N.S.A. Examines Social Networks of U.S. Citizens (Decision Made In Secret 2010)

[JDPriestly]

38. I do not agree with defining terrorism as anyone who disagrees with me or others.

Last edited Sun Sep 29, 2013, 04:33 PM - Edit history (1)

Please read my post # 18 again. I am citing the Patriot Act's rather vague and overly broad definition of terrorism and aiding terrorism. I found that definition to be dangerously vague and broad the first time i read it. In fact, I was shocked at the sloppy writing of that portion of the Patriot Act from the day it was adopted. That Act needs to be completely amended. We need to start over with it. It invites the kind of interference in democracy and in positive dissent and political action that we are beginning to see that the NSA is doing.

So, no terrorism does not include anyone who disagrees with me or the current government or other unless those who disagree try to impose their political ideas on me through violence.

Very few people in our country, I mean very, very, very few people, an extremely tiny number of people, in our country want to impose their political ideas through violence.

Certainly not enough to justify this vast NSA program. The NSA program is a waste of taxpayer dollars if there ever was one. The phone companies keep our phone records for a few years. The NSA can subpoena records when they need them. In fact, if you sue someone and phone records are relevant to your lawsuit, your lawyer can probably go to court and, upon sufficient cause, obtain a subpoena to get the phone records that are needed as evidence of research.

Similarly, a lawyer can probably go to court and get computer records that are relevant to a lawsuit or a criminal case.

There is utterly no need for the NSA to store and categorize and analyze all this data. Private companies do it to identify customers. But even that needs to be carefully monitored.

Getting access to those records would be a terrorist's dream, a coup leader's dream. It is positively dangerous to have the US government accumulating that many electronic records in one location. How are they planning to protect their data files from hackers?

This is a harebrained scheme. The NSA needs to be stopped.

Americans hardly even get out into the streets to protest terrible government actions like funding banks and letting food stamp recipients go hungry. If you went across America, you would have a really hard time finding anyone who wanted to do terrorist acts here in America. We Americans tend to wait to express ourselves at the polls. Most of us are complacent, the utter opposite of terrorists.

The NSA program is dangerous to America, more dangerous than any homegrown terrorism could ever be.