(no subject)

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

http://reason.com/archives/2013/06/12/three-reasons-the-nothing-to-hide-crowd
http://www.cato.org/blog/why-nsa-collecting-phone-records-problem
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110524/00084614407/privacy-is-not-secrecy-debunking-if-youve-got-nothing-to-hide-argument.shtml
http://www.computerweekly.com/blogs/the-data-trust-blog/2009/02/debunking-a-myth-if-you-have-n.html

There are a significant number of people who respond to any revelation that government is violating the law (yes, the Constitution is part of the law) with a shrug and "I've got nothing to hide". These people are selfish fools at best. They are not looking at the bigger picture and/or aren't considering other people. Plus, they probably aren't paying attention to the fact that everyone in America is currently a criminal, that everyone violates a law with serious penalties at some point, whether you know it or not. (And the fact that that is the case is another problem, but that's outside the scope of my point here.)

Even Biden and Obama railed against what they are themselves supporting now, before they were in power. That alone should be enough to make you stop and think about what having that kind of power available can do to people.

Comments

[rimpala.livejournal.com]

I've been worried about this sort of thing since the Bush years, and if it happened during the Clinton ones I was too young to take it in. But, you know, everyone knows this all about party lines.

[the-rukh.livejournal.com]

Yep.



One of these things is not like the others.

Not a big deal, not a big deal, not a big deal, END OF THE FUCKING WORLD

[whoasksfinds.livejournal.com]

The Obama administration has overseen a sharp increase in the number of people subjected to warrantless electronic surveillance of their telephone, email and Facebook accounts by federal law enforcement agencies, new documents released by the American Civil Liberties Union on Friday revealed. (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/28/warrantless-electronic-surveillance-obama_n_1924508.html)

Back then, "pen registers," which collect outgoing data like phone numbers, or "trap and trace" devices that collect incoming data, were physical devices that had to be attached to phone lines. It was an arduous process that limited widespread use.

Not so today. From the feds to local Mayberry cops, all that law enforcers need in order to obtain an order allowing surveillance is to file a procedural request with a judge certifying that the information will be used in conjunction with a criminal investigation. With contemporary technology, telecommunications providers can comply with those orders at the push of a button.

The Washington Post said the surveillance program involving internet firms, code-named PRISM and established under Republican President George W. Bush in 2007, had seen "exponential growth" under Obama, a Democrat. It said the NSA increasingly relied on PRISM as a source of raw material for daily intelligence reports to the president. (http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/06/08/us-usa-security-records-idUSBRE9560VA20130608)

Erwin Chemerinsky, a law professor at the University of California, Irvine, called the program "deeply disturbing" and beyond what should be constitutionally acceptable.

"It is a huge gathering of information by the federal government. The argument that it protects national security is unpersuasive," he said.

meanwhile...


The NSA is currently finishing construction on its Utah Data Center, a new $1.2 billion storage facility near Salt Lake City. When it's finished, the data center will be able to hold and process five zettabytes of data, according to NPR. (http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/06/130612-nsa-utah-data-center-storage-zettabyte-snowden/)

so yeah, you can try to derail the discussion by playing the race card, or you can acknowledge that advances in technology, and ever expanding domestic surveillance by the government have made this a more important issue.

[the-rukh.livejournal.com]

You're sure digging a lot to find reasons. Hit a little close to home?

[rimpala.livejournal.com]

All the snooping was put in place in response to 911 and fighting the war on terror, the motive was there for at least a decade, the resources only improved since then. It is however more important then ever.

[mahnmut.livejournal.com]

True: I'm not seeing a blue tie on GHWB.

BLUE TIE ARMAGEDDON!

[cheezyfish.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure why you can't detect the differences here. In fact, It was known that Obama was conducting warrentless wiretaps for sometime (just like Bush), and it wasn't the "END OF THE FUCKING WORLD." In fact, it wasn't covered in the media barely at all, and it was covered extensively when it was found that Bush was doing it. Can you seriously not figure this out?

[luvdovz.livejournal.com]

Pst! (whispers) He probably can. But that's not the point. ;)

[rimpala.livejournal.com]

Look all I'm saying is that I've been suspicious of this kind of internet monitoring since Bush's Patriot Act, when I learned about this latest Prism incident surfacing I wasn't the least bit surprised. This is me, not surprised. Because people only care about who's in office at the time, this to me says this problem isn't going away.

[rimpala.livejournal.com]

Also despite all the media coverage that's been against the Bush version of this, it still continued and has only increased. I doubt contacting today's congress will help any, as SOPA and the other stupidly-named proposals has shown, if there's anything that seems to motivate those deadbeats it's Big Brotherhood and more power over the internet.

[the-rukh.livejournal.com]

It wasn't Obama hunting season.

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

But, you know, everyone knows this all about party lines.

That's just stupid.

[rimpala.livejournal.com]

If you say so...

[cinnamontoast.livejournal.com]

I've been struggling to remember the name of the data mining program that was used during the Bush years, but it's not bubbling to the surface and I'm not finding anything on the searches that I do.

Spying on American citizens has been going on for a long time and every modern President has done it in some way (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COINTELPRO). The depth and breadth of the programs change as technology changes. Hoover would have had happiness seizures if he had the Internet and Mobile phones.

[rimpala.livejournal.com]

Well, I remember it as the Patriot Act

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

The Patriot Act authorizes a certain type of data mining that is outside the scope of the Prism program. The data collection part of the Prism program is called Echelon (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ECHELON).

[aelf.livejournal.com]

Are you thinking of "carnivore" ?

[cinnamontoast.livejournal.com]

YES! Thank you! IIRC it was a packet sniffer and loads of perfectly innocent emails got caught up in it.

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

I will never forget those days of party lines:

[cinnamontoast.livejournal.com]

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

I remember those kind of party lines as well. You would pick up the phone to make a call only to hear a neighbor chatting with someone.

[rimpala.livejournal.com]

What the hell is that lady talking into? That's a telephone? ( :P )

[dexeron.livejournal.com]

A job for the packet-sniffer, no?

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

Packet sniffers are way cool. I remember the first time I used one to diagnose a network problem. I immediately fell in love with the beast. It was similar to my first experience using an in-circuit emulator.

[comeonyouspurs.livejournal.com]

Those are some fat lines.