paulitician
Platinum Member
- Oct 7, 2011
- 38,401
- 4,162
- 1,130
Are we there yet? I would say we're rapidly getting there.
How Outraged Should You Be About the NSA Grabbing Your Phone Logs?
And six other questions arising from the latest White House scandal.
Washington is reeling after a court order was uncovered last night showing Verizon has secretly been handing over reams of customer phone records to the National Security Agency on a daily basis. The records dont contain the content of phone callsso, just to be clear, this isnt wiretappingbut they do contain information such as phone numbers, the location and duration of calls, and subscriber and handset ID numbers, all of which fall under the category of telephony metadata.
Calibrating the appropriate level of outrage will probably occupy us for most of the day. But far from a frivolous exercise, its an important process, because it involves the weighing of factors that might or might not matter to you depending on how serious (or potentially expansive) you think this violation of user privacy really is.
By itself, metadata cant tell you very much aboutwell, you. Nor is it likely that our lives will proceed any differently today than they did for the last couple months. This particular surveillance program has been in effect at least since April, and the Bush administration engaged in similar activities. If you didnt notice anything amiss then, your life will probably continue unchanged now.
But this is the latest in a string of scandals dealing specifically with the Obama administration and its use of phone records in potentially unethical ways. Previous incidents had the government targeting journalists as a way to get to whistleblowers, but as we indicated last month, nothing in those cases ruled out the broader surveillance of the American public. And now, via The Guardians original report, we seem to have found it...
Read More:
How Outraged Should You Be About the NSA Grabbing Your Phone Logs? - NationalJournal.com
DRUDGE REPORT 2013®
How Outraged Should You Be About the NSA Grabbing Your Phone Logs?
And six other questions arising from the latest White House scandal.
Washington is reeling after a court order was uncovered last night showing Verizon has secretly been handing over reams of customer phone records to the National Security Agency on a daily basis. The records dont contain the content of phone callsso, just to be clear, this isnt wiretappingbut they do contain information such as phone numbers, the location and duration of calls, and subscriber and handset ID numbers, all of which fall under the category of telephony metadata.
Calibrating the appropriate level of outrage will probably occupy us for most of the day. But far from a frivolous exercise, its an important process, because it involves the weighing of factors that might or might not matter to you depending on how serious (or potentially expansive) you think this violation of user privacy really is.
By itself, metadata cant tell you very much aboutwell, you. Nor is it likely that our lives will proceed any differently today than they did for the last couple months. This particular surveillance program has been in effect at least since April, and the Bush administration engaged in similar activities. If you didnt notice anything amiss then, your life will probably continue unchanged now.
But this is the latest in a string of scandals dealing specifically with the Obama administration and its use of phone records in potentially unethical ways. Previous incidents had the government targeting journalists as a way to get to whistleblowers, but as we indicated last month, nothing in those cases ruled out the broader surveillance of the American public. And now, via The Guardians original report, we seem to have found it...
Read More:
How Outraged Should You Be About the NSA Grabbing Your Phone Logs? - NationalJournal.com
DRUDGE REPORT 2013®
