WTF does the Govt need our passwords for?

[IlarMeilyr]

I am a proponent of the USA PATRIOT Act and the NSA Surveillance Program.

My position has been that these things are needed, but that because they clearly do pose some threats to our interests in privacy and to some of our Constitutionally protected rights, these laws must be FULLY covered by close scrutiny (checks, balances, oversight).

As part of that, I think it is VERY important that Congress ask some at least OBVIOUS questions, like:

By WHAT claim of right or Constitutional authority can the government demand of internet providers that they reveal the PASSWORDS used by the People to use the internet? In fact, what gives them the "right" to even "ask" Microsoft (etc) to turn over such information?

Feds tell Web firms to turn over user account passwords | Politics and Law - CNET News

 

[boedicca]

Simple. To control us.

 

[IlarMeilyr]

Simple. To control us.

I would hazard the guess that the bases for such requests are a whole lot less nefarious than that.

But even though I AGREE with the laws that permit SOME investigations to proceed without the necessity of judicial "warrants," my agreement is limited to the appropriate situations (i.e., matters involving our efforts to foil the plots of the terrorists that can result in 9-11 attacks or Boston Marathon Bombing attacks, etc), I still believe that the manner in which the investigators proceed MATTERS. When they have genuinely actionable intel, they might properly be able to issue an NSA letter to get certain specific and properly circumscribed information needed to pursue the leads.

But broad stroke demands for companies like Microsoft, etc. to simply hand over passwords and such information on a wholesale basis is going too far. There does come a logical point where the requests start to bump up against genuine 4th Amendment considerations.

 

[boedicca]

This is just part of the government's overall agenda to know everything about us. There are perfectly rational and reasonable sounding explanations for each little bit, but when assembled altogether in a massive database managed by an unaccountable bureaucracy, the moral hazard to abuse this information is beyond extreme.

Such information will be abused by somebody for political purposes, and ruin the lives of relatively powerless political targets.

 

[Granny]

Boe - more people need to take your posts seriously. I think we are well on our way to a dictatorial government. I shudder to think His Barackness might be our El Presidente when this term ends.

 

[R.C. Christian]

Accept the fact that you live in a police state and start thinking about how we're going to deal with it. This was all set in motion when the collective morons who inhabit this dysfunctional republic traded liberty for security after 9-11. It's going to get a lot worse under the current administration which basically does whatever it wants.

 

[laughinReaper]

Accept the fact that you live in a police state and start thinking about how we're going to deal with it. This was all set in motion when the collective morons who inhabit this dysfunctional republic traded liberty for security after 9-11. It's going to get a lot worse under the current administration which basically does whatever it wants.

I thought it was bad when Facebook demanded my phone number on one of my sock accounts that I use to voice my discontent with the current administration and Islam. I thought it was just Facebook trying to get rid of me but now I wonder if it wasn't more.

 

[R.C. Christian]

I don't use social media in any form. I have 1 email address that is internal corporate. My internet connection is not my own, my car is not my own, and my cell phone is not my own. I'm a ghost. I intentionally defaulted on a 300 dollar credit card just to see if the collectors can track me and five years later they have failed to do so.

 

[CrusaderFrank]

I am a proponent of the USA PATRIOT Act and the NSA Surveillance Program.

My position has been that these things are needed, but that because they clearly do pose some threats to our interests in privacy and to some of our Constitutionally protected rights, these laws must be FULLY covered by close scrutiny (checks, balances, oversight).

As part of that, I think it is VERY important that Congress ask some at least OBVIOUS questions, like:

By WHAT claim of right or Constitutional authority can the government demand of internet providers that they reveal the PASSWORDS used by the People to use the internet? In fact, what gives them the "right" to even "ask" Microsoft (etc) to turn over such information?

Feds tell Web firms to turn over user account passwords | Politics and Law - CNET News

 

[CrusaderFrank]

More and more I think we're headed for another Civil War. It won't last long at all either

 

[Luissa]

I find it funny when people go all big brother about the government but have no problem with private companies collecting data on them. Everything you do is monitored by one company or another, Facebook etc..
The Boston Bombers are a prime example, how many of those photos were taken by a government owned camera?
People scream about the government but where are they getting the info?

 

[Luissa]

Accept the fact that you live in a police state and start thinking about how we're going to deal with it. This was all set in motion when the collective morons who inhabit this dysfunctional republic traded liberty for security after 9-11. It's going to get a lot worse under the current administration which basically does whatever it wants.

I thought it was bad when Facebook demanded my phone number on one of my sock accounts that I use to voice my discontent with the current administration and Islam. I thought it was just Facebook trying to get rid of me but now I wonder if it wasn't more.

It was to send you mobile alerts, otherwise you don't have to give it.

 

[Katzndogz]

I don't use social media in any form. I have 1 email address that is internal corporate. My internet connection is not my own, my car is not my own, and my cell phone is not my own. I'm a ghost. I intentionally defaulted on a 300 dollar credit card just to see if the collectors can track me and five years later they have failed to do so.

I am the same way. I have no presence at all. I have had some prospective business associates not want to deal with me because I have no social networking presence. It's just beginning, but already there are sneaking suspicions that if you don't "twit face" it's like you have something to hide.

 

[Ravi]

I find it funny when people go all big brother about the government but have no problem with private companies collecting data on them. Everything you do is monitored by one company or another, Facebook etc..
The Boston Bombers are a prime example, how many of those photos were taken by a government owned camera?
People scream about the government but where are they getting the info?

This is all based on unnamed sources anyway so it is more than likely BS. Not surprising Liarbility ate it up.

 

[laughinReaper]

I don't use social media in any form. I have 1 email address that is internal corporate. My internet connection is not my own, my car is not my own, and my cell phone is not my own. I'm a ghost. I intentionally defaulted on a 300 dollar credit card just to see if the collectors can track me and five years later they have failed to do so.

I had one person on face book give me an ominous warning saying that I need to becareful "I had not gone unnoticed".

 

[CrusaderFrank]

I find it funny when people go all big brother about the government but have no problem with private companies collecting data on them. Everything you do is monitored by one company or another, Facebook etc..
The Boston Bombers are a prime example, how many of those photos were taken by a government owned camera?
People scream about the government but where are they getting the info?

This is all based on unnamed sources anyway so it is more than likely BS. Not surprising Liarbility ate it up.

^ Loves being a slave. Hasn't figured out this is for real

 

[007]

I don't use social media in any form. I have 1 email address that is internal corporate. My internet connection is not my own, my car is not my own, and my cell phone is not my own. I'm a ghost. I intentionally defaulted on a 300 dollar credit card just to see if the collectors can track me and five years later they have failed to do so.

I am the same way. I have no presence at all. I have had some prospective business associates not want to deal with me because I have no social networking presence. It's just beginning, but already there are sneaking suspicions that if you don't "twit face" it's like you have something to hide.

I have facebook, but not even my name is my full, real name. Everything else is either not filled in or a lie. I have three emails and none of them have my real name on them, and one of those emails is hushmail. If you don't want government to snoop on your info on the internet, as you've indicated Katz, don't put it out there.

 

[Ravi]

I find it funny when people go all big brother about the government but have no problem with private companies collecting data on them. Everything you do is monitored by one company or another, Facebook etc..
The Boston Bombers are a prime example, how many of those photos were taken by a government owned camera?
People scream about the government but where are they getting the info?

This is all based on unnamed sources anyway so it is more than likely BS. Not surprising Liarbility ate it up.

^ Loves being a slave. Hasn't figured out this is for real

I'm not a hysterical idiot like you, ClusterFuck. It is illegal to do what is being described by these unnamed sources. I realize you like to believe anything you read on the internet that supports your paranoia.

 

[Luissa]

I find it funny when people go all big brother about the government but have no problem with private companies collecting data on them. Everything you do is monitored by one company or another, Facebook etc..
The Boston Bombers are a prime example, how many of those photos were taken by a government owned camera?
People scream about the government but where are they getting the info?

This is all based on unnamed sources anyway so it is more than likely BS. Not surprising Liarbility ate it up.

^ Loves being a slave. Hasn't figured out this is for real

^^ too dumb to realize he is being monitored by a private corporations and privately owned cameras.

And lucky for stalker women everywhere they can now monitor where their boyfriends/husbands go with Find my iPhone and iTile.
I posted a pic from iPhone on to Facebook the other day from Washington and both recognized I had taken it in Brooklyn. That isn't the government tracking my info.

 

[Luissa]

Why do they need our passwords if they get can get all the info they need by what private companies collect?