Unbelievable- US government secretly collecting phone records of millions of Americans (Brown, vs)

[iNviNciBL3]

Originally Posted by JamesGTAIV

Shill. Define "Terrorist" please.

Basically crazy people
Oregon school bomb plot foiled by suspect's classmate - CBS News
Amine El-Khalifi sentenced to 30 years in Capitol bomb plot * - NY Daily News
Sami Osmakac: Terror suspect 'caught on camera brawling with Christian protesters' | Mail Online

[nei]

Originally Posted by florida.bob

I would hope there is a lot we don't know about. Much like we shouldn't know about this. I hope they find the leaker and prosecute.

Why shouldn't we know about this? I'd like to know that my phone records for analyzed.

I'm more bothered that this was kept hidden from us than the act itself. The citizens of the country should at least be able to know what is being done to them.

As to the leaker, whoever it is, I give a thanks for letting me know.

[eRayP]

And Obama said "They'll warn that tyranny always lurking just around the corner. You should reject these voices."

[HappyTexan]

Originally Posted by nei

Why shouldn't we know about this? I'd like to know that my phone records for analyzed.

I'm more bothered that this was kept hidden from us than the act itself. The citizens of the country should at least be able to know what is being done to them.

As to the leaker, whoever it is, I give a thanks for letting me know.

And the leaker was smart enough not to go to any US MSM outlets to talk about it.

[banjomike]

Originally Posted by Velvet Jones

Why not just arrest everyone Mike. Since you are apparently too scared to leave your house due to the terrorists hiding around every corner, you should feel nice and safe and your own private jail cell. That should bring the crime rate down to zero.

Not at all! I have been firmly against the Patriot Act from the beginning.

The question is simply this:
Do you want a terrorist bombing stopped before the bomb goes off or do you want to catch the bombers after the bomb explodes?

In other words: Are you willing to let someone die for your privacy or are you willing to give up some of your telephone privacy so that someone will live?

Odds are that they person who dies won't be someone you know or are related to, but there is no guarantee. There is no guarantee you will be blown to bits yourself, either. The odds are your hometown (or mine) will never have a bombing incident.

I'm all for letting the other guy do the dying for my phone privacy. Of course, if a friend of mine or a loved one dies, or if my county courthouse is leveled by a bomb, I'll probably change my tune, because then it's personal.

Until then, I'm pretty sure that Homeland Security and the FBI aren't interested in me much. I've committed no crimes past a few speeding tickets and a barking dog complaint. My privacy is secure enough in the millions who are filling up every split second of our telephone systems.

The problem the Feds have is the sorting, not the getting, of information.
With billions of messages, text, speech, visual, encrypted or un-encrypted, flowing in from all over the world and from every backwater in this country from phones every split second of every day, I'm not worried my mundane life will ever interest our government at all.

Alertness, not paranoia, is our best defense. I hope the other guy is alert. I hope so- like I said, I'm happy to let the other guy die rather than compromise my privacy.

And when it comes to crime, I can take care of myself. At least most of the time. And I don't live in a place so dysfunctional or degenerate that my local law enforcement will completely fail me. I live in a place where neighbors still watch out for each other in addition to themselves.

I need no jail cell to feel secure. If you do, then maybe you should seek the security of a cell for yourself.

Arresting everyone is ridiculous. Even in the deepest blackest fear it would never happen.

[11thHour]

I'm on the left, an evil liberal. And I, along with several of my friends, are disgusted by this. Obama is nothing more than Bush II. When you've got even the NYT and HuffPo coming out against this crap, it shows that this is universally a horrible reflection on this admin.

So many evils are being done in the name of protecting us from 'terrorism'. It's getting old, and is not acceptable.

[BigJon3475]

I don't think many of you have the slightest of clues how far and to what extent the "anti-terror" apparatus has grown.

Video: Top Secret America

[BigJon3475]

Originally Posted by Iamme73

The only major opposition for these polices is the Democratic party in terms of both major parties.

I do blame a lot of Democratic elected officials for these issues, but I clearly see who is mostly to blame and that is conservatives.

We need fewer elected conservatives, far fewer because conservatives love the surveillance state and support the Patriot Act.

And I am not going to pretend that isnot the truth about conservatism.

While most Democratic voters don't and a substantial percentage of elected Democratic officials don't either.

I know people hate that because one party is vastly more at fault for this disaster but it is reality.

And what are you going to say when another terrorist attack occurs? You're going to blame Obama (probably not ever) and it will affect his popularity and legacy.

Pandora's Box has been opened and the American people are too stupid to see that they're clearly the entire reason why stuff like this is allowed.

But you keep on defending Obama and his great war on terror while admonishing Bush and his great war on terror. You obviously can't see they're one and the same, the bureaucracy.

Now who wants to say something stupid like "we need more government to protect X, Y and Z?"

[Grizzmeister]

The other shoe drops.

U.S. intelligence mining data from nine U.S. Internet companies in broad secret program

The National Security Agency and the FBI are tapping directly into the central servers of nine leading U.S. Internet companies, extracting audio, video, photographs, e-mails, documents and connection logs that enable analysts to track a person’s movements and contacts over time.

The highly classified program, code-named PRISM, has not been disclosed publicly before. Its establishment in 2007 and six years of exponential growth took place beneath the surface of a roiling debate over the boundaries of surveillance and privacy. Even late last year, when critics of the foreign intelligence statute argued for changes, the only members of Congress who know about PRISM were bound by oaths of office to hold their tongues.

U.S. intelligence mining data from nine U.S. Internet companies in broad secret program - The Washington Post

[mwruckman]

Originally Posted by GCharlotte

It's interesting that the FOREIGN INTELLIGENCE SURVEILLANCE COURT is making orders for domestic spying against U.S. citizens that aren't abroad. And is it chilling that a citizen (in this case Verizon) is not allowed to even speak that there is such an order? Or that two democrats that seem to be the main watch dogs in the Senate also can't be specific without breaking the law.

Take in to account the AP scandal and the idea of holding reporters to be co-conspirators if they don't reveal secret sources, it looks like we're going to have to get used to reading about ourselves in foreign press because our free press is chilled.

I bet you would be the first to scream bloody murder if some nobodies like a pair of political refugees from Chechnya set off two fragmentation bombs at a public event in Boston to punish Americans for some imagined insults! We hold our leaders accountable if rat bastards like the Tsarnaev brothers slip through the system and if sifting through billions of phone calls or computer messages to find the one in a hundred million connection that raises a concern is what it takes to stop this stuff then 21st Century Americans are simply going to have to accept this kind of servailence now possible with modern computing power. Also you can not have outfits like the AP that have no real responsibilities to protect this nation or some buck pricate like Bradley Manning deciding what should or should not remain classified or confidential whem it comes to national security information. The Government has every right to investigate and prosecute anyone involved with leaking or compromissing such information.