed under de facto martial law; where the government seizes the phone records and emails of investigative journalists; where those who expose US war crimes, such as Private Bradley Manning, are tortured and prosecuted for treason; where the president can order alleged terrorists to be detained indefinitely and without trial in military prisons.... Congress and both of the major political parties serve as rubber stamps for the confluence of the military, the intelligence apparatus and Wall Street that really runs the country. The so-called "Fourth Estate"—the mass media—functions shamelessly as an arm of this ruling troika. The cowardice and duplicity of Congress, above all, the Democrats, and the subservience of the media, exhibited in their response to the exposure of the NSA spying programs, encourage the military and intelligence agencies to go even further in their drive toward dictatorship. Mark Udall, the Democratic senator presented as the most "outspoken" critic of the spying programs, began his interview Sunday on CNN's "State of the Union" program by pledging his support to the "war on terror" and denouncing leaks of classified information. http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2013/06/10/pers-j10.html |
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Subject: RE: BS: The NSA Scandal From: Bobert Date: 11 Jun 13 - 09:14 PM Go for a walk, GfinS... Your head is clouded with wackoness... B~ |
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Subject: RE: BS: The NSA Scandal From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity Date: 11 Jun 13 - 09:12 PM Subject: RE: BS: The NSA Scandal From: GUEST,guest Date: 11 Jun 13 - 04:56 PM "The FISA court oversees the program and allows it to proceed, the same court that Bush bypassed during which time Americans were all by totally silent. Has it occurred to anybody this whole thing is a intelligence ruse?" Oh, Looky!.................. From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity Date: 11 Jun 13 - 01:36 PM I tend to agree with you, SRS...but your post can extend to the philosophic/ideological 'bent' on any number of administrations, posing under the guise of being 'left' or 'right'...and not just solely to Snowden....for all we know, he could be a ruse, himself!" Where'd you get THAT idea??? ...................................................................... Don Firth: "A fellow I knew some years ago had a little problem. He was a pedophile. No one knew. But he got busted and served time. He has since been busted again. I found him, just by putting in his name and last known city of residence"........"Barbara and I have a couple of gay friends who've been living together for years and wanted to get married." ..........."but we have a flakey neighbor, a woman who is all tooted up about drones and government surveillance. She has a garden outside her apartment window, and she swears that she sees "government drones" hovering outside her window, watching her."...."Question: Why in blue blazes would the government be interested in THIS woman? No reason I can think of. But she's absolutely sure!"...... Don't you know any NORMAL people???? You sound like you live in a convalescent home for the criminally insane".....OH, and by the way, how could I pass up THIS ONE:....... Firth: "I get a pop-up ad telling me where and how I can meet single males of the same-sex persuasion." Persuasion????? Sounds like your 'pop up provider' knows it isn't 'genetic' too.........by the way, is your 'pop up provider' cute??? maybe into S&M...and leather, too.......... GfS |
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Subject: RE: BS: The NSA Scandal From: Don Firth Date: 11 Jun 13 - 09:00 PM By the way, if you've never done it before, try doing a "vanity search." Put your own name in the Google search box and see what you come up with. As Bogey said in "Casablanca," "Here's looking at you, kid!" I've located a lot of old friends I'd lost track of just by putting their name in the Google search box. Turns up a lot of people with the same name, but a little sorting and VERY frequently you get an "AHA!! So that's were the sucker got to!!" You owe anybody money? Don Firth |
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Subject: RE: BS: The NSA Scandal From: Bobert Date: 11 Jun 13 - 08:55 PM Lemme see... It's okay for Google to collect a 100 times more information about you in order to extract money from your wallet but... ...not okay for the government to collect 1/100th as much information about you to keep Osama bin Laden from flying airpalnes into your fucking house??? Uh huh... B~ |
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Subject: RE: BS: The NSA Scandal From: Don Firth Date: 11 Jun 13 - 08:49 PM GUEST,guest is right about this. And I have known it for a long time. For example, some weeks ago I went to Amazon because I was in the market for a new digital wristwatch. My old one has pooped out on me. I bought a very nice, reasonably inexpensive "atomic" watch (it sets itself every day by a time signal for Fort Collins, Colorado). Even now, I am still getting pop-up ads for digital watches. A fellow I knew some years ago had a little problem. He was a pedophile. No one knew. But he got busted and served time. He has since been busted again. I found him, just by putting in his name and last known city of residence. I found his whole record, including a very unflattering mug shot! No, folks. It's there! For ANYONE to look up. Even the subjects of Mudcat posts. I have spent a fair amount of time on threads here arguing the matter of gay marriage. I'm heterosexual and happily married (to a woman!), but Barbara and I have a couple of gay friends who've been living together for years and wanted to get married. When Washington State legalized same sex marriage in the last state election, they went right out and tied the knot (and somehow the world did not end!). But one of the results of my having posted on the subject is that, from time to time, I get a pop-up ad telling me where and how I can meet single males of the same-sex persuasion. So I'm bugged and pestered a helluva lot more by people who want to sell me goods and services than I am by the NSA!! I've mentioned this on another thread (on drones and how they are danger to our freedoms), but we have a flakey neighbor, a woman who is all tooted up about drones and government surveillance. She has a garden outside her apartment window, and she swears that she sees "government drones" hovering outside her window, watching her. Hummingbirds. If they are drones, they are wasting a lot of time and effort, because you see a lot of them around flowers, but not necessarily where there are any windows to peer into. Question: Why in blue blazes would the government be interested in THIS woman? No reason I can think of. But she's absolutely sure! She's deeply concerned about "contrails," too. There's a lot of rampant paranoia around. Don Firth |
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Subject: RE: BS: The NSA Scandal From: GUEST,guest Date: 11 Jun 13 - 07:25 PM Specify the site? Holy cow! You think there's only one? I'll go you one better: Type "criminal record check" into your browser and TAKE YOUR PICK!!! You mean to tell me that you people are bitching about NSA snooping and you have NEVER bothered to look at the staggering number of websites that have your information and it's free to anyone who cares to search for it??? My god! What a bright bunch we have with us today! The website I looked at was advertised--ADVERTISED--on my Yahoo! homepage! It was disguised as a news article but when I clicked, it was just a site for checking people's background info. I decided to try it. I know someone who has two DUIs and I wondered if that info was public so I typed her name and state in the box and bam! There it was complete with her ex-husband's name, her ex-father-in-law's name, her two children's names, her city of residence and it even knew that she had lived in two cities in Florida even though she was only there for about a year. In fact, her ex told me that she was in Florida but didn't say where and I didn't ask. But now I realize you don't have to ask. Just do a search. Now I didn't mean to snoop on this lady but she doesn't use a computer so I just wanted to see if her DUI's were public knowledge even if she doesn't go online and hell yes they are. Anyone can find out just about anything they want about you. These sites are used by prospective employers, for example. These sites advertise themselves online as sites for people to check out the backgrounds of new boyfriends or girlfriends--just in case. Maybe not a bad thing there. But can we doubt that stalkers, pedophiles and identity thieves practically live at these sites? Oh, and have a Facebook account? Got it set for private, no one can see you info but your designated FB friends? Oh my goodness NO! Anyone can look at anything you post on Facebook. Again employers do it ALL the time. Every time you read about somebody being busted on FB playing Frisbee on the beach when they are collecting money for a supposed back injury and that kind of thing, it's because the insurance company or employer went of FB and got that info, which is easy. Privacy, my ass. Then there's the software that merchants use to follow you EVERYWHERE you go online. Think no one knows about that super-kinky porno site that you visit everyday that you think you have carefully guarded from the prying eyes of the world. Haha!! Someone knows about it. Every merchant on the internet knows about it. And you think stalkers and private investigators don't make use of that software to follow people like you online? Well, you just go right on thinking that. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The NSA Scandal From: Stilly River Sage Date: 11 Jun 13 - 07:04 PM I agree with gillymore. I don't always (even usually!) agree with David Brooks, though he is on the mild side of conservative, all things said and done. Snowden was "exposing" aspects of a program that is meant to be proactive, or at least provide quick results if another such attack as 9/11 happens. Hopefully to prevent it. I suspect part of the confusion is that too many people don't understand just what "metadata" is. It isn't the content of the call, it is the stuff the phone company prints on every bill that goes out in the mail, to whom, and for how long. And it has long been understood that most of this information is not private and it isn't reasonable to expect it to be private. There is oversight of the program, and considering that the GOP and the Democrats have acknowledge the program and attest to briefings, and that a court oversees it, means it isn't so covert as is hinted at. The ACLU has decided to sue. Sometimes the ACLU gets these things terribly wrong. Like when they won the case about the law regarding who and how a person is admitted to a mental hospital - their suit allowed the Regan administration to dismantle major mental health institutions and dump the occupants, in some cases literally on the street. I'm a supporter of the ACLU, but this one is a mistake, it seems they don't understand what metadata is either. SRS |
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Subject: RE: BS: The NSA Scandal From: Richard Bridge Date: 11 Jun 13 - 05:16 PM Specify that site, Guest, please? |
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Subject: RE: BS: The NSA Scandal From: GUEST,guest Date: 11 Jun 13 - 04:56 PM The FISA court oversees the program and allows it to proceed, the same court that Bush bypassed during which time Americans were all by totally silent. Has it occurred to anybody this whole thing is a intelligence ruse? A high school dropout working as a guard for the CIA and somehow ends up with an intelligence-gathering job at $200k a year. Then he throws it all away to reveal a "secret" program that anyone who has been paying the slightest bit of attention knows has been going on for 7 years now. A program that is completely legal. And his "pole dancer" girlfriend whose writings on this subject read like Elizabeth Barrett-Browning on acid and meth. It's a bit much, one must admit. Maybe it's all too take our minds off the fact that he already gave our privacy away the day we decide to go online. I was visiting another site where you type in a person's name and the state where they reside and up comes their police record, city of residence, spouses, siblings, parents, in-laws. They even list other cities where a person may have resided for a short time. Another website lists your house and property and how much you paid for it and how long you've had it and whether or not you're in the market to sell it. Am I worried about the govt getting this info? No, they can get that info anytime they damn well please. But I do worry about crooks, cons and weirdos getting it. And I hope you don't get apps on your phone that require them knowing where you are so they can beam them to you because anybody can tune in and know exactly where you are at that moment. It's not that the government has access to my info, it's that ANYBODY has access to it who wants it and I can't do a damned thing about it. And neither can you. So while you're wrapping yourselves in tin foil to protect yourself from the evil government top secret eavesdropping rays they beam at you 24/7, you better watch out who is sneaking in the backdoor. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The NSA Scandal From: GUEST,gillymor Date: 11 Jun 13 - 02:04 PM The oversight is provided by Congress, Richard, not some unelected 29 year old who may just be grasping for his 15 minutes and in this country it's not illegal to be opposed to the government. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The NSA Scandal From: Richard Bridge Date: 11 Jun 13 - 01:53 PM IMHO Snowden is a courageous whistleblower. If there is no oversight of what governments scrutinise then those properly opposed to them are as much at risk as true terrorists. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The NSA Scandal From: GUEST,gillymor Date: 11 Jun 13 - 01:46 PM Aother paragraph worth repeating from the Brooks' article linked by SRS: "But Big Brother is not the only danger facing the country. Another is the rising tide of distrust, the corrosive spread of cynicism, the fraying of the social fabric and the rise of people who are so individualistic in their outlook that they have no real understanding of how to knit others together and look after the common good." -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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Subject: RE: BS: The NSA Scandal From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity Date: 11 Jun 13 - 01:36 PM I tend to agree with you, SRS...but your post can extend to the philosophic/ideological 'bent' on any number of administrations, posing under the guise of being 'left' or 'right'...and not just solely to Snowden....for all we know, he could be a ruse, himself! GfS |
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Subject: RE: BS: The NSA Scandal From: Stilly River Sage Date: 11 Jun 13 - 01:01 PM "He betrayed the Constitution. The founders did not create the United States so that some solitary 29-year-old could make unilateral decisions about what should be exposed. Snowden self-indulgently short-circuited the democratic structures of accountability, putting his own preferences above everything else." |
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Subject: RE: BS: The NSA Scandal From: Stilly River Sage Date: 11 Jun 13 - 12:59 PM David Brooks "The Solitary Leaker" in the New York Times on June 10, 2013. A fragment of it: If you live a life unshaped by the mediating institutions of civil society, perhaps it makes sense to see the world a certain way: Life is not embedded in a series of gently gradated authoritative structures: family, neighborhood, religious group, state, nation and world. Instead, it's just the solitary naked individual and the gigantic and menacing state. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The NSA Scandal From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity Date: 11 Jun 13 - 12:14 PM Well, time to weigh in......First of all, the 'so-called' liberals LOVE to point out that the Patriot Act came to be under Bush, but completely IGNORE that it was written by Biden!...in the MID-NINETIES!...and then they simply REFUSE to grasp that all this was brought about by BOTH parties. The 'so-called right' like to banter that it is UN-Constitutional' but ignore that so was the war in Iraq!!...and air support in Libya...and drones in Afghanistan....and Pakistan....But at least they want to call attention to Benghazi.....which the 'so-called' liberals wish to sweep under the carpet....Jeez, Susan Rice, gets up in front of the world at the U.N.,lies her fucking ass off, as does Obama, for a couple of weeks afterwards, and then she gets 'promoted' to assistant to national defense!!...Now, either she is incompetent to know the truth, OR acting under orders to lie her fucking ass off, without the President knowing a thing about it???????!!??....and the other FACT is, this stuff has been going on for DECADES!....and like a bunch of naive blathering, drooling idiots, one side or the other, tries to make hay..or defend ANY of these actions...BECAUSE THE POLITICAL PARTY LINES OF 'TALKING POINTS' ARE SO FULL OF SHIT, that only MORONS take up promoting either side, to 'crusade' on the behalf of either side, and make complete fools of themselves, while IGNORING the REALITY of what is going on!!! Then the 'pundits' or either side take up the question of 'legality'....legal????...well has it occurred to anyone, that here we DON'T have a JUSTICE system...we have a LEGAL system, instead? The 'so-called' liberals are choking on their pablum trying to make excuses for AG Eric Holder, after lying his ass off, too repeatedly...which for the time being will completely shut off the 'Justice' Department(?) from going after anybody...unless they are 'insulting' the administration's policies, of bullshitting the public...go figure! ....and if this seems to 'not make sense', so do a lot of you!...ESPECIALLY partisan morons!!! This is NOT a 'left/right' issue...this is just another example of CORRUPTION at the highest levels to dissolve our form of government, and replace it with a global/economic system by people who can't believe that we could have already had one.....but THEY just wouldn't be at the top of the heap! GfS |
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Subject: RE: BS: The NSA Scandal From: GUEST Date: 11 Jun 13 - 11:29 AM You ain't got a dossier. You got a file! |
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Subject: RE: BS: The NSA Scandal From: GUEST,bankley Date: 11 Jun 13 - 11:24 AM I support the actions taken by Edward Snowden AND Bradley Manning. put that in my dossier. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The NSA Scandal From: GUEST Date: 11 Jun 13 - 11:15 AM That is very disheartening to read Greg. You'll have an email in less than five minutes. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The NSA Scandal From: Greg F. Date: 11 Jun 13 - 11:12 AM FYI, Guest Whatever, I make it a point to ignore anonymous guests who can't even be bothered to pick a consistent name as experience shows thay are inevitably shit-stirrers & likely one of the regular shit-stirrers trying to operate incognito. Have a nice shit-stirring day. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The NSA Scandal From: number 6 Date: 11 Jun 13 - 10:55 AM Why would anyone remember the PATRIOT Act .... nobody read it. Some people here in the Madcat seem to forget it ... but they were concerned and they spoke quite differently back then .. well, of course they would it was under Bush's watch. it's interesting to back into the archives here in the Madcat .. many had different attitudes about this back then. It's intriguing to see what many of the Madcatters had to say. BS: Patriot Act unconstitutional? BS: USA PATRIOT Act (Part 2) BS: Cities Revolt against US Patriot Act bill ;) biLL |
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Subject: RE: BS: The NSA Scandal From: GUEST Date: 11 Jun 13 - 10:42 AM Has it struck anyone as to the enormity and complexity of the problem? Recall it was green-eye cameras which have become ubiquitous. Then Google ads which read gmail messages to scan for key words to make yer ad experience more intuitive, whatever the hell that means. Have people become so complacent that they think NSA/CIA/FBI/DHS/ETC have not been accessing that lovely little feature? The fucking elephant in the room is why are people not outraged by this shit. They should be, but we'll have the same apologists saying it's ok when we're being taken from trains to detention centers. LOOK at what the USA has become in basically less than forty years. Your enemies in the world have never needed to unleash mass destruction on the American people, and they haven't. You did it to yourselves. Greg, please read the following article: http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/story/2013/06/07/f-rfa-macdonald-nsa-eavesdropping.html The reader comments are interesting in that they come from average guys and gals or various political persuasions. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The NSA Scandal From: GUEST Date: 11 Jun 13 - 10:09 AM And never one to turn his back on a good thing, Obama carried on where Bush left off. Yippee! The elephant in the room was mentioned in the following post: Subject: RE: BS: The NSA Scandal From: GUEST Date: 08 Jun 13 - 08:09 PM Nice to see people supporting the government in its fight to keep America safe--started by Bush and continued by Obama. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The NSA Scandal From: Greg F. Date: 11 Jun 13 - 10:02 AM Ah, but it DID happen under Bush's watch - there's this thing called the P.A.T.R.I.O.T. Act, which is the elephant in the room. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The NSA Scandal From: GUEST Date: 11 Jun 13 - 09:40 AM "There certainly would be different attitudes here on the Madcat concerning all of this if it happened under Bush's watch." Ain't that the truth! |
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Subject: RE: BS: The NSA Scandal From: number 6 Date: 11 Jun 13 - 08:17 AM Very good Charmion .... Hanlon's razor also comes to mind about this terror of terrorist paranoia resulting in the Big Brother approach in massive scanning of information .. "You have attributed conditions to villainy that simply result from stupidity" ... from Robert Heinlein's short story Logic of Empire. biLL |
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Subject: RE: BS: The NSA Scandal From: Charmion Date: 11 Jun 13 - 07:53 AM The only guarantee of privacy is obscurity, as anyone who grew up in a small town can tell you. Clearly, many Americans believe (against all the evidence) that they -- as individuals -- are significant enough to stand out from their hundreds of millions of fellows to the disinterested eye of the scanning intelligence analyst, who works only with the output if a software bot incapable of thought. In all this furore, what catches this Canadian's attention is commentators' indignation. Whenever the Constitution is invoked, the indignation content of the debate has risen beyond the level at which rational discussion is possible. That said, I must admit that the day is long past when an American federal official would think -- let alone say -- that gentlemen don't read other gentlemen's letters. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The NSA Scandal From: McGrath of Harlow Date: 11 Jun 13 - 07:27 AM The idea is surfacing that a reason why Google and Anazon and so forth have been so easily able to avoid paying tax in the UK might have something to do with a payback for cooperating on these things. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The NSA Scandal From: Songwronger Date: 11 Jun 13 - 12:08 AM It's looking more and more like the 8 major companies involved in this scandal (Apple, Google, Facebook and the others) knowingly colluded with the NSA to spy on you. Of course, they were probably intimidated. They knew that in 2001 the NSA contacted the CEO of Qwest, Joseph Nacchio, and said they wanted to wiretap every customer. He said no. Billions of dollars of government contracts with Qwest were cancelled and Nacchio is now in federal prison. The new data storage facility in Utah will have enough server space to store all digital data on all Americans. Some of the types of digital data we jotted down today: Financial records (banking history, deposits and withdrawals, mortgage info, county tax rolls) Earnings history, income tax history Credit card history (what foods you've charged, medications, ammo, porno and so on) Medical and hospital records (illnesses and injuries, abortions, sexually transmitted diseases, vaccinations or lack of vaccinations) Biometric information (thumb scans, iris scans, DNA sample, gait sample, voice sample) Educational records (no more sealed juvenile records, either, so we can "fight the terrorists") Online buying history Emails (from your primary address and those you thought were secret) Text messages Browsing history (political sites you've visited, radical sites you've clicked through to in your reading, porno) Phone calls Forum and bulletin board postings Your changing physical location, tracked by: GPS in your cars, cell phones and laptops Passport activity Closed Circuit TV facial recognition scans Gait recognition software scans License plate scans ATM withdrawals Key cards for access to work sites "Smart" technology monitoring when you open your refrigerator doors and the like Conversations recorded with systems like Onstar, in your car Cable TV boxes monitoring for live thumbs on the remote Drones surveilling movement in rural areas and so on. According to this article the NSA gathers 2.1 million gigabytes of data on us every hour. They have space now to store an endless amount of data, and it will just sit there until the government decides to come for The Jews or The Jihadists or The Tea Party. Check out Main Core. From Wikipedia: Main Core is the code name of a database maintained since the 1980s by the federal government of the United States. Main Core contains personal and financial data of millions of U.S. citizens believed to be threats to national security.[1] The data, which comes from the NSA, FBI, CIA, and other sources,[1] is collected and stored without warrants or court orders.[1] The database's name derives from the fact that it contains "copies of the 'main core' or essence of each item of intelligence information on Americans produced by the FBI and the other agencies of the U.S. intelligence community."[1] |
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Subject: RE: BS: The NSA Scandal From: Songwronger Date: 10 Jun 13 - 08:54 PM Spoken like a true disinformation agent, Guest. The Russians told you people that the two Chechen brothers in Boston were potential terrorists, yet you let them bomb the marathon anyway? The Russians warned you multiple times about that. So, if you couldn't "stop the terrorists" under those conditions, why do you need to data mine billions of communications? At any rate, the fourth amendment to the U.S. constitution says: "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized." So the Bush/Obama warrantless and fisa court crap is disallowed. And if there's any doubt about that (laws passed recently that contradict the fourth amendment), we already have a supreme court ruling on that. Marbury v Madison, 1803: "Thus, the particular phraseology of the Constitution of the United States confirms and strengthens the principle, supposed to be essential to all written Constitutions, that a law repugnant to the Constitution is void, and that courts, as well as other departments, are bound by that instrument." |
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Subject: RE: BS: The NSA Scandal From: McGrath of Harlow Date: 10 Jun 13 - 08:06 PM Whether the activities of the NSA are legal is not too clear. It shouldn't be assumed that just because a government does something that makes it legal. Of course there are some political philosophies which would assert that very thing, but in doing so they undermine the very concept Guest appears to hold sacred, that the fact that something is legal means that it is automatically wrong to defy it. And it is in fact pretty well universally agreed that in certain circumstances it is right to oppose legal authority. The United States was founded on that basis. I'm a bit puzzled by the apparent proposition that if leaking information does not endanger people, the activities revealed cannot be dangerous in themselves. Apply that principle in a completely different context - if a whistleblower in a sausage factory revealed that his employers were using meat that had been condemned as unfit for human consumption, would the fact that no one was put at risk by the revelation (except in terms of their career prospects), would this really imply that the activities concerned were not dangerous? (Please note, I am not suggesting any analogy between the NSA and a sausage factory, the example is just about the proposition Guest appeared to be making that the absence of risk from a leak means that the activities revealed cannot be dangerous.) And please, could people hold onto the principle of addressing people here with whom they disagree courteously, and avoid slipping into rhetoric like "Go crawl back into the woodwork you slithered out of." |
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Subject: RE: BS: The NSA Scandal From: GUEST,guest Date: 10 Jun 13 - 07:42 PM Thanks for attacking me, songwronger, you've just put everybody in here who hates your guts into a very uncomfortable position. nyuk nyuk nyuk! |
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Subject: RE: BS: The NSA Scandal From: Songwronger Date: 10 Jun 13 - 07:31 PM GUEST, guest is a government shill. The intelligence agencies employ people like this to do damage control. First one I've seen on Mudcat, that I know of. I've seen his talking points and presentation on other sites today. I think it's amusing that their first thought was to condemn Snowden for some perceived lack of education. The govt is pissed off that it was outmaneuvered by a "high school dropout." lol. I listened to a few minutes of Limbaugh today. He was more inarticulate than I've ever heard him. He HAD to address the Snowden story, but how to do that? It's not a Dem/Rep issue (Snowden condemned both Bush and Obama), so Limbaugh stammered about Snowden "hating this country." But that didn't work because Snowden took the action he did to protect democracy. This is a major, major setback for the surveillance/industrial complex. Daniel Ellsberg calls it the most important leak in the history of the U.S.: Edward Snowden: saving us from the United Stasi of America In my estimation, there has not been in American history a more important leak than Edward Snowden's release of NSA material – and that definitely includes the Pentagon Papers 40 years ago. Snowden's whistleblowing gives us the possibility to roll back a key part of what has amounted to an "executive coup" against the US constitution. Since 9/11, there has been, at first secretly but increasingly openly, a revocation of the bill of rights for which this country fought over 200 years ago. In particular, the fourth and fifth amendments of the US constitution, which safeguard citizens from unwarranted intrusion by the government into their private lives, have been virtually suspended. The government claims it has a court warrant under Fisa – but that unconstitutionally sweeping warrant is from a secret court, shielded from effective oversight, almost totally deferential to executive requests. As Russell Tice, a former National Security Agency analyst, put it: "It is a kangaroo court with a rubber stamp." For the president then to say that there is judicial oversight is nonsense – as is the alleged oversight function of the intelligence committees in Congress. Not for the first time – as with issues of torture, kidnapping, detention, assassination by drones and death squads –they have shown themselves to be thoroughly co-opted by the agencies they supposedly monitor. They are also black holes for information that the public needs to know. The fact that congressional leaders were "briefed" on this and went along with it, without any open debate, hearings, staff analysis, or any real chance for effective dissent, only shows how broken the system of checks and balances is in this country....... |
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Subject: RE: BS: The NSA Scandal From: Jeri Date: 10 Jun 13 - 07:29 PM I honestly don't know how I feel about this. I worry that a not-nice person might notice that somebody's calling a phone sex line and ruin them. I worry (seriously) that the wrong person will get information that someone's doing something the public can be convinced is evil and tell everybody... except that's what's happened (even if it's the other side--'whistleblowers" vs career-ruiners... except that's what's happened.) There have always been secret things going on. This one apparently started in 2007. The reason things have security classifications is based on whether people knowing them would damage the US and the degree of damage. Somebody try to convince me this doesn't damage the US. It kind of makes you wonder what has been going on prior to this that we haven't learned about. The most frightening thing to me is we have an unprecedented number of people who have access to "top secret" information, and it's quite apparent to me they shouldn't have had that level of clearance. Our information security seems to be a bit shakier than our physical security. I have no doubt Snowden thought he was doing the right thing. I'd guess the people who developed "PRISM" thought they were doing the right thing. I don't have any clear idea who is right and who is wrong. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The NSA Scandal From: GUEST,guest Date: 10 Jun 13 - 06:54 PM Give me a break, people. If there was another 9-11 attack or a dirty bomb that killed hundreds and the govt wasn't watching anything, you'd all be screaming bloody murder about that. You're as bad as the gun nuts who think the govt is going to take all their guns away. You think you're so important that the govt is going to tune into you among millions and millions of people to hear your boring drivel shit conversations which, if they match your posts here, couldn't possibly be less interesting, uninformed or more ignorant. Just as with the gun nuts, do you honestly think the govt has the capability to listen into every single conversation going on 24/7? Do you really? They need a background wash of millions of phone calls so they can focus on emerging call patterns that might be of interest. If you were in the White House and you had the capability, you'd be doing it too and you know it. And those who defend Snowden are no different than the anti-abortion freaks. It doesn't matter to you what's legal, you're going to subvert those laws to make the country fit into YOUR benevolent tyranny. Actually, that's giving you too much credit. You don't have the guts to do that. You'll just sit back and cheer on the crazy nut who is doing what you can only fantasize about--just like the abortion nuts--one crazy goofball pulls the trigger or sets off the bomb and the rest of you cheer. And, if as one poster here said, Snowden is putting no one at risk by leaking the contents of this program to the world, then how dangerous could this program possibly be? Go crawl back into the woodwork you slithered out of. Some other deluded nutball will be along soon enough, I'm sure. You can cheer him on but the Snowden experience is just about at an end. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The NSA Scandal From: Eric the Viking Date: 10 Jun 13 - 06:09 PM You lot can complain but the bastards shot down my carrier pigeon with my plan for world domination that was being sent to the Bilderberg meeting. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The NSA Scandal From: number 6 Date: 10 Jun 13 - 03:59 PM Hmmm ... just another reason for the world to get pissed off with the U.S. from Der Spiegel ..... Data Surveillance with Implications for the World Gnu's post about how Americans know little about Canada comes to mind about all this ... let's keep the U.S. populace in the dark about other countries in the world and then the government can define all a other countries as a threat ... Canadians and Scandinavian are all communists, the mideast is full of people on a Jihad against all Americans, and the French, well they certainly are dangerous to begin with ... in fact the whole world is full of terrorsts all out to get America ... we got to keep a watch on everyone. OK ... you may not buy what I have posted ... but I ask how much is all this Big Brother surveillance costing the U.S. taxpayers ... in a country were you do not have adequate health care, and social assistance for the poor, for the indigenous people and the elderly is almost non-exhistent. biLL |
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Subject: RE: BS: The NSA Scandal From: skarpi Date: 10 Jun 13 - 03:20 PM the NSA say that they are watching foreign nations and people .. so does that make me a Terrorist ?? The Big Brother has been awake for a long time , but I have nothing to hide , but I am against those spying . the UK Government got me on a terrorist list ...and now the USA NSA is watching me ....I must be a hell of a TERRORIST .... and I thought I was just a normal viking ...huuu ... Is this the way USA is using to get people to trust them in the future I don´t think so .. all the best to you all - Skarpi |
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Subject: RE: BS: The NSA Scandal From: number 6 Date: 10 Jun 13 - 03:02 PM whooops .... my apologies ... here's the link U.S. online snooping: what Canadians need to know biLL |
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Subject: RE: BS: The NSA Scandal From: number 6 Date: 10 Jun 13 - 03:01 PM A very interesting interview from the Toronto Star with Ronald Deibert, director of the Citizen Lab and the Canada Centre for Global Security Studies ... you don't have to be a Canadian to appreciate what he has to say ... Ronald Deibert, director of the Citizen Lab and the Canada Centre for Global Security Studies biLL |
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Subject: RE: BS: The NSA Scandal From: McGrath of Harlow Date: 10 Jun 13 - 12:47 PM "There certainly would be different attitudes here on the Madcat concerning all of this if it happened under Bush's watch." I was just about to post saying there wasn't much evidence of that, when that last post turned up. I suspect that the guest who wrote it would also have defended Bush for doing the same stuff. I find it hard to envisage how this leak could possibly put anybody aside from Snowdon a risk, except possibly risk to their political life. And I very much doubt if some of the activities revealed are in fact legal, even in America, let alone the other countries whose citizens are potentially affected. If the law hasn't caught up with making them illegal it's high time it did, and it's a public service bringing them to light. |
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Subject: RE: BS: The NSA Scandal From: GUEST,guest Date: 10 Jun 13 - 12:15 PM Speaking the truth is one thing, blowing the cover of a legal operation is another. I have no sympathy for Snowden. This guy is a high school dropout and I doubt he has enough smarts to know who his actions might have put at risk. He wasn't even smart enough to know where to run. Hong Kong? BAD choice. Then he starts talking about how he's fearful for his children and what will become of them in his absence. Oh, please! Didn't you think about that BEFORE you betrayed your country, dummy?? What other info might he have given away and to whom in some stupid belief that he's saving the universe? This isn't about freedom. This is about him. He's a nobody who thinks he's a big hero now and can't pat himself on the back enough. But then he should NEVER have been given that job in the first place--a high school dropout working for the CIA on a sensitive inteeligence-gathering program. Really. |