Posted on 06/06/2013 5:53:04 PM PDT by kristinn
The National Security Agency's monitoring of Americans includes customer records from the three major phone networks as well as emails and Web searches, and the agency also has cataloged credit-card transactions, said people familiar with the agency's activities.
The disclosure this week of an order by a secret U.S. court for Verizon Communications Inc.'s phone records set off the latest public discussion of the program. But people familiar with the NSA's operations said the initiative also encompasses phone-call data from AT&T Inc. and Sprint Nextel Corp., records from Internet-service providers and purchase information from credit-card providers.
The agency is using its secret access to the communications of millions of Americans to target possible terrorists, said people familiar with the effort.
The NSA's efforts have become institutionalized—yet not so well known to the public—under laws passed in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Most members of Congress defended them Thursday as a way to root out terrorism, but civil-liberties groups decried the program.
"Everyone should just calm down and understand this isn't anything that is brand new,'' said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D., Nev.), who added that the phone-data program has "worked to prevent'' terrorist attacks.
Senate Intelligence Chairman Dianne Feinstein (D., Calif.) said the program is lawful and that it must be renewed by Congress every three months. She said the revelation about Verizon, reported by the London-based newspaper the Guardian, seemed to coincide with its latest renewal.
Civil-liberties advocates slammed the NSA's actions. "The most recent surveillance program is breathtaking. It shows absolutely no effort to narrow or tailor the surveillance of citizens," said Jonathan Turley, a constitutional law expert at George Washington University.
The arrangement with the country's three largest phone companies means that every time the majority of Americans makes a call, NSA
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
From what I've read, the spooks are supposedly collecting only metadata from the phone calls. Supposedly NO content.
I wonder if they apply that same standard to emails and web searches?
I sometimes slip and use my credit/debit card instead of cash. NO MORE.
A comment from another site:
“Had this existed in the 1700s, the Founders would have covered It under the 3rd amendment. Our government is literally quartering soldiers in our homes today.”
“I just have a nasty feeling that they are tracking republicans/conservatives. Anyone who dislikes obama and speaks out against him. I feel like I’m living in 1940s Germany.”
Everyone. Every day 300 new pages of laws and regulations are added to the Federal Registry. No one has any idea of whether they’ve committed a crime or not. The purpose is so that if you disagree or cause problems, they can find things to hold over your head - serious crimes that total decades in jail.
This is becoming a totalitarian police state.
Careful. I posted an article by Jones here and nearly got banned from the site. They view him nearly as bad as the antichrist here.
But Obama killed Osama. The war on terror is over// Obama won it//s
“New info in this piece. .Sprint and AT&T included with Verizon.”
This is NOT new info. Sprint AT&T and Verizon have been provding this data since 2001, it has been reported extensively on the internet, including on FR, it has been through at least 4 Federal lawsuits, the Electronic Freedom Foundation has an entire sub-website no the issue.
This monstrosity is the creation of special interest groups who fully own the Republican Party.
There is no escape from this prison, the mere act of typing in English on any website server based in the US, UK, AU, CA, NZ etc is captured in real time.
English is now the language of the slaves of the 21st century.
There is no escape outside of fleeing the modern world and living as a hermit outside the reaches of cell phone towers and satellite surveillance, or if something huge like direct meteor strikes that cause worldwide EMP shockwaves.
Welcome to the prison built with our working lives’ tax dollars that has permanently imprisoned ourselves and our children and childrens’ children.
Welcome to the New America.
That’s a very interesting observation.
This gets better and better. It’s like someone ‘in the know’ is making it clear to the country that the Tea Party was right about this guy from the getgo.
I wonder if Obama is regretting screwing over the Clintons yet. Maybe it’ll take another half dozen scandals lol
Well over 90% of Republicans running for office in the last 11 years (winners and losers both) have accepted campaign cash from the special interest lobbies that are funded by tax dollars and Treasury debt to build this surveillance apparatus.
Find a Federal politician who hasn’t accepted this money, besides Bernie Sanders. http://www.opensecrets.org
Got to wonder how many of them are like the TSA who like to steal things . Wonder just how many of them have stolen credit card numbers this way
Obama did NOT create this apparatus.
He has almost no input into it’s creation, maintenance, expansion, and scope.
No President has ANY influence over this apparatus.
Idiots on FR who are using this to sully Obama’s name are just as guilty of supporting the creation and expansion of this apparatus as the Democrats who blamed Bush for it’s creation and expansion.
The first post on this thread is actually a full on endorsement of this expansion of the data collection apparatus.
“Everyone should just calm down and understand this isn’t anything that is brand new,’’ said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D., Nev.), who added that the phone-data program has “worked to prevent’’ terrorist attacks.”
Pay attention Harry, there are no terrorists. The unfortunate incidents we have witnessed can be attributed to workplace violence and misguided college students.
I paid sales tax because the vendor does business in my state and has a physical presence here.
People need to understand that data can be augmented with data from other source systems. You can build pretty complete pictures of people that way, legally or illegally. When Missouri forked over concealed carry permit data to the DMV I got very concerned.
We ought to look into ATF very closely.
Obama is worse than big brother 1984
Good, then you’re safe this time. But you see my point? They won’t have to pass an internet sales tax...they’ll just gather the data, send it to our states, and they’ll send their mini-IRS to lean on us.
Sometimes I wonder if all of this intrusion is designed to get people to give up their cell phones, internet, cable television and go back to a life of only information they want us to hear.
Are there any buggy whip manufacturers on the NYSE?
He didn’t create it, but just like the IRS, his presence at the top creates an atmosphere where the underlings know nobody is watching and they mice can play with no cats to police them.
I’m not for this in any way and I’m just as against a Republican doing this crap (and they have and they will again...just look at my dumbass toe tapping senator for evidence), but this wakes up a lot of people about who Obama is. Too many people had an idea that he’s different and outside of this. Someone is methodically working at chipping away at the ‘Limbaugh theory’. Just MHO of course. Could be totally off base, but then again maybe not :p
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