I don't understand why anyone is concerned over NSA spying

[quinnox]

[baldguy]

1. Having the NSA gather anonymous, useless metadata is something to get endlessly outraged about.

But having Target hand out your name, address, phone number, credit card number, mother's maiden name, and your blood type over to identity thieves & scammers is nothing to worry about. Nothing at all.

[Union Scribe]

4. Right. It's useless, that's why they want it.

[baldguy]

8. Wouldn't be the first time the govt spent billions to uselessly inconvenience millions.

Or did you think the TSA's Airport Security Theater actually helps catch terrorists?

[cui bono]

40. They aren't trying to catch terrorists. They are training us to behave as they wish.

They see we will all take off our shoes when asked. Most of us will go through the full body scanner when asked.

Trotting out the "terrorism" word instills some level of fear and worry in us all so we will agree to give up our rights for a sense of security.

Their programs are working. Just not for what they are telling us they are for.

[sabrina 1]

47. They've partially accomplished part of the goal, aside from the profiteering part, they've eased

some Americans into accepting the surveillance of the government and to discard the 'quaint' old document Bush found so inconvenient.

It's happened before, where people willingly gave up their hard won rights without even a question, then lived to regret it, or their descendants certainly did.

They must be smiling at how easy it was. Please do not give up OUR rights because some of us would prefer not to have fight to get them back in the not so distant future when we could just hold on to them now.

[quinnox]

7. Exactly. Thank you, good citizen. And all loyal citizens have no objection

As our motto says, "If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear"

[bvar22]

9. Right... Meta-Data is useless. UmmHmmm

You DO know that the "Its ONLY the Meta-Data" Talking Point has been thoroughly de-bunked?
..and it has been proved that the NSA is vacuuming up MUCH more than "just the Meta-Data"?
You DO know that?
Right?

You DO know that it has been exposed that NSA operatives and contractors have been listening in and recording entire conversations of Americans...ALL without the appropriate FISA warrant.
You DO know that?
Yes?

You DO know that it has gotten so out of hand that some NSA operatives were even using Government resources to listen in on their girl friend's phone conversations?
You DO know that?
Yes?

You DO know that mountains of data well beyond "Its JUST the Meta-Data" are being recorded and stored
just in case the NSA gets the Red Ass at somebody in the future?
You DO know that?
Yes?


Then you DO know that the NSA has been operating completely outside their charter,
and even believe it is OK for them to LIE under oath directly to their "oversight" in The Senate?
Yes?
You DO know that?

because IF you don't KNOW that,
you really should study up on the situation before entering these discussions and embarrassing yourself.


If you already know these things,
then WHY do you persist in posting that old, debunked Its only the Meta-Data bullshit information at DU?

You DO know that the Jack Nicholson character in A Few Good Men was a a BAD guy,
and that the rationalization "You can't handle the truth" was not justification for circumventing the Constitutional rules of our democracy?
You DO know that?
Yes?

[ConservativeDemocrat]

13. Jack Nicholson...

> You DO know that the "Its ONLY the Meta-Data" Talking Point has been thoroughly de-bunked?
It's called FISA court supervision, BVar. There are certain things they can do without a warrant (like meta-data), other things they can only do WITH a warrant. And all of Snowden's leaks have clearly shown no indication of any systemic attempt within the NSA to evade the rules of what they are allowed to do by Congress and the Courts.
You DO know that, right?

> You DO know that it has been exposed that NSA operatives and contractors have been listening in and recording entire conversations of Americans...ALL without the appropriate FISA warrant.
Yes. That's what was happening under BUSH. In 2008, the law that the Democratic Congress passed STOPPED that as official policy.
You DO know that, right?

> You DO know that it has gotten so out of hand that some NSA operatives were even using Government resources to listen in on their girl friend's phone conversations?
You DO know that those NSA operatives were FIRED and got in legal trouble for doing that, and it was the NSA that discovered that behavior, and turned them in. (Unlike the behavior of nearly every Police department in the U.S. which rallies around their abusive officers.)
You DO know that, right?

> You DO know that mountains of data well beyond "Its JUST the Meta-Data" are being recorded and stored
just in case the NSA gets the Red Ass at somebody in the future?
You DO know that data is largely foreign communications, which NSA officers stop searching as soon as they think there is more than an even chance of these being between two Americans. And that all other searches require legal warrants, and that judges don't give a damned about "the Red Ass" - or whatever other bullshit conspiracy theory you've made up.
You DO know that, right?

> Then you DO know that the NSA has been operating completely outside their charter, and even believe it is OK for them to LIE under oath directly to their "oversight" in The Senate?
You DO know that the whole "charter" business is a debunked talking point? And also that Congress apparently thought that the "LIE under oath" was so vague that they decided not to bring up any charges, right? That Senator Wyden's question was so broad, the possession by the NSA of a telephone book should have elicited a "yes" answer, even though that's not what he meant.
You DO know that, right?

> because IF you don't KNOW that, you really should study up on the situation before entering these discussions and embarrassing yourself.
Right back at you BVAR.


Finally, you DO know that Jack Nicholson's character was FICTIONAL, right?

And that the Supreme Court has constantly ruled the NSA's actions legal?

And that the NSA's intercept caught Osama bin Laden?

And without the NSA, Osama bin Laden would most certainly still be alive, coordinating and inspiring Al-Qae'ida to continue to plot terrorist attacks against Americans?

You DO know that, right?

Right?

Right?

- C.D. Proud Member of the Reality Based Community

[Demeter]

16. You do know that they lie through their teeth, right?

Because that's their Modus Operendi.

If you want to talk reality, then you have to walk the walk. And NSA had absolutely nothing to do with binLadin.

[ConservativeDemocrat]

18. Here's walking the walk...

http://web.archive.org/web/20110511235631/http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_theenvoy/20110504/ts_yblog_theenvoy/the-courier-the-multiple-identities-of-the-man-who-led-u-s-to-bin-laden

The CIA's decade-long effort to find Osama bin Laden caught a major break when agency operatives identified the al Qaeda courier who would eventually lead them to the al Qaeda mastermind's Abbottabad compound.

The courier's nom de guerre in al Qaeda's upper echelons was Abu Ahmad al-Kuwaiti, and he was described as a Kuwaiti-born Pakistani. But CIA officials did not know his real name or location for years.

But in 2004, they captured an al Qaeda militant named Hassan Ghul in Iraq. Ghul told his interrogators about al-Kuwaiti's growing role in the organization as a liaison to al Qaeda's operational commanders. "Ghul told the CIA that al-Kuwaiti was a courier, someone crucial to the terrorist organization," the Associated Press reported. "In particular, Ghul said, the courier was close to Faraj al-Libi, who replaced [Khalid Shaikh] Mohammed as al-Qaida's operational commander. It was a key break in the hunt for in bin Laden's personal courier." (See Marcy Wheeler for more on the Ghul case.)

The National Security Agency reportedly tracked phone calls between the courier Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti's relatives in the Persian Gulf to all numbers in Pakistan. And NSA surveillance eventually tracked Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti's location in Pakistan via one such phone call, the AP writes. Last August, they tracked al-Kuwaiti as he drove from Peshawar to the Abbottabad compound--and as analysts inventoried the facility's striking security features they became convinced that it housed a high-level al Qaeda figure.

WITHOUT THE NSA WE WOULD NOT HAVE CAUGHT OSAMA BIN LADEN

See here's the thing. Just because you WANT something to be true doesn't actually MAKE it true. That's called "magical thinking", and it's the hallmark of extremists and conspiracy theorists. So don't do that. Democrats shouldn't act like members of the Tea Party.

- C.D. Proud Member of the Reality Based Community

[Demeter]

19. And how do you know that WAS Osama binLadin?

No body, no DNA, no wives held, no trial, the SEALS all conveniently dead in an "accident".

I repeat: you do know they lie in their teeth?

[ConservativeDemocrat]

24. To shoot down your bullshit conspiracy theory...

Here's a link to MSNBC's examination of it.

According to the New York Times, "79 commandos and a dog" were involved in the raid that killed Osama bin Laden -- though other reports peg the number at approximately 24. Since the raid, SEAL Team Six — the team that conducted the Bin Laden raid — has lost several members due to combat and training accidents, though none of them have been confirmed as being specifically part of the Bin Laden raid.

The largest loss to the team took place in April of 2011 when Taliban fighters shot down a U.S. helicopter and killed 22 members of SEAL Team Six, along with 16 other U.S. troops. None of those SEALs, however, were reported to have worked on the Bin Laden raid. Separately, the BeforeItsNews piece references Cmdr. Job W. Price, who committed suicide in December of 2012, as being another person connected to the Bin Laden raid who has died. This accusation doesn't hold up because Price was reportedly part of SEAL Team Four, not Six, and was not part of the Bin Laden raid.

Not to mention that there are non-public photos of Osama bin Laden's corpse, which both high ranking Republicans and Democrats have viewed. The GOP was so incredibly upset that Obama was getting credit for this raid, do you imagine they would have kept quiet if it was all a grand conspiracy? Especially since at the time, Snowden hadn't committed his crimes yet?

You're not doing your side any favors by peddling this crap. I think you should stop.

- C.D. Proud Member of the Reality Based Community

[truedelphi]

28. I have always thought highly of Bhutto for revealing how most people in Pacific Rim

Nations knew Bin Laden was dead quite a while ago - 2004 at least.

Of course, having Bin Laden already dead doesn't allow the President that great photo op opportunity, or allow a CIA funded movie the right to win an Oscar.

[hughee99]

21. Tracking a phone call from relatives in the Persian gulf to Packistan

relates to tracking metadata for AMERICANS in the US how? I'm sorry, I do not understand how the two activities are in any way connected. No one (okay, almost no one) is arguing that the NSA should be completely wiped out, just that there are things they should NOT be doing.

See, here's the thing, just because one thing the NSA does proves valuable doesn't mean that every program they have does. That's called "lazy thinking" and it's the hallmark of people who want to make an argument, but the facts don't really back them up. Don't do that.

[truedelphi]

27. As far as NSA being a legal operation -

First of all, don't inject SCOTUS into the discussion. They support whatever is Corporatistic/Fascistic, but not what really matters in terms of our inherent rights.

Secondly,
And NSA procedures are not illegal merely because they violate the Constitution – although NSA procedures do indeed do that. What is important to note is that the NSA violates the Fourth Amendment, specifically. The illegality of the NSA’s telephone metadata program is much clearer and even more disturbing than that. The program is illegal because no law authorizes bulk collection of phone record data. To the contrary, several laws forbid it. Understanding that the program is illegal doesn’t require fancy lawyer arguments about the frustratingly terse and vague provisions of the U.S. Constitution. It requires only that you read section 215 of the Patriot Act, which is the statute identified by the NSA as providing congressional authorization for its programs. We read it. It is surprisingly clear. And it does not authorize the NSA to do what it’s doing.

[cui bono]

41. Hold on there...

> You DO know that it has been exposed that NSA operatives and contractors have been listening in and recording entire conversations of Americans...ALL without the appropriate FISA warrant.
Yes. That's what was happening under BUSH. In 2008, the law that the Democratic Congress passed STOPPED that as official policy.
You DO know that, right?

Obama just got the illegal activity legalized. Is that okay with you?

[ConservativeDemocrat]

44. Let me give you a chance...

Please provide evidence for the following:

1] The specific activity you think was illegal under Bush.

2] The specific evidence you have that makes you think that Obama legalized it.

I'll give you leeway to call successfully advocating for a statutory change under Congress and/or arguing a successful Court case as "legalization", as we both know that the President of the United States cannot actually legalize things. (So your statement could not possibly be literally true.)

Can you provide evidence about how Obama is more tolerant of spying on Americans than Bush was? Or are you just blowing smoke?

We'll see.

- C.D. Proud Member of the Reality Based Community

[cui bono]

45. Here you go...

BushCo committed illegal warrantless wiretapping.

Obama pushed to get it legalized. It was legalized.
http://politicsisstupid.com/link/155855
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2012/10/fact-check-obamas-misleading-answer-about-warrantless-wiretapping-daily-show

And continues pushing...
https://www.commondreams.org/headline/2013/08/20-3


Obama made it retroactively legal for the telecoms to have spied on us for the govt.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/06/20/obama-backs-bill-giving-i_n_108370.html


And, we all know that the president doesn't write legislation, but passed legislation does not become the law until POTUS signs it. So, yes, the president can legalize something. He could always veto if he doesn't want to sign it into law.

[ConservativeDemocrat]

46. Okay, disregarding that these are opinion pieces, let's look at the actual facts behind them...

1] The Olbermanlink turns into: "This video is no longer available because the YouTube account associated with it is terminated."
- No problem. Happens to me too. However, it can't be considered evidence because it Olberman's statements can't be verified.

2] The eff link actually has some meat. However again, the facts it references don't support the opinions it makes. The first link talks about "still-active warrantless wiretapping". Even assuming this was "wiretapping" (none of the sublinks say that its anything but the pin-register metadata and spying on foreign communications), the phrase "still-active" acknowledges that this was established previously (which by the way, it was). The statement that "Obama Administration has actively opposed all proposed safeguards in Congress" is provably false(*), as he's signed significant reforms into law. Similarly, the statement that the administration has been "more aggressive" (and the link to a second opinion piece), shows (when you dig through the facts), nothing more than standard administrative legal defense of already established law enforcement procedures. This is not any different than what went on with Bush.

(*) It is provably false because Obama was in favor of major wiretapping reforms signed into law in 2008. See this link.

3] The Common Dreams link refers to an incident with a crack-dealer that happened in 2007. Who was President then? Who decided to prosecute this case then? Again, cannot be "worse" than a previous administration when the case started under the previous administration.

4] "Sen. Barack Obama's campaign released a statement Friday afternoon saying that while Obama opposes amnesty for telecom firms that spied on Americans, he will support the House compromise legislation."
- That isn't "pushing". That's reluctantly agreeing.


Now all that said, I have considerable sympathy for the eff in this. If you want to say President Obama has not fulfilled his own campaign promises, you would receive no argument from me. He's clearly moved significantly towards allowing law enforcement agencies to defend their current practices. And I will even say that some of these practices are wrong and should be changed.

But it is still nothing as bad as Bush, much less being worse than Bush. That latter statement is simply unsupported by the facts.

- C.D. Proud Member of the Reality Based Community

[cui bono]

54. One of the articles you link to is from when Obama was still a senator. ?

But anyway, you say Obama "was in favor of major wiretapping reforms signed into law in 2008" and link to this article:

Obama Supports FISA Legislation, Angering Left

By Paul Kane
Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) today announced his support for a sweeping intelligence surveillance law that has been heavily denounced by the liberal activists who have fueled the financial engines of his presidential campaign.

In his most substantive break with the Democratic Party's base since becoming the presumptive nominee, Obama declared he will support the bill when it comes to a Senate vote, likely next week, despite misgivings about legal provisions for telecommunications corporations that cooperated with the Bush administration's warrantless surveillance program of suspected terrorists.

...

This marks something of a reversal of Obama's position from an earlier version of the bill, which was approved by the Senate Feb. 12, when Obama was locked in a fight for the Democratic nomination with Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.).

Obama missed the February vote on that FISA bill as he campaigned in the "Potomac Primaries," but issued a statement that day declaring "I am proud to stand with Senator Dodd, Senator Feingold and a grassroots movement of Americans who are refusing to let President Bush put protections for special interests ahead of our security and our liberty."

Sens. Christopher Dodd (D-Conn.) and Russ Feingold (D-Wisc.) continue to oppose the new legislation, as does Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.). All Obama backers in the primary, those senior lawmakers contend that the new version of the FISA law -- crafted after four months of intense negotiations between White House aides and congressional leaders -- provides insufficient court review of the pending 40 lawsuits against the telecommunications companies alleging privacy invasion for their participation in a warrantless wiretapping program after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.


"The immunity outcome is predetermined," Feingold wrote in a memo today.

He did not support major reform. In fact, he changed what he supported after he clinched the nomination. Also he supported giving telecoms immunity.
More on that here: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/02/us/politics/02fisa.html
Obama Voters Protest His Switch on Telecom Immunity

Then, when he was president he pushed for and then renewed the warrantless wiretapping until 2017.

Obama Backs Extending Patriot Act Spy Provisions

By David Kravets
09.15.09
5:17 PM
The Obama administration has told Congress it supports renewing three provisions of the Patriot Act due to expire at year’s end, measures making it easier for the government to spy within the United States.
...
These are the three provisions due to expire:

*A secret court, known as the FISA court, may grant “roving wiretaps” without the government identifying the target. Generally, the authorities must assert that the target is an agent of a foreign power and/or a suspected terrorist. The government said Tuesday that 22 such warrants — which allow the monitoring of any communication device — have been granted annually.

*The FISA court may grant warrants for “business records,” from banking to library to medical records. Generally, the government must assert that the records are relevant to foreign intelligence gathering and/or a terrorism investigation. The government said Tuesday that 220 of these warrants had been granted between 2004 and 2007. It said 2004 was the first year those powers were used.

*A so-called “lone wolf” provision, enacted in 2004, allows FISA court warrants for the electronic monitoring of an individual even without showing that the person is an agent of a foreign power or a suspected terrorist. The government said Tuesday it has never invoked that provision, but said it wants to keep the authority to do so.
...
The American Civil Liberties opposes renewing all three provisions, especially the lone wolf measure.

Michelle Richardson, the ACLU’s legislative counsel, said in a telephone interview, “The justification for FISA and these lower standards and letting it operate in secret was all about terrorist groups and foreign governments, that they posed a unique threat other than the normal criminal element. This lone wolf provision undercuts that justification.”
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2009/09/obama-backs-expiring-patriot-act-spy-provisions/

FISA Warrantless Wiretapping Program Renewed By Senate

Posted: 12/28/2012 12:06 pm EST | Updated: 12/29/2012 10:00 am EST

The U.S. Senate renewed the warrantless wiretapping program begun during the George W. Bush administration by a 73 to 23 vote on Friday, sending the FISA Amendments Act to President Barack Obama's desk for his signature.

The vote marked a symbolic next step for the wiretapping program, which collects Americans' communications with foreign intelligence targets abroad. Four years ago, in the midst of the 2008 Democratic presidential primary, an identical version of the bill was the subject of a highly contentious debate in the Senate. Obama and others argued then that Bush's program went too far in violating Americans' privacy. This year, with a supportive Obama in the Oval Office and the media focus on the fiscal cliff, the bill was renewed with much less attention.

After voting down reform three reform amendments on Thursday, the Senate continued debate on the spy bill on Friday morning. Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) offered an amendment meant to force the National Security Agency and the Central Intelligence Agency to reveal how frequently they have collected Americans' communications as part of their efforts to amass intelligence on foreign targets. Even an estimate would suffice, Wyden has argued -- but the spy agencies have rebuffed his efforts to get a general number, claiming it is not possible.

"This is the last oportunity for the next five years for the Congress to exercise a modest measure of real oversight over this intelligence surveillance law," said Wyden, referring to the 2017 expiration date in the new law. "It is not real oversight when the United States Congress cannot get a yes or no answer to the question of whether an estimate currently exists as to whether law abiding Americans have had their phone calls and emails swept up under the FISA law."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/28/fisa-warrantless-wiretapping-senate_n_2376039.html

[ConservativeDemocrat]

56. Well, if you'er going to say that Obama was not as supportive when campaigning

...of what you want, then you're actually defending him, at least in terms of saying he didn't break any campaign promises. I was trying to be generous and cede that he'd shifted positions, but in truth, it's less than one might assume.

Again, you may not think it went far enough, but by the second link I provided, it is clear that the Democratic bill in 2008 instituted major reforms. It was a compromise between the GOP, who thought the Administration should have unfettered power to track down anything they thought was terrorism related in the name of national security, and those who thought that we shouldn't try to track the communications of terrorists post 9/11 at all. Here is the relevant passage from my link:

Obama came down on the side of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), who argued that a provision in the new law reaffirmed that FISA, and that act's courts, gives the final say over government spying. President Bush has argued that a war-time chief executive has powers that trump FISA.

"It restores FISA and existing criminal wiretap statutes as the exclusive means to conduct surveillance -- making it clear that the President cannot circumvent the law," Obama said today.

That's major reform. Nothing like Bush, much less being worse than him.

Insofar as your other passages, I'm not exactly sure why mere extensions to the law giving the FISA courts jurisdiction to wiretap suspected foreign terrorists and spies is pertinent. First, this is merely standard sunset extension, just like we do with food-stamps, the farm-bill, etc. It's by no means new, much less worse. Second, if you read closely, all this is giving powers to the FISA Courts. Remember this conversation started over warrantless wiretaps without court supervision. Not activities with appropriate judicial oversight.

I find all of this quite comparable to Obama's objection to the Iraq war. During his his campaign he said Iraq was distracting us from attacking our real enemies, those who attacked us on 9/11, and catching Osama bin Laden, and that he would put enough troops in Afghanistan to stabilize it. However many on the left chose to believe that Obama really was lying to get elected, and didn't mean it. So they got mad when he put in the troops to stabilize Afghanistan, assigned a bunch of people to track down Bin Laden, had pirates killed, and started using drones to attack Al Qae'ida, all which were perfectly in accordance with what he promised to do if elected. Of course, we're now out of Iraq, leaving Afghanistan, engaging in peace talks with Iran, and threatened Syria to rid them of their stockpiles of poison gas. Hell, even our drone attacks have dropped significantly.

- C.D. Proud Member of the Reality Based Community

[cui bono]

57. Sorry, but I don't think you read my post. It proves my point completely.

You used to be the one person I had on ignore, precisely because you kept going on and on in circles and didn't make any sense. Might have to put you back on the list.

I used the link you provided to prove that he was NOT supportive of "major reform" as a senator.

The paragraph immediately after what you chose to use now - disregarding all the parts of your linked article that I posted of course - shows why the part you chose to post is meaningless. Also, he signed into law changes that made this meaningless, which I posted in my previous response, the ACLU explained it.

Sen. Arlen Specter (Pa.), the most prominent Republican opponent of the compromise bill, issued a statement today calling that exclusivity provision "meaningless because that specific provision is now in [the] 1978 act." Specter said Bush just ignored existing law in starting the warrantless surveillance program.

I provided links showing he pushed for lax changes that actually made things worse when he was president. And why was he extending it in the first place?

[ConservativeDemocrat]

58. The bottom line about "major" reform or not is this...

Is the NSA doing the same thing today in terms of arbitrary warrantless wiretaps of US citizens (not pin-register stuff - actual intercepts) that it was doing under Bush? Yes or no?

If the answer is "yes", then you're right and there has been no major reform. If the answer is "no" then there has been.

Ironically, Snowden's leaks have shown that the NSA is largely compliant with the legal restrictions it has been put under. Some may argue that those legal restrictions don't go far enough, but they're not acting in a rogue manner like portions of the CIA appear to be.

I would also beg to differ with Sen. Specter's interpretation, because essentially Bush was arguing that the 2001 Authorization to Use Military Force against Al-Qae'ida and its terrorist allies was also Congressional permission to use any means to track them down - even if they were American citizens. And if this interpretation were correct (it was never tested in court), the 1978 law would be superseded by the later law. By passing a law in 2008, Congress was making clear that the wartime authorities granted in the 2001 AUMF did not extend to warrantless surveillance of U.S. citizens. Even if you had reason to suspect that a citizen was a member of Al-Qae'ida, you still had to get a judge's permission to intercept their communications.

- C.D. Proud Member of the Reality Based Community

[cui bono]

59. The answer is "no" and it still shows there has not been any major reform.

As I pointed out in my post, if you would read it, it has gotten worse. They loosened the rules.

Unless of course, by reform you are talking about making the problem worse. Which is possible and makes you correct.

I showed you evidence that Obama watered it down as POTUS. He also voted for immunity for telecoms as a presidential candidate, changing his position to a weaker one after he got the nom. What more can I do?

The NSA is acting in a rogue manner. Why are you defending them? Please go read about them. Don't defend them just because it shows Obama is weak on the subject. It's clear that's what your posts are about since you are ignoring the evidence presented to you, even that which comes from the link you provided.

But go ahead and claim the NSA is not acting in a rogue manner. That means it's all on Obama.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024653285#post27

And now you are actually defending BushCo's illegal warrantless wiretapping in order to defend Obama. Way to go. That I have yet to see on here.

Good day. That is all.

Unfuckingbelievable.

[ConservativeDemocrat]

60. Briefly I was hoping you would understand logic...

The statement "Obama is WORSE than Bush" is not proven by "Obama is not the unelectable leftist I want him to be" or "Obama in the General Election of 2008 was more centrist than he was while campaigning for the nomination". Facts which show the latter statements to be true are not pertinent to the first.

Nor is explaining a legal position of a U.S. political figure "defending" it. Any more than your immediate adherence to Sen. Specter's position, means you would vote for him.

...I guess it really was too much to expect from a "Obama is worse than Bush because he's not to the left of Nader" DUer. Oh well.

It was good to have a few posts of rational, factual, debate with you, before it all fell apart.

- C.D. Proud Member of the Reality Based Community

p.s. I do indeed claim that the NSA is not acting in a rogue manner. But it's not "all on Obama". It's "all on" the President, the majority of both houses in Congress, the Supreme Court, and the specially designated FISA courts. In other words, all branches of the government of the United States finding the balance between national security and privacy.

[cui bono]

61. Ah. still refusing to read my posts? And now resorting to ad hominem attacks?

I gave you the facts. Trying to pretend that I'm not logical and trying to label me as some particular type of DUer shows you have no substantial argument.

You are wrong. I showed you the evidence. You deny it and then defend BushCo's illegal wiretapping.

We're done.

Go ahead, go for some real name calling in your next reply. Get real down and dirty. Won't change the facts.

Go for it, have the last word. I'm done.

Please proceed.

[seattledo]

53. But Bush did it for different reasons...

which makes it wrong for him to have done that. Now we're doing it for legitimate reasons so it is different.

[cui bono]

55. What legitimate reasons?

Or are you being sarcastic?

[sabrina 1]

48. No, to the part of the comment that is yours, we do NOT know any such thing.

Because we know how they lie, how they have lied, and have no reason to believe one word they say.

Btw, if you want to copy and paste something, it makes it readable if you use the 'excerpt' feature.

In the real world, the American people no longer trust their government, due to the outrageous lies they have been told about almost everything, including about reasons to go to war.

Polls show Congress to be less popular than Satan.

In the real world the people are not stupid.

[rwsanders]

14. Only thing I'd change is that from what I've read, the NSA has no real "Charter"

But what you put up should be an OP. Good job.

[Ed Suspicious]

11. Useless? Not too familiar with relational database technology, are you?

SELECT *
FROM identity_master
WHERE citizen_location='anti-nsa_rally_location' AND date='date_of_anti_nsa_rally' AND time='anti_nsa_rally_time';

Probably not a well written query but you should get the idea. I mean the database wouldn't be set up as a flat file like that but it should give you an idea as to just how much effort it would take to make something useful to a snoop out of metadata. 30 seconds of sql gets you there. It would be dead simple for a beginner data analyst to find out about all of your movements and be able to make assumptions about your affiliations and intentions.

Seriously, this idea that metadata is useless and meaningless is the ultimate head-in-the-sand line of thinking.

[baldguy]

33. Your reply indicates you don't know the difference between metadata and data.

Which is that metadata is anonymous by definition. If the metadata isn't anonymous, then it isn't metadata.

[Ed Suspicious]

34. Anonymous? Not a precondition for metadata.

Metadata describes the containers for data. A card in a library card catalog is metadata and that is a good point of reference. The card gives me basic information about a specific book and the traits of that particular book. A reference book 700 pages long, entitled All About Metadata, published by Dunder Mifflin Publishing, Stored in the stacks at a specific shelf found in the reference section. All metadata and all very much not anonymous.

[Ed Suspicious]

36. Educate thyself.

http://www.wired.com/opinion/2013/06/phew-it-was-just-metadata-not-think-again/

[Rex]

51. Goodluck with that.

nt.

[cui bono]

42. Metadata is not anonymous by definition.

[fascisthunter]

22. you can't be that naive

[hootinholler]

23. The metadata is neither anonymous nor useless

Target gave nothing away, it was stolen. I also seriously doubt that Target had anyone's blood type.

[LondonReign2]

35. Was this post satire?

No one could seriously be so obtuse as to think metadata is useless. Right? I mean, no fucking way could anyone seriously argue this point, right?

[Rex]

50. kewl story bro!

nt.

[sibelian]

2. But... but

SNOWDEN.

SNOWDEN.

HE'S....



Why won't you listen to me about Snowden?

God damn you. God DAMN you.

Why won't you listen?

What's WRONG with you?

I think you must have some kind of strange, neurotic personality flaw.



(Checks Big Book of Pseudopsychiatric Armchair Diagnoses)



OBSSESSIVE. YES. YOU ARE OBSSESSIVE. YOU HAVE OBSSESSIVE COMPULSIVE DISORDER.

I HAVE EXPLAINED YOU.

[quinnox]

5. lol, thanks for that

As you probably agree, there is nothing better than DU and snap psychiactric diagnosis. Saves all of us a bunch of money!

[sibelian]

10. Quinnox, I've learned so much about myself.

Quippy paragraphs on DU have revealed so much of my personal qualities to me... so much more than my own life experiences could EVER do.

[truedelphi]

29. You just won't get it, will you? I mean, there was that

Time back in his teens when he took a young lady out on a date, and the two of them under tipped the waitress!

[Aerows]

30. The evil S.O.B. didn't stop to pet the neighbor's dog

That clearly shows that he is a sociopath. I'll bet all of those boxes in his garage have documents in them about how evil dogs and dog owners are, along with canine avoidance counter-measures.

[sibelian]

39. Nobody seems to be able to SEE IT.

It's just so fucking weird. The whole goddamn website dancing up and down and going YAY over some guy. SOME GUY.

[WillyT]

3. K & R !!!

[Union Scribe]

6. I'd wondered where Laina worked

to keep such close tabs on us all. Dang overly attached intelligence community.

[blkmusclmachine]

12. As the Feds have stated: "Nothing is beyond our reach."

Thanks, 9/11

[PowerToThePeople]

15. What are you doing wrong, huh?

[randome]

17. Speculate about what you might tell grandchildren about your efforts on this.

Or, if you don't have grandchildren, what you might tell some four or five year old down the line.

Think about your end game.

"Kid, I fought against a possible, hypothetical danger to our 4th Amendment rights."
"Okay."

Contrast that to doing something that has actual affect on the world.

"Kid, I helped get the GOP obstructionists out of office."
"Cool!"

Or, "Kid, I helped bring about meaningful climate change legislation."
"You rock, Granddad!"

Now tell me which of these is more important to the world. And tell me why you think you're doing anything useful by being afraid of what someone, somewhere might be doing with your phone metadata.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]You should never stop having childhood dreams.[/center][/font][hr]

[Demeter]

20. You are joking, right?

You think yesterday's political hack has greater impact on history than a fundamental destruction of the greatest experiment in government ever conducted?

[Rex]

25. Sad ain't it?

nt.

[Aerows]

31. If you disregard the Constitution so easily

I fear what you are teaching your own children.

[Union Scribe]

32. ..because no one can do more than one thing

or fight for more than one thing.

Weak attempt. Up your game.

[Laelth]

26. k&r for the truth, however depressing it may be. n/t

-Laelth

[Skidmore]

37. I'd say that is just about right.

We spend lots of money and time trying to make certain strangers don't hack our personal computers and time and money trying to follow up on the times when businesses which have our information are hacked.

[Ed Suspicious]

38. Where the hell did people get the idea that metadata is anonymous?

[Warren DeMontague]

43. The NSA is feeding surveillance on pot smokers to the DEA, so they can target & arrest them

I suppose you'd just let people smoke the pot instead of going to prison for it.

[Rex]

49. Good observation! Imagine the horror of not being able to go outside

without stepping into a drum circle! Prison is a much better place for non violent drug offenders. Builds character.

[Warren DeMontague]

52. Jambands everywhere

please, think of the children.