Posted on 06/30/2013 2:20:05 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Senators are questioning whether the National Security Agency collected bulk data on more than just Americans’ phone records, such as firearm and book purchases.
A bipartisan group of 26 senators, led by Sen. Ron Wyden (D., Ore.) asked Director of National Intelligence James Clapper to detail the scope and limits of the National Security Agency’s surveillance activities in a letter released Friday.
“We are concerned that by depending on secret interpretations of the PATRIOT Act that differed from an intuitive reading of the statute, this program essentially relied for years on a secret body of law,” the senators wrote in the letter.
The NSA’s surveillance program has come under intense scrutiny following a leak revealing the agency harvested the phone metadata of millions of American citizens.
The senators noted that the federal government’s authority under Section 215 of the PATRIOT Act is broad and rife with potential for abuse. Among the senators’ concerns was whether the NSA’s bulk data harvesting program could be used to construct a gun registry or violate other privacy laws.
“It can be used to collect information on credit card purchases, pharmacy records, library records, firearm sales records, financial information, and a range of other sensitive subjects,” the senators wrote. “And the bulk collection authority could potentially be used to supersede bans on maintaining gun owner databases, or laws protecting the privacy of medical records, financial records, and records of book and movie purchases.”
The senators asked Clapper in the letter whether the NSA used PATRIOT Act authorities to conduct bulk collection of other types of records, and whether there are any instances of the agency violating a court order in the process of such collections.....
(Excerpt) Read more at freebeacon.com ...
As one who believed in peaceful change, I now simply think its time for a change achieved using whatever means necessary. This is beyond acceptable.
They/we already know the 4th is dead, what’s one more Amendment in the bonfire?
Not like they’ll rollback any law/regulation/department.
Not like anyone has to fear prison for doing anything illegal anywho.
I was called with a poll. It sounded like Bloomberg’s group funded it. They asked if I owned a gun. Yeah! As if I would answer THAT question!
“NICS checks by phone?
Got ‘em
Ammo orders by web?
Got ‘em.”
Way too complicated. They only need to search your google record. Google allready knew ....
But the real fun stuff are the biometric photos needed for a passport. And the drivers license photo database to enhance the autoscan when identifying protesters. http://www.forbes.com/sites/peterjreilly/2013/05/23/tea-party-demonstrations-and-homeland-security-another-non-event/ http://travel.state.gov/passport/pptphotoreq/pptphotoreq_5333.html
What country are we living in?
of course they did- that is why health centers and hospitals all across the nation began routinely askign patients if they had guns in their homes (pretendign hte quesiton was only about ‘protecting’ suicidal or homicidal patients’)- State governments FORCED helath centers to becoem rats- to betray the trust of their patients and to report ANY guns immediately-
If NSA denied they collected gun info- they are liars!
[[Until the registry is discovered]]
What we need is a richard snowden of the NSA to come forward
[[They never fail to amaze me with the depths they’re going to to mess with us.]]
They aint messin with us- they are messin with a do nothign GOP who fall victim to their tactics EVERY damn time- The GOP should be dmaninding hte NSA hand over ALL their records for private scrutiny, and holdign aNYONE who refuses accooutnable-
Thanks Whenifhow.
Revolt is coming.
“...I now simply think its time for a change achieved using whatever means necessary. ...”
Lot of that going around lately...
“...they are messin with a do nothign GOP...”
Well, yeah, they’re messing with THEM too; but “the GOP” in Congress aren’t the folks buying and owning firearms because they’re worried.
I know... I've been involved on the cutting edge of data storage and analytics for 30 years - pioneering distributed and very large databases (VLDBs) that model / manage very complex party relationships. I was an executive at 2 of oldest, largest, and most successful global data companies.
It was scary what they knew about people, entities, relationships, and behaviors - both historic and predictive. The NSA is light years ahead of these companies - with unlimited resources and no accountability on either laws or results.
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