NSA Phone records

[LAK]

The managers of the Global Plantation here in the USA have killed the inquiry into this one. All in the name of "national security"

---------------------------------
From Associated Press:
http://kvoa.com/Global/story.asp?S=4888593&nav=HMO6

Security issue kills domestic spying inquiry

WASHINGTON The government has abruptly ended an inquiry into the warrantless eavesdropping program.

The Justice Department says the National Security Agency has refused to grant its lawyers the necessary security clearance to probe the matter.

The Justice Department announced its decision in a fax to New York Congressman Maurice Hinchey, whose office shared the statement with The Associated Press.

Hinchey is one of many House Democrats who have been highly critical of the eavesdropping program first revealed in December. He says lawmakers will push to find out who at the N-S-A denied the Justice Department lawyers security clearance.

The administration has vehemently defended the eavesdropping. It says the N-S-A's activities were narrowly targeted to intercept international calls and e-mails of Americans and others inside the U-S with suspected ties to the al-Qaida terror network.

----------------------------------------------------

http://ussliberty.org
http://ssunitedstates.org

 

[Sindawe]

From Associated Press:
http://kvoa.com/Global/story.asp?S=4888593&nav=HMO6

Security issue kills domestic spying inquiry

WASHINGTON The government has abruptly ended an inquiry into the warrantless eavesdropping program. The Justice Department says the National Security Agency has refused to grant its lawyers the necessary security clearance to probe the matter.

My, how ironic. What should be playing on iTunes as I pull up LAK's post? Why, its Blood Red Skies by Judas Priest...

So the HIRELINGS of our SERVANTS have squashed an investigation into their own misdeeds...

Hmmmmm....

One is reminded of the parbale of the camel and the straw.

 

[GoRon]

Its nothing more than appeasement to political slavery. Your in a cage.

If voting third party makes you feel like you are not in a cage, more power to you.

I am not an apologist, I am a realist.

If you can come up with way to reverse the big brother course this government is on then I am there with you.

Voting for a disorganized collection of open border folks and pot heads isn't the path to political Nirvana.

Our best hope is to work within the system.

 

[Jack Burton]

"Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." Benjamin Franklin


I understand what they're trying to accomplish...I just don't like the cost...

 

[Thin Black Line]

I call my buddy last week from Iraq on my cell phone and we talked about ak part kits for about a hour.

Imagine how nervous the guy is who called both his wife and girlfriend
from Iraq and his wife works at the NSA

Government puts out $1,000,000 to anyone who snitches out on the "militia"....if you ran a 500 man militia in Montana, do you really believe everyone will be loyal, even with $1,000,000 at stake? HA! You can forget about that.

How much is on Bin Laden right now? But, yes, I agree with your point
on the militia.

The point is, tactically, they conducted their mission and no one knew any better. How many law enforcement departments put forth all of their manpower to catch them? Many. They used all their resources and power, and in the end - they didn't even have the correct car description.

Yep, all those guys driving white vans who had the local ninjas pointing
M4s in their faces at the check points around the beltway. Yep, there
was FBI profiling in action while retired military guys sat around the breakfast
tables saying it was a muslim extremist hit team.....

DO NOT construe this as the planning or some anti-government proposal. It is merely a discussion about the structure of future State vs. Civilian warfare. I do not advocate any of this. For informational/discussion purposes only.

IP logged, identity cross-matched, information archived for future reference.
"Mr Anderson, you've been quite busy....."

I said it before, and I'm saying it again. You're still being lied to. It's worse than they're admitting. Quit apologizing for them.

Like I've said, people need to do a deployment to Iraq to replace the sleep
in their eyes with some sand. Then they wake up and see how things
really are. Like the VP said you have to embrace the Dark Side if you're
going to maintain the current way of life for Americans.

However, now Matt Drudge and Steve Kroft have confirmed what has been rumored for years: "Echelon Bombshell: NSA Accused of Spying on U.S. Politicians"

And since the anthrax threat to the Hill, all SNAILMAIL is opened, scanned,
and COPIED for your elected officials. [Neurons fire, more dots connect for
a few more of the Homer Simpsons in America.]

My, how ironic. What should be playing on iTunes as I pull up LAK's post? Why, its Blood Red Skies by Judas Priest...

Try this one:

KANSAS lyrics - "Sparks Of The Tempest" 1977

(Kerry Livgren / Steve Walsh)

The sparks of the tempest rage a hundred years on
The voice of the dreamer screams, the cause of the pawn
The King and the Queen are gone, each piece is the same
The difference between us is a part of the game

Darkness is spreading like a spot on the sun
The dead are the living in the age of the gun
While everyone clamors for the justice they seek
The world is corrupted and the strong take the weak

They mold you and shape you, they watch what you do
The sparks of the tempest are burnin' you through
Spreading like wildfire, fallin' like rain
Though they may promise, they only bring pain

The future is managed, and your freedom's a joke
You don't know the difference as you put on the yoke
The less that you know the more you fall into place
A cog in the wheel, there is no soul in your face

Run for the cover, ***Millennium's*** here
Bearing the standard of confusion and fear
Spreading like wildfire, fallin' like rain
Though they may promise, they only bring pain

***Blood in the sand, a cry in the street***
Now the cycle is nearly complete
Ten thousand years, and nothing was learned
No turning back, now the wheel has turned

Big Brother is watching and he likes what he sees
A world for the taking, when he's ready to squeeze
The King and the Queen are gone, each piece is the same
The difference between us is a part of the game

Soothsayer saying now tell me no lies
What is this madness that is filling the skies
Spreading like wildfire, fallin' like rain
Though they may promise, they only bring pain

Well, have a Happy Big Mart Day, Shoppers

 

[MountainPeak]

Oh no, the government knows I call my brother and mother on occasion!!! What am I going to do? The inhumanity of it all! SHEESE!!!

 

[Manedwolf]

WASHINGTON The government has abruptly ended an inquiry into the warrantless eavesdropping program.

The Justice Department says the National Security Agency has refused to grant its lawyers the necessary security clearance to probe the matter.

So the whole thing is so SECRET that even the spy agency can't look at itself!
This is becoming like a lost scene from Dr. Strangelove.

 

[Bartholomew Roberts]

From Associated Press:
http://kvoa.com/Global/story.asp?S=4888593&nav=HMO6

Security issue kills domestic spying inquiry

WASHINGTON The government has abruptly ended an inquiry into the warrantless eavesdropping program.

The Justice Department says the National Security Agency has refused to grant its lawyers the necessary security clearance to probe the matter.

I don't support the traffic analysis program being discussed in this thread and I don't support the warrantless eavesdropping (which is another, separate issue) being discussed in your newslink (as anybody who has read my posts here knows).

However, this is one story that is in fact, a tempest in a teapot. The NSA Inspector General announced an investigation into the program back in January. Not content with that, 39 House members (all Democrats) asked the Justice Department to begin a separate investigation into the matter. The Justice Department declined saying it lacked the authority to do so and that NSA was already investigating. The Democrats continued to lean on them until they said "Fine, we'll refer the matter to the Office of Professional Responsibility." (OPR is the group within DoJ that approves warrants before they are submitted to the FISA court). OPR agreed to conduct a more limited investigation than the House Democrats wanted; but NSA said "No clearance for you!" While I agree that NSA shouldn't get to investigate NSA, I don't think that the OPR investigation was anything but a purely partisan political exercise.

 

[Dravur]

Awwwww, the Tinfoil hat crowd...

is geting their panties in a twist yet again. I know that the conspiracy theories in here are buzzing like flies around...

You do realize that you do not have an absolute right to privacy. Data is collected on you every day. If you choose to use a credit card, a phone, the web, you are recorded for prosperity. Here is the difference.... You chose to use the phone, etc. Therefore, the company records that call, the duration, etc. That call becomes a permanent record.

Now, in 97, the Supremes slapped their Okey-Dokey on this program, and in 99 it started up. They use a function called data mining to go through the billions of records and start tracing Ossama's call records. now, lets say, he calls Skipppy McGriddlepants in Ohio several times. And Skippy calls others, including a Pizza Hut. But he also calls several fertilizer businesses. I think this is purely acceptable for the government to mine the data for. I would want to know that Skippy is ordering 20 tons of fertilizer and renting a U-haul.

Now, for those that think that they are going to record every conversation, then come to your house and beat you over the head because you made a reference to how Barbara Streisand should be dipped in gopher blood and dropped in a pool of sharks, take note..... You do not have to use the phone. The phone is not a right. You pay for it. Nothing out there says you have to use it.

The best thing you all could do is start wiring all the tinfoil hats together.. We can call it TINNET. As each new conspiracy theory works its way down the net, the tinfoil will glow with the buzz of the chatter.

 

[Lobotomy Boy]

Dravur, some of us are just laboring under the delusion that the Constitution means something, that it seperates us from totalitarian states like China and Cuba. I guess you sure showed us.

 

[Dravur]

As stated before

There is no constitutional guarantee of privacy. There is nothing in there that states that you have the right to use a publicly available telephone, which allready records the call duration and who you have called.

The minute you use a public conveyance, the record that that produces is now in the private domain of that company. They use it to bill you for your usage. The company you contract with for your phone has these records. The only reason they just dont publish them in the newspaper every week is it would hork off people. They could still do it though. Unless they have, in their contract, that they will not share your info with anyone, then they can. It is their data.

The nice thing is, you are not forced to use it. So stop using the telephone, the internet, etc.

 

[Lobotomy Boy]

I suspect that some folks who are smarter than I am might dispute your interpretation of the Fourth Amendment, D. I do agree with you that it is naive to expect privacy when using electronic media whether it is Constitutionally protected or not. If the federal government's power grab goes much farther, I suspect that a disturbing number of us might disappear from the electronic grid altogether.

But naive or not, I think the reason many of us are fighting to preserve what little remains of our Constitutional government is so that things don't get so bad that we are forced to go underground. In this struggle I personally view your fatalistic attitude as part of the problem and not part of the solution.

 

[brickeyee]

There is actually very little protection of personal records and information held by third parties. These parties include banks, other financial institutions, brokers, the POCO, TELCO, credit card companies, etc.
In most cases court orders are not required to gain access, though the holder of the data may demand one to get them off the hook for releasing the information.
Reading the handoff data from cell phones to track their location has been done for many years and does not require a warrant of any type. Using direction finding equipment to track the phones within a cell is legal also without a warrant as long as the actual voice portion of the conversation is not intercepted.

 

[Bartholomew Roberts]

There is no constitutional guarantee of privacy.

Apparently Justice Brandeis of the Supreme Court disagrees with you on that point. Luckily for those of us who value our privacy, there IS a constitutional right to privacy enshrined as part of the law now whether some here like it or not. Perhaps you meant that the state had a compelling interest in discarding privacy rights here?

Even if we accept your argument that there is no constitutional guarantee of privacy, care to take a look at how many federal laws have the words "Privacy Act" in the title? You'll have to take off your shoes to count them...

There is nothing in there that states that you have the right to use a publicly available telephone, which allready records the call duration and who you have called.

No; but we have as a society decided that this utility is subject to an expectation of privacy. There is plenty of law on this and to claim otherwise is disingenuous.

Title 18, Chapter 206 Sec. 3121
(a) In General.— Except as provided in this section, no person may install or use a pen register or a trap and trace device without first obtaining a court order under section 3123 of this title or under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 (50 U.S.C. 1801 et seq.).

I haven't seen the court order yet that authorized this program.

 

[Dravur]

I just find

that worrying about something like this, which, at best is a tempest in a teacup, with what is happening on our borders, etc, this is just silly.

It is interesting that since the constitution does not cover this, everyone trots this out as a constitutional dilemma. The constitution has nothing to do with this. If the Government wants to mine this data for phone calls between terrorists, I am willing to allow that. Sorry, not that big of a deal. If the government starts listening in to calls within the US, then I have a problem. I do not have a problem with them listening to external calls into the US from suspected phones. That is called detective work. If I start making calls to the UAE to a suspected terrorist, then I would EXPECT to be listened in on.

The funniest thing is, if GW was not doing this and a terrorist event happened, the tinfoil hat crowd and the leftists in this country would complain that he didnt do enough to stop this.

Oh, and the Supremes DID rule on this, back in 97, found it passed Constitutional muster.

There are plenty of LAWS with privacy in them.... However, there are plenty of laws that state you can't steal your neighbors weed whacker. Neither appear in the constitution and thats what everyone keeps trotting out as their concern. Im sure that there are Supremes out there that believe Martians rule the world, but this does not mean it is spelled out in the constitution. The Right to privacy is not a right guaranteed in the constitution. Some justices have found it in an interpretation, but it is just that, an interpretation.

The RKBA IS spelled out, the right tio privacy was interpreted. Oddly enough, they use the supposed right to privacy for any number of things that they have ruled on. But, with the regards to data mining the call numbers, they have ruled that there is no supposed right to privacy as you have used a public conveyance and there is no right to privacy in this regard.

 

[Lobotomy Boy]

The moral problem I have with your argument, D, is that it uses the exact same logic (it doesn't effect me so it's not my problem) used by the majority of German citizens to justify the genocide committed against the Jews during the Nazi era. Sure, millions of people aren't being exterminated by this program, but once you accept that logic, you've hurled yourself down a slippery slope with no bottom in sight. At that point anything is possible.

 

[Dravur]

Wrong

The slippery slope argument is invalid. there are laws in place to stop certain things allready. Every Right, whether spelled out or implied in the constitution has limits. There are limits on speech, limits on RKBA, limits on every right. There are no absolute right.

Admittedly, alot of the laws go too far, but that is why we vote in people who believe like we do, or at least try to. John McCain drives me nuts with his law limiting political speech. I still cannot believe the Supremes have upheld that, but I digress. There is a limit on every right. Some I agree with, some i Don't. Therefore, I work to get into our govenrment groups of people who will either overturn laws I dont like or at least mitigate them.

In the grand scheme of things, this isnt the first step down the road to fascism, this is just an attempt, by our government to data mine for terrorist phone calls. That's it, nothing exciting. They aren't looking at how many times you talked to Grannie, or that you frequently dial 1-900 numbers. Could it be used for that purpose? sure. Could AT&T do the same thing? sure. Have they? haven't seen it. If they do, then I will be outraged and beat my chest. Until then, Ill continue to use my phone for what it was designed for.

 

[Daemon688]

The moral problem I have with your argument, D, is that it uses the exact same logic (it doesn't effect me so it's not my problem) used by the majority of German citizens to justify the genocide committed against the Jews during the Nazi era. Sure, millions of people aren't being exterminated by this program, but once you accept that logic, you've hurled yourself down a slippery slope with no bottom in sight. At that point anything is possible.

Exactly. Just like DNA testing an entire town to look for one murderer. A nice quote from Martin Niemoller....

When the Nazis arrested the Communists,
I said nothing; after all, I was not a Communist.
When they locked up the Social Democrats,
I said nothing; after all, I was not a Social Democrat.
When they arrested the trade unionists,
I said nothing; after all, I was not a trade unionist.
When they arrested the Jews, I said nothing; after all, I was not a Jew.
When they arrested me, there was no longer anyone who could protest.

 

[Lobotomy Boy]

The slippery slope argument is invalid. there are laws in place to stop certain things allready.

The problem with your theory is that it presupposes that government officials will obey those laws, yet time and time again the Bush administration has trotted Gonzales out to say that the laws don't apply to a president with wartime powers.

As I've said before, I think Caesar has has crossed the Rubicon.

 

[Baron Holbach4]

The Justice Department declined saying it lacked the authority to do so and that NSA was already investigating.

Maybe the NSA is investigating the Justice Department.

 

[K-Romulus]

Oh, and the Supremes DID rule on this, back in 97, found it passed Constitutional muster.

Just because some guys in a government agency say that something is hunky dory, does NOT make it so . . . witness the host of awful decisions over the recent year - the eminent domain fiasco, state-legal medical MJ, etc., for examples . . .

 

[Derek Zeanah]

As I've said before, I think Caesar has has crossed the Rubicon.

Damn, that's a good way to say it. This is unprecidented, and is not a healthy thing for the Republic.

 

[Art Eatman]

Browsing the Kim duToit site this morning, I ranc across his take:

http://www.theothersideofkim.com/

One of the responses compared NSA's actions to pen registers, and a court decision concerning them.

Opinions?

Art

 

[SpookyPistolero]

How large a jump in temperature must be made before the boiling frog syndrome is cured? What does it take for the masses to simulataneously scream that such actions won't be tolerated, and how would the republic go about dissarming the traitors to the nation?

It's more than a little frightening when 1984 seems less and less like something '100 years in the future.' I've never felt that I donned my tin foil hat with any seriousness, but our reality is that the government has made repeated abuses in power towards an unholy goal.

I keep thinking of that quote from Claire Wolfe, "America is at that awkward stage; it´s too late to work within the system , but too early to shoot the bastards." I'm praying that the former isn't true, though.

Thanks much for the links on anonymous browsing, Derek.

As I've said before, I think Caesar has has crossed the Rubicon.

Well said!

 

[tellner]

I note that about 60% of Americans initially polled were just fine with the the NSA's great fishing expedition. Not only have we entered the Post-Constitutional era, the marching morons have given up their rights without a fight. All you have to do is say "9-11. Terrorists under your bed. Support the troops" and the sheep will follow along.

And the "Molon Labe!" crowd is baaa-ing louder than anyone else. They make up the hard core of Bush's support that still cheer for him and would make excuses if he sodomized little children to death on national television.