Verizon Ordered To Provide All Customer Data To NSA 609
Rick Zeman writes "According to Wired, an order by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court '...requires Verizon to give the NSA metadata on all calls within the U.S. and between the U.S. and foreign countries on an "ongoing, daily basis" for three months.' Unlike orders in years past, there's not even the pretense that one of the parties needed to be in a foreign country. It is unknown (but likely) that other carriers are under the same order."
Shocking! (Score:5, Insightful)
Second amandment (Score:3, Insightful)
If you ever argued that the second amandment is here to ensure you can protect yourself from opressive goverment, it is about time to stack up on ammo. I'd say its going to go down soon, but in case you haven't noticed, it all already went down.
Re:Shocking! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Second amandment (Score:5, Insightful)
The military has bigger guns, but the members of the military are citizens too. Asking the military to kill their friends and family and neighbors is not so simple a task as you might think.
Re:What would happen if they required names? (Score:5, Insightful)
What did you expect when laws are made by lawyers, a profession whose sole job description is to find technicalities and loopholes that either excuse behavior that citizens would find abhorrent, or criminalize behavior that citizens find acceptable. What we used to call "torture" and "eavesdropping" are now legal because they're not technically torture or eavesdropping. Videotaping a cop beating a citizen is technically eavesdropping in many states, however, and after you've dealt with the criminal charge, if the cop was singing "Stop Resisting" to the tune of "Happy Birthday", you're still civilly liable for copyright infringement.
"Whenever a controversial law is proposed, and its supporters, when confronted with an egregious abuse it would permit, use a phrase along the lines of 'Perhaps in theory, but the law would never be applied in that way' - they're lying. They intend to use the law that way as early and as often as possible."
- Meringuoid, http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=169254&cid=14107454 [slashdot.org]
It's almost like these technicalities were intended to be abused from the day they were introduced to the House floor.
Tip of the iceberg (Score:5, Insightful)
The Verizon data is the tip of the iceberg, this is a tiny leak, it only covers an FBI request, it doesn't cover the full data grab. Congressmen, Ron Wyden, Mark Udall etc., ex CIA, everyone keeps hinting at the extent of the data grab and people go into denial about it.
Other data being grabbed:
1. URLs visited, times and ip addresses (sniffed from the network intercepts put in in post 2001)
2. Email headers (right there in the pipe)
3. Linkage data, you sent the email from that iPad/Android tablet? Theres the link between IP address and email address (right there in the pipe).
4. Search data, https is no obstacle to a FISA warrant.
5. Billing records of the phone, the identity of the user of the phone, data linking to their email address etc.
6. Visa/Mastercard/Credit Card/Paypal/WesternUnion, ATM data,.....
7. Bank transactions, (and not just the SWIFT data the EU handed them), handed over under excuse of 'laundering'
8. Facebook, all visible data and all deleted data
9. What you said on slashdot, even as AC, including drafts
10. What you said on every public website on every blog, on everything linked to your ip address and in turn linked to your real id.
11. Every public'ly buyable database
12. Your voting preference (already well analysed for political parties)
13. Your IRS data
14. The contents of all email older than 6 months.
15. Add that to the Verizon data (where you are, who you called, when)
It's a zoo, you're in a cage and those creepy guys outside staring at you, they're your zoo keepers.
Be careful what you say, to whom, who you're with when you say it, re-read you emails with a jaundice eye, can it be misconstrued by a malicious actor?
Are you outside the USA? Do you think you're immune?! Have they got any lever on your elected politicians? Is he a puppet now?
Could you, or have you ever upset anyone with access to that surveillance data?
Have you ever expressed views that might cause you to be targetted by anyone with access to that surveillance data?
Have you expressed pro-gun views? Do you imagine every creep with access to your private data is pro-gun?
Have you expressed anti-gun views? Do you imagine every creep with access to your private data is anti-gun?
Have you expressed strong Republican views? Do you imagine every creep with access to your private data is Republican?
Have you expressed strong Democrat views? Do you imagine every creep with access to your private data is a Democrat?
The only safe views to hold in a surveillance state are bland views. Be grey, keep your head down, express no strong views. Do nothing of note have friends who do nothing of note.
Don't think, that just because you're doing nothing illegal, that you're safe.
Having an affair is not illegal, yet General Patraeus was outed by on FBI agent Fred Humphries as a favor to a friend!
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/holly-petraeus-scott-broadwell-silent-petraeus-scandal/story?id=17718793
And in retaliation his supporters outed General Allen for having an affair with the FBI agents friend, and leaked photos (taken from surveillance of his friend) of a picture of him shirtless he sent her.
Do you really think you've done nothing wrong? That you have nothing to hide?
I'm pretty sure your data contains enough to lose you your job, end your marriage, lose custody of your children.
But I'm a democrat.. (Score:5, Insightful)
After many years of travel and living in other countries, my political views shifted from right to left and I felt myself to a "liberal" democrat.
Like so many others, I was caught up in the whole "hope" for change with Mr. Obama.
One could say that regarding the police state, he is worse than nearly all who came before him, but I think that is missing the point. Democrat, Republican, I have come to the realization that it makes not difference at all. The system is simply designed to abuse.
The alphabet soup agencies do not care who is the present. After all, they will still be there after the President is long gone and the next fellow seeking ever greater powers replaces him.
So, does it really matter who you vote for?
I really doubt it. The folks who have enough cash to even register with voters are all part of the same socioeconomic class. Classes look out for their own, not for other classes.
I suspect things will get much, much worse before they ever get better. At least if history is any indication of the future.
Good luck citizens.
Which amendment would you like to lose today? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Don't worry (Score:3, Insightful)
You got nothing to hide citizen, right?
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Shocking! (Score:5, Insightful)
This seems unlikely to be a focused surveillance effort
Yeah, I think collecting logs of all calls made by 70+ million people for 3 months pretty much rules out "focused surveillance" ;)
Re:Which amendment would you like to lose today? (Score:5, Insightful)
Funny how there's such a huge passionate uproar about supposed loss of second amendement rights, but comparitively little concern about actual loss of fourth amendment rights...
Actually I make a very big deal about the second amendment because I care so much about the other amendments. The second is the last line of defense in the protection of the others. It is the only amendment that gives the people a physical recourse should the three branches of government fail to up hold the Constitution.
While were on the topic, the people that said they didn't want universal background checks because they feared a national registry could be constructed seem less like silly now, don't they?
Re:Which amendment would you like to lose today? (Score:5, Insightful)
Is this guy liberal enough for you?
143,364 similar FISA warrants (Score:5, Insightful)
http://epic.org/privacy/wiretap/stats/fisa_stats.html
Since 2004, when they started spying on Americans, there have been 143,364 FISA warrants, similar to this one, applying to Americans.
This is one warrant among 143364 similar warrants. 0.0006975% of the warrants.
It could easily be focused (Score:5, Insightful)
Like everyone else, I have no idea what they're doing, but no, it doesn't rule out focused surveillance. It could easily be a way to obscure who they're surveilling, so that Verizon, for example, has no way of knowing which customer they're interested in.
Say I'm a burglar, and I want to know when you're not home. When you're not home, is the best time to break into your house and take all your stuff.
One strategy is to stand outside your house, staring at it. You come out, we stare at each other for a few nervous seconds, and then you drive off. Aha, you're not home now. So I begin picking the lock on your door. The last thing I think, before you smash in the back of my head with a shovel, is how clever I was to make sure you had left. I was too fuckwitted to think you might be curious by our earlier staring encounter, and that you drove around the block, parked, and came to see WTF I was up to.
Another strategy is that I hang out at a major intersection, seemingly taking notice of every car that passes by. Little do you (or anyone else) know, yours was the one I was interested in. You don't it's it's suspicious at all, to drive by someone standing by the side of the road a mile from your house. That guy was just looking at all the cars going by. Not focused at all, huh? Then how come your house is the one I emptied that day?
If wired leaks a story about how Verizon was forwarding records about Dahamma to NSA, then you know they're watching you. If wired has a story about how Verizon is forwarding records about Dahamma plus a hundred million other people to the NSA, well shit, that wasn't about you. Nothing to be nervous about. They're not out to get you; they're out to get everyone.
Or maybe they're really out to get just you.
Re:Which amendment would you like to lose today? (Score:3, Insightful)
Actually I make a very big deal about the second amendment because I care so much about the other amendments. The second is the last line of defense in the protection of the others. It is the only amendment that gives the people a physical recourse should the three branches of government fail to up hold the Constitution.
I suspect that that's what the Founders had in mind when they wrote that amendment (though apparently nothing in the Federalist papers supports that notion).
Be that as it may, thinking that your buddies and your machineguns are going to overthrow the most powerful nation in the world is just delusional.
Presumably if you got enough people to participate, some "friendly" countries would offer to help you out with SAMs and RPGs, but that's just going to result in the unending-violence-for-naught that has become endemic in so many other places.
Better, IMO, to speak your mind about civil liberties, and hope that you and other likeminded individuals will eventually educate enough of the public to stop voting for whoever offers you the biggest tax break or wants to force your values on everyone else, and vote for someone who thinks of you as a citizen rather than a consumer/drudge born to keep the 1% fat and happy.
Re:Shocking! (Score:5, Insightful)
The only real surprise is that the NSA needs Verison to give it to them.
The true delusion (Score:4, Insightful)
thinking that your buddies and your machineguns are going to overthrow the most powerful nation in the world is just delusional.
Thinking that the professional military will be the ones trying to stop you when things become bad enough that the average U.S. citizen even considerings the attempt - that is the truest delusion.
We have a professional military made up of independent thinkers from all over the U.S. They are not robots, they are not trained to obey without question. If you ask them to start firing on home towns they are going to want to have a pretty clear reason why.
Citizens being armed just keeps everyone honest and is basically just like using a seat belt. You'll probably never need it, but if you need it you REALLY need it.
Solution is smaller government / reduced spending (Score:5, Insightful)
it is readily apparent that regardless of whichever political party you choose to vote for, all roads lead to the same end. The system will prevail.
Not if you consistently vote in people who aim for reduced spending and smaller government.
As you say, all roads lead to the same place. But a smaller government with a smaller budget can simply only do so much. The smaller the amount of money the government gets the less money there is to track everyone, store data on everyone, or funnel money back out of government to private citizens who helped elect people.
It truly is the ONLY way to limit the reduction of potential harm from the system.
Sorry, but that was a STUPID switch (Score:2, Insightful)
After many years of travel and living in other countries, my political views shifted from right to left and I felt myself to a "liberal" democrat.
After years of also traveling a lot abroad and also living abroad at times, I went exactly the opposite way. I was always libertarian but I shrank further away from Democrats. Well not exactly Democrats, but from Statists who want the state to exert control over all aspects of life - which currently is sadly equivalent to Democrat as essentially none of them do anything to block statist activity.
The thing is, going around any former Soviet run country and talking to people about how things were, you could see the Democrats heading this direction a mile away. The Republicans perhaps were overly militaristic but in a whole different way that was healthier for the people.
There's a great book that explains exactly what is happening here - Liberal Fascism [amazon.com]. Many people on Slashdot keep arguing liberals are not fascists but then when liberals take control we see actions that were unthinkable even from the worst actions of the non-Statists Republicans (and there ARE a number of Republicans who are also quite Statist, like McCain).
Re:Tip of the iceberg (Score:4, Insightful)
"No big deal. There are no storm troopers in the streets."
Only because they aren't needed. Fear is cheaper and it can be everywhere at once.
Re:143,364 similar FISA warrants (Score:5, Insightful)
If I was the one receiving such a letter, I can see three options for how to deal with it.
Complying with the letter without questioning is not an option, because I do not have the necessary knowledge to know if that would be legal, or to even tell if the letter was legitimate.
Re:Read the court order here, all 4 pages of it (Score:5, Insightful)
Apparently DHS can search laptops and phones based on "hunches" as well. [cbslocal.com]
I'm not a generally paranoid person, but damn it all to hell. You've got the DOJ and it appears members of the Obama administration targeting "enemies" and now you've got them on a run with them being able to do taps because of whatever they feel like. And people called Bush bad? This is right out of "how to create your own dictatorship." What's next? Said enemies start to disappear because they're not toeing the Obama line.
Re:Second amandment (Score:2, Insightful)
And what is it you think that will help with? Are you going to stand outside Congress and shoot them as they come out? Are you going to stand outside the Treasury and plug the public servants? Please tell us how the ammunition is going to protect anything except your ego.
Re:Shocking! (Score:4, Insightful)
Lose their job? If Obama's attitude to leaks - uncontrolled leaks, that is - is anything to go by, they're probably going to round up and execute every 10th Verizon employee or something. And loudly proclaim that it's constitutional and necessary for national security reasons which you can't be trusted to hear.
"I am troubled by the possibility that leak investigations may chill the investigative journalism that holds government accountable." -- Barack Obama, May 23, 2013
Re:Read the court order here, all 4 pages of it (Score:5, Insightful)
Apparently DHS can search laptops and phones based on "hunches" as well. [cbslocal.com]
I'm not a generally paranoid person, but damn it all to hell. You've got the DOJ and it appears members of the Obama administration targeting "enemies" and now you've got them on a run with them being able to do taps because of whatever they feel like. And people called Bush bad? This is right out of "how to create your own dictatorship." What's next? Said enemies start to disappear because they're not toeing the Obama line.
Aided and abetted by resources made available by the Bush Administration.
This is why rabid partisans - among others - should be careful what they wish for. They may get it, only to discover that it ends up in the hands of the other side.
But no matter which side holds them, we all lose.
Re:Shocking! (Score:5, Insightful)
Verizon already collects all this data. Is that unconstitutional? Verizon is probably only upset about this because they normally SELL this data and the gov't is forcing them to hand it over for free. That's the real outrage here. The NSA should pay for it just like everyone else.
Re:Shocking! (Score:4, Insightful)
Normally Verizon sells this data, so the only thing the gov't is doing here is forcing them to hand it over for free. The NSA can't pay for it like everyone else because of the sequester.
Re:Solution is smaller government / reduced spendi (Score:5, Insightful)
"Not if you consistently vote in people who aim for reduced spending and smaller government."
I've seen a lot of mouthy political bullshit along these lines, but no actual politicians who are interested in implementing it (lots and lots of politicians who want to reduce spending in areas they don't like, while increasing it for areas they do, however).
Re:Tip of the iceberg (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm fucked aren't I?
You think you're in trouble? I've been running my yap online since I was fifteen years old. At this point there's no sense in even closing it, that would probably look more suspicious than continuing to rant. "Wait, what is he planning?" Probably a fucking nap, but don't tell these spooks that. They'll think I'm dreaming something up.
Re:Read the court order here, all 4 pages of it (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Which amendment would you like to lose today? (Score:5, Insightful)
"USA military is by far the strongest military in the world"
And look how bogged down it got against peasants and farmers in Vietnam, Afghanistan, etc.
Your argument is amusing.
Re:Read the court order here, all 4 pages of it (Score:5, Insightful)
I kept saying just this when Bush supporters called him expanding the powers of the Executive Office "needed" and "the right thing to do." I would always ask two questions:
1) Would you be ok with someone from the opposing party to be President with those powers? I'd usually use Hillary Clinton in this question because, at the time, she seemed to be the Democratic front runner and the name Clinton is a trigger word for many Republicans.
2) How could a future President abuse these powers? Even assuming Bush or his successor didn't abuse them, it would only be a matter of time before someone did. That's why we need plenty of checks and balances. To keep one person/branch of government from getting too powerful.
Re:Read the court order here, all 4 pages of it (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not a generally paranoid person, but damn it all to hell. You've got the DOJ and it appears members of the Obama administration targeting "enemies" and now you've got them on a run with them being able to do taps because of whatever they feel like. And people called Bush bad? This is right out of "how to create your own dictatorship." What's next? Said enemies start to disappear because they're not toeing the Obama line.
And are the Republicans in Congress busy applying checks and balances to stop this? No. But they are outraged about the IRS thing in Ohio. Outraged, I tell you.
Did the Democrats set a precedent for reigning in a President when Bush started pushing the surveillance beyond what was legal and Constitutional? Did they challenge the "Unitary Executive" concept? No.
Are the pure-as-driven-snow Paul boys out there putting their asses on the line to expose and stop this overreach? No.
I guess Ron Wyden occasionally makes a little peep, but you know, because of "national security" he's not at liberty to divulge what he knows. Bullshit. Oath to uphold the Constitution overrules that. Or not.
Will voting someone else in as President fix this? No, not if Congress isn't willing to keep them honest. We can't rely on some pinkie-swear by candidate-whoever to safeguard our Constitutional principles and not exceed their authority once they realize there's no penalty if they do. The division of government was supposed to prevent this kind of thing, because each branch would jealously guard their powers from the other two. This got broken.
The President -- and by that I mean whoever's in the office -- doesn't have "Enemies" in Congress to go after. They're all in on it. It's got more bi-partisan support than baseball and apple pie.
Re:Read the court order here, all 4 pages of it (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course! If Bush hadn't done this and that, then our glorious leader wouldn't have been led into temptation.
Remember kids, it's always Bush's fault. If you just remember that, you'll be OK.
Re:Read the court order here, all 4 pages of it (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Read the court order here, all 4 pages of it (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:But I'm a democrat.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Money has nothing to do with it. Money is the symptom. Power is the problem, specifically consolidation of power at the national level. Money follows power. We've allowed way too much power to be consolidated at the national level. Every single problem we're talking about here can be traced to that.
In theory we could ameliorate the problem by returning to the original intent of a federal government of limited and enumerated powers. In practice, I see no way for that to happen since ALL of the political actors involved want further consolidation not less. For special interests, it's way more efficient to lobby the federal government rather than 50 state governments. For federal politicians, consolidating power increases their ability to sell their power off to the special interests. Rank-and-file members of team red and team blue both want more power consolidated at the federal level to better push their respective ideological agendas (both of which are rooted in the idea that the hoi polloi can't be trusted to know what's good for them).
You can continue to rail against money in politics but until you address the disease instead of the symptom you're wasting our time and your breath.
Re:But I'm a democrat.. (Score:4, Insightful)
Your argument boils down to:
> The government is completely corrupt and owned by wealthy special interests.
> Therefore, we need to give the government additional powers so that they will be less corrupt.
That makes no sense. You can't eliminate corruption by expanding the power of the corrupt entity. You need to take power AWAY from that entity so that regardless of their corruption, the harm that they can inflict on the people is limited. The Founders understood this. If you have a small, decentralized government with a set of strictly limited powers, then even the WORST people you put in office can't do much damage.
For example, suppose the federal government was strictly limited to spending 10% of GDP. Could Bush have started 2 wars? Could the government have spent $1T bailing out Wall St. banks? Too much government power in too few hands is what enables the worst abuses.
Re:Read the court order here, all 4 pages of it (Score:5, Insightful)
(see my point?)
cutting taxes was treasonous, given how bad we were (and are), money-wise. but since his base is the powerful guys, he never had any fear of being punished.
great system we have here, huh?
No, I don't see your point. The economy was heading to a recession when Bush was elected. He lowered taxes to bring it back up. The next year, the economy wasn't falling, but was still flat, so he cut more taxes, and the economy improved. There are financial sites where you can make charts that plot the economy/GDP/taxes to see the effect.
If the real estate bubble hadn't popped in 2006, if it hadn't burst until 2008, Bush would have finished with a great economy and probably a budget surplus. That means that on the budget/taxes chart, the lines were converging quickly, and would have crossed. Unfortunately, that didn't happen that way, and Bush gets the blame for the collapse that he actually warned about, that his detractors said wouldn't happen.
Now, if you put Bush's method to grow the economy (which worked) against Obama's method (which have not worked (jobless recovery? what a fucking joke)), there is no question which one put more money into more American's (as in, the little guy's) pockets.
Re:Read the court order here, all 4 pages of it (Score:5, Insightful)
Bush, at least, did have the understandable problem that everyone was overreacting at the time, and that after 9/11, he needed to do what it took to prevent more attacks. Bear in mind, his problem was that everyone thought the government was asleep at the wheel and not cooperating, etc. The actions may have been wrong or overkill, but they were designed to solve a specific problem.
The thing with the Obama Administration is that they pledged to basically stop "being like Bush", specifically in terms of Gitmo, and other things. If they wanted to, they could have pushed to get the Patriot Act repealed. They didn't. And even if they couldn't have gotten it repealed legislatively... they didn't have to actually *use* those provisions.
So now, you have a group that campaigns against the Bush era Patriot Act on principle, but when they get into power, they not only don't get it repealed, they *use all of that power as much as they want*. So, the Obama Administration are either hypocrites, or they learned that their whole viewpoint on surveillance were incorrect and the Bush Administration was *right*.
Re:Which amendment would you like to lose today? (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm so tired of the stupid fucking argument that it's impossible for a lightly armed militia to fight the U.S. military because the military has drones, jet fighters, SAT intel, Abrams tanks, etc. History, even recent history, proves otherwise.
Look no further than AFGHANISTAN where a bunch of guys with rifles and improvised explosives have been fighting the world's most advanced military for 12 years!
No, not really. Claiming they've been fighting implies a level of equality in the battles. There was no such thing. They lost control of every city in less than a month - they got completely steamrolled by the US military. Utterly dominated. Now they have managed to *HIDE* for 12 years, yes. They've taken random potshots here and there with IEDs and the like, sure, but they haven't had any chance at regaining power or driving the US out.
Similarly the war in Pakistan, despite still "ongoing", was really finished quite quickly. And the Taliban lost 27,000 people in that war to the US's 98.
Recent history completely disagrees with you. A bunch of guys with rifles and IEDs don't have a snowball's chance in hell against the world's most advanced military when it comes to taking control or defending a point of interest (such as a city). A bunch of guys with rifles can definitely hide and being annoying for the world's most advanced military, but being annoying and being a threat are not even remotely close.
Re:Read the court order here, all 4 pages of it (Score:4, Insightful)
"The economy was heading to a recession when Bush was elected. He lowered taxes to bring it back up."
I remember when Bush (the second) was trying to push the tax cuts. The initial take was that there was going to be a big surplus. Bush's response was that we should cut taxes to return that money to the people. Then the economy turned down and the surplus evaporated. Bush's response was that we should cut taxes to stimulate the economy. What I took from this is that Bush's support for tax cuts had nothing to do with the state of the economy.