Posted on 06/06/2013 5:30:26 AM PDT by blam
Domestic Spying Revelation Could Be Devastating For The Obama White House
Peter Foster, The Telegraph
June. 6, 2013, 6:46 AM
The Obama administration will be bracing itself for a torrent of hostile questions this morning following the apparent revelation that the National Security Agency has been data-mining the phone records of tens of millions of ordinary Americans.
Not to be confused with eaves-dropping, or bugging the phones of those suspected of conspiring to commit a terrorist or criminal offence, the top secret court order published by The Guardian appears to show that the NSA has been trawling the anonymous 'metadata' of potentially billions of phone-calls.
On the one hand, American might take comfort that the 'internals' of their phone conversations ie the voices themselves - are not being routinely recorded, but on the other, it seems from this leak that potentially everyone with a phone is under some form of surveillance in the USA.
Studies have shown that while anonymous, the 'metadata' records of location data, call duration, unique identifiers can provide a surprising amount of information, surprisingly quickly when zeroed in on by investigators.
For Mr Obama a president who prided himself on his liberal credentials this leak is a potentially devastating revelation since it exposes him to attack on two fronts - from both the libertarian Right and the liberal Left.
Already the administration has been hammered over its aggressive prosecution of leakers, including what appeared to be an attempt to criminalise a Fox News journalist, James Rosen, for working a source to obtain a leak from the State Department about North Korea.
That story caused the New York Times usually a reliable friend of the Obama administration - to write a seething editorial
(snip)
(Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com ...
Why did they hone in on Verizon??? Or is there more info out there that it is every phone company?
`Could be` is a tall order.
5.56mm
We Will Be Searching All Your & Your Relatives Emails & Phones Records We Don't Already Have!
Verizon is the carrier most of the NE liberals use. It brings it more ‘home’ for them than say BellSouth.
They want to root out all the dangerous conservatives and sic the IRS on them.
could be, should be, but with gutless corrupt media it probably won’t be (unless WE THE PEOPLE raise hell until the cows come home!).
The liberal left will swallow hard and make excuses for this. I predict that "It's for the children" will appear somewhere in their arguments.
"The Fuhrer said what? Oh well, orders are orders!" - Rachel Maddow and a host of others
Verizon is the largest cellular carrier in the continental US.
Because the reason you can hear people now, is because they own most cell phone towers in the US. The other just rent space on them, typically.
Also, verizon is the largest prepaid cell phone company. Others, like Straight Talk, or Netspend (other large prepaid companies) USE VERIZON TOWERS.
That’s exactly why I use Straight Talk. Same coverage as Verizon, cheaper than Verizon and no contract.
Now I see why...
the gop were it a party of brass balls would loudly make the leap that the irs targeting was likely being done on phones as well
Taking the way back machine to the 1980’s I recall computers placed in England to track all communications in the USA. It was placed in Europe as opposed to the USA because we have the 4th amendment and they did not. I cannot recall the name of program.
In fairness, Obama surely just learned about this yesterday from the newspaper reports and he’ll get right on it. It is surely the result of Bush holdovers and rogue agents at NSA. Obama has only had five years, and he hasn’t had time to clean up every inherited mess.
it looks to me like this story broke in the foreign press
http://www.cnn.com/2013/06/05/politics/nsa-verizon-records/index.html
Yeah, but what about land lines?? AT&T etc.
Be forewarned: If it is not illegal then the likelihood that "Bush did it" and "Clinton did it" and "Reagan did it" is very high. An easy out for Obama.
If it is illegal I would personally be very surprised that the management of NSA would go for it. Yes, we spy on the Brits and give them the info and the Brits spy on us and give NSA the info but that is, technically, not illegal.
But this is the Obama Administration. Heaven knows who is in charge now at NSA. I don't. If this really is a rogue operation by NSA then Obama has a expanded his list of scandals from 3 to 4 (and counting, stay tuned).
Echelon.
Someone high up is a Tea Party Member?
As horrifying as the revelations have been so far about the abuses of this regime, we’ve only seen the tip of the iceberg.
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