I give this maybe 2-3 months before the whistleblower behind this is being prosecuted by the Obama administration for "harming national security and putting people's lives in danger, and/or espionage".
Confirmed: The NSA is Spying on Millions of Americans
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Re: Confirmed: The NSA is Spying on Millions of Americans
#12America sucks more every day. This really is a pathetic joke -- warrantless, covert surveillance of EVERY call made in the country. I predict the level of outrage won't match the scale of this crime, though.
Americans won't so much as lift their head away from Candycrush to bat an eyelash about it.
If there were enough give-a-shit left in America, I don't think things would have gotten so bad to begin with. It's a broken, battered, unemployed, bankrupt, bitter nation being drown by a behemoth $6.3 trillion government system that nothing could possibly contain or restrain. The NSA has a budget the size of the economy of half the nations on earth.
Far easier to go back to playing Candycrush than try to do anything about the MASSIVE mess that is America.
Re: Confirmed: The NSA is Spying on Millions of Americans
#13Interesting. as I recall the last President to reign in the intelligence services was Jimmy Carter.
And he was politically assassinated... All my friends' parents and my own often talk about Jimmy Carter as a man who just didn't have what it takes to be a President. Bang up job they did on him.
Re: Confirmed: The NSA is Spying on Millions of Americans
#14Take a look at your technology with an engineer's eye. If it can be done, they probably will. If it can be done easily they probably already are. You may as well just assume this is always the case. In the current political climate, why in the world wouldn't they?
Of course. You should also be fighting it with every fiber in your body. Generations behind you gave their lives for rights like these, and the current generation seems to be giving them away because they are too busy chatting with friends on Facebook to care about it.
And if you don't fight it now peacefully, you'll be fighting it in the streets in a bloody revolution, in a decade or two.
Re: Confirmed: The NSA is Spying on Millions of Americans
#15Who needs a 4th amendment right? What has to be done to get the Gov to stop doing whatever it likes whenever it wants? I'm really losing faith in this country.
Re: Confirmed: The NSA is Spying on Millions of Americans
#16"Confirmed". Welcome to.. 2002? (Not to lessen the impact of the post, but, this is old news)
It's my understanding that at least some legal cases on the subject are hobbled by a lack of official evidence that such surveillance is under way. ("You can't prove that we're doing it, because all the documents are secret. The court thinks so too. Come back when you have proof.")
Assuming that this document is real, perhaps it may provide sufficient leverage to force into the light whatever hides in the shadows. At least some of those who might authorize such a program will be earnest in intent; we would be wise to carefully consider their justification.
Re: Confirmed: The NSA is Spying on Millions of Americans
#17I suggest every software developer take a course or two on cryptography and make privacy integral in the products you develop.
Re: Confirmed: The NSA is Spying on Millions of Americans
#18Take a look at your technology with an engineer's eye. If it can be done, they probably will. If it can be done easily they probably already are. You may as well just assume this is always the case. In the current political climate, why in the world wouldn't they?
Of course. You should also be fighting it with every fiber in your body. Generations behind you gave their lives for rights like these, and the current generation seems to be giving them away because they are too busy chatting with friends on Facebook to care about it. And if you don't fight it now peacefully, you'll be fighting it in the streets in a bloody revolution, in a decade or two.
I don't see any way to fight it now. What are your suggestions?
If we were to have a revolution here, even in a decade or two, we'd probably end up with something much worse than what we have now.
Re: Confirmed: The NSA is Spying on Millions of Americans
#19Cross-posting from the other comment forum: Everyone should realize one thing that makes this news slightly less scary, but still scary nonetheless: the order only applies to "Verizon Business Network Services", which is not the entirety of Verizon Communications. While this still means that the metadata from millions of phone calls by random people, possibly from phones not even on Verizon who were simply calling VB…
this particular leaked document only applies to Verizon Business Network Services. they will request the same data from other providers in other FISA court applications. there is nothing in the request that makes it specific to Verizon Business. The legal justification used applies to all providers .
The document that Greenwald presented, which is the only document of its kind so far, makes it clear that when it says "Verizon" it means "Verizon Business Network Services".
Sure: by whatever insane reasoning the government came up with to issue this order, they could probably issue orders for any other subsidiary of any other telecom, and I would not be surprised at all if they've done so many many times for many different time frames, but we don't have the definitive proof yet. Obama could come out tomorrow and say "we were just doing this for VBNS" and there's nothing anyone could say to refute him until another separate document is leaked.
If you want to go by some sort of Laws of Authoritarian Fluid Dynamics and say "if this order exists, there must be similar orders because if the government has the internal secret legal justification to do something for one company it would for all" then sure, there are orders for ever carrier.
Re: Confirmed: The NSA is Spying on Millions of Americans
#20America sucks more every day. This really is a pathetic joke -- warrantless, covert surveillance of EVERY call made in the country. I predict the level of outrage won't match the scale of this crime, though.
Americans won't so much as lift their head away from Candycrush to bat an eyelash about it. If there were enough give-a-shit left in America, I don't think things would have gotten so bad to begin with. It's a broken, battered, unemployed, bankrupt, bitter nation being drown by a behemoth $6.3 trillion government system that nothing could possibly contain or restrain. The NSA has a budget the size of the economy of h…
What is your suggestion for "doing something?" I can't help that most Americans are wrongly educated about thinks like civil rights.