America's Surveillance State: Anger Swells After Data Revelations

[Purveyor]

Dan Roberts and Spencer Ackerman in Washington
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 6 June 2013 16.01 EDT

The scale of America's surveillance state was laid bare on Wednesday as senior politicians revealed that the US counter-terrorism effort had swept up swaths of personal data from the phone calls of millions of citizens for years.

After the revelation by the Guardian of a sweeping secret court order that authorised the FBI to seize all call records from a subsidiary of Verizon, the Obama administration sought to defuse mounting anger over what critics described as the broadest surveillance ruling ever issued.

A White House spokesman said that laws governing such orders "are something that have been in place for a number of years now" and were vital for protecting national security. Dianne Feinstein, the Democratic chairwoman of the Senate intelligence committee, said the Verizon court order had been in place for seven years. "People want the homeland kept safe," Feinstein said.

But as the implications of the blanket approval for obtaining phone data reverberated around Washington and beyond, anger grew among other politicians.

Intelligence committee member Mark Udall, who has previously warned in broad terms about the scale of government snooping, said: "This sort of widescale surveillance should concern all of us and is the kind of government overreach I've said Americans would find shocking." Former vice-president Al Gore described the "secret blanket surveillance" as "obscenely outrageous".

MORE...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/06/obama-administration-nsa-verizon-records

[Arctic Dave]

1. The Stasi would be so proud and extremely jealous.

Maybe the USSR wasn't the evil empire we fought against. They just needed a better PR campaign and a young, likable person to tell them how good they have it.

[cantbeserious]

5. Who Knew That Obama - And Bush Prior - Would Outdo The Stasi!

eom

[Buzz Clik]

2. "revelations"? As in things we didn't know before?

Drones, anyone?

[blkmusclmachine]

7. 30,000 drones, because the enemy is everywhere, apparently.

[DisgustipatedinCA]

15. Yes, we most emphatically received revelations that we didn't know before

Further questions?

[GeorgeGist]

3. Safe for whom?

Frau Feinstein.

[WillyT]

4. K & R !!!

[blkmusclmachine]

6. The Govt lied when they said their spying was not directed at American citizens.

They lied when they said it was only for international contacts.

Now we know that was bullsh!t.

What else is bullsh!t?

Let's go back to before 9/11 on the bullsh!t, shall we?

[woo me with science]

8. This is the tip of the iceberg, and the rage.

Let us hope we finally have a watershed.

The propagandists are working overtime to try to get you to yawn. On the contrary, now is the time to scream bloody murder, and demand to know more...

and demand a fucking stop to it.

[Iliyah]

9. Well congresscritter, Kirk is worried

that congress is being spied on tooooooooooooooooooo.

[southernyankeebelle]

10. Why is everyone so mad. It's not like we didn't know what was going on. I remember seeing

reports of rooms phone companies were collecting information. NSA is involved then we should have known then. I was pretty upset in the very beginning when we let Bush get by with collecting personal information. Now they still are doing it with Obama. Nothing changed we gave them the power and now everyone is crying about it. Let's hope that we can get congress to repeal this action.

[TheKentuckian]

11. Hope? No. Make yes. How you ask? Relentlessly weed them until they do and might as well insist

on 100% publicly financed elections.

[southernyankeebelle]

12. Agree

[woo me with science]

13. Gee, I heard about priests molesting children years ago.

Why is everyone so mad about it now?

[southernyankeebelle]

14. It's not like people didn't know. I mean people act like this could never happen when you know

you let that jennie out of the bottle just a little and it will be abused. You don't have to have an attitude. I'm just asking why. I am amazed that the american people could be that stupid if they honestly didn't think giving up their freedom was going to be so easy for the sake of safety. Mention NSA and for me that is enough said. Of course I lived on Ft Meade, Md and NSA was down the road from my house and everyone knows about NSA. I remember a book written called the Puzzle Palace and its all about the NSA. I don't know if you can still get it. I read it years ago. It was very interesting.

[woo me with science]

17. "You don't have to have an attitude"

about the shredding of our Constitutional protections. We all knew this was going on, SO WHY CARE ABOUT IT NOW?

Damn, by that logic, why should anyone have cared about slavery in the 1860's? That had gone on even longer, and *everyone* knew about it! Why care about harrassment of gays and lesbians now? Why care about war crimes?

This is the "argument." This is the asinine logic of the Third Way, and this is their moral bankruptcy in bootlicking their corporate Masters.

[southernyankeebelle]

19. Have a glass of wine or two. Your attitude towards me isn't necessary. I wasn't having

attitude with you. Please leave me alone and I will leave you alone. Sorry.

[premium]

16. This issue is not going away.

I don't think the Congress or Pres. Obama realize just how pissed off the American people really are.

Pres. Obama and certain members of Congress trying to defend this onerous program has really fired up the American people and this is going to damage the fed. govt even more.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

18. Lord Acton has been proven right again.

"Power tends to corrupt; absolute power, corrupts absolutely."