General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsImagine Obama Looking in Your Mailbox Every Day, and Writing Down Every Letter You Send and Receive.
That is what he is doing with our phone calls.
It is a clear violation of the Fourth Amendment.
It is also rather perverse and twisted.
Buzz Clik
(38,437 posts)Actually, I wouldn't mind. There are some red wasps that try to set up shop in my mail box. I could leave some Raid next to the box for Obama to help me kill the damned things.
grahamhgreen
(15,741 posts)Buzz Clik
(38,437 posts)... is of zero importance. I do not find it creepy or strange or a violation of my rights.
grahamhgreen
(15,741 posts)Buzz Clik
(38,437 posts)I don't care. Read the outside of my envelopes. Knock yourself out. Follow my driving habits.
Rincewind
(1,205 posts)your phone records don't belong to you, they belong to the phone company. And the NSA had, and probably still has a warrant. It may be wrong, it may be unethical, but until the Supreme Court rules otherwise, it's not unconstitutional.
RC
(25,592 posts)It does not matter who those records belong to, the US government does not have a right to them without due process. Where is the due process with this wides ranging hoovering of all internet and phone information?
After reading the Preamble, you might want to skip down to the First 10 Amendments. The 2nd may not apply as much, but the 1st, 4th, 6th, 8th, 9th and 10th. most surely do.
I cam post them if you wish.
And an aside, because of the Supreme Courts recent bad decision, Article XV (15) How does that decision square with the Constitution?
NoOneMan
(4,795 posts)Do you have a clue?
Do you realize that these algorithms are currently already being used to net billions of dollars of revenue by identifying future buyers and future investors? Its not science-fiction and its very effectively used in the private sector. Do you realize that all metadata collected in the past can be retroactively analyzed to determine likely, potential and future ______ for any new, pertinent reason for any new powerful user?
These algorithms can be used to segment the population based on predicted personality types and likelihood to vote for a candidate, protest a candidate, bomb a candidate, etc... (so you can be suppressed, silenced, or removed before a threat is explicit).
What might not be a crime today may be a crime tomorrow. A person who may not be a criminal tomorrow may be determined (based on metadata analysis) to be a a potential criminal next week.
The reality is, that if I am ever forced by a tyrannical state to become a dissident, I would like to preserve my ability to effectively be so insofar as I was fighting for the people. Any argument against such protection is an argument in favor of the most tyrannical government one could envision, and thus, one I wish to be able to effectively fight against. But I guess, "it can't happen here" (yet it already is underway). Kill lists, spying, rendition, war..... and thats with Obama reading your mail. Wait for some redneck asshole replacement to pick up his notes and carry on.
But hell, why do you care about your mail, email and phone calls since you aren't committing a crime today? I guess you will trust those algorithms to never determine that you or any other innocent (or just) person could ever be a threat to whatever regime may or may not be in power in the future. Just the baddies, eh?
Buzz Clik
(38,437 posts)NoOneMan
(4,795 posts)(forgive the double-negative)
In any case, your approach to bury your head in the sand isn't new, witty or remotely interesting enough to warrant an OP. You ignore because you can. So fuckn what? I shit because I have to. Yay.
Buzz Clik
(38,437 posts)...falls way below abuse and atrocity levels.
You wanna see the bullshit in my box today? I would be happy to scan them and post them here.
NoOneMan
(4,795 posts)(but you don't seem to care enough to take the time to understand it)
But if this data collected today is ever used as nefariously as it could easily be by assholes who will be elected to such a point that you would care, you would not be likely to build a time-machine to go back and fix the situation. How about that human discount factor?
Of course, you don't seem to care enough to understand what it potentially can be used for, but surely you must understand what assholes will eventually be sifting through your personal behavioral patterns & associations (for reasons yet to be determined). But if you don't care enough to learn about this, then surely you won't care enough to find this as abusive at all.
And to be honest, there are plenty of reasons that plenty of people have not cared about an abuse and atrocity enough to even learn about that abuse or attrocity, so that they never in fact classified it as an abuse or atrocity. Willful ignorance.
You can continue to diminish this as much as you want but as long as you "dont care" about its details, its potential, how it works, etc, you are in no position to determine how it rates in terms of an abuse or atrocity. You simply do not care.
Buzz Clik
(38,437 posts)If somebody really wanted to fuck with me, they'd be better off using the crap I post here at DU than wasting their time with my mail.
Do I understand that CERTAIN kinds of information can be horribly, horribly abused? Yeah, I get it. Do you understand I never left the context of the OP, nor will I, in my responses to you?
We're talking about mail -- letters, magazines, and general shit. I just don't care.
NoOneMan
(4,795 posts)No reason to care eh? How about caring for your neighbor who actually uses their mail?
Im not paranoid. I simply understand the fact what everything collected today will be used tomorrow by an algorithm yet to be written for a crime that may not yet exist on the orders of an asshole not yet in power. BTW, Im also an international person and a computer scientist who does this stuff for a living from time to time...I'm fully aware of the realities of metadata collection and analysis.
Buzz Clik
(38,437 posts)I'm not.
Can we agree on that?
If not, forget it. This lost it's zing about 5 hours ago.
NoOneMan
(4,795 posts)Look, I understand because I care enough to and because I am educated & experienced enough with the subject. If I lived in the USA, I'd care enough to be fearful of the future. I don't. So I merely understand both the program and why people should be outraged (and even scared).
And I get it...you don't care. You will get the government you deserve. In fact, you already are getting it.
Buzz Clik
(38,437 posts)Too bad the rest of us are getting it, too.
OilemFirchen
(7,143 posts)two phone numbers, a date, time and duration can predict future criminals?
Holy hell.
I'd love to see that algorithm.
NoOneMan
(4,795 posts)Its not about a single instance of data (a single phone call), but an entire collection of data that forms patterns that predict behavior (or defines segments). When this data can be cross-referenced with other data sets (email destinations or tld lookups) it can increase its usefulness exponentially.
OilemFirchen
(7,143 posts)The OP is, one could only presume, making a comparison between the NSA collection of metadata and what's printed on the envelopes in your mailbox. They are similar, in a confusing muddle of a way, except that your envelope data likely contains even more than your telephone data - specifically, and usually, a name. The collected phone data is an outbound number, an inbound number, the date, time and duration of the call. They have no idea who the caller was, they have no idea who the answerer was. They don't even know if humans were involved in the exchange.
While it's true that, once a phone number is targeted for surveillance, some intelligence may be gleaned from patterns associated with that number, and that that intelligence may result in a warrant for further surveillance, random numbers form no "patterns" whatsoever.
NoOneMan
(4,795 posts)It is to characterize the collection of metadata as absolutely benign and insignificant, especially if their trusted, chosen leader is doing the collection. So I'm not conflating anything in my opinion, and not really addressing the direct obfuscating bullshit
OilemFirchen
(7,143 posts)Here's the OP, in the event that you're too fucking lazy to look up^^^.
Imagine Obama Looking in Your Mailbox Every Day, and Writing Down Every Letter You Send and Receive.
That is what he is doing with our phone calls.
It is a clear violation of the Fourth Amendment.
It is also rather perverse and twisted.
NoOneMan
(4,795 posts)Im all jumbled up. OP was trying to create a tangible example and the person Im responding to wrote it off like its no big deal.
Its not about a letter. A phone call. Or the current president. Even today's current laws. We must only be ok with the mass collection (and cross-referencing) of all our data in order to profile and segment us in under any possible president with any conceivable laws that may be passed in the future. If you are totally ok with the idea, fine.
This isn't necessarily an issue you can boil down to a single event at a single time. All events collected over a long span of time can will be used in the future. Its either ok under all circumstances or none at all
treestar
(82,383 posts)Oh right, they never did. The panic on that should be much greater.
Hekate
(90,829 posts)They have algorithmed me up the wazoo.
Big Brother is a Corporation and I have known that for a couple of decades now. I try to limit my interactions in certain arenas to protect what is left of my privacy, but the rest of the country just wants their shiny new electronic toys that track their every move and their every purchase.
All your information are belong to us: The Phone Company. We care so we share: Your Happy Credit Card Company.
I surely do want the government to rein in the Corporations, but the SCOTUS has said that Corporations are people, my friend. So I'm not holding my breath.
I surely do want the government to rein in its spying apparatus at home, but that will take a Democratic House, Senate, and President to even have a prayer. But so many people here say that there's no difference between the Dems and the Pubs, so I am not holding my breath for that, either.
Oh -- and Obama is not reading your mail. The intern does that.
WilliamPitt
(58,179 posts)Straight out of central casting, you are.
Buzz Clik
(38,437 posts)Wanna know about caricatures? I could give you 20 links in a heartbeat from your "fan club" who think you are the biggest dipshit to ever draw a breath. "Derp" would be a compliment by comparison. Personally, I think we all have the right to express ourselves freely without being fed the kind of shit you just dished up. So, unless you really want to go there, I really suggest you back the fuck up.
WilliamPitt
(58,179 posts)Feel free. You just parroted the "I have nothing to hide, so why worry" talking point that dominated the first decade of this century. I'd tell you that you should be ashamed of yourself, but I get the definite sense that you have no shame.
So fire away, giggles. I was here before you. I'll be here when you're gone.
Buzz Clik
(38,437 posts)No predictions today?
Wanna borrow a shovel with a longer handle? That hole is might deep.
WilliamPitt
(58,179 posts)in a heartbeat.
P.S. Type slower.
Buzz Clik
(38,437 posts)You aren't worth the hassle, but I do admire your obsessive compulsive behavior.
Do this: run a search with your name and the vulgar aphorism for sphincter. Follow the links. As if you didn't know...
WilliamPitt
(58,179 posts)Par for the course.
WilliamPitt
(58,179 posts)MNBrewer
(8,462 posts)WilliamPitt
(58,179 posts)WilliamPitt
(58,179 posts)WilliamPitt
(58,179 posts)RILib
(862 posts)Call the police and tell them Obama is reading your mail.
Record the call, okay?
MNBrewer
(8,462 posts)Imagine President Bachman doing it!
or President Cruz
or President Bush III
or President Christy
or President Huckabee
Buzz Clik
(38,437 posts)Anyone and everyone is welcome to read the envelopes in my mailbox. Any president, any time. You can. Invite your friends.
MNBrewer
(8,462 posts)you no longer have the right to remain silent.
Buzz Clik
(38,437 posts)MNBrewer
(8,462 posts)Buzz Clik
(38,437 posts)Yep. Tonight in all likelihood.
It's not like you didn't warn me.
MNBrewer
(8,462 posts)enjoy your police state
Buzz Clik
(38,437 posts)We're playing fantasy land with you as the dungeon master, and you just had me killed.
Shit happens.
MNBrewer
(8,462 posts)You embrace it, you buy it.
Buzz Clik
(38,437 posts)As if.
DisgustipatedinCA
(12,530 posts)But authoritarian governments just love a guy like you.
Buzz Clik
(38,437 posts)We're talking ONLY about someone looking at the outside of envelopes coming and going from my home. That's it.
Not tapping my phone, harvesting emails, gathering wireless communication information. Just my mail.
Ever have a neighbor's mail delivered to your residence by accident? Did you have the mail carrier arrested? Did you lose sleep wondering if your neighbor inadvertently glanced at the return address of the envelope?
The OP presents the most benign, ridiculous non-eventful scenario imaginable. Yet, DUers are acting as if Obama were personally murdering members of their family. And anyone not properly OUTRAGED!!!11 is "craven."
grahamhgreen
(15,741 posts)Buzz Clik
(38,437 posts)grahamhgreen
(15,741 posts)without probable cause and a warrant.
MNBrewer
(8,462 posts)Buzz Clik
(38,437 posts)MNBrewer
(8,462 posts)Seriously???
Buzz Clik
(38,437 posts)Sorry for the confusion.
krispos42
(49,445 posts)Your teenagers can't hold that information indefinitely.
Your teenagers can't build a database about you for years, then decide in 2019 to go back and read the mail they recorded the presence of in 2013.
Your teenagers can't arrest you on trumped-up charges when you become a political liability.
Your teenagers can't make you spends tens of thousands of dollars on a lawyer against those trumped-up charges.
Your teenagers can't use the trumped-up charges as an excuse to go through EVERYTHING in your house.
Your teenagers can't use the trumped-up charges to seize your computers and iNouns and paw through them.
Your teenagers can't refer any illegally downloaded copyrighted files to the RIAA for civil action.
Your teenagers can't make you lose your job due to being in jail.
Your teenagers can't go to your boss with some of the interesting mail HE'S received and suggest your boss downsize you.
Your teenagers can't make you post hundreds of thousands of dollars in a bail bond.
Your teenagers can't label you in the public record as a "suspected terrorist" or "terrorist sympathizer".
Buzz Clik
(38,437 posts)The hysteria at DU is at record pitch.
krispos42
(49,445 posts)I mean, only if somebody steps out of line, of course. Gets a little to involved in OWS. Runs for office. Decides to become a whistleblower. Does some inconvenient investigative reporting.
Or are you going to really say that if you piss off Boeing or Exxon-Mobile or Lockheed-Martin enough, they don't have the influence to get the Feds to start harassing you?
Remember to control people, you need to scare them. The Federal government doesn't have to harass YOU, particularly, in order to make the general public more complacent. A few examples keeps the rest in line.
Just ask Manning or Snowden.
Buzz Clik
(38,437 posts)It feels like I'm being lectured by Ron Paul or members of the Tea Party. "The government is out of control! Welcome to 1984! We're in a police state!" Only, at DU we dress up that paranoia with a hatred of all corporations.
It is surreal.
krispos42
(49,445 posts)...operates autonomously. Hundreds of thousands of people doing their jobs daily, in their own little circles of responsibility and power and authority.
It's not the routine stuff that I worry about. It's when a senior official makes a specific decision to go after a specific individual.
Once the tools to do this become commonplace and easy to use, it is inevitable that use of those tools will become commonplace.
Even as an investigative tool.
I can easily envision the FBI, in the course of some investigation when they come across a person that refuses to cooperate, using this information to blackmail that person because the FBI knows that the person is having an affair, for example. Or has massive gambling debts. Or is an abused spouse in hiding, and wouldn't it be a damn shame if your violent ex found your new identity?
NoPasaran
(17,291 posts)NightWatcher
(39,343 posts)All those $5 off coupons could be used to pay down the debt I guess.
Buzz Clik
(38,437 posts)Do you have any idea how many flavors of coffee and cocoa for Keurig cups they have? And I'm paying FULL PRICE.
randome
(34,845 posts)Because Snowden told you what to think?
[hr]
[font color="blue"][center]I'm always right. When I'm wrong I admit it.
So then I'm right about being wrong.[/center][/font]
[hr]
grahamhgreen
(15,741 posts)randome
(34,845 posts)All we have to go on is what Snowden says and he has offered no evidence.
[hr]
[font color="blue"][center]I'm always right. When I'm wrong I admit it.
So then I'm right about being wrong.[/center][/font]
[hr]
grahamhgreen
(15,741 posts)OilemFirchen
(7,143 posts)Please be a dear, m'kay?
emulatorloo
(44,187 posts)nor does hyperbolic "summary"
nor half truths or cherry picked "facts"
gcomeau
(5,764 posts)WestStar
(202 posts)So imagine that.
PoliticAverse
(26,366 posts)Cleita
(75,480 posts)That's all he needs to know what I'm thinking.
KittyWampus
(55,894 posts)oen of those things where it's only funny cause it's so sadly true.
OilemFirchen
(7,143 posts)Could that be why he's not responding?
Cleita
(75,480 posts)I'm dying laughing. Email boxes are often referred to as mail boxes. I thought referencing email would make that plain to anyone reading my post which box I was talking about. He has answered once and he gave me a bunch of double speak and never answered the question I was asking which was why he was putting chained CPI on the table at the expense of some of the poorest people in this country, those getting Social Security. He hasn't answered me since then.
otohara
(24,135 posts)nor do the Senators, Congress folk.
Cleita
(75,480 posts)the unwashed masses of the past. I'm sure that's what they think we are.
Response to grahamhgreen (Original post)
Name removed Message auto-removed
randome
(34,845 posts)This is the state of 'protest' in America today. "By God, I will fight to the death to free my metadata!"
[hr]
[font color="blue"][center]I'm always right. When I'm wrong I admit it.
So then I'm right about being wrong.[/center][/font]
[hr]
nadinbrzezinski
(154,021 posts)Response to nadinbrzezinski (Reply #19)
Name removed Message auto-removed
Hosnon
(7,800 posts)It's unconstitutional whether it is abused or not.
And I don't want to cross my fingers that it won't be abused. Imagine Karl Rove with all that info...
Skidmore
(37,364 posts)don't think Rove didn't get his cloven hooves on some of it then.
frylock
(34,825 posts)Skidmore
(37,364 posts)Where did you get that notion from my reminder of the fact that this activity was devised and implemented under the Bush administration?
frylock
(34,825 posts)you were here during bush's reign of terror. certainly you recall the prevailing attitude back then?
Skidmore
(37,364 posts)appear to think that this NSA issue has just sprung fully formed from the forehead of Zeus.
Hosnon
(7,800 posts)Uncle Joe
(58,426 posts)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McCarthyism
There were also more subtle forces encouraging the rise of McCarthyism. It had long been a practice of more conservative politicians to refer to progressive reforms such as child labor laws and women's suffrage as "Communist" or "Red plots."[7] This tendency increased in the 1930s in reaction to the New Deal policies of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Many conservatives equated the New Deal with socialism or Communism, and saw its policies as evidence that the government had been heavily influenced by Communist policy-makers in the Roosevelt administration.[8] In general, the vaguely defined danger of "Communist influence" was a more common theme in the rhetoric of anti-Communist politicians than was espionage or any other specific activity.
(snip)
In Many Are the Crimes: McCarthyism in America, historian Ellen Schrecker calls the FBI "the single most important component of the anti-communist crusade" and writes: "Had observers known in the 1950s what they have learned since the 1970s, when the Freedom of Information Act opened the Bureau's files, 'McCarthyism' would probably be called 'Hooverism.'"[18] FBI director J. Edgar Hoover was one of the nation's most fervent anti-communists, and one of the most powerful.
Hoover designed President Truman's loyalty-security program, and its background investigations of employees were carried out by FBI agents. This was a major assignment that led to the number of agents in the Bureau being increased from 3,559 in 1946 to 7,029 in 1952. Hoover's extreme sense of the Communist threat and the politically conservative standards of evidence applied by his bureau resulted in thousands of government workers losing their jobs. Due to Hoover's insistence upon keeping the identity of his informers secret, most subjects of loyalty-security reviews were not allowed to cross-examine or know the identities of those who accused them. In many cases they were not even told what they were accused of.[19]
Hoover's influence extended beyond federal government employees and beyond the loyalty-security programs. The records of loyalty review hearings and investigations were supposed to be confidential, but Hoover routinely gave evidence from them to congressional committees such as HUAC.[20]
From 1951 to 1955, the FBI operated a secret "Responsibilities Program" that distributed anonymous documents with evidence from FBI files of Communist affiliations on the part of teachers, lawyers, and others. Many people accused in these "blind memoranda" were fired without any further process.[21]
The FBI engaged in a number of illegal practices in its pursuit of information on Communists, including burglaries, opening mail and illegal wiretaps.[22] The members of the left-wing National Lawyers Guild were among the few attorneys who were willing to defend clients in communist-related cases, and this made the NLG a particular target of Hoover's. The office of this organization was burgled by the FBI at least fourteen times between 1947 and 1951.[23]
There is much more on the link if you or anyone else that believes this is harmless care to read it.
musiclawyer
(2,335 posts)Running 24/7. Government says they can't look at the video without a warrant and the third party contractors say they can't look at it or else they committ a crime.
Oh and your defense attorney can never know if the warrant was based on bullshit grounds and congress can't audit whether the contractors break the law or not. Yeah. .... So you are all good with that eh?
Seizure before search. Brilliant! Dick Cheney like a lot.....
grahamhgreen
(15,741 posts)longship
(40,416 posts)Nobody likes what the NSA is doing, but the President is not looking into my mailbox, let alone writing everything down.
This post is hyperbole, the only intent is to inflame the rhetoric here at DU.
I refuse to bite on the bait other than to point out that I see both the hook and the bait.
I would prefer having informed, rational discussions here. This is nothing other than an attempt to fan flames here.
grahamhgreen
(15,741 posts)communications?
Why?
longship
(40,416 posts)Look, I like many of your posts here. But this thread is not one of them.
And no!!! I do not support this NSA spying.
But hyperbole is not going to get what we all want done, to stop it!!!
I firmly believe in rational discussion. Hyperbole and straw men get us no where. It opens your argument to ridicule, which from the responses to this OP should make obvious to you.
I suggest a different tact.
As always, I appreciate your response.
OilemFirchen
(7,143 posts)Damn tootin'.
I had to chase four Secret Service agents off my porch just two hours ago. Plus, the Presidential Limo was blocking my driveway.
Cursed Stasi vermin!
Silent3
(15,280 posts)You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
treestar
(82,383 posts)Flamers are never satisfied, it seems, must be like heroin.
longship
(40,416 posts)I usually ignore these. But there are apparently many more people who seem to be intent on throwing chairs into the room rather than making reasonable, thoughtful discussion.
Some are long time DUers for whom I am rather rapidly losing respect.
Regardless, nobody is on my Ignore list and I rarely Alert. But I reserve the right to call posts out which have a clear intent to initiate yet another chair throwing thread.
They make DU suck sometimes.
Thank you for your response.
Uncle Joe
(58,426 posts)Richard Nixon, etc. etc. etc. etc. doing so.
I agree it is a violation of the Fourth Amendment, basically criminalizing all of the American People, pushing us one step closer to being suspect.
Combined with for profit prisons ability to bribe/lobby politicians to encourage the passage of more draconian laws, punitive sentencing and this will be a growing disaster for our nation.
Thanks for the thread, grahamhgreen.
Democracyinkind
(4,015 posts)Although it's not evil Obama doing it.
Considering the studies done on the effectiveness of collecting significant amounts of meta-data and content in Europe, the whole project is a farce anyway. But maybe my example does prove that such programs - even if futile - can be made compatible with the rule of law. I certainly trust these govs more with this kind of info than I would the American securiy apparatus.
Tarheel_Dem
(31,241 posts)This is how you know your argument's beginning to lose its punch!
TRY HARDER!!!!
randome
(34,845 posts)Get real.
[hr]
[font color="blue"][center]I'm always right. When I'm wrong I admit it.
So then I'm right about being wrong.[/center][/font]
[hr]
Tarheel_Dem
(31,241 posts)I love Mailman Mike! I wish Obama would teach my "US" postman the difference between a "9" & a "7". I'm so damned tired of getting my neighbor's mail.
JI7
(89,276 posts)Hekate
(90,829 posts)I am shocked and appalled. We're too important for them to put an intern on the DU case.
phleshdef
(11,936 posts)First off, if you were to make an accurate comparison, you would say that the government is keeping tabs on every piece of mail sent, the sender, the receiver and the date it was sent/received without actually looking at the mail. Secondly, the USPS basically already does so that as they, to my knowledge, scan an image of the outside of everything that gets mailed.
magellan
(13,257 posts)...it's more like the USPS opening every piece of mail and scanning and storing the content (without looking at it), on top of scanning an image of the outer envelope.
phleshdef
(11,936 posts)So my response was in regard to that.
I won't even get into the email stuff because we still don't know enough about the extent of the internet surveillance. There is no factual evidence that has been presented that proves the government is storing my email on its own servers. And aside from that, I've always known that all my email is stored on a server and server backups owned by a private company. Its always been that way.
Response to phleshdef (Reply #14)
magellan This message was self-deleted by its author.
grahamhgreen
(15,741 posts)to deliver the mail, not to collect, collate, and archive metadata on my private communications.
Hekate
(90,829 posts)Response to grahamhgreen (Original post)
devilgrrl This message was self-deleted by its author.
Historic NY
(37,453 posts)then he'd find the bastards that ignore the "do not call list".
The Straight Story
(48,121 posts)We citizens hate and fear one another.
We think we are all terrorists (and don't mention gun owners, they are all crazy killers, all 57 million of em). We put up with not being able to take water onto a plane and seeing our loved ones off to the gate like we used too.
Day in and out we are finding new ways we want the government to protect us from others - wanna go to a bar with friends and have a drink and a smoke? Nope, we don't like that choice - protect us so we don't have to decide which bars allow something.
Ban kids from playing cops and robbers at school, they might make their finger into a gun.
What we need is more fear of each other and more restrictions to keep us safe. Oh...and more wars! I still know people who freak out if Iran has a small ship anywhere within 500 miles of the US.
Here, government, take my emails and listen to my calls. Save me from my neighbors and others. Keep me safe.
Just don't do anything real about single payer, poverty, the wealthy screwing us and robbing us - cause those things aren't as much a threat to us as my nephew who skeet shoots or my friends who fly with hand lotion.
avaistheone1
(14,626 posts)grahamhgreen
(15,741 posts)Coyotl
(15,262 posts)randome
(34,845 posts)[hr]
[font color="blue"][center]I'm always right. When I'm wrong I admit it.
So then I'm right about being wrong.[/center][/font]
[hr]
Politicalboi
(15,189 posts)Your mail must be good. Get them some...
<a href="http://imgur.com/FJSa8mB"><img src="" title="Hosted by imgur.com"/></a>
JoePhilly
(27,787 posts)ksoze
(2,068 posts)frazzled
(18,402 posts)No, really. I can't believe you have in your head an image of the government listening in on every single phone call we make.
I talk to my sister for at least an hour every morning (we live far across the country from one another, are early risers, and like to keep in touch before we start our days). I imagine that millions of other women make such calls on a daily basis to their sisters, or mothers or children. There are 300,000,000 people in the United States, each making multiple phone calls daily.
Do you imagine in your wildest dreams there is enough manpower -- or interest -- in monitoring maybe a billion calls a day? Lasting for several billions of hours each day?
You may argue, "well, they're keeping logs of them to view later." No, those logs contain no content. They're just lists of "to's" and "from's." If some suspicious connections should ever arise, the government has to go and seek an INDIVIDUAL court warrant to tap a phone, with probable cause ... related to potential terrorism only.
I can't figure the kind of paranoia (and at the same time, narcissism) one must have to imagine that the government is actually listening to your boring phone calls.
snooper2
(30,151 posts)Every protocol, every packet over the public Internet,
Every corporate VPN
Every PSTN call-
Every TLS encrypted SIP call
Every packet from every DDOS attack
every ICMP initiated
every video call
every debit/credit card transaction- POS transaction
Every YouTube video * Trillions-
Every single intercept message played (I'm sorry, but the number you dialed is not in service, please check the number and try again)
Every TCAP query
Every soft client registration attempt
Even the fucking smilies at the bottom of my post!
I tell you, it's fucking amazing
tridim
(45,358 posts)Hekate
(90,829 posts)Those cat eyes!
The Velveteen Ocelot
(115,869 posts)SidDithers
(44,228 posts)Sid
Tarheel_Dem
(31,241 posts)JoePhilly
(27,787 posts)pnwmom
(108,996 posts)bunnies
(15,859 posts)grahamhgreen
(15,741 posts)bunnies
(15,859 posts)grahamhgreen
(15,741 posts)bunnies
(15,859 posts)I dont know what to think anymore.
randome
(34,845 posts)[hr]
[font color="blue"][center]I'm always right. When I'm wrong I admit it.
So then I'm right about being wrong.[/center][/font]
[hr]
Pisces
(5,602 posts)for many and not the act.
Recursion
(56,582 posts)1. It's specifically not a violation of the 4th Amendment, but of statute (the Court has actually ruled on this)
2. You have to imagine a situation where they don't know that you own the mailbox without a warrant.
grahamhgreen
(15,741 posts)Liberal_Stalwart71
(20,450 posts)Buns_of_Fire
(17,197 posts)The local constabulary might be interested in them while looking for preverts. Jedgar Hoover might be interested in them for shopping.
grahamhgreen
(15,741 posts)krawhitham
(4,647 posts)treestar
(82,383 posts)sabrina 1
(62,325 posts)When the powerful government is doing it, it is even more creepy. Strangers, maybe in some foreign country since those Giant Security Corps have to outsource their work to maximize their profits, it is even creepier and even when you catch them, you can't stop them.
Strangers, tracking your every phone call, 'collecting and storing them' for possible later enjoym ... use! Isn't that a crime?
BlueToTheBone
(3,747 posts)KoKo
(84,711 posts)NO...it's only PARTY DIFFERENCES!
We EXPECTED AND VOTED FOR YEARS FOR BETTER! THIS SHIT IS WHAT WE'VE GOTTEN!
What are we gonna' DO about it?
Tell Me? We did what the best we coould do...and THIS is what we get?
Should we keep blaming REPUGS when our own DEM Party is complicit or compliant..(does it make a difference?)
Many here want to blame RW Repugs for EVERYTHING.... It's getting to be think gruel when the evidence IS that BOTH are selling us down the river....just that ONE PARTY seems to sell us DRIVIL about "Hope from Arkansas" or "Hope and Change" from Chicago.
Take your pick.
840high
(17,196 posts)NoOneMan
(4,795 posts)Who is in charge is actually irrelevant. Even the current "law of the land" is irrelevant. Today's data *will* be analyzed by the most nefarious imaginable programs in the most viable worst-case scenario in the future. Just because you aren't being flagged today for being a likely criminal does not mean what you are doing today will not get you flagged tomorrow.
Summer Hathaway
(2,770 posts)Those votes aren't going to just surpress themselves!
Tarheel_Dem
(31,241 posts)Summer Hathaway
(2,770 posts)Just got an ad here on DU for an "Obama should be impeached" click-through. It's a great day here on DemocraticUnderground, ain't it?
Tarheel_Dem
(31,241 posts)I wonder if it pays well?
Summer Hathaway
(2,770 posts)but the sheer volume of applicants has probably brought the pay scale down. And the quality of the work product seems to have suffered as a result.
Tarheel_Dem
(31,241 posts)Summer Hathaway
(2,770 posts)one employer is exactly the same as the other. So why bother choosing between them?
Tarheel_Dem
(31,241 posts)Summer Hathaway
(2,770 posts)There are those here who think DU represents the real world.
emulatorloo
(44,187 posts)As delusional as Freepers.
emulatorloo
(44,187 posts)But their gullible sycophants work for free.
Tarheel_Dem
(31,241 posts)leftosphere. If they're doing it for free, then they're even sadder than I thought.
Progressive dog
(6,920 posts)grahamhgreen
(15,741 posts)Progressive dog
(6,920 posts)based on limited evidence.
grahamhgreen
(15,741 posts)against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause"
Progressive dog
(6,920 posts)through all the new technologies the founders didn't have. Congress writes bills and there's a mechanism in the Constitution for turning them into laws. Once they become laws, over 200 years of precedent says that only the Supreme court can declare them unconstitutional.
I can read the Constitution, I'm just wondering who put you in charge.
grahamhgreen
(15,741 posts)Progressive dog
(6,920 posts)treestar
(82,383 posts)If he looked at the law, Obama will keep reading your letters until it has been established that the law he is operating under is invalid. The courts decide that, rather than your personal wishes.
marshall
(6,665 posts)The US Post Office takes a photo of every letter that passes through its hands. It would be a simple task to digitize the text from those photos and cross reference it with phone records. Throw in the census information for good measure and you've got a party detailed account of many many folks.
grahamhgreen
(15,741 posts)marshall
(6,665 posts)Wink, wink!
Liberal_in_LA
(44,397 posts)ucrdem
(15,512 posts)But that was just a movie.
madrchsod
(58,162 posts)that guy isn`t be paid enough to do what he does everyday of the week.
Trekologer
(997 posts)In Smith v. Maryland, the Supreme Court decided in 1979 that you have no expectation of privacy of the phone numbers you call.
Hekate
(90,829 posts)And he personally set up the program as soon as Baby Caligula left office, because it didn't exist before then.
YES the system is fubared.
But what is "perverse and twisted" is the way so many here seem to believe my above sarcastic comments as if they were the simple truth, when the truth is a lot more complicated than that, and if we continue to look for simple answers we will get nowhere.
I had a very sarcastic history professor in college, very bright as well, and she used to snarl at us: "Simple minds, simple answers."
Surely we can do better.
6000eliot
(5,643 posts)Real rights are being threatened while people focus their attentions on this crap.
sibelian
(7,804 posts)It isn't. It's some other bunch of guy that we don't really get to do anything about. That's the problem that so many defending Obama over surveillance don't seem to get....
still_one
(92,422 posts)still_one
(92,422 posts)baldguy
(36,649 posts)It's more like he's writing down the make, model, plate # & color of the cars going through an intersection. There's no way he can know which car belongs to which person. But, if there's a hit&run he can see where that particular car has been - and maybe catch the driver.