NSA ***ADMITS*** Listening To US Domestic Calls WITHOUT A WARRANT !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Immanuel]

More to the point, your phone call isn’t being ‘listened to,’ the NSA geeks aren’t interested in you complaining to someone about a traffic ticket you got.

And even if something ‘incriminating’ were discovered, the government would need to get a real warrant predicated on actual probable cause.

Indeed, if the government is engaging in surveillance absent a warrant, then one needn’t be concerned about being subject to criminal prosecution; any evidence gathered would be inadmissible, including evidence of alleged ‘terrorism.’

The Fourth Amendment guarantees a right to privacy and to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures pursuant to criminal prosecution; one doesn’t have a Fourth Amendment right not to be embarrassed.

I don't think you realize the serious technology that NSA can bring to bear in that massive new spy Palace in Utah.. I have some familiarity with the field.

You can camp on a particular traffic route and screen for a short set of "key words" and using voice recognition -- have a list of "suspect calls" come up on the screen. Even easier for email traffic. So if the word for the day is "bomb" --- and you remark "This weekend is gonna be the BOMB Dude !" --- your call is now suspect. Given the "3 day rule" under FISA, the analyst now seems to have CAUSE to listen personally to content or SAVE the call for later analysis. They just have to file some paperwork to get an unknown, unaccountable "judge" rubberstamp your eavesdropping up to 3 days later and they almost NEVER REFUSE a warrant. So when Obama ASSURES you that they need a warrant for content --- you could ALREADY be violated before said warrant gets issued..

Flight 800 is re-opened on USMB.. Lots of searches goin on about surface-air missiles and airliners.. Why don't ya go out and get me the specs on a MANPAD missile.. Will ya do that for me??? If not --- why not???

I chillingly heard an Admin spokesmouth opine that the 4th amendment doesn't cover "records"... Think John Adams would have consider my records to be "papers"?

The best thing that can come from this is for ALL citizens to demand we have a national conversation about how much liberty we are willing to forfeit for security. Because when Bush started doing this shit, the right was silent or cheerleaders. NOW they see what liberals were saying back then.

What is disturbing to me is the liberals who saw it then, but approve of it now.

Oh, and I don't think we should be willing to give up any of our liberty.

Immie

 

[Bfgrn]

I don't think you realize the serious technology that NSA can bring to bear in that massive new spy Palace in Utah.. I have some familiarity with the field.

You can camp on a particular traffic route and screen for a short set of "key words" and using voice recognition -- have a list of "suspect calls" come up on the screen. Even easier for email traffic. So if the word for the day is "bomb" --- and you remark "This weekend is gonna be the BOMB Dude !" --- your call is now suspect. Given the "3 day rule" under FISA, the analyst now seems to have CAUSE to listen personally to content or SAVE the call for later analysis. They just have to file some paperwork to get an unknown, unaccountable "judge" rubberstamp your eavesdropping up to 3 days later and they almost NEVER REFUSE a warrant. So when Obama ASSURES you that they need a warrant for content --- you could ALREADY be violated before said warrant gets issued..

Flight 800 is re-opened on USMB.. Lots of searches goin on about surface-air missiles and airliners.. Why don't ya go out and get me the specs on a MANPAD missile.. Will ya do that for me??? If not --- why not???

I chillingly heard an Admin spokesmouth opine that the 4th amendment doesn't cover "records"... Think John Adams would have consider my records to be "papers"?

The best thing that can come from this is for ALL citizens to demand we have a national conversation about how much liberty we are willing to forfeit for security. Because when Bush started doing this shit, the right was silent or cheerleaders. NOW they see what liberals were saying back then.

What is disturbing to me is the liberals who saw it then, but approve of it now.

Oh, and I don't think we should be willing to give up any of our liberty.

Immie

I haven't seen or heard any liberals who approve of it now.

I'm all for not giving up our liberties. BUT, if a President or a party DO rescind all this crap, and there is a major terrorist attack, I GUARANTEE it will devolve into a partisan blame game. That is why BOTH parties need to be upfront and take EQUAL responsibility

 

[francoHFW]

Like what? (and 'blow-me' for suggesting that's all I do)

Like work to pull my party back to conservative values.

Well, that's a worthy cause. Best of luck to you!

And when was that? Hint: when Pubs are BSing the dupes AGAIN, only....They never learn...

 

[Immanuel]

The best thing that can come from this is for ALL citizens to demand we have a national conversation about how much liberty we are willing to forfeit for security. Because when Bush started doing this shit, the right was silent or cheerleaders. NOW they see what liberals were saying back then.

What is disturbing to me is the liberals who saw it then, but approve of it now.

Oh, and I don't think we should be willing to give up any of our liberty.

Immie

I haven't seen or heard any liberals who approve of it now.

I'm all for not giving up our liberties. BUT, if a President or a party DO rescind all this crap, and there is a major terrorist attack, I GUARANTEE it will devolve into a partisan blame game. That is why BOTH parties need to be upfront and take EQUAL responsibility

There are quite a few liberals on this site that have defended the President's continuation of the PA, the NSA wire tapping and his usage of the IRS against conservative groups. All of those issues were given to us by Bush and his Patriot Act. Conservatives claim that there were measures put in place to prevent abuse which is nothing short of laughable.

We the people of the United States of America have screwed ourselves with the people we put in power. Quite frankly I am losing hope for us

Immie

 

[flacaltenn]

The best thing that can come from this is for ALL citizens to demand we have a national conversation about how much liberty we are willing to forfeit for security. Because when Bush started doing this shit, the right was silent or cheerleaders. NOW they see what liberals were saying back then.

What is disturbing to me is the liberals who saw it then, but approve of it now.

Oh, and I don't think we should be willing to give up any of our liberty.

Immie

I haven't seen or heard any liberals who approve of it now.

I'm all for not giving up our liberties. BUT, if a President or a party DO rescind all this crap, and there is a major terrorist attack, I GUARANTEE it will devolve into a partisan blame game. That is why BOTH parties need to be upfront and take EQUAL responsibility

Maybe not TRUE liberals, but there are as many Dems in Congress covering for this program as Repubs. Diane Feinstein has really really torqued me off with some of her statements. I hope her "liberal" constituents are watching..

At the same time -- Chris Matthews and some of the progs on MSNBC are either attacking the messenger or doing wall to wall abortion/women's rights stories.. Outside of Mother Jones and The Nation and the ACLU --- there's not much support from the left or right media on this. They watch the polls all the time --- except NOW when it matters.

 

[earlycuyler]

Obama's historic, the Constitution does not apply to him

Sure about that ? Don't get me wrong, the man is a shit stain, but you positive he is the only president to take liberty with the constitution ? If I remember right, Dubya got this ball rolling. This is old ass news.

 

[daveman]

Like work to pull my party back to conservative values.

Well, that's a worthy cause. Best of luck to you!

And when was that? Hint: when Pubs are BSing the dupes AGAIN, only....They never learn...

Are you an iPhone app? It wouldn't have to be a very complicated one.

 

[C_Clayton_Jones]

The best thing that can come from this is for ALL citizens to demand we have a national conversation about how much liberty we are willing to forfeit for security. Because when Bush started doing this shit, the right was silent or cheerleaders. NOW they see what liberals were saying back then.

What is disturbing to me is the liberals who saw it then, but approve of it now.

Oh, and I don't think we should be willing to give up any of our liberty.

Immie

I haven't seen or heard any liberals who approve of it now.

I'm all for not giving up our liberties. BUT, if a President or a party DO rescind all this crap, and there is a major terrorist attack, I GUARANTEE it will devolve into a partisan blame game. That is why BOTH parties need to be upfront and take EQUAL responsibility

Which is also why the surveillance programs aren’t going anywhere.

The next republican president, likely in 2017, will keep these programs in place. There’s no way he’s going to risk a 9/11-type attack on his watch, particularly in the context of reelection.

And it will be interesting to see if the right responds with its usual partisan hypocrisy.

 

[francoHFW]

Now Obama has warrants and no secret BS- you know Cheney Darth Vader stuff. DUH. Dems in charge, not fascists. Congressional oversight and judicial review ALL THE TIME, get it dupes? No illegal stuff. Do you need a diagram?

 

[francoHFW]

Well, that's a worthy cause. Best of luck to you!

And when was that? Hint: when Pubs are BSing the dupes AGAIN, only....They never learn...

Are you an iPhone app? It wouldn't have to be a very complicated one.

Very funny, shyttehead- try answering the question. Was it Reagan? Tripling the debt and covert wars all over the place, subverting the constitution? Pubs will NEVER be true conservatives. They're lying greedy con men, and you're the rubes.

 

[Bfgrn]

What is disturbing to me is the liberals who saw it then, but approve of it now.

Oh, and I don't think we should be willing to give up any of our liberty.

Immie

I haven't seen or heard any liberals who approve of it now.

I'm all for not giving up our liberties. BUT, if a President or a party DO rescind all this crap, and there is a major terrorist attack, I GUARANTEE it will devolve into a partisan blame game. That is why BOTH parties need to be upfront and take EQUAL responsibility

Which is also why the surveillance programs aren’t going anywhere.

The next republican president, likely in 2017, will keep these programs in place. There’s no way he’s going to risk a 9/11-type attack on his watch, particularly in the context of reelection.

And it will be interesting to see if the right responds with its usual partisan hypocrisy.

I agree, which is probably why Obama will not rescind any of this crap.

As far as 2017, if Hillary decides to run, she will win, BIG time.

 

[dblack]

I haven't seen or heard any liberals who approve of it now.

I'm all for not giving up our liberties. BUT, if a President or a party DO rescind all this crap, and there is a major terrorist attack, I GUARANTEE it will devolve into a partisan blame game. That is why BOTH parties need to be upfront and take EQUAL responsibility

Which is also why the surveillance programs aren’t going anywhere.

The next republican president, likely in 2017, will keep these programs in place. There’s no way he’s going to risk a 9/11-type attack on his watch, particularly in the context of reelection.

And it will be interesting to see if the right responds with its usual partisan hypocrisy.

I agree, which is probably why Obama will not rescind any of this crap.

As far as 2017, if Hillary decides to run, she will win, BIG time.

I think that's lame excuse-making. The sad fact is, the Democrats have no more respect for civil liberties than the Bush crew did. If they don't suffer at the ballot box for their hypocrisy, we deserve whatever we get , and bin Laden will be remembered as the man who took down the greatest nation in history.

 

[Bfgrn]

Here is a good OP-Ed by Gary Hart...

Gary Hart
President, Hart International, Ltd.

The Intelligence-Industrial Complex

"...we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists, and will persist." Thus spoke President Dwight Eisenhower in January 1961.

Now we have an intelligence-industrial complex composed of close to a dozen and a half federal intelligence agencies and services, many of which are duplicative, and in the last decade or two the growth of a private sector intelligence world. Originally initiated in the National Security Act of 1947 as instrumental in conducting the Cold War, this massive expansion of data collection and analysis continued on even after the Cold War ended in 1991 and then received renewed energy with the declaration of a "global war on terrorism."

It is dangerous to have a technology-empowered government capable of amassing private data; it is even more dangerous to privatize this Big Brother world.

As we ponder the motivations and personalities of the Snowdens and Assanges, we must not lose sight of the greatest question: Is the Surveillance State -- the intelligence-industrial complex -- out of the control of the elected officials responsible for holding it accountable to American citizens protected by the U.S. Constitution?

...


We should not have to rely on whistle-blowers to protect our rights.

A mistake of historic importance was made when terrorism was determined to be an act of war and not criminal conspiracy. The wrong strategies and doctrines, including invasions and regime changes, were adopted, and a new stimulus to dramatically expand the intelligence-industrial complex was provided. The Cold War ended 22 years ago and the global war on terrorism is being replaced by more targeted approaches, and the National Security Act is 67 years old.

Someone or someones must be empowered by the White House and Congress to take an Olympian view of the intelligence-industrial complex, to downsize it, reorganizing it, provide strict rules for its conduct and operations, and eliminate the metastasizing private consulting world now overwhelming it. In 2004, Congress created a Director of National Intelligence to do something like this. It has not worked.

The case of Edward Snowden, and future Snowdens to come, will continue to draw great media attention. But, while preoccupied by the character of the renegade, the larger historic question remains: How do we stop the growth of the intelligence-industrial complex?


“We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty. We will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason if we remember that we are not descended from fearful men, not from men who feared to write, to speak, to associate and to defend causes which were, for the moment, unpopular.”
Edward R. Murrow

 

[Edgetho]

Obama Lied, Top Secret Rules Allow NSA To Collect U.S. Domestic Data Without A Warrant…

You can bet your last dollar the lapdog media won’t call him on this.

Via Guardian:

Top secret documents submitted to the court that oversees surveillance by US intelligence agencies show the judges have signed off on broad orders which allow the NSA to make use of information “inadvertently” collected from domestic US communications without a warrant.

The Guardian is publishing in full two documents submitted to the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (known as the Fisa court), signed by Attorney General Eric Holder and stamped 29 July 2009. They detail the procedures the NSA is required to follow to target “non-US persons” under its foreign intelligence powers and what the agency does to minimize data collected on US citizens and residents in the course of that surveillance.

The documents show that even under authorities governing the collection of foreign intelligence from foreign targets, US communications can still be collected, retained and used.

The procedures cover only part of the NSA’s surveillance of domestic US communications. The bulk collection of domestic call records, as first revealed by the Guardian earlier this month, takes place under rolling court orders issued on the basis of a legal interpretation of a different authority, section 215 of the Patriot Act.

The Fisa court’s oversight role has been referenced many times by Barack Obama and senior intelligence officials as they have sought to reassure the public about surveillance, but the procedures approved by the court have never before been publicly disclosed.

The top secret documents published today detail the circumstances in which data collected on US persons under the foreign intelligence authority must be destroyed, extensive steps analysts must take to try to check targets are outside the US, and reveals how US call records are used to help remove US citizens and residents from data collection.

However, alongside those provisions, the Fisa court-approved policies allow the NSA to:

• Keep data that could potentially contain details of US persons for up to five years;

• Retain and make use of “inadvertently acquired” domestic communications if they contain usable intelligence, information on criminal activity, threat of harm to people or property, are encrypted, or are believed to contain any information relevant to cybersecurity;

• Preserve “foreign intelligence information” contained within attorney-client communications;

• Access the content of communications gathered from “U.S. based machine” or phone numbers in order to establish if targets are located in the US, for the purposes of ceasing further surveillance.

The broad scope of the court orders, and the nature of the procedures set out in the documents, appear to clash with assurances from President Obama and senior intelligence officials that the NSA could not access Americans’ call or email information without warrants.

The documents also show that discretion as to who is actually targeted under the NSA’s foreign surveillance powers lies directly with its own analysts, without recourse to courts or superiors – though a percentage of targeting decisions are reviewed by internal audit teams on a regular basis.

 

[Contumacious]

Obama Lied, Top Secret Rules Allow NSA To Collect U.S. Domestic Data Without A Warrant…

You can bet your last dollar the lapdog media won’t call him on this.

Via Guardian:

Top secret documents submitted to the court that oversees surveillance by US intelligence agencies show the judges have signed off on broad orders which allow the NSA to make use of information “inadvertently” collected from domestic US communications without a warrant.

The Guardian is publishing in full two documents submitted to the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (known as the Fisa court), signed by Attorney General Eric Holder and stamped 29 July 2009. They detail the procedures the NSA is required to follow to target “non-US persons” under its foreign intelligence powers and what the agency does to minimize data collected on US citizens and residents in the course of that surveillance.

The documents show that even under authorities governing the collection of foreign intelligence from foreign targets, US communications can still be collected, retained and used.

The procedures cover only part of the NSA’s surveillance of domestic US communications. The bulk collection of domestic call records, as first revealed by the Guardian earlier this month, takes place under rolling court orders issued on the basis of a legal interpretation of a different authority, section 215 of the Patriot Act.

The Fisa court’s oversight role has been referenced many times by Barack Obama and senior intelligence officials as they have sought to reassure the public about surveillance, but the procedures approved by the court have never before been publicly disclosed.

The top secret documents published today detail the circumstances in which data collected on US persons under the foreign intelligence authority must be destroyed, extensive steps analysts must take to try to check targets are outside the US, and reveals how US call records are used to help remove US citizens and residents from data collection.

However, alongside those provisions, the Fisa court-approved policies allow the NSA to:

• Keep data that could potentially contain details of US persons for up to five years;

• Retain and make use of “inadvertently acquired” domestic communications if they contain usable intelligence, information on criminal activity, threat of harm to people or property, are encrypted, or are believed to contain any information relevant to cybersecurity;

• Preserve “foreign intelligence information” contained within attorney-client communications;

• Access the content of communications gathered from “U.S. based machine” or phone numbers in order to establish if targets are located in the US, for the purposes of ceasing further surveillance.

The broad scope of the court orders, and the nature of the procedures set out in the documents, appear to clash with assurances from President Obama and senior intelligence officials that the NSA could not access Americans’ call or email information without warrants.

The documents also show that discretion as to who is actually targeted under the NSA’s foreign surveillance powers lies directly with its own analysts, without recourse to courts or superiors – though a percentage of targeting decisions are reviewed by internal audit teams on a regular basis.

It may be Constitutionally unacceptable but WHO is going to oppose them? How are we going to oppose them.

They have a vast well armed domestic paramilitary force, ie DEA, FBI, BATF, US Marshalls

The federal "judiciary is composed of SELF IMMUNIZED corrupt judges which have allowed the federal government to become a behemoth.

So, we are up a creek

.

 

[daveman]

What is disturbing to me is the liberals who saw it then, but approve of it now.

Oh, and I don't think we should be willing to give up any of our liberty.

Immie

I haven't seen or heard any liberals who approve of it now.

I'm all for not giving up our liberties. BUT, if a President or a party DO rescind all this crap, and there is a major terrorist attack, I GUARANTEE it will devolve into a partisan blame game. That is why BOTH parties need to be upfront and take EQUAL responsibility

Which is also why the surveillance programs aren’t going anywhere.

The next republican president, likely in 2017, will keep these programs in place. There’s no way he’s going to risk a 9/11-type attack on his watch, particularly in the context of reelection.

And it will be interesting to see if the right responds with its usual partisan hypocrisy.

Partisan hypocrisy?

Oh, you mean like condemning Bush for it, and praising Obama for it.

 

[daveman]

And when was that? Hint: when Pubs are BSing the dupes AGAIN, only....They never learn...

Are you an iPhone app? It wouldn't have to be a very complicated one.

Very funny, shyttehead- try answering the question. Was it Reagan? Tripling the debt and covert wars all over the place, subverting the constitution? Pubs will NEVER be true conservatives. They're lying greedy con men, and you're the rubes.

Yeah, you can't be much over a thousand lines of code. Very limited responses, very small vocabulary.

Say "Hi!" to Siri for me, willya?

 

[daveman]

Obama Lied, Top Secret Rules Allow NSA To Collect U.S. Domestic Data Without A Warrant…

You can bet your last dollar the lapdog media won’t call him on this.

Neither will the Obamabot app called francoHFW.