NSA collected 500M U.S. call records in 2017, a sharp rise: official report • Hacker News Board

Re: NSA collected 500M U.S. call records in 2017, a sharp rise: official report

#41

Post by BookmarkSaver » Fri, May 04, 2018, 9:49 PM UTC

scrumption wrote: post #38

BookmarkSaver wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>And yet tons of bad things keep happening to regular citizens in the US. Like what? I have absolutely no idea what you are talking about here. >What exactly does the NSA do? Whom are they protecting? Cause it sure is not the average citizen. ??? Sounds like you know absolutely nothing about espionage. Maybe you are right, but intelligence agencies don't talk about their activities, even their successes, for very goo…

>Like what? I have absolutely no idea what you are talking about here. Uh, the constant mass shootings that have occurred over the past year wherein, 100% of the time, the perp was already known to police and FBI and had a very public troubling online presence detailing their years of mental instability and virulent racism? >intelligence agencies don't talk about their activities, even their successes, for very good…

I don't even know where to begin, there are just so many logical fallacies and complete misunderstandings in what you've said that the best I can recommend is for you to just not bother thinking about this stuff at all. It does no one any good.

Re: NSA collected 500M U.S. call records in 2017, a sharp rise: official report

#42

Post by adamson » Fri, May 04, 2018, 9:50 PM UTC

gdsdfe wrote: post #22

If it's collecting this much stuff why not be useful and stop all these annoying phone scammers!

Maybe that’s where the spike came from

Re: NSA collected 500M U.S. call records in 2017, a sharp rise: official report

#43

Post by cm2187 » Fri, May 04, 2018, 9:50 PM UTC

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #35

sgroppino wrote: post #31

What is that as a percentage of the total number of calls?

With 300M people in the US? Of them, at least 250M have phones, so... two calls per person per year? (Double it if both ends of the conversation are in the US.) I'm going to guess that the average is more like four calls per day than four calls per year, so... maybe 0.3% of calls? That's far too many. And yet, it's still a very long way from blanket surveillance.

Yeah, but I doubt it is evenly distributed.

Re: NSA collected 500M U.S. call records in 2017, a sharp rise: official report

#44

Post by scrumption » Fri, May 04, 2018, 9:51 PM UTC

mkempe wrote: post #26

outside2344 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What he is saying, I think, is that because of Citizens United, money controls our politics at this point and it really doesn't really matter what Joe Smith thinks. We can prove that wrong in November, of course. EDIT: Its true that the democrats are just as bought, but I have faith that they would also appoint a supreme court that would rule the other way as well.

This argument is obviously flawed: Hillary Clinton received more money, spent vastly more money, and lost. [edit] Down-voting does not change the above facts.

You've missed the point entirely, on purpose I imagine. The impact of Citizens United is primarily with regard to corporate lobbying, not campaign contributions. Super PACs, the biggest travesty to come out of Citizens United, explicitly CANNOT contribute to election campaigns or specific parties.

Re: NSA collected 500M U.S. call records in 2017, a sharp rise: official report

#45

Post by wpdev_63 » Fri, May 04, 2018, 9:51 PM UTC

If you would like to make a difference and stop the unconstitutional mass surveillance of US citizens(and even non-citizens). Please visit fightforthefuture.org and become informed.

Vote for privacy advocates and stop using/buying services and products that facilitate illegal surveillance. To stay up to date, visit eff.org. DISCLAIMER: I am in no affiliated with these organizations nor with their members.

Re: NSA collected 500M U.S. call records in 2017, a sharp rise: official report

#46

Post by wybiral » Fri, May 04, 2018, 9:52 PM UTC

BookmarkSaver wrote: post #30

anoncoward778 wrote: post #17

Automatically collecting everyone's cell phone data, has software automatically installed in Smart TV's everywhere, monitors your online footprint (emails, social media[of course]). All those warning from Snowden all those secret software reveals from wikileaks an untold amount of funding from congress with virtually no oversight. And yet tons of bad things keep happening to regular citizens in the US. What exactly d…

>And yet tons of bad things keep happening to regular citizens in the US. Like what? I have absolutely no idea what you are talking about here. >What exactly does the NSA do? Whom are they protecting? Cause it sure is not the average citizen. ??? Sounds like you know absolutely nothing about espionage. Maybe you are right, but intelligence agencies don't talk about their activities, even their successes, for very goo…

These people seem to think that the NSA is only collecting data to stop mass shootings and normal crimes.

The concept of using this data to stamp out more systematic terrorism, espionage and other nation state attacks doesn't occur to them.

Re: NSA collected 500M U.S. call records in 2017, a sharp rise: official report

#47

Post by scrumption » Fri, May 04, 2018, 9:53 PM UTC

BookmarkSaver wrote: post #32

drb91 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Part of the problem is that privacy invasion is only visible when it results in arrests, leaking, or some other use of the power to effect change. Most people will never experience someone obviously exploiting their trust here. Of course, the complacency of us individuals reduces the security and privacy of us all. Realistically the NSA hasn’t been successful in reducing terrorist threats; in fact, the correlation is…

>Realistically the NSA hasn’t been successful in reducing terrorist threats; in fact, the correlation is negative. What are you basing this on?

Mass shootings have tripled since 2011.

Re: NSA collected 500M U.S. call records in 2017, a sharp rise: official report

#48

Post by zerostar07 » Fri, May 04, 2018, 9:54 PM UTC

They 'll have a lot less to collect this year with GDRP. Or maybe not

Re: NSA collected 500M U.S. call records in 2017, a sharp rise: official report

#49

Post by RightMillennial » Fri, May 04, 2018, 9:54 PM UTC

samstave wrote: post #29

mkempe wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are municipalities in the USA that do not extort property taxes -- I've heard of one in Colorado, one in Arizona, a few in Texas, and some in Alaska. Since a common justification is to finance public schools, I suppose that complete privatization of education would be a necessary step in order to vastly reduce or generally abolish property taxes.

Ostensibly they tax you for “services” Property tax Gas tax Sales tax --- Schools suck Roads suck Law enforcement sucks Pollution sucks --- But shiny new government buildings All cops have new cars Gas prices are out of control The recycling fund was looted Social security was looted Trump just announced today to the NRA that he just gave a shit-ton of military weaponry to the police “you cant buy this stuff” he said…

I take issue with some of these points.

> Property tax > Schools suck > Roads suck

I have no argument there.

> Sales tax

Have these been rising recently?

> Gas tax > Gas peices [prices] are out of control

Gas prices and whatever embedded taxes they have aren't that bad. They're much better than their peak around 2008 at over $4/gal.

> The recycling fund was looted

I'm not familiar with this.

> Social security was looted

Do you have a citation for that?

> Trump just announced today to the NRA that he just gave a shit-ton of military weaponry to the police “you cant buy this stuff” he said.

President Trump says a lot of things. Is there proof this actually happened?

> Corporations pay no taxes

You can argue whether they pay enough taxes, but I'd like a citation that they pay no taxes.

> Flint has no water

That's the city's own damn fault due to corruption.

> Legal marijuana is a scam from a tax perspective.

Personally, I'd rather we tax it heavily like cigarettes than to waste money incarcerating those drug users.

> Have you timed how many minutes a commercial break is on CNN?

They could use some more breaks.

Re: NSA collected 500M U.S. call records in 2017, a sharp rise: official report

#50

Post by scrumption » Fri, May 04, 2018, 9:54 PM UTC

BookmarkSaver wrote: post #41

scrumption wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Like what? I have absolutely no idea what you are talking about here. Uh, the constant mass shootings that have occurred over the past year wherein, 100% of the time, the perp was already known to police and FBI and had a very public troubling online presence detailing their years of mental instability and virulent racism? >intelligence agencies don't talk about their activities, even their successes, for very good…

I don't even know where to begin, there are just so many logical fallacies and complete misunderstandings in what you've said that the best I can recommend is for you to just not bother thinking about this stuff at all. It does no one any good.

Nice argument.