[quote]doogie wrote:
Ex-chief doubts NSA has vast phone database
“They have no practical use for that information,” he said.
It is more likely, Inman said, that the agency would ask the phone companies to provide information about phone calls between the United States and specific terrorist havens such as Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan, he said. That would allow the agency to target calls to those specific numbers.
Well, if you can’t trust the head of a spy agency…
Since we are discussing the NSA snooping in phone records, has anyone seen this bit of news?
http://news.com.com/2100-1028_3-6072601.html?part=rss&tag=6072601&subj=news
[i]Congress may make ISPs snoop on you
By Declan McCullagh
Staff Writer, CNET News.com
Published: May 16, 2006, 4:00 AM PDT
A prominent Republican on Capitol Hill has prepared legislation that would rewrite Internet privacy rules by requiring that logs of Americans’ online activities be stored, CNET News.com has learned.
The proposal comes just weeks after Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said Internet service providers should retain records of user activities for a “reasonable amount of time,” a move that represented a dramatic shift in the Bush administration’s views on privacy.
Wisconsin Rep. F. James Sensenbrenner, the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, is proposing that ISPs be required to record information about Americans’ online activities so that police can more easily “conduct criminal investigations.” Executives at companies that fail to comply would be fined and imprisoned for up to one year…[/i]
Speaking of more NSA snooping news. I fear for my country more and more.
http://www.hillnews.com/thehill/export/TheHill/News/Frontpage/051606/news1.html
[i]Specter strikes NSA deal
By Alexander Bolton
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) and conservative members of his panel have reached agreement on legislation that may determine the legality of the National Security Agency’s (NSA) surveillance program, GOP sources say.
Specter has mollified conservative opposition to his bill by agreeing to drop the requirement that the Bush administration seek a legal judgment on the program from a special court set up by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) of 1978.
Instead, Specter agreed to allow the administration to retain an important legal defense by allowing the court, which holds its hearings in secret, to review the program only by hearing a challenge from a plaintiff with legal standing, said a person familiar with the text of language agreed to by Specter and committee conservatives.
Conservative Republicans who pushed for the change say that it will help quell concerns about the measure’s constitutionality and allow the White House to retain a basic legal defense.
An expert in constitutional law and national security, however, said that the change would allow the administration to throw up huge obstacles to anyone seeking to challenge the program’s legality…[/i]
[quote]ALDurr wrote:
Wisconsin Rep. F. James Sensenbrenner, the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, is proposing that ISPs be required to record information about Americans’ online activities so that police can more easily “conduct criminal investigations.” Executives at companies that fail to comply would be fined and imprisoned for up to one year…[/i] [/quote]
Oh come on AL!
Why are you overreacting to this?
So what if government tracks our personal phone calls and now wants to track our online activities.
The next thing you will be complaining about is that black sedan in front of your house that hasn’t moved in two days.
I mean…you don’t have anything to hide so…what’s the big deal?
Right?
Seriously, how this cannot send a chill up the spine of most of us is beyond me.
True conservatives are not for MORE government intervention into the lives of innocent citizens!
[quote]ZEB wrote:
The next thing you will be complaining about is that black sedan in front of your house that hasn’t moved in two days.
[/quote]
Wait a minute? How did you know about the black sedan?
Interesting – the phone companies are starting to come out and say they weren’t asked to give anything to the NSA.
Bellsouth: HeadlineAlley
Verizon: http://newscenter.verizon.com/proactive/newsroom/release.vtml?id=93450
[quote]ZEB wrote:
ALDurr wrote:
Wisconsin Rep. F. James Sensenbrenner, the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, is proposing that ISPs be required to record information about Americans’ online activities so that police can more easily “conduct criminal investigations.” Executives at companies that fail to comply would be fined and imprisoned for up to one year…[/i]
Oh come on AL!
Why are you over reacting to this?
So what if government tracks our personal phone calls and now wants to track our online activities.
The next thing you will be complaining about is that black sedan in front of your house that hasn’t moved in two days.
I mean…you don’t have anything to hide so…what’s the big deal?
Right?
Seriously, how this cannot send a chill up the spine of most of us is beyond me.
True conservatives are not for MORE government intervention into the lives of innocent citizens!
[/quote]
Actually, if they wanted to, they could post people outside your house without violating your 4th Amendment rights.
LOL. I think you are missing the point of the conversation.
It isn’t whether or not someone CAN do a thing… it is whether or not someone SHOULD do a thing.
Maybe you and Doogie should get together and hold hands and have candlelight vigils on the strengthening of the government and your eventual safety.
I hear North Korea has an intrusive government and absolutely zero terrorist attacks… or threats… you could try there?
[quote]BostonBarrister wrote:
Actually, if they wanted to, they could post people outside your house without violating your 4th Amendment rights.
vroom wrote:
LOL. I think you are missing the point of the conversation.
It isn’t whether or not someone CAN do a thing… it is whether or not someone SHOULD do a thing.
Maybe you and Doogie should get together and hold hands and have candlelight vigils on the strengthening of the government and your eventual safety.
I hear North Korea has an intrusive government and absolutely zero terrorist attacks… or threats… you could try there?[/quote]
I’m not missing the point – I’m making one.
The Constitution protects certain, delineated things – it doesn’t protect against everything we might not like.
I’m pointing out preemptively that the fix is in the normal political process – if you don’t like it, engage in trying to get legislation enacted that supports your point of view.
[quote]BostonBarrister wrote:
ZEB wrote:
ALDurr wrote:
Wisconsin Rep. F. James Sensenbrenner, the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, is proposing that ISPs be required to record information about Americans’ online activities so that police can more easily “conduct criminal investigations.” Executives at companies that fail to comply would be fined and imprisoned for up to one year…[/i]
Oh come on AL!
Why are you over reacting to this?
So what if government tracks our personal phone calls and now wants to track our online activities.
The next thing you will be complaining about is that black sedan in front of your house that hasn’t moved in two days.
I mean…you don’t have anything to hide so…what’s the big deal?
Right?
Seriously, how this cannot send a chill up the spine of most of us is beyond me.
True conservatives are not for MORE government intervention into the lives of innocent citizens!
Actually, if they wanted to, they could post people outside your house without violating your 4th Amendment rights.
[/quote]
Right! Just like they can compile phone records.
But…is it right, to do such a thing?
Does a government operating at its maximum “surveillance capacity” offer the same freedoms that it once did?
NO!
Americans have a huge problems with this and only the right wingnuttery will defend Bush for this trangression.
[quote]Marmadogg wrote:
Americans have a huge problems with this and only the right wingnuttery will defend Bush for this trangression.[/quote]
I think you are wrong on that one. It’s not the right wing that is defending Bush on this one. I think it’s the die hard Bush loyalists.
The phone companies and the NSA deny the program exists.
Even it it did exist it is not a violation of our 4th amendment protections.
Instead of wondering why people are defending a program that may not exist I wonder why people are attacking the alleged program and why they are pretending phone company records are personal and private.
Oh yeah, politics.
[quote]ZEB wrote:
Marmadogg wrote:
Americans have a huge problems with this and only the right wingnuttery will defend Bush for this trangression.
I think you are wrong on that one. It’s not the right wing that is defending Bush on this one. I think it’s the die hard Bush loyalists.[/quote]
Exactly. As I’ve said, very few real conservatives are lining up to support this administration anymore. Just the Bush Kool-Aid drinkers left on the sinking ship…
[quote]lucasa wrote:
Isn’t this an obselete non-issue? Not as a matter of course, but in recent history, I have purchased 2 of the ‘disposable cell phones’ w/ prepaid cards. I can’t guarantee the anonymity of purchase as, to my knowledge, I’m not under surveillance. But cash was an option, and my brother/friend/fellow terrorist could quite easily purchase phones, perform a dead-drop/swap and have completely circumvented this ‘dragnet’ for <$100 in a matter of minutes-to-hours. And that’s just a knee-jerk solution, other solutions become much easier/impossible to penetrate given the myriad possibilities of moving across borders offers.
Mine the data all they want, if the number never really connects to a person it’s a moot point. I’m no rocket scientist, and I’m sure the terrorists already know this and to drop $100/wk. on cell phones is no big deal in the Jihad. Further, the NSA boys have definitely figured this out too and while it probably still gets done to catch really stupid terrorists/criminals, it’s not the surveillance boogeyman that people make it out to be.
vroom will still be able to order his pizza w/o fear, just so long as the diesel fuel and ammonium nitrate is stashed where the Feds can’t find it, should they show up. 
IMO this leak, as others have noted, was more politically motivated than civil-minded.[/quote]
Great post. As some have noted, where in the past technology gave Western armies a huge advantage over their foes in Africa, Asia, and other less-developed parts of the world, today the opposite may well be true.
Click on the link for:
Central Intelligence Agency Director Nomination Hearing - Afternoon Session (5/18/2006)
Go to about the 3 minute mark and listen to the the list of members of Congress who were briefed on “terrorist surveillance program”. It takes about 7 minutes to cover the list and the dates of the briefings.
Some further legal parsing regarding whether the long-distance companies would have any liability for providing phone records to the government:
New Facts Suggest A Possible Reason Why the Phone Companies May Not Be Liable For the NSA Call Records Program
In today?s New York Times ( U.S. Focused on Obtaining Long-Distance Phone Data, Company Officials Indicate - The New York Times ), Matt Richtel and Ken Belson look at the statements made this week by the major telcos and come up with a conclusion: The NSA Call Records program seems to have been focused on long distance carriers instead of local call carriers. An excerpt:
[i] Government efforts to obtain data from the nation?s largest phone companies for a national security database appear to have focused on long-distance carriers, not local ones, statements by company officials indicate.
The statements have come in the week since USA Today reported that the National Security Agency had collected local and long-distance phone records on tens of millions of Americans from Verizon, BellSouth and AT&T in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks.
The responses by the companies suggest that the agency, in an effort to find patterns that could identify terrorists, sought records from major long-distance providers like the former MCI (now part of Verizon), AT&T and Qwest, but did not ask for data on local calls.[/i]
Why does that matter for purposes of the phone companies? liability? Well, I?m not sure it does. But I have a possible idea about why it might.
Here?s my thinking. The Stored Communications Act, 18 U.S.C. 2701-11, only regulates two kinds of providers: providers of electronic communication service and providers of remote computing service. Everyone agrees that the telephone companies are not acting as providers of remote computing service, so if they are liable they must be acting as providers of electronic communication service. 18 U.S.C. 2510(15) defines ?electronic communication service? as ?any service which provides to users thereof the ability to send or receive wire or electronic communications.? (For our purposes, a ?wire communication? is a telephone call; an ?electronic commuincation? is an e-mail.)
A local telephone company is clearly a provider of electronic communication service: it literally provides users the ability to send or receive telephone calls. But is a company that only provides long distance service a provider of electronic communication service?
Maybe, but I?m not entirely sure. I don?t know much about how modern telephone networks work, but I am guessing that local carriers carry the first part of the call. In the case of a long-distance call, I assume that the long-distance carrier picks up the call at some point from the local carrier, and sends it to the local carrier at the receiving end of the call. If that?s right, I?m not entirely sure the long-distance carrier is a provider of electronic communications service.
I can see arguments on both sides: one one hand, the long-distance provider is providing users the ability to send a particular type of wire communication in a particular way; on the other hand, users have the ability to send wire communications without it. What do you think? Are companies that only provide long-distance service providers of ?electronic communication service??
[quote]ZEB wrote:
To all of my loyal republican friends:
Your loyalty is misplaced regarding this topic!
President Bush and the NSA have indeed overstepped their bounds regarding the protection of American citizens. Compiling a data base of millions of Americans phone calls is a BLATANT violation of privacy.
I am well aware of the tired argument used to defend such actions: “if you are not a terrorist then it matters not.” Do any of you believe for a second that the NSA has compiled such an enormous data base and will only use it to go after terrorists?
Remember the RICO act? It was only going to be used to put mobsters in jail, you know the real bad guys. Fast forward a few years and they used it to prosecute abortion protestors!
What happened to the right of privacy? Do any of you “loyalists” feel just a tad betrayed?
Well I do!
While I am, and always have been, a republican, I will not trade any part of my privacy rights for this or any other President!
This is simply wrong and I will either be speaking directly to, or writing my United States Senator.
“Liberty has never come from the Government. Liberty has always come from the subjects of it…The history of liberty is a history of limiitations of government power not the increase of it.”
Woodrow Willson
[/quote]
Best post ever. I can’t believe I’m actually bigging up mr. ZEB, but where credit is due, credit is due.
The current administration seems almost hell bent on taking away your liberties… “in order to counter terrorism”…
You should read Patriot Act 1 and 2 and the Victory Act and what implications they contain in terms of expanding the federal government’s power, taking away American’s liberties and rights, and integration of Military and Police by attempting to remove the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878, which prevents the federal government from using the military for law enforcement…
And now, over here in England, our government is taking away rights to protest.
Regardless of what political party you belong to, or what you think of the current administrations (both Blair and Bush), you should be concerned when the government begins to take away the rights of your people and working to make dissent impossible. REGARDLESS if they say it’s for security.
Let’s say for a moment, that they are actually doing it in order to increase security and protect us, because they love their nations so dearly. The potential results of permitting the government all this power are, positively speaking, prevention of further terrorist attacks on a larger scale, including nuclear, which would result in the death of millions. (Nevermind that our governments have exerted these kind of preventative security measures and surveillances illegally for decades now anyways.)
Negatively speaking, the potential consequences of incrementally giving away our rights for security and empowering the federal government to no end, could eventually result in a fascist police state equivalent to Orwell’s 1984.
I, therefore, personally believe the cons outweigh the pros in allowing these ‘security measures’ to be accepted.
So does this program even exist?
The phone companies are all denying it.
The former head of the NSA says it would be useless and he doubts it exists.
Is this just another incident of media irresponibility or is there any truth at all?
[quote]BostonBarrister wrote:
the Constitution doesn’t have an inherent “right to privacy”[/quote]
…
United States Constitution
Bill of Rights
Amendment IV
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
…
“The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures”
this implies that U.S. citizens have the ‘right to privacy’ from the government with concern to their person, home, papers, and effects…
the government is forbidden from invading the privacy of my home, papers, personal effects, etc., without a warrent…