NSA Surveillance

Personally, I'm just not too worried about this. The National Security Agency (NSA) has been surveilling international phone calls for three or four decades. They use computerized filter technology (key words, phone numbers, etc) to let them monitor (voice) a small portion of those calls.

This particular situation appears limited to just the call logs, but, since they don't have the personnel to view the logs of even a tiny portion of the calls each day, they'll have to use filter technology to narrow that down as well. That process that will almost certainly drop me right off their radar. If they later decide to monitor actual calls (voice), they'd have to filter down that even more, which will darn sure finally exclude me.

 

im surprised this thread has not been shut down yet

 

I don't overly trust anybody. I just know the technology and know darn well they wouldn't waste that on me. Thus, while I'm opposed to this in principle, I'm not going to blow it out of proportion - talking about violations of my freedoms or whatever. I'm not any less free today than I was a month ago or a year ago.

 

Well, if they really are wasting that on me, they're really wasting it. There's nothing going on in my life at the moment that would be of any interest whatsoever to them.

Seriously, they simply don't have the capability or personnel to randomly target people for monitoring. Remember we're a country of 300+ million people, making perhaps a billion calls each day. To listen to even a tiny portion of those calls, they'd need tens of thousands of employees (which they don't have). Any monitoring would be very selective, with 99.9% of Americans (even some of the the most radical ones) not even on their radar.

 

Really ?? Hell I think its been pretty civil actually, it almost went that way early on.....





"If you're law abiding & have nothing to hide, you have nothing to worry about."

Theres 2 or 3 million Jews that would argue that if they could

 

Not sure there's much we can / could do about it but, I am a little shocked that so many people are okay with being watched (consider what the IRS has been doing...targeting people for a belief and stopping / hampering their ability to enjoy their rights) IMO, it's outside of the Constitution and I'm sure glad our founding fathers didn't have too many peopl with the same mind set of what most of those on this board seem to have...

 

Jews and...

We have people in this country being targeted as well. Hell, "Tea Party" people would say the IRS (government) was collecting their data and using it against them. I just don't get why people are okay (and trusting) of others to watch them rather or not they are guilty of anything.

Benjamin Franklin ~ They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.

 

Agreed, I think its an age thing mostly, & thats not a put down, actually I think my generation has failed the youth, when I was in school (up to jr. high anyway) Every morning we'd stand & say the pledge of allegiance & maybe sing "America the beautiful" or "Star spangled banner"

Today I'll bet most don't even know the words to any of them, kinda sad

 

No your generation did not fail us we failed as a nation to the vision our founding fathers set up and there is a way to fix it all if people are willing to give up their comfort for liberty

 

Good, I hate feeling guilty....

I guess I'm wondering at what point did we as a society become so disinterested in our founding roots, & probably there is no one single event, its like everything else, it happens incrementally, a little at a time..

& Thomas Jefferson said we needed to have a revolution every 12-15 years to keep liberty fresh, watered by the blood of patriots

 

Well I for one do not think we need a revolution just a reset of everything and some tweaking of the constitution

 

Agree, that is IMO not sure we need a revolution...yet. But, I don't see any need for tweaking of the Constitution. However, if certain laws are to be enacted I do believe amendments should be added or deleted...not just worked around (not that I feel that needs done, I just don't want the system/process side stepped). If we believe in the Constitution, our "rights" are not given by the Constitution as they are "God given inalienable rights" which IMO means those detailed are only noted so as to restrict the government from enacting laws that would interfere with those rights. Changing those would be a fundamental change in how our country and founders intended.

Not sure what parts of the Constitution you feel needs tweaking but, for example:

50 years ago guns were more available then they are now and they were not the problem then as they are not the problem now...it's IMO, the people and the way we think.

I really think the acceptence of the new norms regarding lack of respect for the Constitution stems from generational issues as well Doug. I don't blame the young and in fact don't really think they are even aware of what they are being cheated out of...I think the vast majority is caused though public and other places of "higher" education. Add on to that two working parents (who IS raising your kids?) and it's anyones guess how the young will turn out. Over the past 70 years or so we (as a county) have had a significant cultural shift. When kids are "programmed" from day 1 by people who don't care about them or people that tend to want to sway them in a certain direction (when they are being tought nothing different) they, the kids, aren't aware of what else may exist.

I come from a family that has always enjoyed shooting and hunting. I have family that were born, rasied and still live in Europe. When that part of the family visits, you would think shooting skeet is about like grabbing a high voltage transmission line. To them guns = death. It's just the way they've been programmed. I think our so called education system has in a way programmed, generation after generation, our kids the same way on too many topics.

 

Lets see

Fuck you

Did you get that NSA ?

 

I think the topic is interesting. The private sector has been doing this for years and are very good at data analysis. What's amazing is they don't need your name on documents or data sources to know what you make, how you spend your money, whether you travel, and so on. No one really knows the extent of what they do with data from credit card, loyalty card and things like Property tax records, DMV records, Census Bureau, pretty much anyone that will sell them information. A lot of that data is sold minus "identifying information" yet these companies are adept enough in their work that it doesn't matter whether you're directly identified as they can create a profile that is accurate without it. They can, and do, sell that information to others.

You can easily look up your neighbors property tax, look in his backyard using fairly recent satellite images, get an unlisted phone number and so on. Heck, even law enforcement can use data that is in the public domain to do their work.

The notion of privacy in this country is a fallacy and has been since people started using credit cards and since companies began amalgamating and selling data they collect.

However, to say "we don't listen to phone calls or take identifying information" is a bit disingenuous. Like data amalgamators, the government doesn't need identifying information to know who you are, what the conversation is about, who your circle of friends is or when your regular calling pattern deviates enough to warrant a closer look.

But personally, I don't believe you should worry as much about the government analyzing your telephone records as you should about the manner in which the data was originally collected (secretly) and the data you create in the public domain on a daily basis.

 

You're correct Ian about private industry collecting the data. Of course they have it in the small print and send us those neat little disclosure statements. But, they don't have the IRS to turn on you if they happen to not agree with your beliefs.

 

Not to single out Lost I enjoy his posts but, if he's not joking, this is exactly what our government relies on. I pretty much consider almost everything Lost is asking proof & links for common, well documented knowledge. And yet seemingly, some have no clue about what is and is going to happen to the affected by those that want to "help us".

 

You seriously don't think the data you put in the public domain could be used in a retaliatory way?

Example: You're applying for work. You've passed all the interviews and things are looking good up until your perspective employer runs a background check and it reveals you're a Toyota man and you don't get the job.

Example: You apply for health insurance. During the application process, you admit to drinking one or two drinks a week however the company finds regular credit card transactions at bars around your home town. Your application is rejected.

Example: The government has phone records but no names. A cross check of credit card data reveals a match for the number and the government has now found your name and address-the black helicopters begin to circle

The short version is every day you create data that can be used against you (and is) by other than the government.

 

I sure DO believe the private sector mines for, collects & uses data put out there rather or not it's deemed public or not. However, IMO there is a HUGE difference between public & private sector. Just as Chris does not provide freedom of speech on this site & he lets us know. I may not like it but, I don't have an issue with it. I don't own this site. It's not TW for the people by the people and it's data / info I choose to share.

IMO, OUR government should live within the Constitution it was put in place for reasons. Our government has proved it is not to be trusted. Our government has everything from the most private medical/financial/text/email/conversation/blog posts to allow someone analyst to decide if they like the way they think you think. It's a clear violation of the 4th A IMO. The more we give and overlook the more they want...what next?

And clearly the government doesn't trust the subject citizens or they wouldn't be spying on us. Why should we trust them?

 

6 million.

 

TW is a privately owned site but what you publish is public. This is the case with many forums. But my comments are not limited to forums. Every time you swipe a credit card or loyalty card, data is collected. You have no idea how that is shared. Every time you go to the doctor and your insurance company pays the bill, data is collected and again, you have no way of knowing how that data is shared-coincidentally, you very often give insurance companies permission to look at all of your health care records which means you may be sharing stuff you didn't intend to share.

As far as the constitution goes, there's nothing there that prevents the government from watching. And in fact, our elected representatives even passed legislation to allow for this additional collection to happen. So like it or not, "we the people" in the form of our elected officials approved this.

Anyway, I think you're missing the bigger picture. The aggregation of data gives companies the ability to retaliate against individuals directly or indirectly and that's probably a bigger threat than the IRS going after Tea Party organizations-again, I want to be clear that what the IRS did is not OK nor is the abuse of power in any form.