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In reply to the discussion: NSA Chief General Kieth Alexander and "The Secret War" [View all]octoberlib
(14,971 posts)69. And this from the Reddit thread
There's two sides: There's misconceptions that the NSA listens to everyone at all times, which is not really true. At best, what they have is filters on all the internet and telecom systems, but what happens is that the computers are filled with software and it doesn't pick out and store everything, only information that has the right key words, target words, names, telephone information they're interested in. But in order to pick that out they need to have filters on all the major communications pipes. On the other side, the government is saying that we have all these protections - checks and balances - which is not really true, since the two they point out are the courts and Congress. But the FISA court has been largely nuttered and largely made ineffective by the passage of the FISA amendments act, so it doesn't act much as protection. Before, if they wanted to eavesdrop on somebody, they needed to present a name of a person to the court. Now, they can ask the court for permission to gather anyone's telephone records without really specifying any danger, which makes the court ineffective. The second court they point to is Congress, but Congress has gone from being watchdogs for the public to cheering galleries for the intelligence agencies. They're more interested in increasing agency budgets than in protecting the public from intelligence agencies.
Thanks, Laelth. Interesting and informative post.
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This is absolutely, without a doubt, Orwellian, Outrageous, and Alarming!
Fantastic Anarchist
Jun 2013
#7