05-11-2006, 09:23 PM | #1 (permalink) |
Junkie
Location: midwest
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NSA phone database controversy
USA Today came out with an article revealing that the NSA had created a database consisting of call histories for millions of "ordinary Americans" not specifically targeted for suspected criminal activity. Here's an excerpt:
"The National Security Agency has been secretly collecting the phone call records of tens of millions of Americans, using data provided by AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth, people with direct knowledge of the arrangement told USA TODAY. The NSA program reaches into homes and businesses across the nation by amassing information about the calls of ordinary Americans — most of whom aren't suspected of any crime. This program does not involve the NSA listening to or recording conversations. But the spy agency is using the data to analyze calling patterns in an effort to detect terrorist activity, sources said in separate interviews." The link to the full article is here: http://www.usatoday.com/news/washing...-nsa_x.htm?453 I don't know about anyone else, but I feel violated. If this doesn't propel Bush to record low numbers and take a number of his Republican colleagues down with him this fall, nothing will. |
05-11-2006, 09:32 PM | #2 (permalink) |
... a sort of licensed troubleshooter.
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Maybe if they open my mail and break into my home...THEN we'll all be safe from 'terrorism'. :rolls eyes:
How about that's never been a good excuse, and it's worn so thin that it's breaking? This is 1000 times worse than Watergate, and no one is being heald responsible. It makes me sick. |
05-11-2006, 09:33 PM | #3 (permalink) |
Pickles
Location: Shirt and Pants (NJ)
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I like how all the Republicans are now acting shocked and shout out about demanding "answers".. Hopefully people will see that it's too little and too late. They should have done these things months.. even years ago when it wasn't election time. Many of the ones who are schocked about the whole thing most likely were told about the activity and agreed with it a long long time ago. OMG, election time tho! gotta make it look like we're actually doing something! To the the podiums!
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We Must Dissent. |
05-11-2006, 09:44 PM | #4 (permalink) | |
Pickles
Location: Shirt and Pants (NJ)
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And whats worse is there's more and more crap thats dug up every day... and of course the lives that continue to be lost every single day for this administration. It really makes me sick too.
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We Must Dissent. |
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05-11-2006, 11:09 PM | #5 (permalink) |
Patron
Administrator
Location: Tōkyō, Japan
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There's more insight and some good connections made on a post on arstechnica:
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060511-6813.html I find it quite unbelievable that when your congress sacks a program in its first step, the loosing side just renames the program, plays a little box game with powerpoint and it's like nothing happened at all.
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br, Sty I route, therefore you exist |
05-12-2006, 02:43 AM | #6 (permalink) |
Upright
Location: Germany
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I think it is also critical (in that constellation) that AT&T controls the biggest Backbone of the US. Here's a citation from a letter:
"AT&T owns and operates the largest Internet backbone in the United States and one of the largest worldwide. According to AT&T itself, “AT&T carries more combined data, voice, and Internet traffic than any other carrier in the U.S.: 675 trillion bytes (terabytes) and 300 million voice calls (average day).”1 SBC is the second largest wireline provider of local, long distance, voice, and data services in the United States. SBC also has controlling interest in the nation’s second largest wireless carrier. AT&T’s backbone is the largest Multi-Protocol Label Switching (“MPLS”) network. MPLS enables the network operator to prioritize packets, providing superior performance over the ordinary method of routing Internet traffic, which requires routing table look-ups for all packets routed.2 MPLS has a lower latency rate (the amount of time it takes a data packet to travel roundtrip between two points in the network) and packet loss rate than ordinary Internet routing. Thus, MPLS networks have a big advantage over “ordinary” Internet backbones." http://www.comptelascent.org/public-...aug10_2005.pdf If it is true that AT&T give the NSA access to this data which they deliver, they could do much more with data mining tools and enough computing power than they had ever been able to do before. This read is interesting: http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,70621-0.html Last edited by Humanitarismus; 05-12-2006 at 02:53 AM.. |
05-12-2006, 03:15 AM | #7 (permalink) |
Junkie
Location: bedford, tx
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"But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.-Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government."
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"no amount of force can control a free man, a man whose mind is free. No, not the rack, not fission bombs, not anything. You cannot conquer a free man; the most you can do is kill him." |
05-12-2006, 03:37 AM | #8 (permalink) |
Banned
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The title of this forum does not lend itself to expressing a reaction as to what needs to happen next. We need to call this what it is....and express ourselves....rhetorically....if that means alone....in a rising chorus that swiftly achieves the numbers necessary to intimidate these *uckers into backing down and handing our country back to us...will have any appreciable effect. If not.... plan what to do next, only on payphones....
I posted my reaction, here: http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showthr...39#post2060939 I'm hoping that they are still "testing the waters", and if the 29 percent polling can be matched by a loud and determined, unrelenting resolve, maybe they'll blink.....I hope.... |
05-12-2006, 04:00 AM | #9 (permalink) |
Junkie
Location: Ontario, Canada
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I'm suprised there has not, as yet, been violent rebellion in the US. Not to say the government needs to fall over this particular issue, but, IMO, if the same sequence of abuses or seeming abuses by the government were to occur in virtually any European nation, for example, there would be a degree of rioting and insurrection, as has been seen there many times before.
In the US (despite the whole 2nd amendment, freedoms, history of protest, etc) people are content to whine on the internet and hope that cursing Bush et al on a messageboard will somehow change things (not apoke at anyone here, just a general observation). I find this interesting ...
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Si vis pacem parabellum. |
05-12-2006, 04:45 AM | #10 (permalink) |
Asshole
Administrator
Location: Chicago
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Wow, I stay away for a couple of days and come back to find dksuddeth advocating the overthrow of the government. It's almost an answer to the tree falling in the woods question.
And highthief, the chances of any violent rebellion happening in my lifetime in the US are diminishingly small. There's currently no rallying point for any of the dissenters or any mass organization towards deposing anyone. The vast majority of Americans would never support the destruction of the Constitution (although they'd probably change their minds quickly at the end of a gun), and the armed forces are simply too strong for anyone to make a direct attack. Trying to overthrow the US government would not only be pointless suicide, it would leave a negative legacy for the cause. I actually thought about posting on this topic on my way to work on this morning. After reading the USA Today article, I'm starting to come to the conclusion that the Bush administration is making a direct attack on the 4th Amendment with this and warrantless wiretaps that the New York Times first reported on. Senator Lehey thinks that there are other programs that have yet to come to light with similar affronts to the 4th. There's also the issue that the Justice Department shut down their investigation into the wiretaps because they couldn't get security clearance to access the information - for the record, that's one part of the Executive Branch denying access to another. The White House certainly has some difficult duties in keeping us free from foreign terrorism, but to me it almost feels like there are police/NSA spies around every lamppost and listening to every phone call. I keep waiting for the court cases to start flying, but I haven't seen anything major yet, although the latest report is certainly too new for anyone to have done anything about.
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"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - B. Franklin "There ought to be limits to freedom." - George W. Bush "We have met the enemy and he is us." - Pogo |
05-12-2006, 05:22 AM | #12 (permalink) |
Asshole
Administrator
Location: Chicago
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But this is a suit against AT&T, not the federal government. It's possible that the decision could impact the NSA, but not necessarily.
__________________
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - B. Franklin "There ought to be limits to freedom." - George W. Bush "We have met the enemy and he is us." - Pogo |
05-12-2006, 05:44 AM | #14 (permalink) |
Rail Baron
Location: Tallyfla
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I don't see the big deal (suprised?). Its not like they recorded the messages, or even the names of the callers. They have dates, times, and number to number. How is that invading anyones privacy? I don't feel as if my privacy has been violated. So the feds know this number called that number, big deal. They take the data, run some algorithms and see if there's a suspect pattern. If there is they investigate it a bit further and make sure its not related to terrorism. I'm glad their doing something.
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"If I am such a genius why am I drunk, lost in the desert, with a bullet in my ass?" -Otto Mannkusser |
05-12-2006, 05:51 AM | #15 (permalink) | ||||
Junkie
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That being said, it's a very well written, and informative article. Instead of just providing the hot issue, it also provides back story, as well as information regarding the laws and rights that the president's actions may be compromising.
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Desperation is no excuse for lowering one's standards. |
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05-12-2006, 05:54 AM | #16 (permalink) | |
Junkie
Location: Ontario, Canada
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Si vis pacem parabellum. |
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05-12-2006, 06:17 AM | #17 (permalink) |
Junkie
Location: bedford, tx
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Along the same lines as jimellows thoughts, with all the 'signing statements' that have gone along with all this legislation, What the executive branch considers 'lawful' and necessary, might technically not be.
__________________
"no amount of force can control a free man, a man whose mind is free. No, not the rack, not fission bombs, not anything. You cannot conquer a free man; the most you can do is kill him." |
05-12-2006, 06:19 AM | #18 (permalink) |
Asshole
Administrator
Location: Chicago
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Here in the US, we only riot, loot, pillage and burn after our sports teams win a big game. Otherwise we can't be bothered.
__________________
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - B. Franklin "There ought to be limits to freedom." - George W. Bush "We have met the enemy and he is us." - Pogo |
05-12-2006, 08:12 AM | #19 (permalink) |
Junkie
Location: Ventura County
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We don't have a guaranteed right to privacy in the Constitution only a right against unreasonable searches and seizures. Also, be clear on who owns those phone records - the phone company. The phone company never contracted with you that the data they collect would be destroyed or kept private.
Wake up. If you want privacy don't do stuff in the public relm. Don't enter into agreements with companies that collect and store data. Don't use public roads and facilities, etc.
__________________
"Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on lunch." "It is useless for the sheep to pass resolutions on vegetarianism while the wolf is of a different opinion." "If you live among wolves you have to act like one." "A lady screams at the mouse but smiles at the wolf. A gentleman is a wolf who sends flowers." |
05-12-2006, 08:43 AM | #20 (permalink) | |
Adequate
Location: In my angry-dome.
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That gathering, storing, and analysis methods are improving does not mean we want to let it run unchecked. The erosion of "implied" anonymity is more due to improvements in technology than any policy. Current policy is coincidental. (Though I believe they feed each other.) Mankind hasn't had to contend with systematic privacy intrusions on these scales before, and it's not likely to slow. Business and government benefit while people get creeped out and abuses climb. Who'll win? I'm putting a cautious $5 on big legislation in the next 10yrs. (assuming we see a significant congressional cleanup first)
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There are a vast number of people who are uninformed and heavily propagandized, but fundamentally decent. The propaganda that inundates them is effective when unchallenged, but much of it goes only skin deep. If they can be brought to raise questions and apply their decent instincts and basic intelligence, many people quickly escape the confines of the doctrinal system and are willing to do something to help others who are really suffering and oppressed." -Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media, p. 195 |
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05-12-2006, 08:48 AM | #21 (permalink) | ||
Junkie
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From the article, with highlights: Quote:
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Desperation is no excuse for lowering one's standards. |
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05-12-2006, 08:54 AM | #22 (permalink) | |
Rail Baron
Location: Tallyfla
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Once there is a suspected terrorist calling pattern observed, whatever that may be, NSA goes to a judge, follows the law, and gets a court order for the names connected to that call. This is more of nothing. I wonder what they'll come up with next week.
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"If I am such a genius why am I drunk, lost in the desert, with a bullet in my ass?" -Otto Mannkusser |
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05-12-2006, 08:58 AM | #23 (permalink) |
Asshole
Administrator
Location: Chicago
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I think that constitutional requirements for warrants are discussed quite nicely in this thread.
http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showthr...urth+amendment Phone companies have to gather these records for billing purposes. They don't listen to calls, but they have to know who called who to be able to bill the responsible party. Those records are the private property of the phone companies, although the courts have always seen an invididual stake in that property and as such a warrant is typically required to access anyone's phone records, regardless of the level. This is well covered territory and established law. Aceventura3, regardless of how you interpret the Constitution, the Supreme Court has actually ruled that there is a 4th Amendment right to privacy for decades.
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"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - B. Franklin "There ought to be limits to freedom." - George W. Bush "We have met the enemy and he is us." - Pogo |
05-12-2006, 09:04 AM | #24 (permalink) |
Rail Baron
Location: Tallyfla
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You do know Clinton was doing this through out the 90's? The exact same thing. Without court orders, and without the prompt of 9/11.
Now before you chastise me for bringing clinton into this, its not a "well, he did it and it was ok then, its ok now" thing. Its a "he did it and no one cared then, but they care when bush does it" thing. 60 minutes even did an episode on this in 2000. No one cared then. Why now? Why's the media take off and go nuts when bush does it. 60 minutes puts out this story in 2000 and no one else cared and it was never mentioned again. but now, a republican...hmmm
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"If I am such a genius why am I drunk, lost in the desert, with a bullet in my ass?" -Otto Mannkusser |
05-12-2006, 09:08 AM | #25 (permalink) | ||
Upright
Location: tartarus, oregon
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i am continuously perplexed by how he is able to repeatedly make statements that are a direct contradiction of the facts, without being scoffed at and ran out of office. this has been going on for years! i am at a loss as to how his supporters can reconcile his fabrications with reality. Quote:
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05-12-2006, 09:19 AM | #26 (permalink) | ||
Rail Baron
Location: Tallyfla
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Everyone please read it before you listen to what the numbskulls in the media are telling you. http://www.askcalea.net/calea.html an excerpt: Quote:
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"If I am such a genius why am I drunk, lost in the desert, with a bullet in my ass?" -Otto Mannkusser |
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05-12-2006, 09:27 AM | #27 (permalink) | |
Insane
Location: Maineville, OH
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I was a Republican (now moving ever more towards Libertarianism). I'm just shocked at how much personal liberty we've given away in the last 25 years.
Everyone I heard on the news saying they had "No Problem" with this - no matter WHO did/is doing it - has said, "I have nothing to hide!" It's unfortunate, but I honestly think we're moving more and more towards the sentiment in the following poem: Quote:
Maybe not now...but I don't like how wide the net has been cast. If they're monitoring everyone's calls, then everyone is a suspect. Make no mistake about it, although 99.9% of the time this will be used properly, there WILL be abuses of this. Ask the Clintons about the tax records that they obtained - no matter how legally. (Although I bring up the Clintons specifically, don't focus on that.... Politicians being the seedy sort that they are, abuses will not be partisan.) We're just that much closer to living under a police state.
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A government big enough to give you everything you want is big enough to take from you everything you have. -Gerald R. Ford GoogleMap Me |
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05-12-2006, 09:34 AM | #28 (permalink) | ||
Banned
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05-12-2006, 09:47 AM | #29 (permalink) | |
Adequate
Location: In my angry-dome.
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Capabilities will increase and will be used. At some point, when an administration suggests we all have nano-locators implanted in our heads to fight the venusian menace, resistance might get downright noisy. Might. Increased monitoring will always help big business and government, and in many cases it can help individuals. Where's the balance? Will the population gradually grow accustomed to and accept monitoring at all levels in exchange for the benefits? Restrictions are inevitable. It's a matter of how much and when and if generations more accustomed to technology care.
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There are a vast number of people who are uninformed and heavily propagandized, but fundamentally decent. The propaganda that inundates them is effective when unchallenged, but much of it goes only skin deep. If they can be brought to raise questions and apply their decent instincts and basic intelligence, many people quickly escape the confines of the doctrinal system and are willing to do something to help others who are really suffering and oppressed." -Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media, p. 195 |
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05-12-2006, 09:48 AM | #30 (permalink) | |
Upright
Location: tartarus, oregon
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stevo, this not a partisan issue. i have been, and am, outraged by many things the democrats have done. and i am completely disgusted by their complicity and lack of spine in regard to all of the, ever escalating, disenfranchisements and injustices commited by the current administartion. i am not a democrat - i am an independent. i think our two party system is greatly flawed and a disgrace to the deMOCKracy our country is supposed to represent. but even if you subscribe to any given political party, why would you disservice yourself by defending them, even as they are taking your rights away? |
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05-12-2006, 09:54 AM | #31 (permalink) |
Rail Baron
Location: Tallyfla
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But its not monitoring. not in the sense of the previous story. They aren't listening in on everyones phone calls. The have a list of numbers thats it. A list of numbers that are private property of the telecom companies. A list of numbers they are legally required to turn over if the government asks. If you don't want them to know who you call, use a payphone or disposable cell. Thats probably what alqaeda does anyway, so I don't know how much info theyd really glean from this anyway.
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"If I am such a genius why am I drunk, lost in the desert, with a bullet in my ass?" -Otto Mannkusser |
05-12-2006, 10:07 AM | #33 (permalink) | ||||
Upright
Location: tartarus, oregon
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these things always progress in steps. that is why this is so dangerous. Quote:
it is an extreme invasion of privacy. Quote:
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05-12-2006, 10:13 AM | #34 (permalink) |
Junkie
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My concern/opposition to this is not that it won't lead to catching terrorists, but instead that it will give the government further freedom to broaden the defition of "terrorists," thus allowing them to legally pursue those that fit some government profile, regardless of whether such profiling is valid or not.
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Desperation is no excuse for lowering one's standards. |
05-12-2006, 11:41 AM | #35 (permalink) | |
Junkie
Location: Ventura County
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Lets say Joe talks to Bill at Ma Bells house. Joe knows it happened, Bill knows and Ma knows about the conversation. Who has the privacy right? In my view, nobody. Joe can tell the world what happened. Bill can tell the world and Ma can tell the world. If Joe and Bill wanted absolute privacy they shouldn't have gone to Ma's house. If the government goes to Ma and says give me the names, dates and times of the people who came to your house to talk, Ma can do it if she wants. If she says no, the government is obligated to get a court order. In the NSA controversy the phone companies voluntarily gave the information. Perhaps the beef should be with the phone company.
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"Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on lunch." "It is useless for the sheep to pass resolutions on vegetarianism while the wolf is of a different opinion." "If you live among wolves you have to act like one." "A lady screams at the mouse but smiles at the wolf. A gentleman is a wolf who sends flowers." Last edited by aceventura3; 05-12-2006 at 11:46 AM.. |
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05-12-2006, 11:58 AM | #36 (permalink) |
Asshole
Administrator
Location: Chicago
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Ok, let's review:
Why are the records being kept? The phone companies have to have them for billing purposes. There's no other way to run a phone company that I know of unless you're charging a flat fee, which isn't available to my knowlege. Does the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act of 1994 require a warrant or other type of court order? Yes. In all cases. Is the NSA circumventing the CALEA? Yes since they are not obtaining court orders or warrants to access the information gathered by the government on a day-to-day basis. When the government focuses on financial dealings, they have to get court orders for the banks. When the government focuses on shipments of potential illegal drug shipments, they have to get court orders to open shipping containers. The thing here is that the phone companies (with the exception of Qwest) have rolled over and given up their records without a warrant or court order. Theoretically, that is their right to do so, but since it's the record of all of the general public's calls, there are privacy issues involved. I don't know if the phone company is under any obligation to tell you if the government serves a warrant for your phone records - they certainly aren't under any obligation to tell you that your phone is tapped.
__________________
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - B. Franklin "There ought to be limits to freedom." - George W. Bush "We have met the enemy and he is us." - Pogo |
05-12-2006, 12:05 PM | #37 (permalink) |
Junkie
Location: Fort Worth, TX
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It's illegal and needs to be stopped. No IFs, ANDs or BUTs.
I supported Bush during the incident of recording international calls because they can be justified as intercepting foreign communications (or spying). The internal US citizen-to-citizen tapping requires a warrant according to law. The NSA has no right to record such conversations according to Illegal Search and Seizure. |
05-12-2006, 12:09 PM | #38 (permalink) | |
Asshole
Administrator
Location: Chicago
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Quote:
__________________
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - B. Franklin "There ought to be limits to freedom." - George W. Bush "We have met the enemy and he is us." - Pogo |
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05-12-2006, 12:27 PM | #39 (permalink) | |
Super Moderator
Location: essex ma
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qwest determined the request to be illegal, the jazz.
but it is nice to see that some among us have their thumb on the pulse of unfolding, insofar as this newest in the seemingly endless chain of bushscandals is concerned. Quote:
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a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite |
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05-12-2006, 12:57 PM | #40 (permalink) | |
Adequate
Location: In my angry-dome.
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Quote:
What I was getting at is the historical ability to get lost in a crowd. It's close to gone now unless you're happy living under bridges. That process will continue until our bathroom habits are indicated by the changing color of our front door. Yellow means wait a minute, brown means come back later. There's no end to what can be with long-range RFID and other omniscience technologies as they mature over the next decade or two. What's our limit? Is there one? I'm not suggesting the general problem lies with this administration, but they're certainly advocating its use. Just as Clinton's administration did with slightly less capable tech a few years ago. It goes back as far as we want to dig. The difference now is one of scale in what can be gathered cheaply, and how quickly it can be mined. As things progress we have to decide where the limits lie or if we want any at all. It seems many people aren't entirely comfortable with letting it all hang out. I'm not, though I lust after some of the technology. If I sound non-commital, I am. I don't trust our elected finest and I've had enough indigestion this year.
__________________
There are a vast number of people who are uninformed and heavily propagandized, but fundamentally decent. The propaganda that inundates them is effective when unchallenged, but much of it goes only skin deep. If they can be brought to raise questions and apply their decent instincts and basic intelligence, many people quickly escape the confines of the doctrinal system and are willing to do something to help others who are really suffering and oppressed." -Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media, p. 195 |
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controversy, database, nsa, phone |
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