ACLU forces government to reveal skyrocketing surveillance stats

ACLU forces government to reveal skyrocketing surveillance stats

arstechnica.com

Feds got more peoples' phone call records in last 2 years than previous 10.

Statistics obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union provides additional evidence that government surveillance of Americans has skyrocketed in recent years. The government is legally obligated to release reports about its surveillance activities, but it refused to do so until the ACLU sued to compel the production of the documents.

(visit the link for the full news article)

For those keeping track... it appears to have gotten so inexpensive for the government to peek into anybody's communications, that there has been quite the casual "spike" in the amount of people, and information which are being recorded.

From the article:



"Pen registers" refers to outgoing calls; "Trap and trace" refers to incoming. The etymology of the terms comes from the old-fashioned way of spying on people.

Today's telephone networks have the ability to capture this information without any special equipment. And the government has expanded the concept to include other forms of communication such as email.

The legal standard for conducting this kind of non-content surveillance is less stringent than the rules for conducting a wiretap. To get a wiretap order, the government must convince a judge that it is essential to an investigation, but pen registers must merely be "relevant" to an investigation to obtain the approval of a judge.

Not much to say there.... mostly a LOT more people... mostly.

Below is the Internet growth....

... these statistics likely don't include cell phone location tracking by law enforcement. They also omit government access to emails stored by third party providers. And they entirely exclude the National Security Agency's warrantless wiretapping program under the FISA Amendment Act.

I would normally be much more sarcastic about this... but it's just amazing how far we have come since the political duopoly took control.


arstechnica.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

reply to post by Maxmars


The pace quickens to the abyss.

I fear very dark times ahead, but hope for a miracle.

We need one.

I don't understand how people don't get the fact that once you give the government a power, they will take it further and further every year and will never give up that power without a bitter fight. Does anyone understand that surveillance will only get worse from here, and think about the ramifications of not putting a stop to this? We will end up fulfilling Orwell's prediction to the T. People never think that's actually possible, but where else do you see this going? Is anyone really naive enough to think this will end or slow down at any point?

Am I reading the charts right ...1st one 20,000 ppl...2nd just under 50,000 ppl and the 3rd 800 ppl ?

I have to be missing something... those number don't seem high when you consider the population of the US.

Originally posted by Ericthenewbie
Am I reading the charts right ...1st one 20,000 ppl...2nd just under 50,000 ppl and the 3rd 800 ppl ?

I have to be missing something... those number don't seem high when you consider the population of the US.

if you don't see issue with numbers of that size then you have lost your way, choosing to be a docile lamb. BTW, i was seeing 250k, not 25k....but my eyes are having a hard time focusing tonight.

Regardless, your confusion seems to indicate how accustomed to not being free we have become.

Originally posted by bigfatfurrytexan

Originally posted by Ericthenewbie
Am I reading the charts right ...1st one 20,000 ppl...2nd just under 50,000 ppl and the 3rd 800 ppl ?

I have to be missing something... those number don't seem high when you consider the population of the US.

if you don't see issue with numbers of that size then you have lost your way, choosing to be a docile lamb. BTW, i was seeing 250k, not 25k....but my eyes are having a hard time focusing tonight.

Regardless, your confusion seems to indicate how accustomed to not being free we have become.

edit on 27-9-2012 by bigfatfurrytexan because: (no reason given)

Easy big boy...it was an honest question on my part about the numbers...no need to be condescending especially when my observation was correct based on this paragraph from the article;

While the growth rate for Internet surveillance is high, such surveillance still accounts for a tiny fraction of pen register and trap-and-trace orders overall. In 2011, only about 800 of each type of order was issued for Internet traffic, compared to almost 20,000 of each type of order for telephones.

US population = approx. 313,000,000

50,000 people being tracked = 0.015974 % of the population

20,000 people being tracked = 0.006389% of population

800 people being tracked = 0.000255 % of population

Hardly seems high when you consider that over 4,000,000 people are on probation, just under 2,000,000 people in prison just under 1,000,000 people on parole and just under 1,000,000 in jail....roughly 9 million convicted criminals as of 2009



source

reply to post by Ericthenewbie
So, the bases of Population gives the right to SPY on normal citizens no matter what??

Everything has gone downhill since the 9-11 false flag operation.

The worst part of all are TSA body scanners and pat downs at the airports.

I suspect most of the surveillance is done on those that try to overly-expose the nwo.

And I would rather not even think of RFID chips being mandatory for the general population. So far they use them on animal pets and select criminals.

I think we have the power to stop the madness from reaching orwellian porportions by getting informed and voicing our opinions more often.

reply to post by hoochymama


Cool it skonka, all the man is saying is that it's a relatively small segment of the population that is being spied on. I'm sure he's not advocating it.

Personally, I feel the same way. Which is why I don't buy it. They've been upgrading their systems so intensely that those 50,000 are probably the tiny little bit the ACLU could pry from their hands. I'd be willing to place a billion dollars I don't have on betting there's 50,000x1,000,000 that are getting spied on if we could get an honest look into their dealings.

reply to post by hoochymama



I never said anything of the sort...just putting the numbers into perspective using US population in one example and prison population in the other. The article information is showing that 70,000 or so Americans are being "watched" which isn't even close to 0.1% of your population (actual percentage is 0.02236)!

If I was an American I'd be more concerned about the approx. 9,000,000 in your corrections system which is 2.87539% of your total population.


Conspiracy88 understood what I was doing

reply to post by Maxmars


S&F

Sad that the last two Presidents, are actually one and the same. Same agenda, same strangulation of Liberties.

Too bad ANYONE getting elected, is going to play the same role.


Criminal, actually.

reply to post by conspiracy88


I think you pretty well nailed it. These people are secure in the knowledge that they're 'WAY above the orders of judges and the whining of civil libertarians. No one can dispute whatever numbers they want to report....

reply to post by conspiracy88
Cool it?? Ok....I dont think so.

The point was, it doesnt matter the "percentage" it matters that its happening. Trying to read into a post does no one any good. The point he was trying to point out was that "its such a small proportion of our Population" it doesnt deserve a mention.

If the post had to do with the amount of people are incarcerated than make that post, other wise this post is about surveillance. Dont try and get confrontational if your argument has a totally different basis.

reply to post by Ericthenewbie
You did bring up the portion of Population as a percentage and you even brought your stats with it. Does it make it OK cuz its such a small amount?? Lets say we had 2 billion people like China, with the percentage being the same, that would be a lot more people...right??

I guess when i see those graphs i'm not so much concerned with the numbers as i am the huge spike in 2009.

What exactly happened in 2009 that caused this massive jump? Criminals come and go by nature, they don't just quadruple in one year.

reply to post by JackBauer
Im sure "the newbie" has a good answer for that one. My opinion, is that even though we look back at Bush as the Father of this type of surveillance, we may look back and say Obama was the true Father. I am sure he will have a great reason for it though, like "Change"!!!!!

Originally posted by hoochymama
reply to post by conspiracy88

 

Cool it?? Ok....I dont think so.

The point was, it doesnt matter the "percentage" it matters that its happening. Trying to read into a post does no one any good. The point he was trying to point out was that "its such a small proportion of our Population" it doesnt deserve a mention.

If the post had to do with the amount of people are incarcerated than make that post, other wise this post is about surveillance. Dont try and get confrontational if your argument has a totally different basis.

Originally posted by hoochymama
reply to post by Ericthenewbie

 

You did bring up the portion of Population as a percentage and you even brought your stats with it. Does it make it OK cuz its such a small amount?? Lets say we had 2 billion people like China, with the percentage being the same, that would be a lot more people...right??

You are trying to put words in my mouth...I never said it was alright and I never said it doesn't deserve mention.

All I did was put the numbers into perspective....meaning if we are going to discuss this topic, let's understand the numbers and be factual in the discussion (a previous poster was trying to claim it was 250,000, 500,000 etc. instead of what they actually were)...hence why I did the math.

For the record so no one is confused: I like, I want and I enjoy my right to privacy and I believe it does need to be defended against the attacks from governments and corporations around the world!

Originally posted by JackBauer
I guess when i see those graphs i'm not so much concerned with the numbers as i am the huge spike in 2009.

What exactly happened in 2009 that caused this massive jump? Criminals come and go by nature, they don't just quadruple in one year.

I don't have definitive answer as to why there's a spike in the graph...but my hunch would be the introduction of crack coc aine into the United States during the early 80's and the start of the "war on drugs". This graft from the same source as the previous, shows the spike and date better;

reply to post by Ericthenewbie


I think you are working with the wrong set of numbers.

What it reveals in part is a logistical problem...

Ask yourself how many analysts are required to sift through all of this information?

Fortunately, this fact alone tends to cap the number.

But it doesn't mean the scale, or increasing rates of surveillance, are any less meaningful. Once the door is open, it can get much, much worse.

Moreover, it also doesn't take into account the other types of electronic surveilance ativity not addressed by the article. And, it doesn't identify which groups of people are the targets of this activity.

The essential problem is the apparatus continues to grow. Our relationship to government is changing. We are moving into an ominous direction....exposing ouselves to potential abuses...

It doesn't take a whole lot to subjugate large groups of people. So in that sense, it seems unreasonable to compare the level of this activity against the entirety of the United States population and assume it has little significance.