[excon]

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

[joypulv]

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.

[Fr_Chuck]

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.

[speechlesstx]

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

[paraclete]

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

[NeedKarma]

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?

[speechlesstx]

Orwell Or Obama?

[paraclete]

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.

[tomder55]

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 .

[speechlesstx]

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

[ScottGem]

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).

[talaniman]

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.

[excon]

Hello again, Steve:

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

[speechlesstx]

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.

[tomder55]

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 .

[earl237]

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

[Athos]

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.

[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 .

[tomder55]

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.

[talaniman]

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.