NSA found to be collecting details on all phone calls in the United States

[proximity1]

Which is not something on the topic of the court order.

 

 

 

Snowden is discussing the whole spectrum of the NSA activities, and not just the Verizon court order. I thought that was obvious. Is there an echo in here?

 

Further, he had not made the statements when I responded. It's also obvious how effortless it is to move the goalposts, but doing that doesn't make my statement wrong. The Verizon court order still does not encompass wiretaps.

 

The whole point here is just that--- no "court order", neither the Verizon instance or any other is, according to Snowden's explanation, a limiting factor on what an analyst with "access to query raw SIGINT databases" can do, with that access, to data, ANY data, that the agencies obtain, however they obtain it--via a "court order" or not.

 

You're fixed on refusing to recognize the import of this, as though, simply because a "court order" was at some point sought, therefore, that fact means, apparently to you, that the use or abuse of the data within the scope of the order, doesn't get the same treatment as any other data can and does get.

 

How is that? That is what I'm asking you to explain to us.

Edited June 17, 2013 by proximity1

[john5746]

So, Mr. Snowden, speaking from direct personal experience on the matter, says that he had the capacity for direct, warrantless wiretapping, and that, even by formal rules of practice, warrants weren't even a "speed-bump" --

Maybe he's lying? Putting my conspiracy hat on, isn't it a little convenient that he spilled the beans ahead of Xi Jinping's first visit here to listen to Obama complain about his country's cyber crimes? Then he ends up in Hong Kong? He doesn't want to live in the US, but China is his beacon of free speech?

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

Maybe he's lying? Putting my conspiracy hat on, isn't it a little convenient that he spilled the beans ahead of Xi Jinping's first visit here to listen to Obama complain about his country's cyber crimes? Then he ends up in Hong Kong? He doesn't want to live in the US, but China is his beacon of free speech?

He claims that

 

This is a predictable smear that I anticipated before going public, as the US media has a kneejerk RED CHINA!' reaction to anything involving HK or the PRC, and is intended to distract from the issue of US government misconduct.

 

Ask yourself: if I were a Chinese spy, why wouldn't I have flown directly into Beijing? I could be living in a palace petting a phoenix by now."

Of course, that's exactly what he would say if he were a spy. But I don't think it's very productive speculating.

[swansont]

The whole point here is just that--- no "court order", neither the Verizon instance or any other is, according to Snowden's explanation, a limiting factor on what an analyst with "access to query raw SIGINT databases" can do, with that access, to data, ANY data, that the agencies obtain, however they obtain it--via a "court order" or not.

 

You're fixed on refusing to recognize the import of this, as though, simply because a "court order" was at some point sought, therefore, that fact means, apparently to you, that the use or abuse of the data within the scope of the order, doesn't get the same treatment as any other data can and does get.

 

How is that? That is what I'm asking you to explain to us.

 

I also didn't discuss relativity, whether the novels of Susan Sontag are self-indulgent overrated crap or whether Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone. The list of things I was not addressing in my post is almost endless. The list of what I was discussing in this thread is short: the court order demanding Verizon turn over metadata to the government. That's it. The list ends there.

 

You continue to attempt to change the subject of the discussion I was having, and guess what: at this point I have no interest in discussing it with you and I have no obligation to discuss it with you. Continuing to harangue me is not apt to change my attitude.

 

Is that a sufficiently detailed explanation?

[overtone]

 

Last time I'm going to respond to this: we know what wasn't turned over
in response to the court order. You can't analyze data you don't have

And I am going to repeat - the problem I was referring to is not was wasn't turned over, but what was: metadata of several kinds, described officially as "other data". And you don't know what that was. The only thing you know is that it wasn't supposed to be "substantive content", and in particular not names, addresses, financial information, or actual recordings of the calls. I granted that, and listed some stuff that it could be instead.

 

Other people have been talking about how easily bent and circumvented the supposed limits are - or even ignored, in practice. That is their issue, adn I think it is important, but also important is the scope granted by the court imposed rules as officially admitted and described. The court order as posted, in the OP, allows individual agents of the US government or its (thousands of) contractors to easily identify, locate, and track individual US citizens, monitor and compile and analyze their phone usage "metadata" in secret, without a specific warrant or any recorded establishment of legitimate interest, and without oversight or policy curb.

 

And that order was obtained from a court set up specifically and officially to deal with foreign intellilgence issues only.

 

 

The list of what I was discussing in this thread is short: the
court order demanding Verizon turn over metadata to the government.
That's it. The list ends there.

So key features of the implementation of that court order, such as a complete description of the metadata being collected under it, are of interest to you?

[proximity1]

 

And I am going to repeat - the problem I was referring to is not was wasn't turned over, but what was: metadata of several kinds, described officially as "other data". And you don't know what that was. The only thing you know is that it wasn't supposed to be "substantive content", and in particular not names, addresses, financial information, or actual recordings of the calls. I granted that, and listed some stuff that it could be instead.

 

Other people have been talking about how easily bent and circumvented the supposed limits are - or even ignored, in practice. That is their issue, adn I think it is important, but also important is the scope granted by the court imposed rules as officially admitted and described. The court order as posted, in the OP, allows individual agents of the US government or its (thousands of) contractors to easily identify, locate, and track individual US citizens, monitor and compile and analyze their phone usage "metadata" in secret, without a specific warrant or any recorded establishment of legitimate interest, and without oversight or policy curb.

 

And that order was obtained from a court set up specifically and officially to deal with foreign intellilgence issues only.

 

 

So key features of the implementation of that court order, such as a complete description of the metadata being collected under it, are of interest to you?

 

Exactly.

 

 

And, like you, this is what counts most for me. For Swansont, however, these don't come under the scope of his discussion interests here. And, if you suggest that this seems to indicate that, for him, the points you underline above are merely "incidental facts," he's free to object: "I never said that!"

 

Right. He never said that. But the way he decides he likes the discussion's limits to be drawn suggests that he thinks that.

 

I accept that the Verizon FISA court order in and of itself does not require of the telephone company to produce actual records of the customers' conversations. And I accept that, as defined under the terms of 18 U.S.C.§8, "metadata" does not include the substance of the telephone conversations.

 

And, for Swansont, (@ N° 7) "These aren't wiretaps. They aren't (present tense*) listening in on conversations, they are collecting phone numbers, call lengths, and other data," (which I grant) and, (@ N° 12) "Further, if my phone company is already recording my land-line conversations, then that's a huge problem because AFAIK it's illegal, regardless of whether they turn it over to the feds. (though I don't think cell conversations are protected under a reasonable expectation of privacy)."

 

NOTE: ((*) my own emphasis added and notation "present tense," just above)

 

If Verizon company records his (land-line) phone conversations, "that's a huge problem...regardless of whether they turn it over to the feds." But, he's not concerned here about whether the N.S.A, based on its own theories of what the collected and analyzed metadata may seem to indicate to analysts, is led to target and record his or someone else's phone conversations. Whether that is also a huge problem or not is not something that he's interested to discuss here--and, from post N° 7, it seems that he finds others' interest in including that in the discussion something that is out of place.

 

So, in answer to his, "Is that a sufficiently detailed explanation?" yes, it is.

 

And, as for, ..."at this point I have no interest in discussing it with you," I'm not surprised.

Edited June 18, 2013 by proximity1

[swansont]

Fascinating that you can analyze what I didn't say and draw a conclusion from it. I made no statement condemning rape, either (because it's not the topic of the conversation). Does that mean I condone it? Nobody else did, either. What are we to conclude?

[proximity1]

Fascinating that you can analyze what I didn't say and draw a conclusion from it. I made no statement condemning rape, either (because it's not the topic of the conversation). Does that mean I condone it? Nobody else did, either. What are we to conclude?

 

In as much as you're open to discussing this aspect, I conclude, as a general observation here, that you tend to seek to micro-manage discussion, determining what is or is not germaine as you happen to see it, and rejecting as out of bounds others' views of that same where they conflict with yours. Also, I note that you mockingly mischaracterize what I have done in my comments above as an attempt to "analyze what I (i.e. what you) didn't say and draw a conclusion from it"

 

-- when what I actually did was to point out what you make a point of refusing to take into consideration, matters that you classify as not germaine. That, of course, is directly addressing what are quite arguably reasonably pertinent aspects of the thread while your example, "I made no statement condemning rape" is a both a sarcastic comment and, at the same time, the reiteration of your assertions on what is or isn't "the topic of the conversation" --a direct example--and the most recent--of my claim here that you seek to micro-manage discussion by narrowing, and excluding what does not suit you. Your long experience here and your role as a staff/moderator offers you a privileged insight into how to achieve those ends while remaining inside what you know to be the de facto operating habits of the staff.

 

With that, I won't address my comments directly to you as far as my further participation in this thread is concerned and, instead, will only address you when, as here, you directly pose questions to me, with the hope that this helps make the discussion less antagonistic. Specifically, I'll ignore from here on any comments you address to me which strike me as gratuitously hostile or provocative. If you take a similar disengaged stance, I'll see that as an act of mutual cooperation which I'll welcome and appreciate.

Edited June 18, 2013 by proximity1

[swansont]

In as much as you're open to discussing this aspect, I conclude, as a general observation here, that you tend to seek to micro-manage discussion, determining what is or is not germaine as you happen to see it, and rejecting as out of bounds others' views of that same where they conflict with yours. Also, I note that you mockingly mischaracterize what I have done in my comments above as an attempt to "analyze what I (i.e. what you) didn't say and draw a conclusion from it"

 

 

What else am I to conclude from "Right. He never said that. But the way he decides he likes the discussion's limits to be drawn suggests that he thinks that."

 

 

-- when what I actually did was to point out what you make a point of refusing to take into consideration, matters that you classify as not germaine. That, of course, is directly addressing what are quite arguably reasonably pertinent aspects of the thread while your example, "I made no statement condemning rape" is a both a sarcastic comment and, at the same time, the reiteration of your assertions on what is or isn't "the topic of the conversation" --a direct example--and the most recent--of my claim here that you seek to micro-manage discussion by narrowing, and excluding what does not suit you. Your long experience here and your role as a staff/moderator offers you a privileged insight into how to achieve those ends while remaining inside what you know to be the de facto operating habits of the staff.

 

I freely admit to not purposefully violating the rules. I also make no excuses for being a long-standing member.

 

The basic issue is that one topic was brought up, and I responded to it. I object when anyone tries to twist that response into meaning more than it does. In this case, that I had a suspicion that the topic would devolve into a discussion of wiretaps and wanted to clarify that the court order did not authorize wiretaps. Silly me. Who would stray off-topic when it's so easy to open a new thread?

 

I'm also perturbed by the implication that by merely clarifying some facts that I am somehow endorsing the NSA's broader activities, which conveniently ignores some of the things I've said. I object to people trying to guess my motives. That's out of bounds, unless I bring them up.

 

Further, I am not micro-managing anything, I am not telling you what you can't discuss in this thread; I am not the originator of the discussion. I am only outlining what I am willing to discuss. To imply that I am not allowed to make that choice, or that I owe anyone my reasons, is galling.

 

 

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

Allow me to change the subject from this tedious bickering. Some interesting things we learned today:

 

The NSA claims that cell phone location data is not part of the collected metadata. I had earlier talked about the dangers of keeping that data, so if the NSA is honest this is reassuring.

 

Glenn Greenwald has written about the "oversight" provided by the FISA court:

 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jun/19/fisa-court-oversight-process-secrecy

 

When it is time for the NSA to obtain Fisa court approval, the agency does not tell the court whose calls and emails it intends to intercept. It instead merely provides the general guidelines which it claims are used by its analysts to determine which individuals they can target, and the Fisa court judge then issues a simple order approving those guidelines. The court endorses a one-paragraph form order stating that the NSA's process "'contains all the required elements' and that the revised NSA, FBI and CIA minimization procedures submitted with the amendment 'are consistent with the requirements of [50 U.S.C. §1881a(e)] and with the fourth amendment to the Constitution of the United States'". As but one typical example, the Guardian has obtained an August 19, 2010, Fisa court approval from Judge John Bates which does nothing more than recite the statutory language in approving the NSA's guidelines.

This is worrisome.

[proximity1]

 

"The NSA claims that cell phone location data is not part of the collected metadata. I had earlier talked about the dangers of keeping that data, so if the NSA is honest this is reassuring."

 

They mean, presumably, that this data is not deliberately collected from "U.S. persons". Who here doubts that any and all non-U.S. persons, on the other end of the connection, are subject to their phone's locale being detected, recorded and stored? As for the U.S. persons, if in the U.S., their approximate location, down to town, neighborhood, and street, can be reconstructed from other airwave-or -otherwise-accessible-data readily available during surveillance or even long after--as with credit-card transaction and travel data which locates a person: roadside service station transactions, air and rail travel transactions, ATM withdrawals, etc. The location of the U.S. person is not a challenge for technology's reach. The non-U.S. person, that cell phone location data is unquestionably captured and stored. How much longer (?) before this is also the case for "U.S. persons" who have, through technology's evolutions, lost their "reasonable expectations of privacy" as to that datum?

 

You may feel reassured. I'm not at all reassured--and the honesty of the N.S.A.'s officials enjoys no benefit of a doubt on my part. On the contrary, I assume that their words are to be taken as false or deliberately misleading until proof to the contrary.

 

 

More references from Daniel J. Solove:

 

"Fourth Amendment Pragmatism" Boston College Law Review

 

"The reasonable expectation of privacy test is not merely in need of

repair—it is doomed. From the way it is formulated, the test purports to

be an empirical metric of societal views on privacy. The Supreme Court,

however, has never cited to empirical evidence to support its conclu-

sions about what expectations of privacy society deems to be reason-

able. As one commentator has stated: “How do we know what society is

prepared to accept as reasonable? Because there is no straightforward

answer to this question, ‘reasonable’ has largely come to mean what a

majority of the Supreme Court Justices says is reasonable.”

(page 1521)

 

and

 

"Data-mining and the Security-Liberty Debate" University of Chicago Law Review, Vol. 74

Edited June 19, 2013 by proximity1

[Bill Angel]

Allow me to change the subject from this tedious bickering. Some interesting things we learned today:

 

The NSA claims that cell phone location data is not part of the collected metadata. I had earlier talked about the dangers of keeping that data, so if the NSA is honest this is reassuring.

 

Glenn Greenwald has written about the "oversight" provided by the FISA court:

 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jun/19/fisa-court-oversight-process-secrecy

 

 

This is worrisome.

I have not used them, but there are companies that market applications for smartphones that encrypt voice communications. For example http://globenewswire.com/news-release/2013/06/06/552569/10035480/en/Kryptos-Voice-Encryption-App-for-iPhone-Android-and-BlackBerry-Achieves-Distribution-Milestone-in-Over-100-Countries-Worldwide.html

If the product lives up to the claims made in the company's press release, users have a way to protect themselves from some forms of Government snooping.

Edited June 19, 2013 by Bill Angel

[swansont]

Interesting read

 

http://m.guardiannews.com/commentisfree/2013/jun/21/obama-national-security-state-rogue

 

First of all, such a collection of data is not, in and of itself, illegal. The Obama administration was clearly acting within the constraints of federal law and received judicial approval for this broad request for data. That doesn't necessarily mean that the law is good or that the government's interpretation of that law is not too broad, but unlike the Bush "warrantless wiretapping" stories of several years ago, the US government is here acting within the law.

 

It is also the only article I've read on this (or on Bradley Manning) that gets the terminology right on the use of "whistleblower"

[proximity1]

GCHQ revelations: mastery of the internet will mean mastery of everyone

... ...

 

The story of MTI ( Note: programme code-name "Mastering the Internet")

must surely shake that complacency and demand a

review of the profit-and-loss account in the safety versus liberty

debate. And that must take in the effect the actions and views of a

generation of middle-aged politicians, journalists and spies will have

on people aged under 25, who may have to live with total surveillance

under regimes that may be much less benign than the ones we know. As I

have asked before, will my generation pass on a society that is

substantially less free than the one we inherited, together with tools

of oppression never before seen?

 

We are fond of saying that the younger generation doesn't know the meaning of the word privacy, but

what you give away voluntarily and what the state takes are as different

as charity and tax. Privacy is the defining quality of a free people.

Snowden's compelling leaks show us that mastery of the internet will

ineluctably mean mastery over the individual.

[overtone]

We have this

 

Interesting read

http://m.guardiannew...ity-state-rogue

t

of all, such a collection of data is not, in and of itself, illegal.
The Obama administration was clearly acting within the constraints of
federal law and received judicial approval for this broad request for
data. That doesn't necessarily mean that the law is good or that the government's interpretation of that law is not too broad,

followed in the very same article by this:

 

In that sense, we have to take the government's word for it. And that
is especially problematic when you consider the Fisa court decisions
authorizing this snooping are secret and the congressional intelligence
committees tasked with conducting oversight tend to be toothless.

But assumptions of bad faith and violations of privacy by the US government are just that … assumptions.

 

Apparently we are to assume that the government agencies involved and all of their minions, contractors, and subsidiaries, are behaving Constitutionally and legally because they say so, and the revelations of the existence of systematically created secret opportunities for secret abuse without accountability or oversight are to be assumed benign unless we have proof in hand otherwise.

 

Those guys are officially and publically concluding for us that the the Obama secret police operations and all of their thousands upon thousands of agents in multiple bureaucratic layers were "clearly acting within the constraints of Federal law" when we don't know what they have been doing, we don't know if they know what their various branches have been doing, we don't know what they are taking as "contraints", and they are refusing to tell us.

 

That is extraordinary. There's acceptance of the uncertainties of the world, and then there's boneheaded gullibility. There's drinking the Koolaid, and there's mixing it oneself. These are professional journalists - are they being blackmailed somehow? Have they been hit on the head a few too many times?

[Phi for All]

These are professional journalists - are they being blackmailed somehow?

"Professional journalist" these days means working for a corporation that is at odds with journalistic integrity. You don't get to dig for the truth on the Burger King horse-meat story if you work for Clear Channel Radio. The powers that be at Bain can blackmail you with your job.

[swansont]

Those guys are officially and publically concluding for us that the the Obama secret police operations and all of their thousands upon thousands of agents in multiple bureaucratic layers were "clearly acting within the constraints of Federal law" when we don't know what they have been doing, we don't know if they know what their various branches have been doing, we don't know what they are taking as "contraints", and they are refusing to tell us.

 

You misquoted the article. Emphasis added:

 

 

The Obama administration was clearly acting within the constraints of

federal law and received judicial approval for this broad request for

data

 

There's no mention of the "thousands upon thousands of agents in multiple bureaucratic layers" nor any mention of what they are doing. It's simply stating that the request for data was within the constraints of federal law, and that it was approved by the court. Factually true statements.

[overtone]

You misquoted the article. Emphasis added:

What I put in quotes was cut and pasted directly from the article without alteration.

 

 

There's no mention of the "thousands upon thousands of agents in multiple bureaucratic layers" nor

any mention of what they are doing. It's simply stating that the

request for data was within the constraints of federal law, and that it

was approved by the court.

In the first place, I read no such limitation in that article - certainly nothing explicit, of something which would be a key and central fact deserving clear statement. The article pretends to deal with the data compilation itself, the doings in reality of the NSA and FBI and FISA court and other government agencies unspecified, not just the technicalities of FISA request and approval.

 

In the second place, as the journalists do not know what the requests for data were and are, or what all has been approved by the FISA court, their reassurances even in that limited and toothless aspect are not informed.

 

Take another look at this sentence, written by professional journalists in an article addressing the discovery of the unexpected scope in a government run dragnet domestic survielliance program of everybody's phone service:

But assumptions of bad faith and violations of privacy by the US government are just that … assumptions.

Note that this bit of chaff and hackery makes at least as much sense from the other direction: assumptions of good faith and respect for privacy by the US government would aslo be just that - assumptions. And rather less justified, eh?

Edited June 28, 2013 by overtone

[swansont]

What I put in quotes was cut and pasted directly from the article without alteration.

Truncation is alteration. That's the "cut" in "cut and paste". You took a statement that was being applied to a single action and made it sound like it was a broad, general claim.

In the first place, I read no such limitation in that article - certainly nothing explicit, of something which would be a key and central fact deserving clear statement. The article pretends to deal with the data compilation itself, the doings in reality of the NSA and FBI and FISA court and other government agencies unspecified, not just the technicalities of FISA request and approval.

 

In the second place, as the journalists do not know what the requests for data were and are, or what all has been approved by the FISA court, their reassurances even in that limited and toothless aspect are not informed.

But we do know what was requested and approved; we have a copy of the court order.

[proximity1]

The Criminal N.S.A.

 

By JENNIFER STISA GRANICK and CHRISTOPHER JON SPRIGMAN*

 

 

 

THE twin revelations that telecom carriers have been secretly giving the National Security Agency information about Americans’ phone calls, and that the N.S.A. has been capturing e-mail and other private communications from Internet companies as part of a secret program called Prism, have not enraged most Americans. Lulled, perhaps, by the Obama administration’s claims that these “modest encroachments on privacy” were approved by Congress and by federal judges, public opinion quickly migrated from shock to “meh.”

It didn’t help that Congressional watchdogs — with a few exceptions, like Senator Rand Paul, Republican of Kentucky — have accepted the White House’s claims of legality. The leaders of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California, and Saxby Chambliss, Republican of Georgia, have called the surveillance legal. So have liberal-leaning commentators like Hendrik Hertzberg and David Ignatius.

This view is wrong — and not only, or even mainly, because of the privacy issues raised by the American Civil Liberties Union and other critics. The two programs violate both the letter and the spirit of federal law. No statute explicitly authorizes mass surveillance. Through a series of legal contortions, the Obama administration has argued that Congress, since 9/11, intended to implicitly authorize mass surveillance. But this strategy mostly consists of wordplay, fear-mongering and a highly selective reading of the law. Americans deserve better from the White House — and from President Obama, who has seemingly forgotten the constitutional law he once taught.

The administration has defended each of the two secret programs. Let’s examine them in turn.

Edward J. Snowden, the former N.S.A. contract employee and whistle-blower, has provided evidence that the government has phone record metadata on all Verizon customers, and probably on every American, going back seven years. This metadata is extremely revealing; investigators mining it might be able to infer whether we have an illness or an addiction, what our religious affiliations and political activities are, and so on.

The law under which the government collected this data, Section 215 of the Patriot Act, allows the F.B.I. to obtain court orders demanding that a person or company produce “tangible things,” upon showing reasonable grounds that the things sought are “relevant” to an authorized foreign intelligence investigation. The F.B.I. does not need to demonstrate probable cause that a crime has been committed, or any connection to terrorism.

Even in the fearful time when the Patriot Act was enacted, in October 2001, lawmakers never contemplated that Section 215 would be used for phone metadata, or for mass surveillance of any sort. Representative F. James Sensenbrenner Jr., a Wisconsin Republican and one of the architects of the Patriot Act, and a man not known as a civil libertarian, has said that “Congress intended to allow the intelligence communities to access targeted information for specific investigations.” The N.S.A.’s demand for information about every American’s phone calls isn’t “targeted” at all — it’s a dragnet. “How can every call that every American makes or receives be relevant to a specific investigation?” Mr. Sensenbrenner has asked. The answer is simple: It’s not.

 

... ...

 

We may never know all the details of the mass surveillance programs, but we know this: The administration has justified them through abuse of language, intentional evasion of statutory protections, secret, unreviewable investigative procedures and constitutional arguments that make a mockery of the government’s professed concern with protecting Americans’ privacy. It’s time to call the N.S.A.’s mass surveillance programs what they are: criminal.

----------------------------------------------------

* Jennifer Stisa Granick is the director of civil liberties at the Stanford Center for Internet and Society. Christopher Jon Sprigman is a professor at the University of Virginia School of Law.

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/28/opinion/the-criminal-nsa.html?hp&_r=0&pagewanted=print

 

Edited June 28, 2013 by proximity1

[overtone]

 

 

But we do know what was requested and approved; we have a copy of the court order.

We do not know what was requested.

 

The court order of approval is not specific in limiting the metadata that can be collected. It forbids only "content". Everything I have mentioned above - such as assigning of specific id numbers to files on individual callers indentified by phone company frequency analysis of their voice, say, delivered to the government as summary numerical data - is permitted by the language of the court order, and none of it has been as yet denied by the careful language of the government's descriptions of its files.

 

(Possibly the assertion of the government's that location data has not been compiled for all calls is a partial denial of that concern)

 

We do have a copy of the court order, and quite obviously one could operate an entire police state surveillance system worthy of a North Korean anti-insurgency program under its purview. The question of what kind of operation actually has been operating remains unanswered - still, weeks later.

 

 

 

Truncation is alteration. That's the "cut" in "cut and paste".

Please. Removal from context is not truncation, and careful excision of context is not alteration - that depends on how it is used.

 

You took a statement that was being applied to a single action and made it sound like it was a broad, general claim.

No, I didn't.

 

I took two paragraph length quotes (not "a statement"] from different places in the article that were each referring to my concern and issue (the limits or controls on the NSA data collection) and compared them by setting them next to each other. Neither was altered in meaning by the comparison. The obvious conclusion from the comparison (the reassurances of the author are uninformed, empty) is perhaps a bit uncomfortable, but there it is.

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

Here's an interesting development:

 

 

BEIRUT — The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency warned Lebanese officials last week that al Qaida-linked groups are planning a campaign of bombings that will target Beirut’s Hezbollah-dominated southern suburbs as well as other political targets associated with the group or its allies in Syria, Lebanese officials said Monday.

 

The unusual warning – U.S. government officials are barred from directly contacting Hezbollah, which the U.S. has designated an international terrorist organization – was passed from the CIA’s Beirut station chief to several Lebanese security and intelligence officials in a meeting late last week with the understanding that it would be passed to Hezbollah, Lebanese officials said.

 

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2013/07/15/196755/lebanese-officials-say-cia-warned.html

 

Of course, the intelligence collected in this case may not have come from the NSA's domestic surveillance programs, but through targeted overseas surveillance. But it does make one wonder about the uses to which PRISM and domestic phone records are being put.

[Iota]

if you are doing nothing wrong,

then there's nothing to worry about.

 

simple.

 

A statement uttered only by fools, which will also be the dying words of freedom. Your government has become like a machine with its own agenda, the peoples' aside. It seeks to protect itself, and its power; it's a government which is not worth having.

 

I get absolutely sick of hearing people mindlessly repeat what you just quoted -as they have done to me many times- it's by far one of the most unintelligent things a person can ever say with regards to how a given government operates.

 

"They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."

[krash661]

you say something like this because there's information that exist that is not obvious.

and not obvious to you.

like i said in previous post,

there are two different kinds of worlds here.

public eye and behind the scenes.

nothing anyone can do about it.

just accept it and move on.

there's things going on in this world that no one has a clue about for the greater good.

everything always leads to a bigger picture.

the subjects out come is based on human mentality and human behavior in a majority with out subject to change.

there's at lease 10% truth to everything,

More than likely 90% of it is bull shit.

nothing more.

humanity flows in it's path as it does,

and as of this moment in humanity,

what is value to it, is what is value to it.

nothing more.

we as humans decide what is valuable by a majority.

nothing more.

in the end,there's only 3 thing for human existence that is tangibly or realistically valuable,

and those 3 things are,

Life,intelligence and language

everything else is just bullshit to keep a majority content.

humanity has already failed.

 

 

" A statement uttered only by fools "

" the most unintelligent things ",

 

hilarious.

 

another thing,

mr smart guy,

government has been spying on the public since satellites were in orbit.

nothing new,get over it.

ohh wait, it appears it is to you.

[Iota]

 

 

you say something like this because there's information that exist that is not obvious.

and not obvious to you.

Please inform me of this top secret information that you have which I don't.

 

 

 

like i said in previous post,

there are two different kinds of worlds here.

public eye and behind the scenes.

nothing anyone can do about it.

I disagree, there is much that can be done about it. You seem to view your government as some form of higher power in the universe; it is run by mere people, like you and me. It's the system and procedure by which our countries are run that allow secret intelligence to exploit it and difficult for us to change it.

 

 

 

just accept it and move on.

Completely deplorable attitude, you shouldn't be discussing politics at all if your answer is 'nothing can be done', 'just accept it and move on'.

 

 

 

there's things going on in this world that no one has a clue about for the greater good.

That's right, rest your little mind, let your government take care of you. Stop thinking, we know what's in your best interest.

 

 

 

humanity has already failed.

Brilliant mentality. I'd question your being on a science discussion website, if you uphold this view.

 

 

 

another thing,

mr smart guy,

government has been spying on the public since satellites were in orbit.

nothing new,get over it.

ohh wait, it appears it is to you.

 

Lovely anecdote, but that's not revelatory information to me. You seem to be under the impression that you're aware of information that none of the rest of us are, and that, that justifies your defeatist, deplorable attitude.

 

Edited July 17, 2013 by Iota