Buried on a Friday
What's more, it's a Friday preceding a major U.S. holiday weekend (MLK, Jr. Day on Monday)
New Revelations U.S. Tracked Americans’ Calls for Over a Decade
21–30 of 60 posts
Re: New Revelations U.S. Tracked Americans’ Calls for Over a Decade
#22Earlier quoted context omitted.
The reactions on the left are gems as well, especially since most of those quoted voted for retroactive immunity for the telecoms only a short time later [1]. 1 - https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/110-2008/s20
In Washington, "left" and "right" are two sides of the same coin. The only difference is who they pay lipservice to: the left to the "poor", and the right to the "rich". Aside from this lipservice, they are both the same. Resolve to vote for someone not from the "(D)" or "(R)" side of the spectrum. It's time we got third parties in there.
It's a nice sentiment but the two party system is dominant by design. It's a feature that always emerges from winner take all voting systems.
Re: New Revelations U.S. Tracked Americans’ Calls for Over a Decade
#23The key point of this is that the database of calls was collected without court oversight. So all the defense the government used with the NSA database being overseen by the FISA court doesn't apply, there was no court oversight of this program. It did not target specific individuals and there was no probable cause before the collection of this data. This is a clear violation of the 4th Amendment in my view. >The rig…
I think the other key part is that it was only tracking calls to/from specific countries (in the case of this article, it's Iran, but other countries are on the list). I'm not saying this makes it better, but it is not all domestic calls as could be inferred from the title.
It's not, but just for the conjecture of it, let's assume that list contains Canada, since we have to protect our borders. And Mexico. And of course the UK, because they speak English and it's much easier for drug dealers to collude with other English speakers. And so on...
So don't think Iran is the only country on the list, they just trumpet that to dig up thoughts of terrorism oh my.
I'm jaded. I'm pretty sure pre-Snowden I was salty, but now I assume the worst of the government and assume they're always lying. Always.
Re: New Revelations U.S. Tracked Americans’ Calls for Over a Decade
#24Earlier quoted context omitted.
The very first Congress, comprising many of the people who wrote the 4th amendment, passed a law allowing warrantless border searches. According the text of the actual act[0] passed, the original intent was that a warrantless search was reasonable when there was suspicion of fraud with regards to the contents of goods being imported. Section 23 specifically mentions "on suspicion of fraud" and section 24 mentions "re…
That's an interesting bit of history, but it misses the point. Those border searches might have had other protections in place, but they didn't require warrants. And the 4th amendment doesn't say that otherwise illegal warrant less searches are okay because you have oversight. Thus, Congress didn't think border searches fell within the warrant requirement of the 4th amendment.
[deleted]
Re: New Revelations U.S. Tracked Americans’ Calls for Over a Decade
#25Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think the other key part is that it was only tracking calls to/from specific countries (in the case of this article, it's Iran, but other countries are on the list). I'm not saying this makes it better, but it is not all domestic calls as could be inferred from the title.
It's not, but just for the conjecture of it, let's assume that list contains Canada, since we have to protect our borders. And Mexico. And of course the UK, because they speak English and it's much easier for drug dealers to collude with other English speakers. And so on... So don't think Iran is the only country on the list, they just trumpet that to dig up thoughts of terrorism oh my. I'm jaded. I'm pretty sure pre…
> So don't think Iran is the only country on the list, they just trumpet that to dig up thoughts of terrorism oh my.
For some reason Americans still overwhelmingly and falsely believe that Iran had something to do with 9/11.
Re: New Revelations U.S. Tracked Americans’ Calls for Over a Decade
#26Earlier quoted context omitted.
In Washington, "left" and "right" are two sides of the same coin. The only difference is who they pay lipservice to: the left to the "poor", and the right to the "rich". Aside from this lipservice, they are both the same. Resolve to vote for someone not from the "(D)" or "(R)" side of the spectrum. It's time we got third parties in there.
It's a nice sentiment but the two party system is dominant by design. It's a feature that always emerges from winner take all voting systems.
Time for a proportional representation clause.
Re: New Revelations U.S. Tracked Americans’ Calls for Over a Decade
#27While searching for a non-paywalled version, I stumbled on this gem from 9 years ago.. http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-05-10-ns...
So we should have had this discussion in 2006... I'm wondering if this is a failure of journalism or a failure of democracy.
James Risen tried to publish it in 2004 but the Times fell to government pressure and refused to make the information public until over a year later (only because Risen threatened to tarnish their image over it); when the Times did publish it but buried under other stories.
So... both.
Re: New Revelations U.S. Tracked Americans’ Calls for Over a Decade
#28The key point of this is that the database of calls was collected without court oversight. So all the defense the government used with the NSA database being overseen by the FISA court doesn't apply, there was no court oversight of this program. It did not target specific individuals and there was no probable cause before the collection of this data. This is a clear violation of the 4th Amendment in my view. >The rig…
So all the defense the government used with the NSA database being overseen by the FISA court doesn't apply, there was no court oversight of this program.
To be fair, calling FISA a "court" is a bit of an overstatement[1].
It's very unlikely that FISA oversight would have stopped or changed this in any way. Nonetheless it might be interesting to learn why they skipped the fig leaf altogether in this case.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Foreign_Intellige...
Re: New Revelations U.S. Tracked Americans’ Calls for Over a Decade
#29The key point of this is that the database of calls was collected without court oversight. So all the defense the government used with the NSA database being overseen by the FISA court doesn't apply, there was no court oversight of this program. It did not target specific individuals and there was no probable cause before the collection of this data. This is a clear violation of the 4th Amendment in my view. >The rig…
But it isn't a violation of the 4th amendment according the Supreme Court. Smith v. Maryland, 442 U.S. 735 (1979).
The number you dial isn't private because you are showing it to the phone company.
Re: New Revelations U.S. Tracked Americans’ Calls for Over a Decade
#30The key point of this is that the database of calls was collected without court oversight. So all the defense the government used with the NSA database being overseen by the FISA court doesn't apply, there was no court oversight of this program. It did not target specific individuals and there was no probable cause before the collection of this data. This is a clear violation of the 4th Amendment in my view. >The rig…
So all the defense the government used with the NSA database being overseen by the FISA court doesn't apply, there was no court oversight of this program. To be fair, calling FISA a "court" is a bit of an overstatement[1]. It's very unlikely that FISA oversight would have stopped or changed this in any way. Nonetheless it might be interesting to learn why they skipped the fig leaf altogether in this case. [1] http://…
It's comprised of legitimate federal judges. I'm not sure how much more you want.