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njlauren -> RE: NSA leaker comes forward (6/9/2013 10:21:48 PM)
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is he a traitor to the country, or are the people who are doing this the traitors? He saw the government doing something he felt was wrong, and risked literally life and limb to bring it to people's attention. Those who claim that this is necessary for national security, that this protects the US, aren't bothering to use their head and they also aren't looking at the past to understand why people are upset about this.
In the 1960's, the FBI was routinely spying on civil rights groups, anti war groups, and basically anyone J.Edgar Homo decides was un-American, abusing the power he had, which also included of course his secret files on politicians and everyone else that he used both as blackmail and to curry favor with politicos.
The CIA was caught red handed, which led to the Church committee, working in the US, which directly violated the law, and they were targeting US citizens for all kinds of things.
The problem with this program (besides the fact that I suspect is complete crapola, if what some geeks at the office told me was true, these kinds of data mining systems often turn up yields so low as to be embarassing) is that they basically are taking data on what every American is doing, whether it be on the phone, the internet, whatever, and have enough information to basically figure out anything any American is doing, and basically, the NSA and their bosses in the government could pretty much tell them "I want dirt on Joe Smith", and they can get it. Supposedly the NSA searches done under PRISM look for patterns, and then, and only then, do they look at the underlying data, but think that this kind of thing isn't tempting for those with less noble intentions than national security? You think that for example, no one in the Obama administration would be above using the information to find out about GOP congressman and senators who are thorns in their side, find out about their gumatas on the side and such, and blackmail them? Think the next time the GOP comes into the oval office with their holy roller contingent, you won't have some tempted to try and get the dirty on people who use websites like this, to use the power that information represents to force themselves into power and create a theocracy?
It is a massive violation of people's right to privacy, and worse, there is no checks and balances on it, Obama and Holder are lying through their teeth, there isn't.If they see a suspicious pattern, they have the right to look at the underlying data..but get this, what is that pattern? At least with the warrantless wiretaps, the government had to go to FISA and show why they did what they did, and get validation it was okay, with this, there is zero control over this.
And you think NSA workers are above using this data? They had fucking NSA workers who were listening in, not on terrorist chatter, but a husband and wife having phone sex......you think there aren't people in the NSA who would be above playing their own version of J.Edgar Homo and using this to pull all kinds of shit?
Sure it seems unlikely that any individual American would be a target, but when you give anyone the kind of power this represents, where they can basically profile who you are, what you do, what you are interested in, you don't think they will use it? This is the ultimate non specific search warrant that our constitution forbids, it basically allows them to go on a fishing expedition into our lives for no reason whatsoever, to look for anything they can find, it is the tool of the ultimate police state quite frankly. When wireless wiretaps first were being done, Bush and Cheney tried to argue that if they did this, and found evidence of criminal activity, that the evidence found should be allowed in court (given that the wiretaps were for the purposes of anti terrorism alone, giving them that right would be like getting rid of warrants for wiretaps at all, since they could always say "oh, we thought he was doing something involving terrorism, turns out he was growing pot)......with a data pool like this, they can just as easily claim they were searching for evidence of terrorism, but oops, we found that John Smith bought an expensive stereo in Delaware and never paid NJ sales tax on it......you get the drift.
PRISM is a direct challenge to the constitution, in that they are gathering records on all Americans, not those who make calls to certain foreign countries, all of us (and if you think it is only Verizon, I have a bridge to sell you), and this needs to be brought into the open.He didn't say how PRISM works, he didn't give details that could aid an enemy, what he did was say the government is collecting data on every American, data that they can use to spy on our personal lives, literally know who we are, with absolutely no control over it, no oversight, no judges, nothing..and if one of the scumbags at the NSA decides to go into business for himself as a political blackmail specialist, who is going to stop them? Or the President who uses this to get at his enemies. Can you imagine what a Nixon would have done with this, or even Johnson?
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