And as usual, when I wrote I knew calls were intercepted

[nadinbrzezinski]

I was not paranoid, like some assume.

The USPA and FISA have been broadened to the point that assuming this is happening is a given.

Welcome to the total information state...remember that gem from the days of Rummy? TIA...guess what...it's here.

[hobbit709]

1. There are plenty of people here who are OK with Stasi type surveillance.

I for one am NOT!

[nadinbrzezinski]

2. Neither am I.

But I have been accused of being paranoid...this never happens....domestic...I have assumed for years all calls to Mexico are intercepted...now I assumed all calls after we started working as reporters. It seems much earlier than that.

On the bright side the tera trillions of data seem to my eye almost unusable. Like drinking from a five inch fire hose. But the refinements will come.

[hollysmom]

3. The only way I am OK with it is because

I know they are killing themselves with information overload. I worked with databases, I worked at Verizon. They are the worst at accessing the information they want. Just a list of phone calls for a subset for a month required huge amounts of storage and we wanted to make it available on-line,so we had to just provide a summary or it would have been impossible to find anything. the data of the calls was kept the old fashioned way on tape. To keep all thin index information would require several super computers, I just don't think our government has the ability to handle the information they are collecting.

[Myrina]

5. That's more reason for it to be a horribly bad thing.

More data than anyone can handle or knows what to do with and something real will get missed.
Needle in a haystack, as it were.
I'd rather they go back to just targeting 'known terrorists'.
No, really I'd rather they go back to staying the hell out of anyone's phone records.

[hollysmom]

8. my preference as well

But this is indeed how they miss things, where if they just did a small number, they could monitor it. As I have said elsewhere, my phone conversations would put anyone to sleep - how are you, how is your family, when do you want to get together, well if we meet here , there could be a problem, let's try .........

[randome]

9. The Sequester forced them to cut back on engineers to monitor the data anyways.

This is more likely how it's being analyzed now.



[hr]
[font color="blue"][center]Stop looking for heroes. BE one.[/center][/font]
[hr]

[randome]

4. Did you leap from metadata provided by Verizon to 'call interception'?

Or do you just want to assume the worst?

[hr]
[font color="blue"][center]Stop looking for heroes. BE one.[/center][/font]
[hr]

[Floyd_Gondolli]

6. You never fail to inject yourself into a story

Your calls were intercepted.

Riiiiighhhhht.

[FSogol]

7. Unrec. What call interceptions?

[nadinbrzezinski]

10. I guess you missed the program with Verizon

Even if it is "just meta data" they are still intercepting mega amounts of data. It takes foreign media to report on our not so free activities any longer

So unrec all you want, it will not erase reality

[FSogol]

12. Missed the program? Yeah, the US media blows, but I guess that's something you DO know about.

Intercepting calls does not equal metadata no matter how much data is collected.

[nadinbrzezinski]

16. I guess some of us get it, some of us don't

if the calendar read 2007 you would lead the parade. Some of us are not partisan.

[Cali_Democrat]

13. I think you're confused about what intercepting means

No calls were intercepted no data was intercepted. The information was obtained AFTER the calls were made via a FISA warrant. The records were obtained after the fact.

Intercepting would mean the data was obtained while the calls were in progress.

Again. There was no intercepting. There was no wiretapping and it wasn't warrantless.

[maddezmom]

14. Thank you

[HappyMe]

28. Stop already with the facts!

[Cali_Democrat]

11. No calls were "intercepted". This wasn't wiretapping

It was metadata collection after calls were made and the records were obtained via a FISA warrant.

Please inform yourself before posting OP's like this.

[Savannahmann]

17. Yeah, and we can believe them

Because the Government has never lied.

[Cali_Democrat]

18. So this instance of Verizon record collection was infact warrantless wiretapping of calls?

[Savannahmann]

19. Prove that the calls were not interecepted.

I have an easier time believing that they were, which would explain the massive facilities they have built all over the nation. Don't tell me that that is all for foreign use, that's the propaganda. If all the NSA wanted was international calls, then they could easily grab those real time from satellites and relay points in a few discrete locations. Yet we have massive facilities all over the place, with tons of processing equipment, all to keep track of what number you called internationally? Nuts.

If you are willing to believe it. Good luck, as for me? I answer the phone. Fuck Hoover.

[Cali_Democrat]

20. "Prove that the calls were not interecepted"

The court order refers to metadata only. The FISA court order did not authorize call interception.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/interactive/2013/jun/06/verizon-telephone-data-court-order

[Savannahmann]

21. Which explains all those massive data collection centers right?

Come on, get serious for a minute will you? Here's the link again in case you didn't bother clicking it.

A project of immense secrecy, it is the final piece in a complex puzzle assembled over the past decade. Its purpose: to intercept, decipher, analyze, and store vast swaths of the world’s communications as they zap down from satellites and zip through the underground and undersea cables of international, foreign, and domestic networks. The heavily fortified $2 billion center should be up and running in September 2013. Flowing through its servers and routers and stored in near-bottomless databases will be all forms of communication, including the complete contents of private emails, cell phone calls, and Google searches, as well as all sorts of personal data trails—parking receipts, travel itineraries, bookstore purchases, and other digital “pocket litter.” It is, in some measure, the realization of the “total information awareness” program created during the first term of the Bush administration—an effort that was killed by Congress in 2003 after it caused an outcry over its potential for invading Americans’ privacy.

Emphasis mine on the bold domestic. Come on man, get serious. Do you think they would build a two billion dollar facility, one of many such two billion dollar facilities just to know who we called without knowing what we said?

They said that the images from the buck naked scanners would not be kept, then they insisted that technology be included to rapidly transfer the images to a database. They said that they wouldn't do a lot of things, then later admit they were, but for our own protection.

[Cali_Democrat]

23. I'm trying to understand your point

Are you saying because they have these facilities, they are listening to everyone and everything without a warrant or a FISA court order and there is no escape?

[Savannahmann]

25. There is an escape

Scream at our elected leaders and let them know they won't get our donations, or votes, if they continue to spy on the public. Support those who primary Democrats who support this kind of crap. There were Votes in Congress to build this thing, and they knew what it was for. There are reports to the White House about how it's going, and how the other such facilities are working. Why doesn't OUR President do anything to stop it?

Yes, it is going on, probably on a warrant, but not the one we've seen posted in another thread. Yes it is going on, and we are fools if we pretend otherwise.

The escape is always the same. We the people scream no more. We keep shouting it until they stop. We shouted it during Viet-Nam, and when Ford asked if we could go back in, Congress said NO. Because Congress knew we the people opposed it.

The first step is to admit it is going on, and when we all know the truth, then we can start to move Congress to our way of thinking.

[MineralMan]

15. Intercepted? That's a different thing than

data about the calls.

[grantcart]

22. If you equate getting phone meta data as something similar to the interception of calls then

you are seriously misinformed.

[nadinbrzezinski]

24. and I will repeat this

some of us get it, some of us don't.

If this was 2007 partisans would be leading the parade.

[Cali_Democrat]

26. "some of us get it, some of us don't"

The FISA warrant did not authorize the interception of calls in this case. It's not about getting it or not getting it.

It's about the FISA court order and the facts.

[grantcart]

30. and some people think that an apple is somehow related to a pineapple.

If you are concerned about the FISA court approving a warrant that allows the NSA to mine phone data then you should speak to that issue.

The interception of individual calls is not what the Guardian article is about and by using words carelessly you are mudding up the water.

As someone who purports to be a professional wordsmith I would think that you would have greater respect for reporting actions by the government in the most clear terminology.

When you use clear and correct terminology you don't have to be worried about people 'getting it' or 'not getting it', only if they read it with the same care that you did when you wrote it.

[nadinbrzezinski]

32. Well, I got a problem with this

Live with it or not.

It is fully independent of who occupies 1600 Penn Avenue.

It's got to do with the now very quaint and antiquated Fourth Amendment. Go ahead, call me a civil libertarian.

Funny, I was going to wait to send my renewal to the ACLU, guess what I am doing as soon as I get home? Writing a check, and putting in the mail. They are as troubled by this as much as I am.

But if you got nothing to hide...and a dem is in the WH...it's ok

[Cali_Democrat]

34. Yes I agree, but it's important not to misrepresent what went on with the Verizon case

Misrepresenting the facts does a disservice to people fighting for civil liberties.

Calling it call interception when it clearly isn't is indeed misrepresentation.

[sad-cafe]

33. and as usual, you don't

yet manage to insult many posters on your way to try and convince others you are "all-knowing" once again

[Dreamer Tatum]

27. Just let us know what kind of cookie you want

and we can arrange to have one sent.

[Brickbat]

29. nadinbrzezinski: ON IT.

"I knew it before you did!"

[Cali_Democrat]

31. Stop that!

[sad-cafe]

35. love it

too good