(Everyone say "FU!" to the NSA!)
Posted on 07/30/2013 10:19:10 AM PDT by xzins
And I understand they have a "secret interpretation" of the law.
As the article says:
We now live in a society in which a person can be accused of any number of crimes without knowing what exactly he has done. He might be apprehended in the middle of the night by a roving band of SWAT police. He might find himself on a no-fly list, unable to travel for reasons undisclosed. He might have his phones or internet tapped based upon a secret order handed down by a secret court, with no recourse to discover why he was targeted. Indeed, this is Kafka’s nightmare, and it is slowly becoming America’s reality.
Perhaps the citizens should convene a “secret grand jury” and a “secret court” to try Hussein and Hillary on charges of TREASON in the Benghazi matter.
Instead of the government living in fear of the people and thus always doing their bidding, it is now powerful enough that we must fear it and do it's bidding, or fear the consequences of IRS audit, FBI investigation, and the government's propaganda arm (the "news" media) spreading gossip info about you (true or not, they don't care).
Tell the idiots who defend this system ONE thing. The Muslims won!
America as a nation plods on, but America as an idea died after WWI.
[And how we burned in the camps later, thinking: What would things have been like
if every Security operative, when he went out at night to make an arrest, had been
uncertain whether he would return alive and had to say good-bye to his family? Or
if, during periods of mass arrests, as for example in Leningrad, when they arrested
a quarter of the entire city, people had not simply sat there in their lairs, paling
with terror at every bang of the downstairs door and at every step on the staircase,
but had understood they had nothing left to lose and had boldly set up in the
downstairs hall an ambush of half a dozen people with axes, hammers, pokers, or
whatever else was at hand? After all, you knew ahead of time that those bluecaps
were out at night for no good purpose. And you could be sure ahead of time that
you’d be cracking the skull of a cutthroat. Or what about the Black Maria sitting out
there on the street with one lonely chauffeur—what if it had been driven off or its
tires spiked? The Organs would very quickly have suffered a shortage of officers
and transport and, notwithstanding all of Stalin’s thirst, the cursed machine would
have ground to a halt!
THE GULAG ARCHIPELAGO - Chapter 1, PAGE 14 - Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
The federal government jealously guards its power over us. It will not easily relinquish the power it has gained over us, for it is now a powerful, living entity all on its own.
Well said, jeffc! The feral government has declared its independence from us, the people. I believe the time is at hand to let it go its own way. I'm sure we can get along without it.
You’re on the money, Jeffc. We’re way past the camel with it’s nose in the tent, with the government having its foot in the door.
We are at the point where people will knowingly change their behavior out of fear of the government.
And now that they arguably have “everyman’s” voice, text, email, internet communications, and all of his movements and financial actions, who is going to be willing to step forward and challenge these people? They know no one is perfect, that they can slime anyone and jail just about anyone.
Go to liberal sites, and you’ll surprisingly find they’re in tune with the right on several issues. The NSA surveillance state is one of those instances.
My own representative, Tom Cole (R), voted against the Amash amendment which would have stopped NSA domestic surveillance. Rep. Cole is a reliable vote for the GOPe, but the important point is our leaders in D.C., both Republicans and Democrats, have zero respect for the US Constitution.
4th Amendment: “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.”
It doesn’t take a legal expert to realize the US Constitution was written to limit the federal government, not We the People. The 4th is exceptionally clear, but if there’s doubt, that doubt has to go to the side of restricting government.
I think this is one of those issues where both liberals and conservatives can agree. People need to understand the technologies, both hardware and software, are rapidly being created that can track virtually every last aspect of life, from your genetic makeup to everywhere you go. They’ll soon know if you adjust your thermostat a degree lower in the Summer. Seriously.
There’s plenty of computer processing power available to constantly collect and sift data on every last American. Most of it doesn’t even require human interaction any more. A human only needs to make sure the programs are kept running.
Exceed the speed limit occasionally? Plan on getting fined. Roll through a stop sign once in awhile? Pay some more. Eat fast food more often than you should? Watch your insurance rates rise or be denied a medical procedure. Run your thermostat too low? Pay a premium on your electric bill. All of this is entirely possible if we don’t nip this domestic surveillance crap in the bud.
(Everyone say "FU!" to the NSA!)
So true. And if anyone thinks electing a GOP president will change that they are in for a terrible disappointment.
These agencies operate on their own through unelected beauracrats. The only way to stop it is to shut them down completely.
That is not going to happen without a you know what so we will all still be ranting about this stuff when President Rand Paul or President Ted Cruz is in office. President Paul/Cruz will be publicly railing agains’t abuses by the TSA but the good old TSA will still be putting its hand down your pants.
Let me take speculation one step futher and predict that when and if both houses of Congress are back in GOP control we will still have the TSA with its hands down our pants, EPA will still be shutting down power plants, borders will still be wide open and the DOJ, FBI, NSA etc will still be using the Patriot act to listen to your phone calls and read your emails. The 30,000 drones will be flying overhead watching everything you do.
Why is that you may ask? The answer is that the Republicans love power as much as the Democrats do.
I fear that any true conservative that does make it past the media enema and gets elected if he/she is too pronounced in neutering the federal government and actually makes headway will post haste suffer an accident.
I’ve not heard _one_ major blogger or news system report the most relevent problem with USG/NSA spying:
If elements of USgov. have everything all citizens have expressed upon the Internet&phone lines, this would include the law enforcement (FBI,CIA,local) personnel, agency officers (EPA,State and other Depts.), govenors, judges and congressmen. This clearly enables parts of USgov to control via blackmail etc., others in and out of gov:
Maybe key legislative votes and key judicial decisions are bent this way...
Maybe top generals and high level officials are forced to resign, lie or retire this way...
Maybe top law enforcement is told to stop looking for criminals in high places...
SEE:
First off, a strong President (a Reagan, if we could be so lucky). Then, he would have to reorganize all the bureaucracies so they answer to him and his staff. Move people around to different places and different jobs so as to break up the liberal chummies working together to advance the liberal doctrine and inhibit any conservative tendencies. Fire anyone who doesn't do their job as instructed (downsize everything, for a start).
IDK, though. I still believe it can be done, but, like anything as massive as our feral government, you have to start somewhere and the best place to do that is from the inside.
It doesn’t take a legal expert to realize the US Constitution was written to limit the federal government, not We the People. The 4th is exceptionally clear, but if there’s doubt, that doubt has to go to the side of restricting government.
YES!!
I have told people everywhere this over and over (but I'm not blue in the face - yet!). They have been brainwashed by the publik skoool system for so long, they don't recognize it for what it is nor do they see the the dangerous ramifications. I guess as long as they get their EBT cards and Obama-phones, they don't care (bread and circuses!).
A lot of Americans simply don’t understand how powerful the technology has become. Like I wrote earlier, the Orwellian state can be easily imposed, and it doesn’t even have to be a human on the other side of your TV monitor. Computer algorithms never get tired, and they can constantly sift your personal data, meta or otherwise. It’s not like the NSA wants this metadata for no reason at all. There’s a lot of information to be gleaned from it.
Also, Orwell couldn’t have predicted all of the other things besides your TV monitor that can be tracked by a Orwellian state. Everything from refrigerators to thermostats are joining the networked world. As some idiots are fond of saying, if you have nothing to hide, you don’t need to worry about privacy.
What they don’t understand is just how much information is readily available and just how badly it can be used against people. Fact is, there’s no such thing as an innocent citizen in this day of laws for everything. The law can and will be used selectively against anyone who dares raise their head.
The tools and technologies are there—now! All it takes is someone to throw the switch, and we’re enslaved. I believe that’s what Snowden was getting at. Even if government isn’t using these weapons against Americans at this point, it’s building the capability to use them in the future. The only thing restraining them is their good will, because we KNOW they don’t care one whit for our constitutional liberties.
Yes if we got someone who was dedicated enough and didn’t care about four more years. I’m not holding my breath.
The Fourth Amendment guarantees my house, papers, and effects, will be secure against unreasonable searches and seizures. The argument has been made that the government has not violated the Fourth Amendment by "merely" recording a conversation until someone has listened to it. Yet that conversation is private, it is something that belongs to the two people in the conversation, with the communications services paid for by one of them. Taking possession of the contents IS a taking of property every bit as real as entering my home, rifling my file cabinets, and making copies of everything, whether anybody has read them or not.
Hence the mere EXISTENCE of an infrastructure capable of storing every conversation, email, and bank transaction IS a systematic violation of law. The matter of law can simply be ignored, but physical access to the data cannot.
I agree.
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