NSA Surveillance

I lied.

I will post one more thing.

I have worked for US government, I continue to partner with them,
and I have drunk the kool-aid... and mostly believe the US government is
geared toward good and not harm.

it is plenty big and into a lot of things so there will always be cracks to be repaired
and rats to destroy...just gonna always have problems with a big government and huge population...inevitable

so there...yes I am a fanboi of the system.

 

ya OK

stop me how exactly ? LOL I dun goofed, it's the cyberpolice !

judging anything by a forum post or avatar shows how far your pants have fallen BlackSeven.

LOlolololoLOLOl sheesh dude nothing I have ever posted in the storied 38 years I have
been writing things electronically reveal anything about operational security.

man....everything I ever posted is already big corporate news, as it affects the stock market
when something gets compromised online....

finally done here, as I can convince no one, and am not trying to.... but watching all sides and arguments, for interest

 

BTW there are now reports coming out that Mr. Snowden has disappeared from his hide in Hong Kong.

 

I love how everyone in this country automatically jumps to the conclusions that government is, a.) evil enough to want to strip away personal rights, b.) competent enough to pull it off.

Where does this shift happen? When do the people elected by their constituents stop being democratically-elected representatives and become mustache-twirling villans?

Because it seems that almost everyone sees "government" not as American citizens who enjoy and respect the same rights as you and me, but some foreign entity out to do whatever imagined travesty we can dream up as soon as they step into their taxpayer-enabled workplace.

 

That dude skipped town as soon as he finished the interview. I bet he's been gone for days.

 

He may be in Iceland, or Greenland I can't remember exactly, like he said he was going to be.

 

I never jumped in and said the government was evil and should be stopped. I DID say there DOES need to be check and balances in place. We should not just turn a blind eye to our government and what they do. No, not all politicians are evil "mustache-twirling villains", but SOME are. SOME are their for their own agenda. If not, then why do they take money from specific groups for their election campaigns? They take this money because they have the same beliefs. Everyone has their own opinions of what it takes to protect us as a people. Some feel that the only safe way is to have their eye on every little thing that each citizen does. Others feel like there should be limits. If everyone felt the exact way then we wouldn't have political parties. I simply state that there needs to be a limit in what the government is allowed to do when it comes to their citizens, and it is our duty as a people to question EVERYTHING to make sure it is done right. Justice is supposed to be blind, not peeking out from underneath the blindfold with one eye.

 

I wasn't referring to you in particular, or at all, really. Just making a generalization based on stereotypes generated on this forum in particular.

For what it's worth, I don't disagree, though. That is what our elected representatives are supposed to do. And when they fail, it is up to the people.

 

And the government is NOT going through your phone records and private emails, Bill. Instead of blowing this all out of proportion, or just tearing down our government as some here seem to be trying to do, lets get back to reality.

The NSA obtained the phone company's list of phone numbers, who those numbers belong to (the customer ID number), and associated internal routing codes (metadata) used by the phone companies' systems when calls are made. That metadata is routinely shared between phone companies (when a call is routed from one carrier to another, for example). Anyway, since the name/address associated with a phone number is available in any telephone book, the NSA was obviously after the latter routing and tracking metadata.

Now, how much of a threat is that metadata to you? Before getting into that, lets quickly dismiss a few myths. Remember that, in this nation of 300+ million people (not counting the millions making international calls into this country), well over a billion phone calls are made each and every day. Assuming each are only five minutes long, that would generate several billion hours of actual phone recordings each day. The government would need millions of employees to listen to only a small portion. They ARE NOT just randomly listening into your phone calls.

By the same token, the government (NSA) doesn't have the capability to monitor the entire volume of metadata each day. A single call could generate a dozen or more metadata entries. Again, billions upon billions of metadata entries each day. Instead, their goal is to track SPECIFIC telephone calls in real time (not days later when the phone company provides the metadata) as they're routed through the phone system (where it came from, where it went, who it belongs to, etc). Of course, to track that phone number, they'd first have to have a reason why that specific number, over all others, got their attention. This is where others start using the "if you've done nothing wrong…" argument.

One obvious use of this metadata is when a call comes into the phone number of a suspected terrorist. While they have a search warrant to monitor that suspected terrorist's phone, they have no way of knowing in real time where those incoming calls are coming from or who is making them. They can request the information from the phone company, but that often does take days (the same problem with tracing calls during crimes - kidnappings, etc). By knowing who and where, they can then dispatch personnel to watch that suspect as well. This is all good police work - exactly what we want them to do.

Could the system be abused? Theoretically, yes. Even ice creme could be abused. However, the Congress built checks and protections (requirements, oversight, etc) into the system before passing the legislation. Those checks and protections are not at all secret. You can read about them in the Patriot Act.

 

So despite the fact that this disclosure incident will now bring down additional scrutiny upon Government Contractors that hold security clearances, you're willing to allude to the fact that you know certain information to be true. That is incredibly irresponsible. Not only that, but you're willing to personally attack anyone that would call you out on it.

Good luck with all that.

 

Come on now...

That is funny no matter your politics

 

I respectfully disagree with you on some of this Stewart. They do not have people that listen directly to specific phone calls. They use computers which use phonetic voice recognition in several languages/dialects that listen out for key words. Those that get flagged are routed to another computer for specific phrases at that point. If THOSE get flagged, THEN a group of people actually read the voice-to-text files to see if there is something to be concerned with. The same goes for e-mails. Most everything is computer matched first before a single human eye takes a look at anything. I have no intentions of trying to blow anything out of proportion, but I have read the news articles (With of course a bit of "yeah, right" logic when I read ANYTHING that the news puts out) and some have stated that our own government has requested text message copies as well as phone records from Verizon WITHOUT A WARRANT. My Complaint is that particular part. Hundreds of thousands of personal text messages and phone records being requested "for our own protection" without due process of a warrant SHOULD be illegal, and technically it used to be, until our little birdie "US Department of Homeland Security" comes in and says that they can do this without a warrant because it is in "the people's best interest" for them to do so.

 

Your damn right it is. Michelle's look makes the whole thing.

 

I'm well aware of the topic, I was responding to someones post back a few....

Theres a few here that keep clinging to some belief that the Gov. still has the nations best interest in mind & I'm having a problem with that..

Some one posted about checks & balances being included with legislation before passing, even if true, theres no garauntee it'll be implemented

 

I've already (much earlier in this tread) talked about filters used to search for key words and similar. Rather than rehash that, I'll move on.

Once again, with billions of phone calls and many more metadata entries every single day, why would anyone in the government even want to focus in on Bill's phone calls (your phone calls, Bill) to monitor or listen to? Or my phone calls? Or Joe's down the street? Or Bob's at the grocery store across town?

This isn't a threat to us, Bill. This is a targeted effort focused on specific individuals engaged in specific activities. And, since the NSA's mandate is national security (including terrorism), they're not even interested in criminal activities outside that. In other words, the NSA doesn't care whether someone is growing pot in the basement or whatever (that's law enforcement's problem).

Getting past the anti-government hype, I just don't see a problem with any of this. In fact, I'm far more concerned about the anti-government hype - some of the people behind it and their motives.

 

One thing I have noticed since I posted on here is that this thread has become more personal and has lost sight of the main issue. Most of us do not have the information about this subject, and our responses have been more emotional and less factual. The few members here who are knowledgeable , can not tell us what they know because of security oaths they have taken. Do not let your emotions cloud the need of a healthy discussion of this matter.
Because of the attention from our various press agencies, we know more about this matter.We also know that we are being lied to the intelligence director, he lied to congress and to the American people about this matter. What happens now, if anything will depend on our leaders and what can or can't be revealed.
This process that the NSA is using was approved and passed by the congress and only a few members of congress knew what was going to happen.Just as Obamacare was passed before we knew what was going to happen to us.We now know that there is a secret court that approves any use of the data that is being collected by the NSA and other intelligence agencies. I live near the home of the Signal corp and the newest NSA center, code name ice tea. It collects data for the Middle East, Europe and Africa,and it has over 4000 employees. This info has just been made public, and I hope we will support their hard work. We must trust our leaders to do the right thing with our personal information , but their track record on being honest is not good. This is the cause of most of the postings on this thread, and may require some control by ourselves to keep this dialogue civil.

 

I guess I am just not getting my point across. I am doing my best to not make it personally about ME or MY phone calls. The point I am trying to make here is that for the government to ask for ANY records, be it phone, text message, or email of ANY person in the US, they should be required to get a warrant. I don't care if they think Joe Schmo is a terrorist or not, a warrant should STILL be required before obtaining ANYONE'S records. THAT is the point I am trying to get across here. When the US government car arbitrarily ask for any records that they want to, without probably cause or warrant, then the power has left the people, and will reside strictly with the government. THAT is when the problems begin. The reason our forefathers succeeded England and established the United States in the first place was because the people had no power over, or protection from, their own government.

 

But you're okay with private corporations harvesting that information to do nothing more with than find ways to make money off you?