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Telecoms Facing $50 Billion Lawsuit for Wiretaps
Posted by
Zonk
on Sat May 13, 2006 06:22 PM
from the answer-to-the-people dept.
from the answer-to-the-people dept.
hdtv writes "According to a MarketWatch article, BellSouth Corp and Verizon Telecommunications are facing lawsuits seeking billions of dollars in damages for the decision to turn over calling records to the government. The damages amount to $1,000 per person, whose records were turned over to Feds. According to the article, 'consumers could sue the phone service providers under communications privacy legislation that dates back to the 1930s. Relevant laws include the Communications Act, first passed in 1934, and a variety of provisions of the Electronic Communications and Privacy Act, including the Stored Communications Act, passed in 1986.'"
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The NSA Knows Who You've Called 1136 comments
Magnifico writes "USAToday is reporting on the National Security Agency's goal to create a database of every call ever made inside the USA. Aided by the cooperation of US telecom corporations, AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth, the NSA has been secretly collecting phone call records of tens of millions of Americans; the vast majority of whom aren't suspected of any crime. Only Qwest refused to give the NSA information because they were uneasy about giving information to the government without the proper warrants. The usefulness of the NSA's domestic phone call database as a counterterrorism tool is unclear."
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Until the government says "National Security" (Score:4, Insightful)
"National Security" has become the new "We Do This For Our Children".
*Stomps away in disgust*
Re:Until the government says "National Security" (Score:4, Interesting)
I've been thinking of a new slogan to counter the "National Security" argument.
Cowardice is unpatriotic.
Any time you do something out of fear of your safety you are now unpatriotic.
If anyone ever brings up argument that restricting freedoms and over powerful government is ok because of security concerns, just call him a coward and tell him you just labeled him "unpatriotic" for not being brave like the founding fathers or your grand pappy fighting on the beaches during WWII.
We should accept that our freedom comes at a price, and if we die by the hands of those against our open society than that is what we must accept this cost and we must brave about it.
Caving in to fear is the most "unpatriotic" thing an American can do as a citizen.
Sure, it would be a meme tactic, but I'm tired of seeing people labeled "unpatriotic" because they don't support "national security".
Parent
Re:Until the government says "National Security" (Score:3, Informative)
Heh. Good luck getting the NSA to testify to that.
I suspect this suit has legs. A company like Qwest does not tell the gov't to shove off lightly so you've got to figure that they saw this suit coming and decided that they couldn't win it. If the NSA decides to help the telcos (with the Administration's record, there's no reason to think that they will) they can
Re:Until the government says "National Security" (Score:4, Informative)
I would like to make clear that this effort had nothing to do with national security. What is more it has only one obvious conclusion for its objective. That I will let the readers figure out as they read what is the truth about what is going on. Please understand, I have read the requests for proposals and looked at bidding on the contracts to provide the service that now serves the NSA and the CIA and several US DOD operations. I know exactly what I am talking about here. This is not a supposition.
The programs involved were not simply limited to acquiring the phone numbers dialed and times of calls etc like portrayed. The data was collected under the direction of Admiral Poindexter who was removed but the contracts and work continued. The program was to provide Total Information Awareness. [epic.org]
The level of information mined includes 100% of all commercial database data that could be obtained. This was not necessarily limited to the amount of data "Legally" obtainable. It included software engines to recognize speach, pictures and to even identify where a picture was taken, when and what angles etc. It was not limited to metadata either. The engines would generate contextual metadata on their own. The intent was to be able to listen electronically to 100% of all world wide phone, fax and internet traffic with full understanding and full cross reference of data. The computer networks and engines to do this are very big and do exist. The US Government under this routinely intercepts a large amount of data and has search engine skill applied to the output.
My company would not bid on the contracts even though we would do some things because some of us in the company were not invertebrates. We could see that this had no purpose regards the military GWAT (Global War On Terror). It was a level of spying and information gathering that clearly had no innocent purpose.We had other contracts which were also out of Admiral Poindexters office.
It is clear that Al Qaeda etc had nothing to fear from such a system. Their hand carried and simple word swap encryption (Private Codes) work well against such an engine. Bojinka [the7thfire.com] for example would have had no meaning until an arrest was made.
The value of data to coerse a Congressman or a citizen or to produce "faked up" arrest data would be endless. The value to compromise the integrity of any democratic process and produce extortion is endless as well. (Please use your brain here: Ask why would a government want to do this? Ask what would they do this for?)
Rest assured that recording of your phone numbers and who you called is not even significant to this operation. The level of it is deeper and more complete information on every living person on the planet than has been collected by the secret police of any terroristic evil regieme in history. The level of data here is beyond the wildest dreams of the NAZI SS in their worst days. Do what you will with this information. You now know the level of the data collection. You know know a lot. What we are facing is a situation I described to my nephew one day regards girls. I told him to never do by the dark of night, that which he didn't expect to see on a webcam, because it probably is on a webcam! You have no privacy. The issue is what you do and how you react to it.
Remember that a dishonest political prosecutor or dishonest official might well take custody of this data some day. It will all be there just waiting for his use.
Parent
Buckle Up (Score:3, Interesting)
The unrest against the goverment's tyranny is reaching a critical point.
Expect another 'terrorist act' real soon to distract us from the issue of our eroding civil rights.
Re:Buckle Up (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Qwest will Slay the Dragon of Tyranny! (Score:3, Informative)
In a recent news article [latimes.com], the "Los Angeles Times" reports, " USA Today, which disclosed the program this week, reported that Qwest had refused to turn over its phone records because it believed it would be illegal. Qwest urged the NSA to get a court order, but the agency refused, the newspaper reported.
In a statement Friday, the attorney for former Qwest Chief Executive Joseph Nacchio said the government approached the company i
Re:Buckle Up (Score:4, Informative)
>"You're deluded, dude. You must have missed the slashdot article a few days ago about >the polling results that show 63% of Americans support the NSA operations."
You are referring to the Washington Posts slanted "snap poll" of only 500 respondents.
Newseeek has conducted a larger poll since with proper methodology and has found:
41% say necessary tool, 53% say goes too far.
Atrios link [blogspot.com]
In any case, the extent of the violation of my privacy and my rights guaranteed by the constitution are not measured by counting snouts.
Parent
Re:Buckle Up (Score:4, Insightful)
On a side note, where I live, we had no terrorist attacks since decades. And that's in a country with a -- from your point of view -- extremely leftist government (and yes, we're a true democracy).
Parent
Re:Buckle Up (Score:4, Insightful)
You need to back that one up. How many "attempted" attacks have there been in the USA before 9/11 and after 9/11?
Parent
Re:Buckle Up (Score:5, Insightful)
Isn't a "perpetual state of phony war" what this so-called "war on terror" is? I don't see the government doing the logical things to make us safer such as securing our borders, scanning the cargo containers coming into our ports, and adequately funding first responders. The disaster in New Orleans only proves how unprepared we are. And that was a diaster we could see coming, unlike an actual terrorist attack, considering how pathetic the state our intelligence services are.
And what has the government done with is so-called "war on terror?" Aside from Afghanistan, which I believe was more of less justified, it has invaded a sovereign nation that had nothing to do with the 9/11 terrorist attacks and was actually an enemy of Al-Quaeda, engaged in the supression of human rights in places like Guantanamo Bay, and erode the freedoms and privacy of regular Americans. Oh yeah, and they created the department of homeland security. Because more buerocracy means we're safer.
If you believe that the terrorists are out to destroy our way of life, I'd say the terrorists are winning at this rate. Certainly some sacrifices must be made, but this is going too far.
Yes the threat of terrorism is real, but I'm think we have a lot more to fear from our own government than from terrorists.
Parent
Re:Buckle Up (Score:3, Interesting)
In the same way, we went from Osama Bin Laden to Saddam Hussein, and it looks like the next one is Mohammad Khatami.
Re:Buckle Up (Score:5, Insightful)
You must have missed the slashdot article a few days ago about the polling results that show 63% of Americans support the NSA operations.
Oh, I didn't miss it...in fact, I posted [slashdot.org] in it. Here are a few more posts which do an excellent job of pointing up just why that 'poll' was bogus:
And you're paranoid too. Are you actually suggesting that the gov't is orchestrating terrorist attacks to consolidate its power?
Take a good hard look at the A HREF="http://www.physics911.net/faketerror.htm">a
And now, after you're done crowing about what a 'moonbat' site I've just linked to, take a deep breath, try to be objective, and actually look this time. All of your denunciations of 'ridiculous conspiracy theories' won't change the characteristics of ASTM E119 cettified steel, or alter the building specifications of the WTC towers, or somehow account for approximately 60 tons of missing aircraft debris at the Pentagon.
Here's what's so ironic about the whole issue. The Bush administration has successfully kept the US free of terrorist attacks since 9/11/01. But his very success had lead to a sense of complacency, particularly among ultra-myopic Bush-haters.
For the last three years, I've been snapping my fingers to keep the tigers away. I'm proud to announce that since enacting the practice, I've gone three solid years without a tiger attack.
In the book 1984, the government maintained a perpetual state of phoney war to distract the population. Today, the opposite is happening. We are in a real war with terrorist networks groups that swear they will kill us any way they can, yet the myopic deny reality and imagine that the war is phoney.
And that's exactly what the majority of the brainwashed populace in 1984 were led to believe. Well done.
I wonder if a nuclear attack will wake them out of their stupor? Alas, probably not. They'll just blame it on Bush.
Of course I'll blame it on Bush, since he'll be the one to instigate [yahoo.com] the attack. Question is, when that happens, will it be enough to wake you out of your stupor?
I watch Brit Hume on Fox News
Odds are it won't.
Parent
Re:Buckle Up (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah. They were perfect at preventing domestic terrorist attacks from 04/20/1995 through 9/10/01, too. With that kind of a record, you'd have to trust that their efforts are the reason no attack has happened.
What kind of asinine logic are you using?
We are in a real war with terrorist networks groups that swear they will kill us any way they can, yet the myopic deny reality and imagine that the war is phoney.
You mean Iraq? The country that was the source of none of the 9/11 bombers? The country where none of the 9/11 bombers trained? The country where terrorists from other places (Saudi Arabia) go to seek out a fight with the US military?
Clue-bat for you: Saddam Hussein was literally created by US foreign policy via the CIA. The misery of his people (and many other groups in that region) was created by US foreign policy over many years. The fact that they hate us is simply chickens coming home to roost. Kill enough fathers and husbands and the kids are going to grow up pissed off. If you don't understand why, then you're stupider than your posting lets on.
You must have missed the slashdot article a few days ago about the polling results that show 63% of Americans support the NSA operations.
You're actually claiming membership with the sheeple? Wow.
Right and wrong don't arise from "majority rules" or "might makes right". Even if I was the only person saying that what our government is doing is flat out wrong while everyone else disagreed, I'd still be right and every single other person would be wrong. Including you.
I wonder if a nuclear attack will wake them out of their stupor?
So, based on the fact that if someone really wants to detonate a nuclear weapon on US soil they will, you're also willing to give up all of your freedoms to slow them down a bit?
Doesn't seem like a smart trade to me. I'd rather live in a country where "home of the free" meant something important. Who knows, maybe if we didn't go around killing off democratically elected leaders and replacing them with US-owned despots who destroy the lives of their people, those people wouldn't hate us so much... Nah.
Alas, probably not. They'll just blame it on Bush.
Bush made the underlying problems worse and our country less safe (more terrorists), however, he didn't start the process. He's as much a pawn of the corporations as anyone else these days. Some would go back to MacNamara for the first systematic horrors of US foreign policy, some would go back much further than that (McKinley, Monroe, etc.)
But to understand these names, you'd have to know history, which would imply reading a book. Unlikely in your case. The stupidity of people who think like you make me furious. Every time an American soldier dies, I want to punch someone like you in the face and say, "IT'S YOUR FUCKING FAULT!" Because you let Bush and the people behind Bush get away with any action or lie they want.
It's not Bush's fault. It's your fault. You elected him, you total and complete fuckwit.
Ross
Parent
Re:Read This. (Score:5, Interesting)
How does this [wikipedia.org] document fit in with your philosophy, then?
And what about this [wikipedia.org] document?
Yes, there is a big difference, isn't there?
Parent
Re:Buckle Up (Score:3, Interesting)
It gives me an excuse to brag about the fact that I scored in the top 1% on the GRE exam.
Translation: "It gives me an excuse to make a totally apocryphal claim about my intelligence in an effort to intimidate my oppponents into silence."
The GRE (Graduate Records Exam) is the standard test taken by engineering graduates to get into graduate school
Actually, that's not what the official site by Educational Testing Services (ETS) [ets.org] says about the GRE. From the site (emphasis mine):
Re:Buckle Up (Score:5, Interesting)
The reason I "bragged" about my math score on the GRE exam is that a) someone explicitly questioned my math ability in a insulting way, and b) it is an objective measure.
As has been said before, your alleged results of the GRE mean little, although you seem to use this argument on a regular basis [electorama.com]. From the linked article: "Don't usually brag", huh? On the contrary, it looks like 'bragging' is your standard M.O..
I have published many papers since then, but they would be more or less meaningless to someone not in my field.
This claim intrigued me, so I decided to do some research. What I found was intriguing. While the majority of search results seeem to be posts by Russ on various bulletin boards touting his bona fides, very few seemed to be in regards to actual work done by him in his ostensible field of expertise. Several results, however, stood out:
And just in case you're not convinced by now that Russ is a right-wing shill, here's his defenses of Intelligent Design:
Russ Paielli stands exposed as a right-wing astroturfer, and his posts should be weighed accordingly.
And if you are so smart, I recommend you grow up sometime soon.
Excellent parting shot, Russ. Worthy of Brit Hume.
Parent
Re:Buckle Up (Score:3, Informative)
That's a dangerously careless attitude. To illustrate why, I refer you to everend Martin Niemoller's famous poem: [andrejkoymasky.com]
An intelligent judge (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:An intelligent judge (Score:4, Insightful)
Shit, the propaganda is working eh...
The very fact you consent we're in a "time where we need some kind of safety net" means brainwashing worked. We're not in any kind of time. I'd say that the amount of terror US gets is disproportionally small to the amount of terror US applies to some countries in the rest of the world.
What we need really is to stop brainwashing, stop propaganda, stop the war and civil right erosion engine, stop snooping and concentrate on far less self-destructing activities.
But I'm a dreamer.
Parent
Re:An intelligent judge (Score:3, Insightful)
Should people seek damages from the phone company? (Score:3, Interesting)
Money? (Score:4, Funny)
Here's what I did... (Score:5, Informative)
Second, I'm cancelling my phone service w/AT&T and I will let them know exactly why. I'm switching to an Internet phone. Now, I know that this may not be much safer, especially considering any call INTO a bad phone company would be logged and reported to the NSA. (This is why Qwest customers aren't safe if they call anyone who uses AT&T, for example)... but if enough people cancel in disgust, who knows, maybe they'll get the message.
Third, I'm donating to the EFF [eff.org]. They need our help more than ever. And vice-versa.
Fourth, I'm ready, willing, and able to join any class action lawsuits against these companies. Even if they get thrown out [slashdot.org].
Fifth, not an email. Not a letter. But a phone call to my state Senators and Representative.
Also #1: Has anyone put together a unified wiki/forum trying to "reverse-engineer" the NSA's data mining program from published reports + what IT folks & mathematicians think is possible? I bet with enough collaboration and discussion, the net can figure out pretty close to what they're doing with this massive database/total information awareness program (sounds a bit like they're creating associations between clusters of people, much like Amazon does when they profile you to recommend new products... The more info they have, the more they can cross-reference, looking for patterns and comparing with patterns of known profiles (criminals, political enemies, etc.).. I'd be really interested in learning more about what people think this program is and how it might work, from a technological point of view.
Also #2: Merry Fitzmas [truthout.org]
Re:Here's what I did... (Score:5, Interesting)
If you wanted to destroy a terrorist network as quickly and cheaply as possible, you simply need to figure out the people at the nexuses of these social networks, and take them out. (In our example above, you would take out Ron and Patti -- they connect the green and red groups) The problem is, this also works for any other type of organizations -- ones that imposed martial law, for example.
Now, for most of the time, these social networks are almost entirely informal, based only on socializing. The thing of it is, they can quickly become the basis for any opposition or resistance movements ( think Martin Luther King and the civil rights movement ). If you wanted to go beyond fighting terrorism and, say, impose martial law and rule as a dictator, taking out rebellious, influential people ahead of time, or even afterwards, would make your life easier.
P.S. There is some kind of calculus that volunteers for congressional reps use for various types of communication. For instance, an email is assumed to represent the thoughts of 5 other constiuents, a phone call, 20, and a paper letter, 50. My numbers are a guess, but IIRC the paper letter carries the most weight as far as representatives surmising constiuent opinion based on feedback. So it would behoove your cause if you also sent a paper letter.
Parent
Re:Here's what I did... (Score:4, Insightful)
Here's one simple, easy to digest scenario in which it harmful to society. Understand that I'm not taking a position on it, merely posing a hypothetical situation.
The terrorist-graph program is successful. Law enforcement decides to tweak the algorithms and use it on organized crime. It meets success and becomes part of the standard set of tools. The individuals in charge of this program are dedicated and enlightened and have no desire to abuse the system.
Fast forward 10 years. Most of the people in charge, and all of the political leaders have changed. They've inherited these law enforcement programs. They use them to dig up political dirt or other mischievous, but relatively light weight abuses. It is deeply entrenched in the bureaucracy.
Another 10 years. Corruption is heavy in high level politics. All likely challengers are identified ahead of time and neutralized, either with planted evidence or coercion.
I'm not attempting to make a slippery slope arguement here. Two assertions I'm making are:
Parent
Re:Here's what I did... (Score:3, Insightful)
No, Really. Hierarchical structures are very different than cell networks. And it shows, visibly, on a social network diagram.
Can a friendly legal-type person... (Score:4, Interesting)
Thanks in advance -
~Nugneant
Martial Law? (Score:3, Informative)
Imagine what it saved the telecoms (Score:5, Insightful)
Obligatory (Score:3, Interesting)
Damned If You Do (Score:5, Interesting)
60 Minutes had a story about Amgen a few months ago. Amgen were carrying out tests for a treatment for a serious disease. They had to halt the tests when side effects starting showing up - drug companies can not afford to take risks these days once they suspect there are problems.
So the patients sued Amgen - for halting the trials! They said the treatments were working.
60 Minutes thought the story was about how greedy and uncaring drug companies are. I thought the real story was about how it's fast becoming impossible to do business in the United States, even with the best of intentions.
some hope? (Score:5, Insightful)
- Domestic spying is costly for telecoms
- Domestic spying could reveal trading secrets
- Domestic spying accelerates standard encryption
An other reason for hope is the existence of organizations like EFF [eff.org] or ACLU [aclu.org].Snooping and tapping activities at the boundary of legality have made me worried, but costly legal lawsuits could be a good medicine. Like chemotherapy against cancer. Better would be strict laws which prevent such abuse. Lets see how the law dragons fight the snooping hydra.
There is an other issue which could prevent that we slip into a totalitarian state: telephone calling records of industry decision makers are valuable information. The database can give hints about mergers, stock market developments (company X has suddenly a lot of phone-calls with company Y. Do they merge? Do they launch a new product, lets buy or sell stocks accordingly). In a government, for which business is so closely linked to politics, domestic spying could be seen a free ticket for obtaining insider information. That could become a problem, once it is realized that it exists.
A third remedy about the domestic spying issue could be technology: not only standard encryption of telephone calls, but also standard masquerading about who calls whom. Such technology will first be used by people who need protection, not criminals, but CEOs or engineers working on new technology, which the competition should not know about. Of course, the people who are the primary targets of those stupid spying activities have long gone to other communication channels.
"The Eye: that horrible growing sense of a hostile will that strove with great power to pierce all shadows of cloud, and earth, and flesh, and to see you: to pin you under its deadly gaze, naked, immovable."
LOR, Chapter 2, The Passage of the Marshes
AT&T Privacy Policy (Score:5, Interesting)
AT&T says that the data is "Customer Proprietary Network Information (CPNI), http://att.sbc.com/gen/privacy-policy?pid=2566 [sbc.com], and that "Protecting the privacy of your service and usage records is your right and our duty under federal law," although "our local SBC telephone company may also be required to disclose CPNI for legal and regulatory reasons such as a court order," but again there was clearly no court orders involved according to the article about Qwest's refusal to cooperate.
If they didn't break any laws (which I doubt, but is a possibility) they certainly have broken their promise to their customers. That might be grounds for legal action, false advertising perhaps?
The Founders would be ashamed (Score:5, Insightful)
Do you think that the fear we're living under now is anything compared to the fear of the founders as the much larger, better equipped and trained Royal armies attacked?
Yet they believed freedom was more important than life itself. That belief is the foundation of our way of life, and this foundation is under attack. Once we lose these freedoms, they will be almost impossible to recoup without force.
What unmitigated cowards are the people who are willing to cede freedoms to terrorism. And furthermore, there is no proof that ceding these freedoms enables us to better fight terror.
To the founding fathers, we would look like a bunch of cowards and ingrates. They would be horrified to see the legacy they struggled and died to create collapsing under the comparatively tame threat of terrorism.
It is too late... (Score:4, Insightful)
To catch terrorists this way. By now, everyone, including the terrorists, have figured out that the phone lines are insecure. Those who have something to hide are already using different forms of communication.
The only possible effective use of this system today is to stifle the political dissent of law abiding citizens.
It has never been about catching terrorists or protecting children. Yes, occasionally such eavesdropping has helped solve criminal cases; but the primary purpose has always been the suppression of political dissent.
Re:Why fret over privacy loss? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Why fret over privacy loss? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Why fret over privacy loss? (Score:5, Insightful)
As much as it pains me to say this, I'd rather have Google store all my personal data than any Government have access to it; hypothetically assuming for a moment that the data could only be subpeoned via a "normal" warrant - like in the olden days before all these new Patriot Act type laws.
Now don't get me wrong, I've nothing against the authorities applying for a warrant to listen into my telephone calls/emails etc if they have reasonable suspicion that I am going to commit a crime, or that I have committed a crime. Blanket monitoring with no consideration of presumed innocence is most definitely a big no-no though.
Parent
Re:Why fret over privacy loss? (Score:5, Insightful)
Why fret over privacy loss if you aren't doing anything illegal/covert?
Very well, let's see if you'll answer that. Presumably you're not doing anything illegal or covert?
Alright. Please post right here: Your real name, your age, your home address, your work or school address, your home phone number, your cell phone number, your work phone number, a description and the license plate numbers of any vehicles you own, and a link to a recent photo of yourself.
If you're not comfortable with that information being in the hands of strangers...then you're concerned about privacy.
Parent
Re:Why fret over privacy loss? (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:Why fret over privacy loss? (Score:5, Insightful)
I was kinda stupid when I was 18 too.
Parent
Thank you, Sheyenne. (Score:5, Interesting)
A search with this info using Peoplefinders.com yields a YORK, SHEYENNE, 22 years of age, with a relative (possibly mother) named YORK, MICHELE, age 53. For only $9.95, anyone here can find out more information about this person or their relatives, including more past addresses (and more specific addresses to confirm the poster's information).
See how privacy works? Once a leak occurs, it quickly becomes a flood.
Parent
Re:Why fret over privacy loss? (Score:4, Informative)
First, we go to USPS and file a change of address form [usps.com]. We need to do this quickly and it probably should span the next three or four months. That should give us bank account information--bank statements and the like. We can then contact the bank and arrange a wire-transfer to a bank account in the Caymans. Hope you weren't saving money for college.
Parent
Six Degrees of seperation (Score:3, Interesting)
Just replace communist with terrorist and ask your self a
Re:Here's a scenario for you (Score:3, Insightful)
You have a very active imagination there. Maybe they took a couple of whacks at your kids with a nightstick while they're at it? Afterall, that 6 year old looked like he was going for a gun. You know what would really happen? The guys woul
Re:Here's a scenario for you (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm afraid you're the one with the active imagination, and your head firmly in teh sand.
I'm guessing you have never heard what your government did to Maher Arar, a Canadian citizen born in Syria, a software developer who consulted with Mathworks, who was arrested, illegally detained and shipped off to Syria for torture at the behest of the American Government: [villagevoice.com]
I know, I know... why bother to stand up for this guy? After all, he's a friend of a criminal, right? Except that he was an acquaintance, not a friend, and the other guy wasn't a criminal. But then, he's a foreigner, and you're not a foreigner, so you have nothing to worry about.
Just don't wonder why there is no one left to stand up when they finally come for you...
Parent
dont believe the govt stats (Score:3, Informative)
Shadow Govt statistics
I don't think you know what you're talking about. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Get a grip, people (Score:4, Insightful)
The difference is that you can choose to give up the information they request. I've made a decision to allow these organizations access to certain pieces of information about myself.
I did not elect to give my government my telephone records.
I really fail to see the harm.
There's no harm in not following the rules? Do you really want a government that doesn't feel that the laws put in place are important? That the rule of law isn't important?
Interestingly enough, when the AG of the US was asked why he didn't just work with Congress to change the law, his answer was "because we believe they will refuse to change the laws". There is actually a reason why government is required to abide by the law, and that's to protect the citizenry from government intrusion. Remember that thing called the "bill of rights"? It was intended that the people - not the government - ultimately decide what they want.
When the government refuses to follow its own rules and laws, everone is harmed.
Bill Maher joked on Real Time last night that "Osama Bin Laden needs to find a new reason to hate us - he used to hate us for our freedom." While Maher was joking, he was making a very poignant point: If we give up our freedoms, the terrorists win.
The complaint isn't that the government isn't doing enough; it's that the administration is breaking the laws that are in place. They can perfectly well do the exact same thing by following the rules - get a subpoena for the records; get a FISA court to approve the wiretaps. They refuse to do that, and then play the "if you don't let us do this, the terrorists win". NO! If we *DO* let the government do this, the terrorists win!
Parent