Hello:

I didn't like it when George W. Bush started snooping on ME, but YOU said they're only doing that IF you call somebody overseas... You said you had nothing to hide. You thought giving up your 4th Amendment right was cool. How come you didn't fight for it like you do the 1st?

I said nahhh... Give government an INCH and they want a MILE. Are you happy with the government knowing who you email and who you call?? Oh, I know you'll tell me they don't listen. They only know who you called.. To that, I say, bwa, ha ha ha ha..

excon

I'm bothered. I'm bothered also by the fact that it bothers me less about my Rights and more by how pathetic it is to store every communication ever made in case we want to search keywords that might reveal something. And how much it costs to build a huge new facility out in the desert just to do this. And how we do this partly because we feel inadequate because we Americans don't have the biggest fastest computers to do this mind boggling data storage. And how we don't have actual real live clever out-and-about people who know what's going on in the world in the old fashioned way. Our intelligence gathering has 'evolved' to this because we couldn't find our mouths with a $30 pizza in our hands, or the Berlin Wall falling, or the breakup of the USSR.

Did anyone think, that giant building with all the equipment was just going to close becaue Bush got caught using it. ( no one asked when it was built,) ** long before Bush.

Of course Obama has been doing the same thing.

They're also monitoring your credit cards. But remember that inch/mile thing next time we discuss the IRS (oops, dog whistle) and Zerocare.

What are you worried about? Are you laundering money? Are you doing something criminal? What I think is you are too self important

Quote:

---

What are you worried about? Are you laundering money? Are you doing something criminal?

---

can I have your home address, your work address, your full name, and your credit card number please?

Orwell Or Obama?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by NeedKarma

can I have your home address, your work address, your full name, and your credit card number please?

---

Well I don't mind telling you who I am but you can't have my credit card number unless I'm buying something from you. Look your government already has this information just by asking your bank, So what are you worried about? That they might confirm it? We can be tracked from any number of sources and the only way to stay off the grid is to deal in cash, grow your own vegetables and keep a very low profile frankly, I have better things to do.

Of course the premise of this OP is faulty . Both the Patriot Act and the FISA reauthorization have specific parameters. When you can show me that Bush violated them then I'll agree. Unitl then,your's and Huffpos melding of Bush and the Emperor is a faulty analysis . So far all I know of is this most recent disregard of the law of the land... of which a disturbing pattern of disregard has been established with this adm.
I certainly don't understand the left's outrage. They support data bases for gun owners .They support the government database of our healthcare . You would think they would just as quickly not care about data mining of everyone's phone and electronic communications .

Just an FYI for ex, that bulldog buddy of yours and the last House Oversight guy Henry Waxman, is wanting some answers from Obama along with some other Dems.

George W. Bush critics turn wrath on President Obama - Darren Samuelsohn - POLITICO.com

I'm somewhat amused by the backlash at these revelations. Spy novelists (Tom Clancy in particular) told us about this 10 years ago (see The Teeth of the Tiger - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia).

Throw away the chalk boards folks as technology has opened up a new world fast, and if you don't trust YOUR government, then you shouldn't trust China or Russia either.

I mean the mobsters are robbing banks now with ATM cards, and companies have been buying and selling your info for years. What? You trust Target, and not Obama?

Liberty Reserve Shut Down in $6 Billion Online Money Laundering Case

http://www.firstpost.com/business/mo...on-755027.html

While we must carefully watch our own government closely, don't ignore the ones we should keep an eye on or the government should be watching. That's a bit naïve and foolish.

Hello again, Steve:

Quote:

---

House Oversight guy Henry Waxman, is wanting some answers from Obama along with some other Dems.

---

Henry and I come from the same school of liberalism.

Did I tell you that HE was president of the Beverly Hills Young Democrats right before I was? I helped Henry win his first election against Tony Belinson for the State House.

Excon

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by excon

Hello again, Steve:

Henry and I come from the same school of liberalism.

Did I tell you that HE was president of the Beverly Hills Young Democrats right before I was? I helped Henry win his first election against Tony Belinson for the State House.

excon

---

Yep, I recall that. Help him get some answers.

Sad to say ;the tin foil hats are right. All bets are off. Must we resign to the fact that our private communications are freakin billboards ?
Perhaps this was a subtle signal to the ChiComs to show them that we are as adept at cyber-espionage as they ? Would've loved to sit down at the pow-wow at the Annenberg Estate today as the Emperor and the Princeling turned ruler of the Middle Kingdom met to decide how to carve up the world .

If the government is spying on me, I hope they don't get bored easily.

Lincoln, a lawyer, suspended habeas corpus. When asked why, he replied (paraphrased), "The fate of the nation was more important".

Yes, the government spying on its citizens is troubling, but drastic times require drastic actions. War is messy and some things in wartime are, unfortunately, necessary - even to the detriment of some freedoms.

I'm in agreement that in wartime ,the Constitution is not a suicide pact. But this is not comparable . Lincoln had hostile standing armies within marching distance of the nations Capitol throughout the Civil War .As late as July 1864 Confederate Jubal A. Early had a Confederate army poised to attack Washington DC .

No , Lincoln NEVER ran a dragnet over the entire Union population . His suspension of habeas was a direct result of an internal rebellion inside the United States. Washington DC was right on the Confederate border and was constantly in danger of being cut off from the rest of the Union .That fact alone impacted every war time strategy the North employed in the Eastern theater of the war. The 1st time he suspended it ,20,000 Confederate sympathizers in Baltimore tried to stop Union troops from traveling from one train station to another en route to Washington, causing a riot. So on April 27,1861 Lincoln suspended the habeas corpus privilege on points along the Philadelphia-Washington route. That meant Union generals could arrest and detain without trial anyone in the area who threatened the passage of Union troops to the Capitol and the battlefield.

Now the Emperor has on more than one occasion made the statement that the war of terrorism is over . So why would he need broad executive powers to execute a war that he declares is over ? And even if any type of action was justifiable ,why a broad data mining on all Americans ? What purpose does that serve ? He can't even make the case that it prevented the worse terrorist attack inside the United States since 9-11 .

Besides we have nothing to be concerned about .After-all ,these are only "modest encroachments on privacy." We should just trust to Obots because they have "internal mechanisms ...to make sure we do not violate your rights."
Consider that this information comes in the wake of a SCOTUS decision that permits police to take arrested people's DNA without search warrants.
Shamefully almost all the conservative members of the court voted with the majority . Scalia to his credit sided with the liberal members of the court,Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan ;and wrote a scathing dissent .
Scalia acknowledged that taking the DNA of arrested people could help solve more crimes. However he observed that "Perhaps the construction of such a genetic panopticon is wise. But I doubt that the proud men who wrote the charter of our liberties would have been so eager to open their mouths for royal inspection,"
FindLaw | Cases and Codes
The majority (which included liberal justice Steven Bryer along with the rest of the conservative judges ) concluded that the DNA helps identify the arrestee . Scalia countered that "The Court's assertion that DNA is being taken, not to solve crimes, but to identify those in the State's custody, taxes the credulity of the credulous,".... "These DNA searches have nothing to do with identification."

And that's the point about all this data mining . It has nothing to do with gathering evidence on a suspected terrorist plot . It's collecting a field full of hay stacks hoping they will stumble upon a needle.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by tomder55

I'm in agreement that in wartime ,the Constitution is not a suicide pact. But this is not comparable . Lincoln had hostile standing armies within marching distance of the nations Capitol throughout the Civil War .As late as July 1864 Confederate Jubal A. Early had a Confederate army poised to attack Washington DC .

No , Lincoln NEVER ran a dragnet over the entire Union population . His suspension of habeas was a direct result of an internal rebellion inside the United States. Washington DC was right on the Confederate border and was constantly in danger of being cut off from the rest of the Union .That fact alone impacted every war time strategy the North employed in the Eastern theater of the war. The 1st time he suspended it ,20,000 Confederate sympathizers in Baltimore tried to stop Union troops from traveling from one train station to another en route to Washington, causing a riot. So on April 27,1861 Lincoln suspended the habeas corpus privilege on points along the Philadelphia-Washington route. That meant Union generals could arrest and detain without trial anyone in the area who threatened the passage of Union troops to the Capitol and the battlefield.

Now the Emperor has on more than one occasion made the statement that the war of terrorism is over . So why would he need broad executive powers to execute a war that he declares is over ? And even if any type of action was justifiable ,why a broad data mining on all Americans ? What purpose does that serve ? He can't even make the case that it prevented the worse terrorist attack inside the United States since 9-11 .

---

Did Lincoln have to worry about planes into skyscrapers, nuke, or dirty bombs, pressure cookers bombs, suicide bombers, or drug violence?

No, he thought he could take his wife to the theater and enjoy the show. So now you want the FBI to not have the tools to even get a whiff of a bad guy. The fact that the programs now have been going on for decades and technology has made them expand why? Because there are more bad guys who are smarter than the cop, state or national. After the fact response is too late. This is no different than a cop with a radar gun to catch speeders to me, but the oversight against abuse should be a paramount concern for all.

Despite the hollering we have no evidence of abuses at this time but the debate continues.

As for the DNA without a warrant, do fingerprints need a warrant? Not after you are charged, and DNA is the modern day equivalent of fingerprints. But again I think you have to have transparency, oversight, and rules that have to be developed and be current with circumstances and conditions,

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by talaniman

As for the DNA without a warrant, do fingerprints need a warrant? Not after you are charged, and DNA is the modern day equivalent of fingerprints. But again I think you have to have transparency, oversight, and rules that have to be developed and be current with circumstances and conditions,

---

From the Scalia dissent :

Quote:

---

If one believes that DNA will “identify” someone arrested for assault, he must believe that it will “identify” someone arrested for a traffic offense. This Court does not base its judgments on senseless distinctions. At the end of the day, logic will out. When there comes before us the taking of DNA from an arrestee for a traffic violation, the Court will predictably (and quite rightly) say, “We can find no significant difference between this case and King.” Make no mistake about it: As an entirely predictable consequence of today’s decision, your DNA can be taken and entered into a national DNA database if you are ever arrested, rightly or wrongly, and for whatever reason.

---

Be prepared to be swabbed when a cop pulls you over for going through a stop sign.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by talaniman

Did Lincoln have to worry about planes into skyscrapers, nuke, or dirty bombs, pressure cookers bombs, suicide bombers, or drug violence?

No, he thought he could take his wife to the theater and enjoy the show. So now you want the FBI to not have the tools to even get a whiff of a bad guy. The fact that the programs now have been going on for decades and technology has made them expand why? Because there are more bad guys who are smarter than the cop, state or national. After the fact response is too late. This is no different than a cop with a radar gun to catch speeders to me, but the oversight against abuse should be a paramount concern for all.

Despite the hollering we have no evidence of abuses at this time but the debate continues.

---

I recall the collective outrage by the left when the Bush adm stayed within the guidelines of the Patriot Act . Now it appears that you'll scrap your argument against Bush in favor of worse intrusions, that clearly goes beyond the limits of the law, in defense of the Emperor. I'll wait for your apology to Bush... but I won't hold my breath .

Maybe you misunderstood my position, if they don't do fingerprints at traffic stops, why would you do DNA testing? Since the technology is here and going nowhere, maybe expanding and evolving, why shouldn't you have rules, regulations and oversights, to keep up?

Hello again,

Your government is watching, listening, monitoring, swabbing, patting down, stopping and frisking, probing, scanning, sniffing, and scoping you... And, that's just at the airport.

They've got secret courts and secret laws. I'm telling you, this is the Soviet Union on STEROIDS!

I don't like it. I didn't like it when George W. Bush started doing it, and I don't like it now.. Once the 4th Amendment got cracked, it got DESTROYED.

To me, the biggest scandal of all, one that means the END of my beloved country as I know it, is THIS one.

excon

PS> (edited) I'm watching FOX. Those people are really BUMMED that Obama is searching them. They're OUTRAGED.

They're HYPOCRITES!

SCOTUS just decided that anything goes. This case was in Maryland ;but how it's applied nationally is now open to local interpretation.

The people behind some of the major Supreme Court cases of 2013 - News - MSN CA

Taking DNA swabs during arrests

Quote:

---

In a 5-4 ruling in its first decision of the term, the Supreme Court on June 3 upheld the police practice of taking DNA samples from people who have been arrested but not convicted of a crime, deciding that the practice is the 21st century-equivalent of fingerprinting. The five justices in the majority wrote that DNA sampling, after an arrest “for a serious offense” and when officers “bring the suspect to the station to be detained in custody,” does not violate the Fourth Amendment's prohibition of unreasonable searches.

The case arose from the 2009 arrest of a 26-year-old Maryland man named Alonzo King, who was arrested for second-degree assault. Police took a DNA swab from his cheek, ran it through a database, and matched it to an unsolved rape from six years prior. King was convicted of rape and sentenced to life in prison. He pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor for the 2009 assault -- a crime that did not mandate the collection of his DNA (all states collect DNA of convicted felons). The Maryland Court of Appeals later reversed the rape conviction on the grounds that the DNA sample was an unreasonable search.

The Supreme Court decision reverses the Maryland court's ruling and reinstates Alonzo's rape conviction, according to the AP.

---

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by excon

Hello again,

Your government is watching, listening, monitoring, swabbing, patting down, stopping and frisking, probing, scanning, sniffing, and scoping you... And, that's just at the airport.

They've got secret courts and secret laws. I'm telling you, this is the Soviet Union on STEROIDS!!

I don't like it. I didn't like it when George W. Bush started doing it, and I don't like it now.. Once the 4th Amendment got cracked, it got DESTROYED.

To me, the biggest scandal of all, one that means the END of my beloved country as I know it, is THIS one.

excon

PS> (edited) I'm watching FOX. Those people are really BUMMED that Obama is searching them. They're OUTRAGED.

They're HYPOCRITES!

---

I agree with you except at one point. I believe it was Clinto that opened the door to warantless searches. The difference being that it was refined under Bush. But there was still a mandate for getting a warrant so it can be used in court. What is happening now is a confiscation of data that could if released to the wrong sources can place ordinary people in extreme danger under life threatening conditions.

It's a fact they had a warrant as broad as it was that compelled data collectors to comply, through the FISA Court. We can debate the probable cause behind it though as being non specific.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by talaniman

Its a fact they had a warrant as broad as it was that compelled data collectors to comply, thru the FISA Court. We can debate the probable cause behind it though as being non specific.

---

So when the government suspects everyone of being a terrorist then you don't think that that is too broad ?

I don't know since we are not privy to those facts at this time and maybe we shouldn't be, but if the FISA court, and both democrats and republicans of the intelligence committee have signed off then maybe we don't have enough facts yet. Many questions have to be answered before I cry foul. And many congressmen are asking.

A fact we know for sure is we can't assume we know all the terrorists or there contacts and while we want to trust our fellow citizens we should verify it given another fact, Terrorist and criminals and crazy people do use the internet, and they do use the phone.

If you are more afraid of your government abusing power than terrorists, or crazy criminals killing Americans, then I can understand your position of assuming its too broad a net they cast. I fear both to be honest.

Quote:

---

In a 5-4 ruling in its first decision of the term, the Supreme Court on June 3 upheld the police practice of taking DNA samples from people who have been arrested but not convicted of a crime, deciding that the practice is the 21st century-equivalent of fingerprinting. The five justices in the majority wrote that DNA sampling, after an arrest “for a serious offense” and when officers “bring the suspect to the station to be detained in custody,” does not violate the Fourth Amendment's prohibition of unreasonable searches.

The case arose from the 2009 arrest of a 26-year-old Maryland man named Alonzo King, who was arrested for second-degree assault. Police took a DNA swab from his cheek, ran it through a database, and matched it to an unsolved rape from six years prior. King was convicted of rape and sentenced to life in prison. He pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor for the 2009 assault -- a crime that did not mandate the collection of his DNA (all states collect DNA of convicted felons). The Maryland Court of Appeals later reversed the rape conviction on the grounds that the DNA sample was an unreasonable search.

The Supreme Court decision reverses the Maryland court's ruling and reinstates Alonzo's rape conviction, according to the AP.

---

That was indeed the majority opinion as written by Kennedy. I agree with the Scalia dissent . DNA is much more than a fingerprint.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by talaniman

Its a fact they had a warrant as broad as it was that compelled data collectors to comply, thru the FISA Court. We can debate the probable cause behind it though as being non specific.

---

REP. MAXINE WATERS: The President has put in place an organization with the kind of database that no one has ever seen before in life. That's going to be very, very powerful.
MR. MARTIN: In terms of Organizing for America, he is now shifting to become a 501 (c)(4)?

REP. MAXINE WATERS: That's right. And that database will have information about everything on every individual on ways that it's never been done before and whoever runs for President on the Democratic ticket has to deal with that. They're going to go down with that database and the concerns of those people because they can't get around it. And he's [President Obama] been very smart. It's very powerful what he's leaving in place.



Maxine Waters Confirms "Big Brother" Database 2013 - YouTube

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by tomder55

REP. MAXINE WATERS: The President has put in place an organization with the kind of database that no one has ever seen before in life. That's going to be very, very powerful.
MR. MARTIN: In terms of Organizing for America, he is now shifting to become a 501 (c)(4)?

REP. MAXINE WATERS: That's right. And that database will have information about everything on every individual on ways that it's never been done before and whoever runs for President on the Democratic ticket has to deal with that. They're going to go down with that database and the concerns of those people because they can't get around it. And he's [President Obama] been very smart. It's very powerful what he's leaving in place.


Maxine Waters Confirms "Big Brother" Database 2013 - YouTube

---

Insanity plus 1. Why would she even think it is legal for a private organization to have a database like that they may have been collected through government assistance ?

Banks can track you easily through your paper trail on line so should we trust them too? Ever try to run from a bill collector or telemarketer, or a LAWYER? Now they have software and programs to bust your pimples.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by talaniman

Banks can track you easily thru your paper trail on line so should we trust them too? Ever try to run from a bill collector or telemarketer, or a LAWYER? Now they have software and programs to bust your pimples.

---

Actually it is possible if you preserve your online identity. Im always cautioning people about TMI. The thing is that a banking institution by reason of how it works requires the information in order to complete transactions. They are not a third party entity. Many records are held from the public. Those records can and should be protected. But a third party collecting information without your knowlage or consent in my opinion is illegal. If you notice even many social webstes have disclaimers of one kind or another. Every contract you have a "sharing" claus and most include the passing of information by sopeana to give information to an outside source.

Businesses and banks share and sell lists all the time and to deal with them you do have to check a box of a lot of fine print no one reads. I can deal with check balances and safe guards that reflect the new technology and defines what legal and not.

As much as I hate the idea of law enforcement having vast powers, I recognize they have to have tools to be effective against bad guys who are ever coming up with ways to get what they want.

I mean how else can you separate bad guys killing innocent ones if you can't tell them apart? Its to late after the bomb goes off.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by talaniman

Banks can track you easily thru your paper trail on line so should we trust them too? Ever try to run from a bill collector or telemarketer, or a LAWYER? Now they have software and programs to bust your pimples.

---

And Dodd Frank made it possible for the government to access all that too.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by talaniman

I mean how else can you separate bad guys killing innocent ones if you can't tell them apart? Its to late after the bomb goes off.

---

How else? There is a prsumption of innocence before guilt in out legal system. It sounds as if you would like to see that go to the wayside? If there I a criminal in a neighborhood then they should arrest the whole neighborhood? After all isn't it guilt by association?

Our legal system is designed as such that yes the bomb has to go off before you can charge someone with a crime for it. If you don't want that system and you want to arrest and prosecute for thinking something that may be illegal to the fullest extent of the law then you live in a very different world then I want to be in. How many times have some of us on some level said dumb things out of anger with no real intent behind the thinking. Things along the lines of "geez I could kill so and so for doing that" or other things that may come to mind while driving in heavy traffic. We don't need thought police. And we don't need a third party monitoring us or releasing records on us to a general public that may endanger lives.

Well hell, that's the solution then, wait until they strike and then start looking for them. Why didn't I think of that?