Nobody Is Listening To Your Phone Calls

[SoundOutLoud]

Thymebomb13 saidpadilha said:you can't really have a democracy if the government treats all its citizens as enemies, but maybe I'm alone in thinking this.




You certainly can't have one for long if you have random terrorist attacks going on and the government has technology that might help avoid some of them but fails to use it.





Every member of the US intelligence service shits bricks thinking about a new 9/11 happening and being brought before Congress to explain why it wasn't stopped.





Invading Iraq was an absurdly stupid reaction to 9/11, but this sort of non-specific electronic surveillance is not. If it suddenly seems like it's being used for other purposes I'm prepared to change my mind, but I don't see any evidence of that.





So far it's a big bogus nothing of a scandal, even more meaningless than the so-called IRS scandal.




More people die on the streets of Chicago most weekends than were killed by terrorists in 2013. Fix that first, and leave my rights alone till then.

 

[Horseleech]

SoundOutLoud said:Thymebomb13 saidpadilha said:you can't really have a democracy if the government treats all its citizens as enemies, but maybe I'm alone in thinking this.




You certainly can't have one for long if you have random terrorist attacks going on and the government has technology that might help avoid some of them but fails to use it.





Every member of the US intelligence service shits bricks thinking about a new 9/11 happening and being brought before Congress to explain why it wasn't stopped.





Invading Iraq was an absurdly stupid reaction to 9/11, but this sort of non-specific electronic surveillance is not. If it suddenly seems like it's being used for other purposes I'm prepared to change my mind, but I don't see any evidence of that.





So far it's a big bogus nothing of a scandal, even more meaningless than the so-called IRS scandal.




More people die on the streets of Chicago most weekends than were killed by terrorists in 2013. Fix that first, and leave my rights alone till then.




And fixing that will of course not involve any rights violations at all.





b/w





It's hard to imagine a more meaningless comparison than that one.

 

[SoundOutLoud]

Horseleech said:SoundOutLoud said:


More people die on the streets of Chicago most weekends than were killed by terrorists in 2013. Fix that first, and leave my rights alone till then.




And fixing that will of course not involve any rights violations at all.





b/w





It's hard to imagine a more meaningless comparison than that one.




Now, now. I'm sure you have a better imagination better than that.

 

[Horseleech]

SoundOutLoud said:Horseleech said:SoundOutLoud said:


More people die on the streets of Chicago most weekends than were killed by terrorists in 2013. Fix that first, and leave my rights alone till then.




And fixing that will of course not involve any rights violations at all.





b/w





It's hard to imagine a more meaningless comparison than that one.

Now, now. I'm sure you have a better imagination better than that.




Nah, that's about it.

 

[SoundOutLoud]

Where are they? Some are probably thrown out after further investigation(i.e. further data-mining of your digital history), some are probably put on a watch list and continually monitored without their knowledge(http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/10/fbi-tracking-device/), some get hassled as they pass through airport security (like my brothers good friend, who was flagged for doing a school report on nuclear weapons). I had very close friend who was leaving to teach english in China who, days before leaving, received an unannounced visit/interview from the FBI. He still is unsure as to why. I'm not saying that people are being disappeared but their lives are actually impacted.





In addition the situation I described is likely different from reality, but keep in mind my hypothetical "terrorist detector is probably more accurate than anything out there. Proof from the Washington Post re PRISM program: http://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/us-intelligence-mining-data-from-nine-us-internet-companies-in-broad-secret-program/2013/06/06/3a0c0da8-cebf-11e2-8845-d970ccb04497_story_2.html


"Analysts who use the system from a Web portal at Fort Meade, Md., key in ???selectors,??? or search terms, that are designed to produce at least 51 percent confidence in a target???s ???foreignness.??? That is not a very stringent test. Training materials obtained by The Post instruct new analysts to make quarterly reports of any accidental collection of U.S. content, but add that 'it???s nothing to worry about.' "





And this is just detecting whether someone is foreign or not, regardless of their intent.





Concerning your criticism that I only consider attacks on the US, Verizon is an US company only serving the US. What would a domestic spying program have anything to do with foreign terrorist attacks?





b/w





Please stop talking about crayons, this isn't an art class.





Edit: Thyme, I just saw your critique of the WP article. The guardian was actually the one who leaked it, and just because the companies deny it (I mean if you were caught up in this mess, who wouldn't?) doesn't mean its false. Whistle blowers have been saying this for years. Now we are just seeing the hard proof.

 

[kala]

i implicitly trust the government with my security.


i'm with frank and rockadelic on this!!


in fact the government never makes mistakes,never ever misuses information or has to admit fault because they are the good guys and they are always right!!


heck i'm totally with you guys!


it's just swell and fine if the government wants to do anything they want with my emails,cell phone,landlines,faxes,im's,medical records etc,because it keeps me very very safe from the bad evil doers that want to harm me and all of my friends!





how fucking brainwashed are you?


bahhh goes the sheeple.





ask this guy how well the current war on terror and it's maniacal computerized deathfucktorture machine works.


he's a lucky cunt, after all was said and done they didn't kill him like the pigs do daily under the auspices of the war on drugs.





pffft

















not enough truth or reality for you?


here it is in action,faulty information in the "war on drugs"


think it can't happen to you?











here is a map depicting all of the murders the pigs have committed across the US using no knock warrants.


many of which were using faulty "information"from police "informers" in the war on drugs.


I could keep going but why bother?


We are all safe and sound with our fancy lil record collections in our nice lil homes with our nice law abiding families not committing crimes,paying taxes to perpetrate these awesome acts of bravery and courage in the name of law enforcement,the war on drugs and terror !





http://www.cato.org/raidmap

 

[Bon Vivant]

LaserWolf said:





That so many people care so little for their 4th amendment rights depresses me. .




I"m not so sure the 4A is implicated here: SMITH v. MARYLAND, 442 U.S. 735 (1979)





http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?navby=CASE&court=US&vol=442&page=735





"The telephone company, at police request, installed at its central offices a pen register to record the numbers dialed from the telephone at petitioner's home. Prior to his robbery trial, petitioner moved to suppress "all fruits derived from" the pen register. The Maryland trial court denied this motion, holding that the warrantless installation of the pen register did not violate the Fourth Amendment. Petitioner was convicted, and the Maryland Court of Appeals affirmed.





Held:





The installation and use of the pen register was not a "search" within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment, and hence no warrant was required. Pp. 739-746."

 

[Horseleech]

SoundOutLoud saidlike my brothers good friend, who was flagged for doing a school report on nuclear weapons)




Curious as to how you know this - mole in the NSA?

 

[LaserWolf]

I like this story.


http://www.livescience.com/37104-teen-builds-nuclear-reactor-dq.html





Farnsworth is one of only 15 high-school students to ever achieve nuclear fusion, and the first person to do so in the state of Wyoming. "He made it using parts he ordered online, traded with other fusioneers and created himself," the Star-Tribune reported.

 

[SoundOutLoud]

Horseleech: I don't know brother told me a while ago and I never asked. I would imagine he would have to get himself off the list somehow and might have found out then, that or he inferred . Regardless, there is no doubt that mistakes like this happen.





Thyme: You asked where 4 million wrongfully suspected people could be, I gave you the honest answer. In response you call me soft, why the name calling? Look at Kala's post. That is what happens when these small mistakes escalate.





Its not about how hard you or are how much plight the government puts you through, its about how abuse of power stifles democracy. Peaceful protestors are regularly monitored and targeted illegally. Take the story of an acquaintance of mine from college who was politically active. He was arrested and beaten(on two separate occasions) for his protesting activities. See video here of his personalized beating by NYPD (note that this it is dated 2 years before occupy wall street):


He tried to sue for the VIDEOTAPED incident ... and lost. That was the first time. The second time, fortunately he won the case cause it was clear he was arrested for his political views. The story was, that while celebrating the night Obama got elected(ironic) in Tompkins square(with a thousand other people), cop asked him to take a bandana off his face which he didn't (google search New York Anti-Mask Law), then was pushed off a bike, beaten, and arrested. The cop then said it wouldn't have happened if he voted for McCain. Dude won $20,000 and donated it to a bail/legal fund for kids like him (which I have incredible respect for).


Either way, is a 50/50 chance really what you want for your wrongful punishment? Or are you just satisfied with being able to tell chicks how tough you were.





I enjoy hearing your perspectives, but I'm done with you non-Orwell reading clowns for the night.

 

[Hotsauce84]

I wish I hadn't watched that SWAT invasion video. I mean, title says it all but still...I wasn't expecting THAT. Fuck.

 

[SoundOutLoud]

Thymebomb13 said:Horseleech said:SoundOutLoud saidlike my brothers good friend, who was flagged for doing a school report on nuclear weapons)




Curious as to how you know this - mole in the NSA?




Believes Everything He Hears Syndrome.





School report my left nut. At what age do kids stop doing "school reports"?





Jeezus.




Its just a turn of phrase. Do you realize you are criticizing my person more than my views? Dude was in college at the time.

 

[Electrode]

If we are allowed to have Google, imagine what they have access to. "Just because you can doesn't mean you should" does not apply to government, like it or not. I do not, but what are those of us who don't visit jihad websites going to do?

 

[ppadilha]

Thymebomb13 said:In 1984 after the IRA almost blew Maggie Thatcher up on her toilet I was briefly detained and questioned by British police officers while trying to board the Holyhead ferry to Ireland. I was "impacted," I guess, if by "impacted" you mean "Jeezus, that's so cool!"




yeah dude, you're really tough for being questioned by police and coming out thinking it was a cool and awesome experience. For even more thrills, you should have asked for an enhanced interrogation.





it doesn't matter how harmless you think data gathering is because at the end of the day the law enforcement officials who use this information are still being driven by some mass hysteria about terrorism and the vague notion of having to defend "national interests." All it takes is one idiot to misinterpret that data in order to fuck someone's life. Here's the case of Steve Kurtz, an artist who was thought to be a terrorist because he had some petri dishes in his house:

Dr. Steven Kurtz is a Professor of Art at SUNY Buffalo and a founding member, with his late wife, Hope, of the internationally acclaimed art and theater collective Critical Art Ensemble (CAE). Over the past decade cultural institutions worldwide have hosted CAE???s participatory theater projects that help the general public understand biotechnology and the many issues surrounding it.





In May 2004 the Kurtzes were preparing to present Free Range Grain, a project examining GM agriculture, at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (MASS MoCA), when Hope Kurtz died of heart failure. Emergency personnel who responded to Kurtz's 911 call deemed the couple's art suspicious, and called the FBI. The art materials consisted of several petri dishes containing three harmless bacteria cultures, and a mobile lab to test food labeled ???organic??? for the presence of genetically modified ingredients. As Kurtz explained, these materials had been safely displayed in museums and galleries throughout Europe and North America with absolutely no risk to the public.





The next day, however, as Kurtz was on his way to the funeral home, he was illegally detained by agents from the FBI and Joint Terrorism Task Force, who informed him he was being investigated for "bioterrorism." At no point during the 22 hours Kurtz was held and questioned did the agents Mirandize him or inform him he could leave. Meanwhile, agents from numerous federal law enforcement agencies - including five regional branches of the FBI, the Joint Terrorism Task Force, Homeland Security, the Department of Defense, and the Buffalo Police, Fire Department, and state Marshall's office - descended on Kurtz's home in Hazmat suits. Cordoning off half a block around his home, they seized his cat, car, computers, manuscripts, books, equipment, and even his wife's body from the county coroner for further analysis. The Erie County Health Department condemned his house as a possible "health risk."





A week later, only after the Commissioner of Public Health for New York State had tested samples from the home and announced there was no public safety threat, was Kurtz allowed to return to his home and to recover his wife's body.





While most observers assumed the Task Force would realize its initial investigation was a terrible mistake, the feds have instead chosen to press their "case" against Steve Kurtz, Robert Ferrell, and possibly others (see below for more information on the charges). Despite the Public Health Commissioner's conclusion as to the safety of Kurtz's materials, and despite the fact that the FBI's own field and laboratory tests showed they were not harmful to people or the environment ??? it would actually be impossible to make any sort of weaponized or dangerous germ from them ??? the U.S. District Attorney continues to waste vast sums of public money on this outrageous and politically motivated persecution.

only took four years for him to be cleared of all charges, you can read about the case here: http://www.caedefensefund.org/index.html





there are also countless stories of people like Adama Bah, who seem to be arbitrarily placed on terrorist lists and are threatened with deportation: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/26/nyregion/26suicide.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0





don't you worry your pretty little mind though, I'm sure all this goes on in order to protect your democracy.

 

[mrmatthew]

Weren't we warned about this 40 years ago

and then again 20 years later by the same man

Anonymous needs to drop the Guy Fawlkes masks and make with the Hackman masks.

 

[Da Vinylmentalist]

Rockadelic said:Frank saidersonally, I have nothing to hide and don't care which government monitors my email or phone calls.




^^Been saying this for years^^




If I had something to hide I'd say the same thing!

 

[vintageinfants]

ive been saying things like 'president' and 'bomb' at te start of every phone call for a long time in the hopes that i can get a greatest hits made further down the road.

 

[Da Vinylmentalist]

ppadilha said:just so I'm clear, people think it's ok for the US government to collect data on millions of its own citizens in order to... do what, exactly?





you can't really have a democracy if the government treats all its citizens as enemies, but maybe I'm alone in thinking this.




Yep. There's a reason why we have a curtain in every voting booth.

 

[studiode]

 

[OptimusLime]

Everyone who's even interested in this type of stuff should just read "Little Brother" by Corey Doctorow.





Then realise that there's something you can do against this stuff, but it takes a little more effort and that's not really what the general public is known for.