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In reply to the discussion: Al Franken Defends NSA Surveillance: It’s Not Spying, They’re Protecting Us [View all]dreamnightwind
(4,775 posts)He has the disease that commonly afflicts outsiders that become insiders, the same one our president has. Democrats are more susceptible to it than Republicans, since Democrats always think they have to work harder to establish themselves as supporting whatever intelligence or defense activity is put before them.
Goin' along to get along. Trying too hard to be the adult in the room.
There's no way in hell we know any more than the tip of the iceberg here. Clapper outright lied to Wyden about it (he must have been under oath, too, actionable?) before admitting even this much.
I saw a post in this thread about "anonymous phone data", and others that are clearly assuming that the best framing The Powers That Be can put on Prism is in fact the whole story, when undoubtedly (indubitably) it is not.
For one thing, no phone data is anonymous when they have the call records stored with the 2 phone numbers. It is trivial to query a separate table (or even a separate system) that matches these phone numbers with names, in fact the anonymous phone data statement is laughable.
If the NSA was above-board on Prism, they could have set up this program but only after a public debate. Not only did they do it without any public debate, they actually lied to us about it, and most likely they still are.
They say they don't have the phone call's content stored. Yeah, right. So it is stored somewhere else, and they query that system when they are drilling down to that level. Count on it.
The digital communications are stored with full content, if I'm not mistaken (someone correct me if I'm wrong). Email, Skype, video, tweets, chats, complete browsing and download history, every brick-and-mortar purchase that was not paid for with cash, all GPS location data our phones transmit, I assume that all of this is in there.
So, they have, or are attempting to have, everything anyone does that interacts with the outside world.
It has nothing to do with whether we trust Obama or not. That's completely not the point. The point is, do we trust the worst person who will occupy his position with this? Do we trust the NSA? Who else could use this? We'll never know, because they won't tell us.
It also has nothing to do with whether we as individuals have anything to hide. We might not, or we might not be important enough to matter. But what about the people who do and who are? Businessmen/women, politicians, anyone making important decisions that effect other people's lives, they are all vulnerable to extortion and control by the information in this system. Nobody is clean enough that something couldn't be found. So the owners of this system have way too much power and way too little oversight, 100% unacceptable.
So long Al, it was nice laughing at your funny jokes, SNL, Stuart Smalley, and I liked your radio show too. I even sent you an out of state donation to help you defeat Norm Coleman, but you're one of them now. Congratulations, enjoy the fruits of membership. I'll stick with less "respectable" company like Sanders and Grayson.