Are The American People Being Spied On Or Not?

[TM99]

176. Wrong

Courts ruled about third party records. An example would be my land line phone calls made between March of 1977 and March of 1978. Yes, with a warrant, government officials with probable cause could access those records. Ma Bell would be required to turn them over.

That was the 1970's. This is the 2010's. Ma Bell (i.e. Verizon for the sake of a single example) does not just have a list of the calls made on my cellphone, they have all of the data I have transferred digitally including the actual conversations, the text messages, the photos, etc. The government is tapping into that and 'storing' it, then at a later date, they claim that with a warrant they can 'profile' it after probable cause has been established.

No, no, and no! In the 1970's, the equivalent would have been a tap with a recording made of the actual verbal conversation. A warrant was absolutely necessary. And if they were given fraudulently or wrongly, they were challenged and overturned. All of this digital data that has been kept is the exact equivalent of a recorded phone call from that era.

The government has violated the 4th Amendment by claiming that they can store that information (as meta data) for later use if they need it to stop terrorism or stop a crime. This is the bottom line, and no there is no Supreme Court precedence for this because this is not just a simple listing of calls made, but rather, a collection of private data. Fearless' post above then is entirely apropos and accurate. It is either all public, and therefore no expectation of privacy is given. For example, if I stand on a street corner and yell out my social security number, then I can not expect it to remain private information. Or it is all private, and therefore, outside of my call history which must and then can be legally warranted for release from Verizon, the rest of the data and meta data is my own private stuff - my conversations are private, my texts are private, my videos are private, my photos are private, my searches are private.

This is even more important when we look at the internet as a whole and not just smartphones. You and others are arguing that in reality, when I use any computer that all information is therefore public. That is simply not true. Some areas of the internet are public. My words here are in a public forum and anyone from anywhere can take my words or make inferences or whatever from them. But, my logging in and managing my bank account is a private act. My logging in and checking my Gmail is a private act. My purchases on eBay, Amazon, and Victoria's Secret are private acts. To collect that information in whatever form - actual data or as meta data - for later usage, in case they want to get a warrant to investigate me as a possible terrorists is a direct and specious violation of the 4th Amendment. This is 100% the actions of a totalitarian regime. This is 1984, Brave New World, & Fahrenheit 451 all rolled into one.

Apologists for this here are disgusting and despicable. And bluntly knowing what I know of human behavior, entirely predictable and sadly a certainty. I was an exchange student to West Germany with host family members who were part of the Nazi Party. They were good, intelligent, people who were manipulated by fear and propaganda to support the most vile and horrid acts their government could think of. We are heading down that same path if we as a nation accept this as legal and alright for the sake of 'security' and 'safety'.