White House Defends Collecting Phone Records

McFry said:
I cant really debate the merits of Obama's presidency here since strangely HCP is a highly conservative/republican populated forum, which will mean throwing out sensationalist manipulative talking points parroted from biased news sources, leaving me to have to go and dig up all the info disproving or at least correctly framing the arguments to make them fair and relevant. I mean the fact that someone is claiming republican filibuster has not been a recent problem, and then bringing up benghazi in the same sentence are pretty good examples of why I would be wasting my time arguing. Dont really feel like having one baseless argument after another thrown at me over the span of 5 minutes, and then spending an hour on each one to debunk.

Long story short, yo kids and yo wife are ok, the gov't is going to round you up in concentration camps, Obama is not secretly trying to rule the world, there is no shadow gov't of 80 year old men above him trying to secretly rule the world, and these security measures are simply misguided steps by people who dont understand counter-terrorism or technology well enough to come up with proper solutions. But it doesnt really matter what they do, you will always find something to complain about. The only real problem driving all of this is time; the gov't and your representatives believe that you, the voters, do not really wish to go through things such as securing a proper warrant to stop a suspect from committing a crime. They have good reason to believe this because many of us dont really give a shit about a warrant.
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This is how the left rationalizes tyranny. Oh look folks, you are okay. They didn't get you, so you should be grateful, but never mind that silly little thing called a Constitution or having a president that essentially has used it for toilet paper. Because I'll defend his actions until I'm blue in the face from sucking down all of his chum, while I'm on my knees. No ladies and gentlemen, this pure and utter rationalization for how tyranny works is okay, nothing to see here move along.

*uh, did I do okay Mr. President? Oh thank you sir for the dog biscuits. Delicious.
 
Methadras said:
This is how the left rationalizes tyranny. Oh look folks, you are okay. They didn't get you, so you should be grateful, but never mind that silly little thing called a Constitution or having a president that essentially has used it for toilet paper. Because I'll defend his actions until I'm blue in the face from sucking down all of his chum, while I'm on my knees. No ladies and gentlemen, this pure and utter rationalization for how tyranny works is okay, nothing to see here move along.

*uh, did I do okay Mr. President? Oh thank you sir for the dog biscuits. Delicious.
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Don't forget that criticizing this president means you're a racist!

(btw, I'm as black as obama is, and I hate that idiotic race card. Funny thing is, I get called an uncle tom for criticizing him, go figure).
 
CreepyUncleGoogle said:
Whatever! No one ever had privacy to begin with and this stuff is just the current excuse to popularize complaining about the government with one another just like the last generation of smelly old guys that came before were doing.
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Really? Whatever to having government intrude into your private conversations, use your GPS data, see what you bought within your own home while online? Who did you call? Who did you talk to? What books did you read? Who are your friends? What sort of data mining can we, the government do to connect any dots? You are now living in a surveillance state and all you have to say is whatever? America is lost and it's not coming back god dammit. Not after seeing children like this piss it away for their conveniences.

I used to laugh to think that this country would or could ever do that to it's citizens. It was only the bad guys they were after. Bullshit, this whole last 2 months basically cracked the nut that you are just this far short of the domination of your lives that they've wanted all along while they build their fortunes on your backs to isolate themselves totally when the shit finally hits the fan. Have fun with your whatever. You are no better than a cow at this point.
 
First, this shit started under Bush in 2001 BEFORE 9/11.

Second, It was made LEGAL in 2007 with the establishment by Congress of the FISA court.

Third, what the fuck did people THINK was going to happen?

Fourth, have any of you seen the complex going up in Utah to store all this data, it's HUGE!!!! 4 Trillion Million Bytes, 1/3 of total world hard drive production for a period of 10 years to complete it.

Fifth,, guess what, they ARE listening to the content of your calls, not just gathering the who/where/when data. As well as every electron wiggled on the internet.

Sixth, the act of ENCRYPTING will be considered admission of guilt, and you will be ordered to hand over the decryption keys, and you will rot in jail until you do. That has already been done by the courts.
 
Merc1138 said:
Don't forget that criticizing this president means you're a racist!

(btw, I'm as black as obama is, and I hate that idiotic race card. Funny thing is, I get called an uncle tom for criticizing him, go figure).
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This just means we need better education globally. If I say I don't think we (a white guy here) should be attacking (threatening, overthrowing, bombing, etc) any country disagreeing with US foreign policy some say I'm on the side of the terrorists. To them I say....this.
 
xX_Jack_Carver_Xx said:
First, this shit started under Bush in 2001 BEFORE 9/11.
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Actually, this crap has been going on since the 30's and even before the FBI was the FBI thanks to J Edgar Hoover, and was ramped up in the 50's and 60's. Trying to blame this garbage on any recent president just means you're ignoring history.

No one is excusing what Bush, Clinton, Bush, Reagan, etc. did. However Obama's 2008 campaign based on "hope and change", and this has been anything but that. I'm not pretending that Obama is the first to throw promises out either("No new taxes" comes to mind), but getting even worse with the problems compared to the previous recent presidents is crappier than either Bush, Clinton, Reagan, Carter, etc.

"Well he did it first" is NOT a valid excuse to get away with making the situation even worse, when the population of the US expects better.
 
Methadras said:
Really? Whatever to having government intrude into your private conversations, use your GPS data, see what you bought within your own home while online? Who did you call? Who did you talk to? What books did you read? Who are your friends? What sort of data mining can we, the government do to connect any dots? You are now living in a surveillance state and all you have to say is whatever? America is lost and it's not coming back god dammit. Not after seeing children like this piss it away for their conveniences.

I used to laugh to think that this country would or could ever do that to it's citizens. It was only the bad guys they were after. Bullshit, this whole last 2 months basically cracked the nut that you are just this far short of the domination of your lives that they've wanted all along while they build their fortunes on your backs to isolate themselves totally when the shit finally hits the fan. Have fun with your whatever. You are no better than a cow at this point.
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Yeah, I don't care if someone finds out I subscribe to Cat Fancy and call my friends to arrange to go out on the weekend. If someone wants to be bored to death watching my life, that's fine with me. They'll probably waste their time though and go looking at someone actually doing something suspicious though since it's sort of hard to monitor everyone doing everything all the time. So yeah, still at "whatever" levels of not caring -- try talking to a politician about it if its a big deal to you instead of dumping on us.

xX_Jack_Carver_Xx said:
Fourth, have any of you seen the complex going up in Utah to store all this data, it's HUGE!!!! 4 Trillion Million Bytes, 1/3 of total world hard drive production for a period of 10 years to complete it.

Fifth,, guess what, they ARE listening to the content of your calls, not just gathering the who/where/when data. As well as every electron wiggled on the internet.
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Wow paranoid. That thing in Utah is a data center for e-mail and people are vastly over estimating how many hard drives are being bought for it to make tinfoil crazies get scared.

Secondly, where are all these creepy listening devices sitting? Who maintains them or replaces them and how come literally _nobody_ has noticed one sitting around near a router or magically sucking stuff from the air? Who pays to send all the data collected over WAN links and where is it going? What happens once its stored? What software and hardware is even capable of sifting through it catalogue and organize it, let alone make it searchable and useful? You're totally not a DBA or even understand TCP/IP networking if you can't fathom a million ways this just is technically impossible and would require so a crazy amount of manpower. :(
 
You don't care.... but when a cat hating party makes it into office....

Now you have animal control looking in on you from time to time. You have to sign a log each time you buy more than 5lbs of kitty litter. Also a newspaper publishes your name and address on their website as a cat lover..... you should be shamed of yourself.

All of that.... and a few years later the cat collection starts.
 
I'll keep this blunt.

Any of you who trust any government are fucking fools.

Governments are not monoliths of virtue, they are composed of a patchwork of thousands upon thousands of individuals, each possessing their own prejudices, aspirations, and moralities.

Any power you grant to an administration which you trust will eventually be inherited by one which you don't trust, and which may not trust you.
 
You guys should have been suspicious when people spend $200 million applying for a job that pays $300k/yr.

:D
 
What a great spying tool for foreign spies working in the US. I would say that there is a chance that not only the US government is spying on Americans through PRISM. Fascinating.

I thoroughly enjoyed the current administrations response to the PRISM leak: We are only spying on non Americans. Right... :D
 
CreepyUncleGoogle said:
...
Wow paranoid. That thing in Utah is a data center for e-mail and people are vastly over estimating how many hard drives are being bought for it to make tinfoil crazies get scared.

...
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There is a black budget with only partial congressional oversight.

Some of the most expensive things we have ever bought as a nation have been black budget. You paid my salary for 6 years without knowing it. No paper trail. No public access to the project costs.

ie - Could the US record all the phone calls? Absolutely from a financial perspective. You could record all my family and business calls for less than $200 a year, yet we pay six digit taxes.

Now ARE they? No.
 
CreepyUncleGoogle said:
Wow paranoid. That thing in Utah is a data center for e-mail and people are vastly over estimating how many hard drives are being bought for it to make tinfoil crazies get scared.

Secondly, where are all these creepy listening devices sitting? Who maintains them or replaces them and how come literally _nobody_ has noticed one sitting around near a router or magically sucking stuff from the air? Who pays to send all the data collected over WAN links and where is it going? What happens once its stored? What software and hardware is even capable of sifting through it catalogue and organize it, let alone make it searchable and useful? You're totally not a DBA or even understand TCP/IP networking if you can't fathom a million ways this just is technically impossible and would require so a crazy amount of manpower. :(
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And if you really believe the utter bullshit you just posted you are a idiot or a paid gov shill to lessen the blow. Listening, devices, storage. Are you fucking serious in what you just posted. The new information warfare center in Utah can and will do things that will just blow your mind. And yes its just more than emails, txt msg's. Its entire phone calls that will be stored and used now or later. That center is the biggest of the bunch and it can do a lot more than you think. As far as listening devices, let me tell you its all around as we speak. They do not need to use specialized equipment anymore, they can use whats already in place and lets not forget the super duper sats that are in orbit that can see and hear all.

Man power to do all this, they got it and then some. Some come from the civilian force and some comes from the military. Its a mix and it works really well.

You are really under estimating what we can do and I for one can say with FACT we can do a lot and then some.
 
The sad part is that this shouldn't be news to anyone. They've been tapping all US communications for at least the last 2 decades. Now, With the NSA's new facility, they actually have the ability to store all of it, be it voice, text, or data. I'm really getting tired of this crap. Our Gov't hasn't served us for a long time. We're under their heel and most people don't know or care. Just look at the border lined illegal things that happened last presidential election cycle. We no longer even get to choose the candidates in our defunked 2 party system. Our democratic republic is sick. It no longer serves the people as it was designed. It now serves itself and a chosen few.
 
I miss the good old days, when we were completely oblivious to things like this. Unfoetunately the gov't doesn't operate as smoothly as it used to, and we're now becoming painfully aware of certain realities that acompany what we percieve as complete freedom. It really isn't anything new, but the fact that it is being acknowledged is.
 
Kendrak said:
You don't care.... but when a cat hating party makes it into office....

Now you have animal control looking in on you from time to time. You have to sign a log each time you buy more than 5lbs of kitty litter. Also a newspaper publishes your name and address on their website as a cat lover..... you should be shamed of yourself.

All of that.... and a few years later the cat collection starts.
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I'm all for recycling your petsssss.
 
Let's see, these "encroachments" by your administration has led to....

1. Boston Bombers still getting away with it AFTER you were warned by the Russians about them
2. Fort Hood massacre AFTER the terrorist posted a variety of islamic jihad comments on the internet.
3. Denver movie shooting AFTER the knucklehead most information on Facebook
4. Times Square Bomber seconds from detonating a bomb if a concerned citizen didn't intervene
5. IRS targeting Americans and Christians for their beliefs that were contrary to yours

There are more, but I need to get back to work to make sure I pay my "fair share".

You know Prez, we are willing to give up some privacy for the greater good, but not when it doesn't provide any value and give the government (i.e. IRS) MORE information to make our day to day lives more miserable.
 
Fail said:
You know Prez, we are willing to give up some privacy for the greater good, but not when it doesn't provide any value and give the government (i.e. IRS) MORE information to make our day to day lives more miserable.
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Whos this 'we' you speak of.
 
Fail said:
Let's see, these "encroachments" by your administration has led to....

1. Boston Bombers still getting away with it AFTER you were warned by the Russians about them
2. Fort Hood massacre AFTER the terrorist posted a variety of islamic jihad comments on the internet.
3. Denver movie shooting AFTER the knucklehead most information on Facebook
4. Times Square Bomber seconds from detonating a bomb if a concerned citizen didn't intervene
5. IRS targeting Americans and Christians for their beliefs that were contrary to yours

There are more, but I need to get back to work to make sure I pay my "fair share".

You know Prez, we are willing to give up some privacy for the greater good, but not when it doesn't provide any value and give the government (i.e. IRS) MORE information to make our day to day lives more miserable.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CwTpJ1EoV6A
 
Well at least the WH admits to knowing about this one, unlike, the IRS scandal, the AP, Rosen where they say that the first they heard of it was on the news just like the rest of us.
 
Does this likely mean that every company involved flat-out lied about their non-involvement, or would the government be able to do this entirely without companies' knowledge? The latter seems wholly implausible to me.


CreepyUncleGoogle said:
Yeah, I don't care if someone finds out I subscribe to Cat Fancy and call my friends to arrange to go out on the weekend. If someone wants to be bored to death watching my life, that's fine with me. They'll probably waste their time though and go looking at someone actually doing something suspicious though since it's sort of hard to monitor everyone doing everything all the time. So yeah, still at "whatever" levels of not caring -- try talking to a politician about it if its a big deal to you instead of dumping on us.
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No offense, but this is an overly simplistic and naive rationale.

"Oh, hello officers, what can I do for you today?"

"Sir, would you mind if we come and take a look through your home?"

"Uh... but why, officer? I only subscribe to Cat Fancy and call my friends to go out on the weekend."

"Ah, great. Then surely you have nothing to hide or worry about, right?"

"Well, erm, yeah, I guess.... :/ "

(And that's them knocking on your front door and asking -- how about if they just picked the lock while you were away with no fore/post-warning?)

And/Or what happens if there's a future crime that you're somehow associated with purely by uninvolved proximity (employer/neighbors/bank/hijacked wifi/etc) -- Will you have any issue when the government can entirely skip due process and "cut to the chase" by tapping/collecting/sifting/sniffing whatever, whenever, and however they want from you?

"....But it'll be alright, because I only subscribe to Cat Fancy!"

True -- if all government employees, processes, and motives were 100% subjective. But unfortunately, that's not the case. They're still flawed humans at the core, just like everyone else. And if you happen to be spotlighted in situation where you're a potential suspect of or somehow associated with a crime (by merely uninvolved proximity), you'll surely damn well wish you had complete, unadulterated due process throughout it.


Now look, is this whole government eavesdropping shindiggery anything new? Of course not. But what is entirely ominous about it in this case is the "officiality" of it, whereby there is not only an officially formed and functional government program to undertake it, but most direly -- it's been approved by "covert" federal judges and courts.

(At least, that's the small bits of information I've seen on it thus far)
 
GoldenTiger said:
Same here... it's amazing. WAY worse than even prior poor presidencies, heck we impeached Clinton and made it so he basically couldn't get anything done, over simply having an affair with an intern.



No, I'd say things like saying "you're on your own" leaving a US ambassador to die and nearly many more (we're lucky it was 4 and not a lot more per the testimony in the hearings) then covering it up by trying to claim some video with 20 youtube hits that was a complete non-event per people in Libya, was at fault for a "spontaneous attack" that magically had been in the works for weeks with mortars and rocket launchers (he tried to claim it wasn't a terrorist attack, was told of it in the evening as it happened then went to bed and campaigned at a rally the next morning while it was ongoing!).... claiming ObamaCare would reduce people's burdens yet actually is raising health premiums by 75-150%+ depending on your income level... intimidating donors to Republican candidates with an attack dog threatening potential criminal/legal action to slow/halt donations (big WSJ article on that one recently)... ordering the IRS to intimidate and not issue anything to Tea Party organizations... secret courts with drone strikes... etc.

These are NOT things that have "been going on long before Obama", considering he's the guy who's the leader responsible for all this ultimately as President (and while there isn't yet hard evidence on some of the stuff, we all know damn well he's the one who ordered every last bit). This is probably the most corrupt, or incompetent (not sure which, but I have a hard time pinning it on complete buffoonery alone) Presidency in the history of the US, and frankly has me very worried for our country as a whole. Hopefully the damage done by these guys isn't too much for whoever wins the next election to help fix, for the USA's sake. This is a great nation and I truly hate to see what's happening to it.
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I agree with you 100% with you Sir. This guy is out of control. Oh yeah let's not forget the irresponsible spending. Wow just Wow.
 
GoldenTiger said:
Same here... it's amazing. WAY worse than even prior poor presidencies, heck we impeached Clinton and made it so he basically couldn't get anything done, over simply having an affair with an intern.



No, I'd say things like saying "you're on your own" leaving a US ambassador to die and nearly many more (we're lucky it was 4 and not a lot more per the testimony in the hearings) then covering it up by trying to claim some video with 20 youtube hits that was a complete non-event per people in Libya, was at fault for a "spontaneous attack" that magically had been in the works for weeks with mortars and rocket launchers (he tried to claim it wasn't a terrorist attack, was told of it in the evening as it happened then went to bed and campaigned at a rally the next morning while it was ongoing!).... claiming ObamaCare would reduce people's burdens yet actually is raising health premiums by 75-150%+ depending on your income level... intimidating donors to Republican candidates with an attack dog threatening potential criminal/legal action to slow/halt donations (big WSJ article on that one recently)... ordering the IRS to intimidate and not issue anything to Tea Party organizations... secret courts with drone strikes... etc.

These are NOT things that have "been going on long before Obama", considering he's the guy who's the leader responsible for all this ultimately as President (and while there isn't yet hard evidence on some of the stuff, we all know damn well he's the one who ordered every last bit). This is probably the most corrupt, or incompetent (not sure which, but I have a hard time pinning it on complete buffoonery alone) Presidency in the history of the US, and frankly has me very worried for our country as a whole. Hopefully the damage done by these guys isn't too much for whoever wins the next election to help fix, for the USA's sake. This is a great nation and I truly hate to see what's happening to it.
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+1000000000000000000
 
Wizard220 said:
And if you really believe the utter bullshit you just posted you are a idiot or a paid gov shill to lessen the blow.
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Because not all data follows the same path and is broken up into packets, one has to have the ability to intercept junk at basically every router in the US and then they need to covertly send a duplicate of everything sent to a this data center (sorry, it's really just for e-mail) where it has to be put back together and formatted in a manner that's usefully searchable. There's really just too much data in too many formats broken down into too many little packets that make it basically impossible from a buncha different standpoints. I know it's really awesome to believe that this kinda thing can be done, but it's outside the realm of reality at the moment to implement it unless the system is closed and heavily controlled. People are gonna notice the doubling of bandwidth and where it all ends up along with all the mysterious interception devices and the compartmentalized super seekrit squirrel classified programs it would take to develop, maintain, and operate a system that big. All it takes is one squealer and the game is up.

That doesn't mean the capability doesn't exist for anything to be intercepted and used, of course, but that stuff's probably done on a targeted basis for like one or two messed up terrorists, Libertarians, or dog owners so the monitoring is managable and relevant.

Coldblackice said:
No offense, but this is an overly simplistic and naive rationale.
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It's not gonna happen, but if it did, I really don't care. Government people, police, and whoever else is suspicious of me can come over and hang out if they want. I'm not up to anything so whatever is okay with me. Warrants just slow down arresting losers who are up to bad stuff anyhow.

LeninGHOLA said:
Just wait until Catnacht, when they come to burn down all of our Catagogues.
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That's why we all need Catamarans so that we can sail to Kathmandu or is that Cat Man Do?
 
I've been wondering for quite a few years at what point the government will make me watch what i say on the phone, in emails, chat, etc...

guess that time is now.

Hopefully people start getting fucked soon so that we can get this revolution rolling.
 
chockomonkey said:
Hopefully people start getting fucked soon so that we can get this revolution rolling.
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flagged for further inspection
Inspection: threat Level = High
Deploying citizen drone....
(Awaiting further commands)
Confirmed radical terrorist = take out


Someone do this in compute talk for me....lol.
 
not only phones but google,facebook, hotmail,. and even MS and Skype are being tracked now, MS was searching encrypted packets...

This isnt about 'nothing to hide" it is about "none of their dam buisness.
 
It's only a matter of time before people start taking people like Alex Jones and Adam Kokesh seriously, and you actually start getting some kind of armed resistance. The government just keeps providing evidence that "democracy" is well and truly dead in America.
 
The problem here isn't why this information was collected, or who it was collected about. The problem is that this information has been recorded at all. I don't care how good your courts are, or if you asked congress if it was OK. Ultimately this information exists, and we have seen time after time that no information is totally secure. Which means sooner or later this information will be misused, probably by the government with good/bad intentions, possibly by an authorized user for personal use, and probably by third parties with all sorts of different intentions...

It will exist until it gets compromised and someone in power (or many people in power) get in trouble because of it.
 
Fail said:
You know Prez, we are willing to give up some privacy for the greater good, but not when it doesn't provide any value and give the government (i.e. IRS) MORE information to make our day to day lives more miserable.
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No, we're not(maybe you, but you don't speak for the rest of us). It's also repeatedly proven time and time again to be a waste of government resources($). All I have to do is point to the TSA as a prime example. Even if people did want to give up their privacy, the US federal government is too damn big, disorganized, and slow to ever get anything done in a timely manner(before someone blows something up). Yes, they've stopped plots before, but only for things they've managed to catch in a sting operation.

Hell, the program doesn't even make any sense. Not looking at names, just phone numbers and call durations. That tells you what exactly? That US citizens might have family overseas in various countries they talk to? It's not like getting pre-paid burn phones and sim cards is difficult. So because the information they're gathering is useless, they'll ask for more info, then more info, then more info. Unless someone finally puts a stop to this crap, it's only going to get worse.
 
CreepyUncleGoogle said:
It's not gonna happen, but if it did, I really don't care. Government people, police, and whoever else is suspicious of me can come over and hang out if they want. I'm not up to anything so whatever is okay with me. Warrants just slow down arresting losers who are up to bad stuff anyhow.
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Point missed.
 
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