Nobody Is Listening To Your Phone Calls

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  • Thymebomb13 said:
    Horseleech said:
    SoundOutLoud said:
    (like my brothers good friend, who was flagged for doing a school report on nuclear weapons)

    Curious as to how you know this - mole in the NSA?

    Believes Everything He Hears Syndrome.

    School report my left nut. At what age do kids stop doing "school reports"?

    Jeezus.

    Its just a turn of phrase. Do you realize you are criticizing my person more than my views? Dude was in college at the time.

  • ElectrodeElectrode Los Angeles 3,130 Posts
    If we are allowed to have Google, imagine what they have access to. "Just because you can doesn't mean you should" does not apply to government, like it or not. I do not, but what are those of us who don't visit jihad websites going to do?

  • ppadilhappadilha 2,244 Posts
    Thymebomb13 said:
    In 1984 after the IRA almost blew Maggie Thatcher up on her toilet I was briefly detained and questioned by British police officers while trying to board the Holyhead ferry to Ireland. I was "impacted," I guess, if by "impacted" you mean "Jeezus, that's so cool!"

    yeah dude, you're really tough for being questioned by police and coming out thinking it was a cool and awesome experience. For even more thrills, you should have asked for an enhanced interrogation.

    it doesn't matter how harmless you think data gathering is because at the end of the day the law enforcement officials who use this information are still being driven by some mass hysteria about terrorism and the vague notion of having to defend "national interests." All it takes is one idiot to misinterpret that data in order to fuck someone's life. Here's the case of Steve Kurtz, an artist who was thought to be a terrorist because he had some petri dishes in his house:

    Dr. Steven Kurtz is a Professor of Art at SUNY Buffalo and a founding member, with his late wife, Hope, of the internationally acclaimed art and theater collective Critical Art Ensemble (CAE). Over the past decade cultural institutions worldwide have hosted CAE???s participatory theater projects that help the general public understand biotechnology and the many issues surrounding it.

    In May 2004 the Kurtzes were preparing to present Free Range Grain, a project examining GM agriculture, at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (MASS MoCA), when Hope Kurtz died of heart failure. Emergency personnel who responded to Kurtz's 911 call deemed the couple's art suspicious, and called the FBI. The art materials consisted of several petri dishes containing three harmless bacteria cultures, and a mobile lab to test food labeled ???organic??? for the presence of genetically modified ingredients. As Kurtz explained, these materials had been safely displayed in museums and galleries throughout Europe and North America with absolutely no risk to the public.

    The next day, however, as Kurtz was on his way to the funeral home, he was illegally detained by agents from the FBI and Joint Terrorism Task Force, who informed him he was being investigated for "bioterrorism." At no point during the 22 hours Kurtz was held and questioned did the agents Mirandize him or inform him he could leave. Meanwhile, agents from numerous federal law enforcement agencies - including five regional branches of the FBI, the Joint Terrorism Task Force, Homeland Security, the Department of Defense, and the Buffalo Police, Fire Department, and state Marshall's office - descended on Kurtz's home in Hazmat suits. Cordoning off half a block around his home, they seized his cat, car, computers, manuscripts, books, equipment, and even his wife's body from the county coroner for further analysis. The Erie County Health Department condemned his house as a possible "health risk."

    A week later, only after the Commissioner of Public Health for New York State had tested samples from the home and announced there was no public safety threat, was Kurtz allowed to return to his home and to recover his wife's body.

    While most observers assumed the Task Force would realize its initial investigation was a terrible mistake, the feds have instead chosen to press their "case" against Steve Kurtz, Robert Ferrell, and possibly others (see below for more information on the charges). Despite the Public Health Commissioner's conclusion as to the safety of Kurtz's materials, and despite the fact that the FBI's own field and laboratory tests showed they were not harmful to people or the environment ??? it would actually be impossible to make any sort of weaponized or dangerous germ from them ??? the U.S. District Attorney continues to waste vast sums of public money on this outrageous and politically motivated persecution.

    only took four years for him to be cleared of all charges, you can read about the case here: http://www.caedefensefund.org/index.html

    there are also countless stories of people like Adama Bah, who seem to be arbitrarily placed on terrorist lists and are threatened with deportation: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/26/nyregion/26suicide.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

    don't you worry your pretty little mind though, I'm sure all this goes on in order to protect your democracy.

  • mrmatthewmrmatthew 1,575 Posts
    Weren't we warned about this 40 years ago



    and then again 20 years later by the same man



    Anonymous needs to drop the Guy Fawlkes masks and make with the Hackman masks.

  • Rockadelic said:
    Frank said:
    Personally, I have nothing to hide and don't care which government monitors my email or phone calls.

    ^^Been saying this for years^^

    If I had something to hide I'd say the same thing!

  • ive been saying things like 'president' and 'bomb' at te start of every phone call for a long time in the hopes that i can get a greatest hits made further down the road.

  • ppadilha said:
    just so I'm clear, people think it's ok for the US government to collect data on millions of its own citizens in order to... do what, exactly?

    you can't really have a democracy if the government treats all its citizens as enemies, but maybe I'm alone in thinking this.

    Yep. There's a reason why we have a curtain in every voting booth.

  • studiodestudiode 12 Posts

  • Everyone who's even interested in this type of stuff should just read "Little Brother" by Corey Doctorow.

    Then realise that there's something you can do against this stuff, but it takes a little more effort and that's not really what the general public is known for.

  • DuderonomyDuderonomy Haut de la Garenne 7,789 Posts
    Guardian front page is killing it. Of course, the UK coudn't possibly doing anything similar...

    :smirk:

  • DocMcCoyDocMcCoy "Go and laugh in your own country!" 5,917 Posts
    Duderonomy said:
    Guardian front page is killing it. Of course, the UK coudn't possibly doing anything similar...

    :smirk:

    Anyone who uses software like Ghostery will be able to tell you that every page of the Guardian's website is crawling with trackers - way more than average for a newspaper website - that log your surfing habits for the specific purpose of passing the details onto third parties. Nice little irony there if you like that sort of thing.

  • DuderonomyDuderonomy Haut de la Garenne 7,789 Posts
    So how long until it will be like this, but with 'them' in charge of the remote control, not you?

    How long will this guy last?

    Will anything change? My guess is not yet.

  • topical news from the 1970s...


  • skelskel You can't cheat karma 5,033 Posts
    Thymebomb13 said:

    No, you want to see the villain, look in the mirror. It???s the pants-wetting populace of the United States, who votes for these assholes who pass bad laws in moments of crisis, because we have to do something and because Americans, unlike every other nation in the world, have a god given right to be safe at all times from all things."


    This

  • fauxteurfauxteur 342 Posts
    Except Obama got elected in '08 after campaigning hard against reactionary Cheneyism for 18 months.

    (Of course four years later he decided the primary function of govt is to "keep Americans safe".)

  • DocMcCoyDocMcCoy "Go and laugh in your own country!" 5,917 Posts
    When exactly was this magical time of absolute privacy? Was it when scummy British tabloids were bugging members of the Royal Family in the hope they'd find out who they were shagging? Was it between the wars, back in the 1930s? Was it when we all lived eight to a room in tiny little villages and people knew every time you took a dump?

    And while we're at it, the Guardian is a complete fucking joke nowadays - the editor dicks around in his office practising Chopin ??tudes all day while what's left of the paper's reputation gets dragged through the street by the kind of people who treat The Matrix as if it were a drama-documentary.

  • caicai spacecho 362 Posts
    DocMcCoy said:

    And while we're at it, the Guardian is a complete fucking joke nowadays - the editor dicks around in his office practising Chopin ??tudes all day while what's left of the paper's reputation gets dragged through the street by the kind of people who treat The Matrix as if it were a drama-documentary.

    Well sadly its still better than ALL of the newspapers here in Australia.

  • Frank said:
    Somehow I don't understand the outrage and even much less the surprise about this. Personally, I have nothing to hide and don't care which government monitors my email or phone calls. I wouldn't want to have audio/video bugs all over my house but other than that I don't give a shit.

    If you have nothing to hide, are you willing to post your browser history for all of us to see here on Soul Strut?

  • FlomotionFlomotion 2,391 Posts
    The intelligence agencies have been stomping all over our privacy for decades... not sure they've ever been too mindful of the legalities whatever administration has been in power.

  • Fred_GarvinFred_Garvin The land of wind and ghosts 337 Posts
    Flomotion said:
    not sure they've ever been too mindful of the legalities whatever administration has been in power.
    AKA "We don't have to show you any stinkin' badges!"

  • HarveyCanalHarveyCanal "a distraction from my main thesis." 13,234 Posts
    The Strut has a bad case of Stockholm Syndrome.


  • LaserWolfLaserWolf Portland Oregon 11,517 Posts
    DocMcCoy said:
    When exactly was this magical time of absolute privacy? Was it when scummy British tabloids were bugging members of the Royal Family in the hope they'd find out who they were shagging? Was it between the wars, back in the 1930s? Was it when we all lived eight to a room in tiny little villages and people knew every time you took a dump?

    And while we're at it, the Guardian is a complete fucking joke nowadays - the editor dicks around in his office practising Chopin ??tudes all day while what's left of the paper's reputation gets dragged through the street by the kind of people who treat The Matrix as if it were a drama-documentary.

    There is a big difference between your family and housemates knowing when you take a dump and the government tracking all your phone calls.

  • BeatChemistBeatChemist 1,465 Posts
    I don't think the true concern is the lack of privacy. It's the insane ability we have now to store, analyze, and cross reference information. Information isn't powerful if you don't know how to use it. We have developed such complicated and powerful ways to extract further info out of already existing data sets, that even innocent information gathering can be abused.

    That Slate Paul Revere article was a good read.

  • RockadelicRockadelic Out Digging 13,993 Posts
    HarveyCanal said:
    The Strut has a bad case of Stockholm Syndrome.

    ^^^This^^^

    To Doc: The last time we had our freedom to privacy was the day before the Patriot Act was passed. Some of you may remember the 1,000's of posts discussing this throughout Strut History. It's interesting to see how things have evolved over the 8 years I've been here. Check out The Struts Greatest Hits on the topic of Bush and his attempts to infringe on our civil rights and privacy. There are plenty more where these came from.

    KVH
    2007 & 08
    You think civil rights are unimportant and trust the bush administration to disregard them, along with all privacy rights, as long as they tell us it is in our best interests.

    What about bush's unlawful wire tapping?

    As it stands, bush violated the law. FISA required him to get approval, and despite the fact that the FISA court is currently made up of republicans, he chose not to get their approval, seemingly, just so he could flex his muscles. the aumf is open-ended, because it was signed days after 9-11. however, as i said before, the statute only gave him the right to use military force. if you are arguing that warrentless wiretapping falls under that authority, well...i think you are dead wrong.

    There is 4 page article in today's nyt that explains what happened during the johnson, nixon, ford administrations (with respect to the cia). in a nutshell, pre and post watergate, the cia was involved in many questionable, illegal and unethical programs, including: illegal wiretaps of journalists and critics of the war (sound familiar)

    Day
    2007
    WIRETAPS/PUBLIC SURVEILLANCE/PATRIOT ACT

    Bush = Worst president ever.

    National Security Agency tapping into telephone calls of Americans without a warrant, is in violation of federal statutes and the Constitution.
    In August 2006, in a lawsuit brought by the ACLU, a federal judge in Detroit found the program both unconstitutional and illegal.



    Motown
    2008
    WIRETAPS/PUBLIC SURVELLIANCE/PATRIOT ACT
    One of the reasons why the Bush administration didn't go to the special court to handle these kinds of operations was because they thought it would be illegal

    2005
    1) So does the government have to go to a judge to get a search warrant or wire tap or not? The President claims that as commander and chief in war he does not have to do this.

    2) In the 1970s the Congress imposed rules on the National Security Agency that it cannot monitor calls made by American citizens within the U.S. because Pres. Nixon had them doing that. President Bush says that as commander and chief in the war on terror, these rules do not apply.

    3) The special court set up to deal with these issues has only rejected 5 requests for wire taps or searches since 1979. The government can go to the court and retroactively ask to authorize the wire tap. President Bush says that as the executive he does not have to follow this procedure.

    JRoot
    2008
    My view is that the president is acting as a law unto himself without regard to the consequences of his actions, either domestically or internationally. warrantless wiretapping of American citizens on American soil is illegal and unconstitutional, has been for centuries

    DrWu
    2007
    What's your take on the latest revelations about NSA and AT&T? I have always tried to downplay the conspiracy aspect of the administration's failed approach to the war on terror but this shit is just downright criminal and scary. It's the kind of move that a totalitarian gov't would endorse.

    Fatback
    2007

    Seriously. I'm not talking about "catching the bad guys". I'm talking about being a nation of laws, not men. When they did what they did, they broke the law. Period. And just because you have unitary executive fantasies or Jesus told you or whatever, doesn't mean you can break the law. Sorry I got SERIOUS problems with that.


    The Hook Up
    It was just when Bush/Cheney were in office the "patriot act" was passed and civil liberties were pissed upon

    Birdman 2006
    USA Today: NSA building massive database of phone records

    Can I get anyone pissed off about this total betrayal of American citizen's trust and privacy?

    ODub 2005
    With regards to domestic spying, a few simple points:

    1) If you want to put surveillance of people, there's a simple thing called "due process" which gov't and/or law officials can follow to gain approval. Circumventing that process, especially via someone as clueless as the president, seems reminiscent of J. Edgar Hoover's enthusiastic spying on ANYONE he considered potentially suspect, including thousands of people who clearly were not.

    2) On the other hand, I don't quite get what the big deal is here: is anyone remotely surprised the NSA is spying on folks without court approval?

    Motown
    2005
    The NSA is suppose to not conduct any kind of domestic spying operations as that is the duty of the FBI. I think it's written into its charter that it cannot spy on American citizens within the U.S. There's also a special National Security court that the government's suppose to go to in these special cases of spying on Americans about terrorism and espionage and I think I read that the Bush administration skipped them as well. Plus it just goes to show you that the Bush administration has been about "the ends justify the means" from the get go in this war on terrorism. They're willing to abrogate one of the basic rights of privacy of the accused and due process by skipping the court system and not asking for warrants for surveillance

    JonnyPaycheck
    2005

    I don't think the snooping threatens me at all; but I would ask you, do you have many Muslim friends? Because I do, and they are almost all related to someone who does business with someone who banks with a person who works for a company that donated to an organization that at one point made a payment to Hamas. Or have a cousin who hung out with a guy who owned a deli that employed a man who attended a training camp in Pakistan. Do they deserve to be spied on, without heed to the process already established?
    We have to live up to our laws, or else what are they for. The President, in all his incompetence, is certainly not better than the law of the land and more importantly does not have the public confidence to pull off such a move. I don't trust this administration to act in my best interests, so I am not at all comfortable with their constant power grabs.


    Canonical
    2005

    Especially people like myself and many others on this board, who are activists and are endaged in activities which contradict the mind set of the current administration and can therefore be deemed "terrorists" (owing to its lose definition). These people, who also have honest intentions of making change for the betterment of "the people" do not deserve to have their civil liberties revoked. Period.

  • BrianBrian 7,618 Posts
    dude but that was like bush and he did evil stuff man
    obama is only going to do good stuff

  • LaserWolfLaserWolf Portland Oregon 11,517 Posts
    Rockadelic said:
    HarveyCanal said:
    The Strut has a bad case of Stockholm Syndrome.

    ^^^This^^^

    To Doc: The last time we had our freedom to privacy was the day before the Patriot Act was passed. Some of you may remember the 1,000's of posts discussing this throughout Strut History. It's interesting to see how things have evolved over the 8 years I've been here. Check out The Struts Greatest Hits on the topic of Bush and his attempts to infringe on our civil rights and privacy. There are plenty more where these came from.

    KVH
    2007 & 08
    You think civil rights are unimportant and trust the bush administration to disregard them, along with all privacy rights, as long as they tell us it is in our best interests.

    What about bush's unlawful wire tapping?

    As it stands, bush violated the law. FISA required him to get approval, and despite the fact that the FISA court is currently made up of republicans, he chose not to get their approval, seemingly, just so he could flex his muscles. the aumf is open-ended, because it was signed days after 9-11. however, as i said before, the statute only gave him the right to use military force. if you are arguing that warrentless wiretapping falls under that authority, well...i think you are dead wrong.

    There is 4 page article in today's nyt that explains what happened during the johnson, nixon, ford administrations (with respect to the cia). in a nutshell, pre and post watergate, the cia was involved in many questionable, illegal and unethical programs, including: illegal wiretaps of journalists and critics of the war (sound familiar)

    Day
    2007
    WIRETAPS/PUBLIC SURVEILLANCE/PATRIOT ACT

    Bush = Worst president ever.

    National Security Agency tapping into telephone calls of Americans without a warrant, is in violation of federal statutes and the Constitution.
    In August 2006, in a lawsuit brought by the ACLU, a federal judge in Detroit found the program both unconstitutional and illegal.



    Motown
    2008
    WIRETAPS/PUBLIC SURVELLIANCE/PATRIOT ACT
    One of the reasons why the Bush administration didn't go to the special court to handle these kinds of operations was because they thought it would be illegal

    2005
    1) So does the government have to go to a judge to get a search warrant or wire tap or not? The President claims that as commander and chief in war he does not have to do this.

    2) In the 1970s the Congress imposed rules on the National Security Agency that it cannot monitor calls made by American citizens within the U.S. because Pres. Nixon had them doing that. President Bush says that as commander and chief in the war on terror, these rules do not apply.

    3) The special court set up to deal with these issues has only rejected 5 requests for wire taps or searches since 1979. The government can go to the court and retroactively ask to authorize the wire tap. President Bush says that as the executive he does not have to follow this procedure.

    JRoot
    2008
    My view is that the president is acting as a law unto himself without regard to the consequences of his actions, either domestically or internationally. warrantless wiretapping of American citizens on American soil is illegal and unconstitutional, has been for centuries

    DrWu
    2007
    What's your take on the latest revelations about NSA and AT&T? I have always tried to downplay the conspiracy aspect of the administration's failed approach to the war on terror but this shit is just downright criminal and scary. It's the kind of move that a totalitarian gov't would endorse.

    Fatback
    2007

    Seriously. I'm not talking about "catching the bad guys". I'm talking about being a nation of laws, not men. When they did what they did, they broke the law. Period. And just because you have unitary executive fantasies or Jesus told you or whatever, doesn't mean you can break the law. Sorry I got SERIOUS problems with that.


    The Hook Up
    It was just when Bush/Cheney were in office the "patriot act" was passed and civil liberties were pissed upon

    Birdman 2006
    USA Today: NSA building massive database of phone records

    Can I get anyone pissed off about this total betrayal of American citizen's trust and privacy?

    ODub 2005
    With regards to domestic spying, a few simple points:

    1) If you want to put surveillance of people, there's a simple thing called "due process" which gov't and/or law officials can follow to gain approval. Circumventing that process, especially via someone as clueless as the president, seems reminiscent of J. Edgar Hoover's enthusiastic spying on ANYONE he considered potentially suspect, including thousands of people who clearly were not.

    2) On the other hand, I don't quite get what the big deal is here: is anyone remotely surprised the NSA is spying on folks without court approval?

    Motown
    2005
    The NSA is suppose to not conduct any kind of domestic spying operations as that is the duty of the FBI. I think it's written into its charter that it cannot spy on American citizens within the U.S. There's also a special National Security court that the government's suppose to go to in these special cases of spying on Americans about terrorism and espionage and I think I read that the Bush administration skipped them as well. Plus it just goes to show you that the Bush administration has been about "the ends justify the means" from the get go in this war on terrorism. They're willing to abrogate one of the basic rights of privacy of the accused and due process by skipping the court system and not asking for warrants for surveillance

    JonnyPaycheck
    2005

    I don't think the snooping threatens me at all; but I would ask you, do you have many Muslim friends? Because I do, and they are almost all related to someone who does business with someone who banks with a person who works for a company that donated to an organization that at one point made a payment to Hamas. Or have a cousin who hung out with a guy who owned a deli that employed a man who attended a training camp in Pakistan. Do they deserve to be spied on, without heed to the process already established?
    We have to live up to our laws, or else what are they for. The President, in all his incompetence, is certainly not better than the law of the land and more importantly does not have the public confidence to pull off such a move. I don't trust this administration to act in my best interests, so I am not at all comfortable with their constant power grabs.


    Canonical
    2005

    Especially people like myself and many others on this board, who are activists and are endaged in activities which contradict the mind set of the current administration and can therefore be deemed "terrorists" (owing to its lose definition). These people, who also have honest intentions of making change for the betterment of "the people" do not deserve to have their civil liberties revoked. Period.

    I don't get the point of this post.

    First I am unclear where you stood at the time. Weren't you supporting Bush and his actions?
    And I don't get where you stand now.

    As for me I spoke against it then and I do now.
    But one big difference from what you posted and what we are talking about now is Bush's warrantless wire tapping vs Obama's data mining with a [secret] warrant from a [secret] court.

  • RockadelicRockadelic Out Digging 13,993 Posts
    LaserWolf said:
    First I am unclear where you stood at the time. Weren't you supporting Bush and his actions?
    And I don't get where you stand now.


    Shocking....you're usually so perceptive.

    I had no problem with it then and no problem with it now....you would know that if you had done as much research as reading this thread.

  • HarveyCanalHarveyCanal "a distraction from my main thesis." 13,234 Posts

  • LaserWolfLaserWolf Portland Oregon 11,517 Posts
    Rockadelic said:
    LaserWolf said:
    First I am unclear where you stood at the time. Weren't you supporting Bush and his actions?
    And I don't get where you stand now.


    Shocking....you're usually so perceptive.

    I had no problem with it then and no problem with it now....you would know that if you had done as much research as reading this thread.

    Please bear with me. I am not very smart.

    Why did you list a bunch of old quotes from people who have not posted in this thread?

    All of the quotes make good points.
    None of the quotes support your stand against civil liberties.
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