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most sensible post so far, and the year, (1984) was not even the watershed, except perhaps that the snoopy's were beginning to have a sniff at ordinary folk.
Originally posted by DocHolidaze
reply to post by Diabolical
i think its sad that you and many others believe we have a choice whom the president is
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.[1]
What I can say unequivocally is that if you are a U.S. person, the NSA cannot listen to your telephone calls, and the NSA cannot target your emails … and have not. They cannot and have not, by law and by rule, and unless they — and usually it wouldn’t be “they,” it’d be the FBI — go to a court, and obtain a warrant, and seek probable cause, the same way it’s always been, the same way when we were growing up and we were watching movies, you want to go set up a wiretap, you got to go to a judge, show probable cause….
So point number one, if you’re a U.S. person, then NSA is not listening to your phone calls and it’s not targeting your emails unless it’s getting an individualized court order. That’s the existing rule.
Originally posted by neo96
How can anyone continue to 'believe we don't have to sacrifice our freedom in order to achieve security' and say the hydrochloro BULL HOCKEY after that.
That airport security is more invasive than ever.
Drunk drivers aren't on no fly lists, or get droned.
Well in a free society there are not checkpoints at airports in fact that is not the America most of us older people grew up in.
Amazing how Obama sounds like GWB, but Obama goes above and beyond.
Those who sacrifice liberty for security soon find themselves as having neither.
American's it's for the 'common good' to save us from all the bad people, but as I look around don't see anyone to save us as most people are just rolling over for this tripe.
Something they would not have done under the last administration.edit on 17-6-2013 by neo96 because: (no reason given)
Originally posted by Benevolent Heretic
reply to post by neo96
I fail to see where he defended NSA spying... In fact, he denied it.
Originally posted by Gazrok
What I can say unequivocally is that if you are a U.S. person, the NSA cannot listen to your telephone calls, and the NSA cannot target your emails … and have not. They cannot and have not, by law and by rule, and unless they — and usually it wouldn’t be “they,” it’d be the FBI — go to a court, and obtain a warrant, and seek probable cause, the same way it’s always been, the same way when we were growing up and we were watching movies, you want to go set up a wiretap, you got to go to a judge, show probable cause….
So point number one, if you’re a U.S. person, then NSA is not listening to your phone calls and it’s not targeting your emails unless it’s getting an individualized court order. That’s the existing rule.
Actually, what he said is essentially correct. In a way.
They ARE still gathering the data. They just need a warrant to ACTIVELY target an individual to then examine their data...technically. However, since they (NSA) have the data, and are generally assumed to be in possession of, and have access to, the data, there is NO CHECK OR BALANCE here to prevent them from accessing or using this data without such a warrant, and THAT is where the problem lies, in addition to the collection in the first place. So, essentially Obama is correct, he simply is telling a half-truth though. He isn't confirming the fact that they have unrestricted access to their own data.
A new article by investigative reporter Christopher Ketcham reveals, a governmental unit operating in secret and with no oversight whatsoever is gathering massive amounts of data on every American and running artificial intelligence software to predict each American’s behavior, including “what the target will do, where the target will go, who it will turn to for help”. The same governmental unit is responsible for suspending the Constitution and implementing martial law in the event that anything is deemed by the White House in its sole discretion to constitute a threat to the United States. (this is formally known as implementing “Continuity of Government” plans). [Background here.] As Ketcham’s article makes clear, these same folks and their predecessors have been been busy dreaming up plans to imprison countless “trouble-making” Americans without trial in case of any real or imagined emergency. What kind of Americans? Ketcham describes it this way: “Dissidents and activists of various stripes, political and tax protestors, lawyers and professors, publishers and journalists, gun owners, illegal aliens, foreign nationals, and a great many other harmless, average people.” Do we want the same small group of folks who have the power to suspend the Constitution, implement martial law, and imprison normal citizens to also be gathering information on all Americans and running AI programs to be able to predict where American citizens will go for help and what they will do in case of an emergency? Don’t we want the government to — um, I don’t know — help us in case of an emergency? The federal government has been developing a highly classified plan that will override the Constitution in the event of a major terrorist attack. Is it also compiling a secret list of citizens who could face detention under martial law?
Known as Aquaint, which stands for “Advanced QUestion Answering for INTelligence” [which is run by the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA)], part of the new M Square Research Park in College Park, Maryland. A mammoth two million-square-foot, 128-acre complex, it is operated in collaboration with the University of Maryland. “Their budget is classified, but I understand it’s very well funded,” said Brian Darmody, the University of Maryland’s assistant vice president of research and economic development, referring to IARPA. “They’ll be in their own building here, and they’re going to grow. Their mission is expanding.” “The technology behaves like a robot, understanding and answering complex questions,” said a former Aquaint researcher. “Think of 2001: A Space Odyssey and the most memorable character, HAL 9000, having a conversation with David. We are essentially building this system. We are building HAL.” A naturalized U.S. citizen who received her Ph.D. from Columbia, the researcher worked on the program for several years but eventually left due to moral concerns. “The system can answer the question, ‘What does X think about Y?’” she said. “Working for the government is great, but I don’t like looking into other people’s secrets.
The top-secret world the government created in response to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, has become so large, so unwieldy and so secretive that no one knows how much money it costs, how many people it employs, how many programs exist within it or exactly how many agencies do the same work.
Nine years after the terrorist attacks of 2001, the United States is assembling a vast domestic intelligence apparatus to collect information about Americans, using the FBI, local police, state homeland security offices and military criminal investigators. The system, by far the largest and most technologically sophisticated in the nation's history, collects, stores and analyzes information about thousands of U.S. citizens and residents, many of whom have not been accused of any wrongdoing. The government's goal is to have every state and local law enforcement agency in the country feed information to Washington to buttress the work of the FBI, which is in charge of terrorism investigations in the United States.