Pipe down, all of you, it's just "meta data".

[Anti Federalist]

Bi-Partisan tyranny.

This is how it always goes, tyranny is introduced quietly, amid bland reassurances that it will only be for limited instances or "reasonable restrictions" have to be put in place.

Then, years later, comes the revelation that it was, in this case for instance, a giant, sweeping net of surveillance.

The small minority that cares about such things raises a short lived howl of protest, fait accompli is declared by the tyrants, Boobus yawns and wonders who is playing ball tonight and some more freedom dies, unknown and unsung.



Senate leaders say NSA data gathering is routine

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2013/06/06/congress-nsa-phone-records-reaction/2396299/

WASHINGTON—The top lawmakers on the Senate Intelligence Committee sought to tamp down the uproar over revelations that the National Security Agency swept up millions of Verizon telephone records, reminding their colleagues that Congress has approved laws granting the NSA authority to do exactly that.

"This is nothing particularly new. This has been going on for seven years under the auspices of the (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) authority and every member of the United States Senate has been advised of this," said Sen. Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga., the top Republican on the intelligence panel. "To my knowledge we have not had any citizen who has registered a complaint relative to the gathering of this information, and it is simply what we call 'meta data.'"

(Fuck you, you petty tyrant and stick it up your fucking ass. There. There is my complaint, you flaming bag of douche. - AF)

The data collected by NSA included information about the phone numbers involved in a calls and the length of the calls and other identifying information, but not the content of the conversation.

Intelligence Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., joined Chambliss in defending the data collection as integral to protecting the U.S. from terrorist attacks. "There have been approximately 100 plots and also arrests made since 2009 by the FBI. I do not know to what extent meta data was used or if it was used, but I do know this: Terrorists will come after us if they can, and the only thing that we have to deter this is good intelligence," she said.

[thoughtomator]

I got an NSA security letter telling me I need to call Mom more often.

[heavenlyboy34]

Bi-Partisan tyranny.

This is how it always goes, tyranny is introduced quietly, amid bland reassurances that it will only be for limited instances or "reasonable restrictions" have to be put in place.

Then, years later, comes the revelation that it was, in this case for instance, a giant, sweeping net of surveillance.

The small minority that cares about such things raises a short lived howl of protest, fait accompli is declared by the tyrants, Boobus yawns and wonders who is playing ball tonight and some more freedom dies, unknown and unsung.


That speaks volumes about the epic fail of two party systems (and representative government theory) right there.

[talkingpointes]

I don't get why everyone is so mad. They are doing this for our protection. Do you guys just want Osama bin laden to be making calls and we won't record them ? Do you really want him to bomb Atlantis ?

[V3n]

Facebook friend:


So what? We knew they were doing this since 9/11. I've got nothing to hide, and at least it's helping the NSA catch terrorists.

I seriously felt like crying. :(

[Anti Federalist]

Facebook friend:

I seriously felt like crying. :(

And well you should.

Ask your Farcebook friend, what the hell was Boston?

ETA - Oh and of course your Farcebook friend has something to hide.

Three Felonies a Day.

Just because he can't figure out what laws he's breaking every day, does not mean The System does not know.

Especially now, as the total surveillance grid encloses over all of us.

[Origanalist]

Facebook friend:



I seriously felt like crying. :(

With friends like that, who needs enemies?

[tod evans]

Burn a joint..

File down a seer on your AR..

Buy some cold medicine...

Hell buy a pressure cooker...

Then it'll all make sense...

[AuH20]

http://westernrifleshooters.files.wordpress.com/2013/06/screen-shot-2013-06-06-at-1-47-23-pm.png

[CPUd]

There are a lot of things that can be done with seemingly limited data- assuming there is someone who knows what to do with it. That's what the intel agencies are looking for now- people who know what they are doing.

To see the best of the best, check into the past competitions:
http://www.kdnuggets.com/competitions/past-competitions.html

For these competitions, companies donate their data. There was one with phone records about 7 or 8 years ago that had about the same type of data that the OP is describing.

[UpperDecker]

Facebook friend:



I seriously felt like crying. :(

My girlfriend said roughly the same thing. "I've got nothing to hide, so whatever." That one hurt.

[Anti Federalist]

I'm convinced, beyond any shadow of doubt, that this current crop of Ameri-Cunts, would thank the soldier for his service just before his bullet smashes into whatever gray jelly is floating around between their ears.

[James Madison]

Here is a quote from my newsfeed


And if they need to "take away some of my rights" to keep me safe-have at it!!! I'm pretty sure America is my first choice on feeling safe in a country...just sayin.

[Warrior_of_Freedom]

Lately I've been feeling a dull ache in my ass. I finally found out what it was in this thread.

[Lucille]

Facebook friend:



I seriously felt like crying. :(

Quote or paraphrase Doug Wead instead:

"Your innocence doesn't have anything to do with it. Jesus was innocent. Gandhi was innocent. People say, 'Well, I don't have anything to hide.' So you think Thomas Jefferson had something to hide? You think Benjamin Franklin had something to hide?"

[Anti Federalist]

Quote or paraphrase Doug Wead instead:

"Your innocence doesn't have anything to do with it. Jesus was innocent. Gandhi was innocent. People say, 'Well, I don't have anything to hide.' So you think Thomas Jefferson had something to hide? You think Benjamin Franklin had something to hide?"

Actually, they did.

Jefferson and Franklin both would have been hung, had they gotten caught.

That's what this technological nightmare means.

Everybody will get caught because everything is against the law.

They would have arrested them before they even got to writing the Declaration of Independence.

Let alone signing it.

[MoneyWhereMyMouthIs2]

There are a lot of things that can be done with seemingly limited data- assuming there is someone who knows what to do with it. That's what the intel agencies are looking for now- people who know what they are doing.


Do you mean that using encryption would get you flagged?

I honestly don't believe the data is very limited. It's probably more like that AOL dump, years ago. When does government not lie about the extent of their snooping?

[James Madison]

Do you mean that using encryption would get you flagged?

I honestly don't believe the data is very limited. It's probably more like that AOL dump, years ago. When does government not lie about the extent of their snooping?

You could run data through a supercomputer designed to key-in on certain words or phrases. Politically incorrect speach over the phone? Dissing a protected class? Perhaps mommy and daddy arguing? All of this can be used against you. And to any who think this is crazy talk, it's coming. It's already there in Europe. Criticize gays in England? Crime. Question the Holocaust in Germany? Crime. On and on and on and on. This is the backdoor pathway to Thought Crime in the United States. Mark my words.

[Seraphim]

May I iron your Redcoat for you, Sir?


I'm convinced, beyond any shadow of doubt, that this current crop of Ameri-Cunts, would thank the soldier for his service just before his bullet smashes into whatever gray jelly is floating around between their ears.

[DamianTV]

They want Evidence of ALL Activities so that once those Activites are given the label of Criminal, they'll have an easier time prosecuting you for what ever they wish. Now for those of you who have expired prescription medications in your medicine cabinet...

[sluggo]

It's all about creating a profile for you.

I know the IRS has stated they plan to create a "taxpayer profile" for everyone in the country. They can also read your emails, search your internet purchases, examine your credit card activity, etc.

Any behavior outside your profile will certainly attract attention, or worse.

[tod evans]

Actually, they did.

Jefferson and Franklin both would have been hung, had they gotten caught.

That's what this technological nightmare means.

Everybody will get caught because everything is against the law.

They would have arrested them before they even got to writing the Declaration of Independence.

Let alone signing it.

^^^^^^^Tons of truth here and I'm repless^^^^^^^^^^

Please cover me.

[Lucille]

What’s the Matter with Metadata?
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2013/06/verizon-nsa-metadata-surveillance-problem.html


“The public doesn’t understand,” she told me, speaking about so-called metadata. “It’s much more intrusive than content.” She explained that the government can learn immense amounts of proprietary information by studying “who you call, and who they call. If you can track that, you know exactly what is happening—you don’t need the content.”

For example, she said, in the world of business, a pattern of phone calls from key executives can reveal impending corporate takeovers. Personal phone calls can also reveal sensitive medical information: “You can see a call to a gynecologist, and then a call to an oncologist, and then a call to close family members.” And information from cell-phone towers can reveal the caller’s location. Metadata, she pointed out, can be so revelatory about whom reporters talk to in order to get sensitive stories that it can make more traditional tools in leak investigations, like search warrants and subpoenas, look quaint. “You can see the sources,” she said. When the F.B.I. obtains such records from news agencies, the Attorney General is required to sign off on each invasion of privacy. When the N.S.A. sweeps up millions of records a minute, it’s unclear if any such brakes are applied.

Metadata, Landau noted, can also reveal sensitive political information, showing, for instance, if opposition leaders are meeting, who is involved, where they gather, and for how long. Such data can reveal, too, who is romantically involved with whom, by tracking the locations of cell phones at night.
[...]
It was exactly these concerns that motivated the mathematician William Binney, a former N.S.A. official who spoke to me for the Drake story, to retire rather than keep working for an agency he suspected had begun to violate Americans’ fundamental privacy rights. After 9/11, Binney told me, as I reported in the piece, General Michael Hayden, who was then director of the N.S.A., “reassured everyone that the N.S.A. didn’t put out dragnets, and that was true. It had no need—it was getting every fish in the sea.”

Binney, who considered himself a conservative, feared that the N.S.A.’s data-mining program was so extensive that it could help “create an Orwellian state.”

As he told me at the time, wiretap surveillance requires trained human operators, but data mining is an automated process, which means that the entire country can be watched. Conceivably, the government could “monitor the Tea Party, or reporters, whatever group or organization you want to target,” he said. “It’s exactly what the Founding Fathers never wanted.”

[Lucille]

^^^^^^^Tons of truth here and I'm repless^^^^^^^^^^

Please cover me.

No can do! LOL I tried to rep that too, but I had already repped him earlier.

[MoneyWhereMyMouthIs2]

They want Evidence of ALL Activities so that once those Activites are given the label of Criminal, they'll have an easier time prosecuting you for what ever they wish.



100%, but they can go fuck themselves.

[Carlybee]

http://antiwar.com/blog/2013/06/06/youre-being-watched/

[Lucille]

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324299104578529112289298922?mg=ren o64-wsj.html?dsk=y


WASHINGTON—The National Security Agency's monitoring of Americans includes customer records from the three major phone networks as well as emails and Web searches, and the agency also has cataloged credit-card transactions, said people familiar with the agency's activities.

The disclosure this week of an order by a secret U.S. court for Verizon Communications Inc.'s phone records set off the latest public discussion of the program. But people familiar with the NSA's operations said the initiative also encompasses phone-call data from AT&T Inc. and Sprint Nextel Corp., records from Internet-service providers and purchase information from credit-card providers.
[...]
The arrangement with the country's three largest phone companies means that every time the majority of Americans makes a call, NSA gets a record of the location, the number called, the time of the call and the length of the conversation, according to people familiar with the matter. The practice, which evolved out of warrantless wiretapping programs begun after 2001, is approved by all three branches of the U.S. government.
[...]
For civil libertarians, this week's disclosure of the court authorization for part of the NSA program could offer new avenues for challenges. Federal courts largely have rebuffed efforts that target NSA surveillance programs, in part because no one could prove the information was being collected. The government, under both the Bush and Obama administrations, has successfully used its state-secrets privilege to block such lawsuits.

Jameel Jaffer, the American Civil Liberties Union's deputy legal director, said the fact the FISA court record has now become public could give phone-company customers standing to bring a lawsuit.

"Now we have a set of people who can show they have been monitored," he said.

[tod evans]

This has all been going on for years, only difference is now the cast of the net can be broadened at will.

The cost to investigate and force a plea will drop from hundreds of thousands per case to merely hundreds effectively netting those involved in the "Just-Us" department huge financial rewards.

This has nothing to do with "national security" and everything to do with squeezing blood from the proverbial turnip..

[Origanalist]

^^^^^^^Tons of truth here and I'm repless^^^^^^^^^^

Please cover me.

Got it.

This shit is reinforcing my belief that I may just die in prison, or trying to stay out. I think I'll get shitfaced tonight.

[DamianTV]

Got it.

This shit is reinforcing my belief that I may just die in prison, or trying to stay out. I think I'll get shitfaced tonight.

You're already in Prison. Its called USA.

---

People are appearing to develop a sense of complacency with constant surveillance. They havent come to kick in your door, yet. But eventually, all that data they collect on you will give them reason enough to come kcik in your front door and take you out in the middle of the night. When they finally do, it will be too late to turn back from a complete and total Orwellian Nightmare.

1984 was a Warning, not a Blueprint.

[Anti Federalist]

You're already in Prison. Its called USA.

---

People are appearing to develop a sense of complacency with constant surveillance. They havent come to kick in your door, yet. But eventually, all that data they collect on you will give them reason enough to come kcik in your front door and take you out in the middle of the night. When they finally do, it will be too late to turn back from a complete and total Orwellian Nightmare.

1984 was a Warning, not a Blueprint.

All of this.

Of course they are getting complacent, I mean, why would I not want Farcebook to post my whereabouts 24/7 and that I just bought such and such.

[Anti Federalist]

Free Range Prison.

[AngryCanadian]

Facebook friend:



I seriously felt like crying. :(

Your facebook Buddie could be an Troll.

[DamianTV]

Your facebook Buddie could be an Troll.

Fedbook itself is a Troll. A dirty vicious backstabbing undermining addictive and not in a good way Troll. Its members are just the carrots dangled in front of other members to keep them active. But the ability to access those carrots on farcebook slips some crack cocaine on those carrots. Say no to Carrots! er Drugs and go 'All Natural'! That means talk to your friends in real life, not on a computer!

(yeah, like Im one to talk...)

[V3n]

Thanks for the replies, all - I just haven't had much time online since I posted.


Your facebook Buddie could be an Troll.

Noo.. No, she's a sweet older lady. Imagine your favorite aunt got on FB, and it's like that. She's just way too plugged into MSNBC - I see her just reciting what they spew time and time again. But she's so sweet, that's what makes me so sad. I don't have the heart to argue with her.

[Occam's Banana]

Bi-Partisan tyranny.

This is how it always goes, tyranny is introduced quietly, amid bland reassurances that it will only be for limited instances or "reasonable restrictions" have to be put in place.

Then, years later, comes the revelation that it was, in this case for instance, a giant, sweeping net of surveillance.

The small minority that cares about such things raises a short lived howl of protest, fait accompli is declared by the tyrants, Boobus yawns and wonders who is playing ball tonight and some more freedom dies, unknown and unsung.

Extremely well put. I'm out of ammo. I'll definitely be back to rectify this after I spread some rep.


Intelligence Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., joined Chambliss in defending the data collection as integral to protecting the U.S. from terrorist attacks. "There have been approximately 100 plots and also arrests made since 2009 by the FBI. I do not know to what extent meta data was used or if it was used, but I do know this: Terrorists will come after us if they can, and the only thing that we have to deter this is good intelligence," she said.

Damn! Check out the big hairy balls on this tinpot bitch. The ever-lovin' Chair of the Senate "Intelligence" Committee openly admits she hasn't got the vaguest fucking clue whether this information was or is of any use whatsoever - but she nevertheless presumes to wag her finger and lecture us on the critical importance of "good" intelligence. To borrow a rhetorical flourish from Ayn Rand's playbook: Good? By what standard?

And did anyone notice this absolutely delightful little mal mot:


There have been approximately 100 ["terrorism"] plots and also arrests made since 2009 by the FBI.

HA! Well, I haven't much doubt she's right about THAT!

Given all the mummer shows that have been staged by the FBI, they should probably just trade their dark suits and sunglasses for motley and bells.

[tod evans]

Noo.. No, she's a sweet older lady. Imagine your favorite aunt got on FB, and it's like that. She's just way too plugged into MSNBC - I see her just reciting what they spew time and time again. But she's so sweet, that's what makes me so sad. I don't have the heart to argue with her.

Why argue?

If you insist on contributing to FB what's it going to hurt to state your opinions in a non-confrontational manner?

[V3n]

Why argue?

If you insist on contributing to FB what's it going to hurt to state your opinions in a non-confrontational manner?

I've only got one setting!

[tod evans]

I've only got one setting!

Allrighty then...

[V3n]

Allrighty then...

LOL! JK! :D

I do talk to her about politics in person when I see her. I rarely comment on other people's status at all unless it's something positive. Occasionally I'll post an article or a funny political meme picture - but my FB presence is pretty low-profile. What I would normally do for something like this is, instead of comment on her post, just post a picture that says what I want to say to her, and hope she sees it. But I'm a pretty passive-aggressive guy, I've been told.