The NSA issue. Do something, anything, even if it's wrong...........

[wandy]

Recently Thom Hartmann along with Shahid Buttar of the Bill of Rights Defense Committee and Mark Rumold of the Electronic Frontier Foundation provided an excellent presentation concerning the NSA's rather frightening spying powers. It is well worth watching and can be found here....
http://www.democraticunderground.com/1017136017

It would appear that many are trying to DO something about it. So, I did a little research to try to see how I might add one small voice to the fray. The results follow......

Bill of Rights Defense Committee
http://www.bordc.org/

BORDC Not Without A Warrant
http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/498/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=8302

Electronic Frontier Foundation
https://www.eff.org/

EFF You Oppose
https://action.eff.org/o/9042/p/dia/action3/common/public/?action_KEY=9252

American Civil Liberties Union
http://www.aclu.org/

Immersion Demo
https://immersion.media.mit.edu/

Sorry, I don't use Gmail so I had to check out the demo. It did exactly what I was afraid it would do.
You're about three hops away from about half of the world. Also not only does it give stats on your contacts , it will also give stats on their contacts. Also note how easy it is to tell what common contact places them in your contact "chain". Right, "Meta Data" my B.....
Are you scared yet?
If you aren't then go ahead and checkout if your being tracked by your cell phone.
http://www.aclu.org/maps/your-local-law-enforcement-tracking-your-cell-phones-location

Do look at some of the ACLU information request responses. Or non responses as the case may be.
Tell Congress: Support Strong Location Privacy Legislation
https://ssl.capwiz.com/aclu/issues/alert/?alertid=61552566&type=CO&ms=web_130206_GPS

Although the White House "free the loose cannon" petition reached 100,000 signatures within two weeks, I could find no active petition to stop domestic spying!
If anyone finds an active petition, please append it.

For the time being, let's try this...
Electronic Privacy Information Center
http://epic.org/epic/about.html

Their Petition is here....

We believe that the NSA's collection of domestic communications contravenes the First and Fourth Amendments to the United States Constitution, and violates several federal privacy laws, including the Privacy Act of 1974, and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 as amended.

http://epic.org/NSApetition/

Another petition, this time to congress can be found at Stop Watching Us.
Note that I am not familiar with these folk but their petition can be found here........
Do read it first!
https://optin.stopwatching.us/

What Mark Udall and Ron Wyden are doing.....

All week, Udall and Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon have urged the White House to end a program, authorized by the Patriot Act, that indiscriminately collects phone records and metadata of every American.

http://www.denverpost.com/politics/ci_23768610/mark-udall-joins-other-senators-press-obama-personally

How can we support them?

What Alan Grayson is doing.......

Alan Grayson has written an amendment that he will soon introduce in the House of Representatives that deals with the relentless and endless NSA spying on Americans. He’s calling it the “Mind Your Own Business” Act — and he’s looking for your support. Yes, this is a petition, but yes, it will also be a bill before the House.

http://americablog.com/2013/06/alan-grayson-nsa-mind-your-own-business-act.html

His petition here....
http://mindyourownbusinessact.com/

How can we support him?

I know that some think that Edward Snowden a hero while others think that he is a villain.
Personally, I consider him a loose cannon.
I just don't think that chatting about his Russian adventures will help matters.
Both the NSA and the patriot act are real issues.
Hope I will have had some small part in helping fix the problem.

[randome]

1. I agree we should stick to facts and leave Snowden out of this.

I don't agree that doing anything -even if it's wrong- is the right thing to do.

We need to know more facts about precisely what activities the NSA does and then curtail or reinforce those activities appropriately.

Making decisions as the result of fear is never a good way to make changes. We should have learned that after 9/11 when the Patriot Act was first adopted.

If the PA needs to be burned, no problem here, but we should not react in a way that caused it to be passed in the first place.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]Don't ever underestimate the long-term effects of a good night's sleep.[/center][/font][hr]

[wandy]

2. Just providing some options and resources............

We have time to decide what to do. But it sure beets just talking about it.

[snappyturtle]

3. I will do my part and participate in what I can

align my views. But personally, I feel if it weren't for the 'loose canons' none of
this would be in the forefront today at the scale it is regardless of our scant knowledge
of it in the past.

Thanks for the options you have gathered for us.

[RGinNJ]

4. Thank You for this post.

Posts like this are why I keep coming to this site.

[Mojorabbit]

5. Excellent post!

Thank you for all the resources. It is much appreciated.

[NYC_SKP]

6. Recommended. (nt)

[think]

7. K&R

[Uncle Joe]

8. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, wandy.