The NSA's Mass Surveillance Program Still Going

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Is anyone really surprised by this? I didn't think so. :(

Despite last night's vote by the House of Representatives and various plans for reform, the NSA is still peeking into places many think it shouldn't. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence just revealed that yesterday, the program that scoops up bulk metadata on phone calls has been renewed again.
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You guys, one day, will thank them for backing up your data so if you lose your copy they can recover it in a court of law against you if you cause disobedience to this well oil machine of a nation.:rolleyes:
 
The outrage! The horror! It's awful!

Aaaaaaaaand nothing will change. On to the next scandal and outrage.
 
aardvark sandwich said:
But look at all the terrorists they stopped.
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It's arguable that there are some alleged plots that were allegedly stopped. The problem I have with the program is that our society needs to be something worthy of being protected from such attacks and in order to do that we need to keep it free of unwarranted surveillance.
 
The funding for this was cut, will they be funding it using money assigned for real intelligence work?
 
GaryJohnson said:
It's arguable that there are some alleged plots that were allegedly stopped. The problem I have with the program is that our society needs to be something worthy of being protected from such attacks and in order to do that we need to keep it free of unwarranted surveillance.
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That you, Mr. Governor?
 
In other news, water is still wet, the sky is still blue, we're still dropping bombs via drone all over the place, and probably putting the orphans on terrorist watch lists for when they grow up and repeat the same goddamn cycle.
 
The funding for this was cut, will they be funding it using money assigned for real intelligence work?
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No, the funding for the 702 program, Prism, was cut and then, only if it's done against US Persons without a warrant. Told you guys the other day, this bill was not what you'd think it was and that it really didn't do anything.

The Bulk Meta Data program is not a 702 program. The bulk meta data program collects information that they do analysis on to determine if they need to request info from a provider on a phone number. When the provider complies and sends the NSA the data, the data is stored into Prism for access and analysis, this is the 702 program. They are not the same thing, one is not the other.
 
Besides, the Pres told us a couple of months ago he was going to end the bulk meta data collection program ..... in five years.
 
GaryJohnson said:
The problem I have with the program is that our society needs to be something worthy of being protected from such attacks and in order to do that we need to keep it free of unwarranted surveillance.
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I'm not sure about you but I would prefer to NOT have my father/mother/sister/son, etc... killed by a terrorist. As well, the data collection en-masse is a gross distortion of our right to privacy and due process and that should immediately be stopped.

If you spent any time overseas in the military, you would know without a doubt our 'society', as you put it, is one of the best, if not THE best there is. It's just not as good as it used to be and could use some improvement.
 
At this rate I don't know what's gonna be left to protect, are we a police state yet?
 
Tak Ne said:
The funding for this was cut, will they be funding it using money assigned for real intelligence work?
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no it just means they'll visit starbucks one less time during the week while continuing to do exactly what they were doing before.
 
Are these Congressmen naive enough to think they aren't being spied on as well?

Imagine the sheer outrage when your congressman finds out that his/her privacy has been invaded after he/she told them to stop!
 
atp1916 said:
Are these Congressmen naive enough to think they aren't being spied on as well?

Imagine the sheer outrage when your congressman finds out that his/her privacy has been invaded after he/she told them to stop!
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Hah! Could you imagine if a bunch of politicians found out they were being spied on? "Outrage" would be an understatement ;)
 
By Steve;
Hah! Could you imagine if a bunch of politicians found out they were being spied on? "Outrage" would be an understatement
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Which congressmen would that be? The ones who sit on the Committees that oversee this stuff or the other ones?

It's OK, you guys can keep on believing the Bullshit the media has fed you and ignoring that others tell you it's not true.

You are all having too much fun living in shared indignation of the lie to be bothered with the real problem, that the media is lying to you all the time, all the media. The all have an agenda and it's never about giving you the truth. It's only about giving you "a truth" they know you want to believe so they can lead you around by the nose and get you to cluck and squawk the sounds they want you to make.
 
lcpiper said:
You are all having too much fun living in shared indignation of the lie to be bothered with the real problem, that the media is lying to you all the time, all the media. The all have an agenda and it's never about giving you the truth. It's only about giving you "a truth" they know you want to believe so they can lead you around by the nose and get you to cluck and squawk the sounds they want you to make.
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Humans often disagree on "the truth" and have since the beginning of our species. Indeed "the truth" about the very origin of our species is up for lots of debate and I don't think "the media" had much to do with that. Given today's technology, "the media" as has traditionally worked before the Information and Internet ages simply isn't as influential given the vast number of resources outside "the media" that research and communicate directly.
 
lcpiper said:
Which congressmen would that be? The ones who sit on the Committees that oversee this stuff or the other ones?

It's OK, you guys can keep on believing the Bullshit the media has fed you and ignoring that others tell you it's not true.

You are all having too much fun living in shared indignation of the lie to be bothered with the real problem, that the media is lying to you all the time, all the media. The all have an agenda and it's never about giving you the truth. It's only about giving you "a truth" they know you want to believe so they can lead you around by the nose and get you to cluck and squawk the sounds they want you to make.
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Isn't it great to have a scapegoat in the media so as to not feel guilty in contributing to the direct eradication of innocent people via intelligence gained via one's paid service?
 
lcpiper said:
Which congressmen would that be? The ones who sit on the Committees that oversee this stuff or the other ones?

It's OK, you guys can keep on believing the Bullshit the media has fed you and ignoring that others tell you it's not true.

You are all having too much fun living in shared indignation of the lie to be bothered with the real problem, that the media is lying to you all the time, all the media. The all have an agenda and it's never about giving you the truth. It's only about giving you "a truth" they know you want to believe so they can lead you around by the nose and get you to cluck and squawk the sounds they want you to make.
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Is that the same media that's being directly fed their information from the government most of the time? So who is, in fact, the liars?
 
Given today's technology, "the media" as has traditionally worked before the Information and Internet ages simply isn't as influential given the vast number of resources outside "the media" that research and communicate directly.
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All of them, every one. Doesn't matter who is posting what, they either lying to mislead you or they are paroting what they think is true because it supports their agenda. I have spent months reading this stuff about the NSA and explaining what is wrong with these articles and these claims and very few even try and question why I think some report is wrong. Instead it's a constant backblast of regurgitated claims made by others that are themselves misleading or simply false or even in some cases, perfectly true but made to sound bad as if even when the NSA is actually doing their job right and against the right people, they are still wrong.

Even now, in something as simple as this post and article a thing as simple as people mixing up one thing with another and my pointing out the difference get's some folks back up. Not one person says "Shit, he's right, the Bulk Meta Data Program wasn't addressed by that Bill at all, go fucking figure,".

Not from anyone.
 
so it doesn't matter what the NSA does, how it does it, or who it targets, as long as there's a bigger asshole somewhere else.

look everybody, this group is worse!
 
Is that the same media that's being directly fed their information from the government most of the time? So who is, in fact, the liars?
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Noo it is not. For almost a year now all this stuff has come from overseas sources mostly from the Guardian and Der Speigle. The US media usually only links to or regurgitates what was posted by these other two. Then you have the EFF and some other Privacy Rights groups, of course they are blowing their bugle as loud as possible and take these foreign news reports at face value often repeating things incorrectly and way over the top because they are objective oriented, trying to move the ball so they go for 120 yards every play just hoping they can make 10 and keep their momentum up. Last is the self styled youtube reporters like The Young Turk who does entire video pieces claiming that Alexander lied to congress and if you pay any attention at all to the questions being asked they aren't even the same question. Two different questions, two different answers, the video linked like 1 million time "Alexander Lied !!!"

But when it's pointed out everyone here is pretty fucking quiet, no one acknowledges shit, and next week the same indignant people post the same shit again "Alexander Lied !!!"
 
so it doesn't matter what the NSA does, how it does it, or who it targets, as long as there's a bigger asshole somewhere else.
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no Aardvark, it does matter that they are doing their job, legally, in the manner dictated to them by Congress and several Presidents all the way back to Regan, and they target exactly who they are supposed to target.

It absolutely does matter.

It also matters that the media will claim that they don't get warrants before targeting people and they lead you to believe they mean Americans. The statement is true and it's misleading. They do get warrants when targeting an American, they do not when targeting foreigners inside America. But hey, it's too much work to challenge what you are being told or to read what's being written and ask yourself ............

If the difference between something being illegal or not is who it's being done to, then why are these statements always vague and never come out and say specifically who the target is?

Hell, one article even stated outright that the program the were reporting on was not being used against Americans and was only used overseas and the level of indignation was not one decibel lower.
 
lcpiper said:
Noo it is not. For almost a year now all this stuff has come from overseas sources mostly from the Guardian and Der Speigle. The US media usually only links to or regurgitates what was posted by these other two. Then you have the EFF and some other Privacy Rights groups, of course they are blowing their bugle as loud as possible and take these foreign news reports at face value often repeating things incorrectly and way over the top because they are objective oriented, trying to move the ball so they go for 120 yards every play just hoping they can make 10 and keep their momentum up. Last is the self styled youtube reporters like The Young Turk who does entire video pieces claiming that Alexander lied to congress and if you pay any attention at all to the questions being asked they aren't even the same question. Two different questions, two different answers, the video linked like 1 million time "Alexander Lied !!!"

But when it's pointed out everyone here is pretty fucking quiet, no one acknowledges shit, and next week the same indignant people post the same shit again "Alexander Lied !!!"
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Because the Guardian and Der Speigle are such terrible, untrustworthy sources? Give me a break. And many, many media stories are fed directly from the government, even if it isn't this one; so you're telling me in only this case they're lying? C'mon man, while I respect some of the work the NSA and other agencies do, the pendulum has swung way over to over-surveillance. With your mindless support of anything and everything they do, you can't be taken credibly. Even NSA's own confessed missteps are treated as positives by you.
 
Isn't it great to have a scapegoat in the media so as to not feel guilty in contributing to the direct eradication of innocent people via intelligence gained via one's paid service?
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Aardvark, I don't feel guilty at all. I don't do Intelligence work anymore, I am just an IT guy. I just work in a lab, my systems are not even connected to the world. But that doesn't matter, I would never feel guilty about killing an enemy, not for one moment. He isn't going to feel guilty about killing me, or you. And the media doesn't play into it at all.
 
lcpiper said:
no Aardvark, it does matter that they are doing their job, legally, in the manner dictated to them by Congress and several Presidents all the way back to Regan, and they target exactly who they are supposed to target.

It absolutely does matter.

It also matters that the media will claim that they don't get warrants before targeting people and they lead you to believe they mean Americans. The statement is true and it's misleading. They do get warrants when targeting an American, they do not when targeting foreigners inside America. But hey, it's too much work to challenge what you are being told or to read what's being written and ask yourself ............

If the difference between something being illegal or not is who it's being done to, then why are these statements always vague and never come out and say specifically who the target is?

Hell, one article even stated outright that the program the were reporting on was not being used against Americans and was only used overseas and the level of indignation was not one decibel lower.
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I never claimed they had no warrant, just that the FISA court is bullshit.

You must not have been paying attention to the complaints if that was your takeaway.
 
lcpiper said:
Aardvark, I don't feel guilty at all. I don't do Intelligence work anymore, I am just an IT guy. I just work in a lab, my systems are not even connected to the world. But that doesn't matter, I would never feel guilty about killing an enemy, not for one moment. He isn't going to feel guilty about killing me, or you. And the media doesn't play into it at all.
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Who is talking about enemies?

I'm talking about the innocents. Like wedding convoys.
 
if the NSA is still spying, then why hasn't anyone gotten Ms. Lerner's emails fromt them yet?

#NSAFAIL
 
By TwistedAegis;
Because the Guardian and Der Speigle are such terrible, untrustworthy sources?
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No, because they are foreign sources and write their reports from another perspective, but when people read them they internalize it as if it's coming from one of us, and written by one of us, when it is not.

And many, many media stories are fed directly from the government, even if it isn't this one; so you're telling me in only this case they're lying?
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I have been pointing out the lies and misleading claims for several months so my turn, "Come on Man" I am certainly not talking about only this article.

while I respect some of the work the NSA and other agencies do, the pendulum has swung way over to over-surveillance.
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What over-surveillance? The NSA does a great amount of work and it encompasses wide subsections of electronic disciplines, please, what is it you feel they have been doing that's over the top because for months the media has been posting reports of NSA programs and techniques that are not used against Americans but they always do it in a way the leaves the casual, unquestioning, or already distrustful reader with the mistaken impression that US Persons are the target when it is not the case. The on and only program that has been divulged that does collect information on Americans as well as foreigners in an indiscriminate manner is the bulk meta data phone program which was deemed lawful by the lawyers, approved by President Bush, re-approved by President Obama, challenged and still found lawful, and still in place and running currently for the next five years. So is this what you are referring to or is it something else specifically?

With your mindless support of anything and everything they do, you can't be taken credibly.
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I believe I put much more effort into all these media reports and released Snowden Documents then you, maybe more then any of you. Why is my determination to understand what is correct more mindless then someone who simply accepts what they are being told as truth? From my perspective it is people like you who are the mindless unquestioning ones. It's those like you who will not even allow themselves to challenge the reports.

I have decades of my life and self image on the line, a belief that I have been doing good things for my country and my people. Do you think I want to be told that it's been a lie, corrupted, that the risks and efforts have been for a lie?

I don't have a special get out of jail card, I am not part of a special club that will get over if this thing goes sideways. If anything, I will be watched more, (as I already am now), and trusted less. I care about all this more then you can know so I read and I pay close attention to details, I apply my experience and knowledge and question and probe. I am critical of each statement and question them for accuracy and intent. Writers do have intent, they do intend to bring their readers to a conclusion and I want to see what that conclusion is. If you actually read what I have written so many times it's usually not in support of the NSA, it's challenging of the media. It's your mistake that you can't discern the difference in the two. So just like this article is an example of misrepresented and interpreted information which I point out as incorrect again you see it as blind support of NSA activity and again fail to question what's up with the reporter.

Even NSA's own confessed missteps are treated as positives by you.
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I can only assume you refer to the "LoveInt" Article. For months people accuse the NSA of rampant misdeeds, as if they are not watched, as if no one is looking out for us and making sure they are doing their jobs and following the rules. They respond by releasing all the the incidents in which NSA employees or contractors have misused NSA authority and power. A document that shows that only one individual ever actually wrongfully accessed information on a US person, did so mistakenly in the proper course of her work and not for improper reasons, was punished. The report showed that in every other single case either the person was misbehaving and was denied actual access to the information if the subject was a US person, or the subject was a foreigner and the person got caught later and was either fired or "retired" before they could be fired. Almost every case was referred to the DoJ for judicial action. Non was ever taken, I can't say why but since the injured parties were foreigners it was probably determined that it was better to just let it go. Under a report like this I can't see this as proof that the organization of the NSA is doing anything wrong here, it is certainly not proof of anything except that the NSA does monitor their employees activities through several methods and that they do take action when an employee is caught misusing NSA Authority and Power. If you want to view that report as proof that NSA Employees sometimes break the law and lay that at the feet of the NSA and claim the organization is corrupted and untrustworthy then while you are closing their doors you can close every law enforcement agency, heck, every government agency at every level of government.
 
lcpiper said:
No, because they are foreign sources and write their reports from another perspective, but when people read them they internalize it as if it's coming from one of us, and written by one of us, when it is not.
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But that's a logical fallacy, attacking the source. I can read what they say the NSA is doing and make my own determination if that is good or bad. If anything, I find foreign sources (such as the Economist) offer less biased views of American news.


What over-surveillance? The NSA does a great amount of work and it encompasses wide subsections of electronic disciplines, please, what is it you feel they have been doing that's over the top because for months the media has been posting reports of NSA programs and techniques that are not used against Americans but they always do it in a way the leaves the casual, unquestioning, or already distrustful reader with the mistaken impression that US Persons are the target when it is not the case. The on and only program that has been divulged that does collect information on Americans as well as foreigners in an indiscriminate manner is the bulk meta data phone program which was deemed lawful by the lawyers, approved by President Bush, re-approved by President Obama, challenged and still found lawful, and still in place and running currently for the next five years. So is this what you are referring to or is it something else specifically?
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It is death by a thousand cuts. You can point to any one individual program and likely make a logical case for it. But you add it all together, and you see a very scary ecosystem being built where, if anyone without morals is put in place in the system, they can easily abuse it. Have we forgotten J Edgar Hoover so quickly? Currently right now, almost every US person will break some kind of law or regulation in the next week, if not today. While most of that seems petty and most won't get caught up, what it puts in place is a system able to be abused by those who wish to do so, as it injects subjectivity into what should be a system of laws. For instance, the fact that white kids and black kids use drugs at the same rate, but black kids get incarcerated at vastly higher rates.

Or a recent story that the FBI tried to get Joe Montana involved in an extortion scheme for no good reason. Or again, the FBI taking some mentally-deficient Islamist, who had absolutely no capability of causing any harm, and walking him through an entire process and entrapping him in a ridiculous bomb plot.

I believe I put much more effort into all these media reports and released Snowden Documents then you, maybe more then any of you. Why is my determination to understand what is correct more mindless then someone who simply accepts what they are being told as truth? From my perspective it is people like you who are the mindless unquestioning ones. It's those like you who will not even allow themselves to challenge the reports.
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Mindless unquestioning? Not at all. If anything, I work in a somewhat analogous line of work in the private sector, Bank Secrecy Act compliance. Needless to say, I'm a bit of a hypocrite feeding information into the machine. But, like you, I see some of the value in it. But the pendulum has swung to far, and we need to rethink our current paradigm that anything electronic, which will eventually be everything has essentially no rights, which goes so contrary to early thoughts around personal correspondence.

I have decades of my life and self image on the line, a belief that I have been doing good things for my country and my people. Do you think I want to be told that it's been a lie, corrupted, that the risks and efforts have been for a lie?
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Of course not, but that doesn't mean you have to fully support everything they do, that's dangerous groupthink. And while some good has been done, look at the system being built. If you're sitting at home doing nothing, no weapons on hand, etc, the US government's legal opinion is that if they come and attack you with special forces, you are an enemy combatant on a battleground - no prior battleground is needed, the US government making your home into a battleground, through no action of your own, then takes rights away from you.

<snip>.
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The NSA Director lying to the very legislature meant to exercise control over it? CIA hacking Senate computers to remove damaging reports? What we have seen is that, even those meant to be in positions of oversight and checks and balances are kept in the dark; without the proper information, incentives to go get the proper information, ABILITY to get the proper information, how can the American people trust them when they've absolutely, unequivocally, been caught lying in the past?
 
lcpiper said:
All of them, every one. Doesn't matter who is posting what, they either lying to mislead you or they are paroting what they think is true because it supports their agenda. I have spent months reading this stuff about the NSA and explaining what is wrong with these articles and these claims and very few even try and question why I think some report is wrong. Instead it's a constant backblast of regurgitated claims made by others that are themselves misleading or simply false or even in some cases, perfectly true but made to sound bad as if even when the NSA is actually doing their job right and against the right people, they are still wrong.
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Even when the government says that they are in fact doing what the media claims, they are lying? There have been a lot of things that have come out that the NSA themselves say is correct. Even if they are doing it within the letter of the law (which is what a lot of people bitch about and want changed), they are still doing it. I think the majority of people are complaining that the laws themselves that allow this BS need to be changed.

So, if it's false, why does the NSA say they do it, but within the confines of the law and oversight committee?
 
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