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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Dale Baker who wrote (225537)	6/6/2013 1:20:26 PM
From: JohnM	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 541933

I would have been very surprised to find out that this wasn't happening since 9/11. Pretty much anything sent on a public commercial network now is no longer private or secret to any real degree. I've been watching a TV program or two this morning while working at the computer. As a result of various commentaries, I'm tending in that direction as well. Right now it depends on what's collected and what sorts of review processes are in place for its use.

To: Dale Baker who wrote (225537)	6/6/2013 1:28:51 PM
From: Wharf Rat	Respond to of 541933

Just use disposable phones. tracfone.com

To: Dale Baker who wrote (225537)	6/6/2013 2:02:40 PM
From: No Mo Mo	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 541933

@emptywheel Shorter Mike Rogers: Dragnet collection of everyone in US for 7 years is ok because we've stopped one and only one terrorist attack.

To: Dale Baker who wrote (225537)	6/6/2013 2:40:20 PM
From: No Mo Mo	Respond to of 541933

Ron Wyden Calls Bullshit on Mike Rogers’ Claims Posted on June 6, 2013 by emptywheel Mike Rogers, in an effort to defend his efforts to approve and hide dragnet collection on all Americans for years, claimed today that the dragnet prevented a terrorist attack. “Within the last few years, this program was used to stop a terrorist attack in the United States. We know that. It’s important. It fills in a little seam that we have,” Rogers told reporters Thursday. ”And it’s used to make sure that there is not an international nexus to any terrorism event if there may be one ongoing. So in that regard, it is a very valuable thing,” Rogers said. When pressed later for more details, Rogers said the committee is “working on trying to get this declassified in a way that we can provide more information. We’re not there yet. But it was a significant case that happened within the last few years.” Get this: Rogers’ defense argues it makes sense to conduct dragnet surveillance of 310 million Americans for 7 years (plus the 5 years Bush did so illegally), all to thwart one terrorist plot. One. Plot. 21 million person-years of call data collected since 2006. One plot. In his statement, Ron Wyden is a lot more skeptical that this program is so valuable. The American people have a right to know whether their government thinks that the sweeping, dragnet surveillance that has been alleged in this story is allowed under the law and whether it is actually being conducted. Furthermore, they have a right to know whether the program that has been described is actually of value in preventing attacks. Based on several years of oversight, I believe that its value and effectiveness remain unclear. Hey, I’d say that one plot over 7 years — especially when you consider how many banksters have done trillions of damage while FBI and NSA have been fiddling with the call records of innocent people — is the definition of a waste of time and resources. emptywheel.net

To: Dale Baker who wrote (225537)	6/6/2013 3:09:29 PM
From: Sam	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 541933

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers (R-Mich.) says that the National Security Agency program tracking Verizon telephone records helped thwart a "significant domestic terrorist attack" in the United States "within the last few years." Rogers declined to share more information on the nature of the attack, saying the committee was working to declassify information on the plot so that more information may be shared publicly. And here I thought that Obama admin leaks everything that might benefit them (I am assuming of course that the attack was uncovered during the Obama admin and not the Bush admin, which may or may not be correct).

To: Dale Baker who wrote (225537)	6/6/2013 5:37:52 PM
From: bentway	Respond to of 541933

9/11 was a huge shock to our intelligence services, who'd been spying on other countries. Suddenly faced with the need to gather information on stateless terrorist groups, almost impossible to penetrate with human agents from the western world. They were starting from knowing nearly nothing. All this stems from that, in an attempt to find cells here in our country and others, by tracking their communications. They find the communications by sifting ALL the communications, and then focusing on the one's to suspect parts of the world. This is how they got bin Laden, by tracking the phone of his courier/cutout, as detailed in "Zero Dark Thirty". I don't like it, but it may be what's necessary. For now, I'm trusting them to use it just for what was intended. But what's to prevent a future admin. from adding helping local law enforcement with all that data? Or other uses, currently unimaginable. Certainly before too long automated systems like Watson will be able to monitor the actual content of all the communications, if they don't already.