Verizon required to give ALL call data to NSA (1 Viewer)

[jonessed]

I'd like to go back to the e-mail versus physical mail distinction. How is storing the contents of every e-mail any different than, say, opening and photocopying every piece of physical mail before delivery?

*bump*

There is no means for the government to search through billions of physical mail- therefore any search they intend has to be more specific, and therefore a warrant is required; if they perform the search without a warrant that would violate the 4th amendment. But with emails the government is able to perform mass searches without needing to focus on specific parties- thus no warrant is required and these searches do not violate the 4th IMO

So the fourth amendment only applies to searching the documents of private citizens when it's logistically hard to do?

Sounds like it. But remember, technology doesn't make it easier for tyranny!

Internet providers don't store your emails indefinitely or with the purpose of searching their content at a later date either.The idea that people send emails to each other without an expectation of privacy is absurd. When I drop a letter in a mailbox Im not releasing my expectation of privacy, I'm simply allowing a provider to deliver it.Ugh... Trying to make sense of timsochelogic is painful.

 

[Good Posting Judge]

Maybe Tim is planning something.

 

[RCon]

I'd like to go back to the e-mail versus physical mail distinction. How is storing the contents of every e-mail any different than, say, opening and photocopying every piece of physical mail before delivery?

*bump*

I didn't answer because you already know my thoughts on this. Emails by design are not as private as regular mail. How could they be? The email company you use keeps records of all of them. If your email is through Yahoo, then Yahoo is already a third party with access. That doesn't exist in physical mail. The entire email system is nowhere near as private as regular mail.There is no means for the government to search through billions of physical mail- therefore any search they intend has to be more specific, and therefore a warrant is required; if they perform the search without a warrant that would violate the 4th amendment. But with emails the government is able to perform mass searches without needing to focus on specific parties- thus no warrant is required and these searches do not violate the 4th IMO

What if I run my own mail server and maintain my own domain?

How many people are talking about?If you had a few thousand, then the govt. should need a subpoena to access those records.If you has several million then under the Patriot Act the govt wouldn't need a warrant to access those records, and I think that's prpper

It's hundreds of millions. Virtually every medium to large company has their own mail servers and domains. Tons of small companies do as well.

 

[Black Box]

I'm sure if the someone threw enough money at the idea, an automated physical mail scanning system could be developed. OCR the to/from addresses, automatically open the mail, OCR scan the mail, repackage. Save the OCR scan data for a future date when we might need it, or start searching for key words and phrases. File away all the metadata pertaining to the to/from, the PO Box dropped, the time, the amount of postage, etc, etc.

All legal, right?

 

[5 digit know nothing]

I'd like to go back to the e-mail versus physical mail distinction. How is storing the contents of every e-mail any different than, say, opening and photocopying every piece of physical mail before delivery?

*bump*

I didn't answer because you already know my thoughts on this. Emails by design are not as private as regular mail. How could they be? The email company you use keeps records of all of them. If your email is through Yahoo, then Yahoo is already a third party with access. That doesn't exist in physical mail. The entire email system is nowhere near as private as regular mail.There is no means for the government to search through billions of physical mail- therefore any search they intend has to be more specific, and therefore a warrant is required; if they perform the search without a warrant that would violate the 4th amendment. But with emails the government is able to perform mass searches without needing to focus on specific parties- thus no warrant is required and these searches do not violate the 4th IMO

What if I run my own mail server and maintain my own domain?

Hey now, don't go confusing Tim with technicalities

 

[RCon]

I'd like to go back to the e-mail versus physical mail distinction. How is storing the contents of every e-mail any different than, say, opening and photocopying every piece of physical mail before delivery?

*bump*

I didn't answer because you already know my thoughts on this. Emails by design are not as private as regular mail. How could they be? The email company you use keeps records of all of them. If your email is through Yahoo, then Yahoo is already a third party with access. That doesn't exist in physical mail. The entire email system is nowhere near as private as regular mail.There is no means for the government to search through billions of physical mail- therefore any search they intend has to be more specific, and therefore a warrant is required; if they perform the search without a warrant that would violate the 4th amendment. But with emails the government is able to perform mass searches without needing to focus on specific parties- thus no warrant is required and these searches do not violate the 4th IMO

To summarize and answer some of these points, several of which have already been answered...

1. Tons and tons of e-mail goes through providers other than Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail, etc. My company maintains its own mail servers on our own premises. OK or not OK for government to search? Another company maintains its own mail servers on virtual servers hosted by Amazon. OK or not OK for government to search? Another company is part of a multi-tenant mail service provided by Microsoft. OK or not OK?

2. Even public mail services such as Gmail and the like do not store e-mail forever. I have public mail accounts, but my Outlook software is set to download the messages to my computer and delete from the server. How is this any different at all than the post office or FedEx? I'm sending and receiving private correspondence, and just using Google or Yahoo the same way I might use FedEx or UPS to move the item from one place to another.

3. Even you must realize that the protections granted by the 4th Amendment protections can't possibly be based on the difficulty in performing the search and seizure. If it was, government could simply hire more police to get around the protections afforded. "What's that, judge? Oh no, the 4th doesn't apply here. You see, we've hired fifty thousand temporary officers for the next six months, so it will be fairly trivial for us to inspect the twenty thousand homes in town. Good for the economy too, you know."

 

[mattdaddy]

I'm sure if the someone threw enough money at the idea, an automated physical mail scanning system could be developed. OCR the to/from addresses, automatically open the mail, OCR scan the mail, repackage. Save the OCR scan data for a future date when we might need it, or start searching for key words and phrases. File away all the metadata pertaining to the to/from, the PO Box dropped, the time, the amount of postage, etc, etc.

All legal, right?

As long as scan enough of them yes. Gross exploitations of the Bill of Rights is ok.

 

[RCon]

I'm sure if the someone threw enough money at the idea, an automated physical mail scanning system could be developed. OCR the to/from addresses, automatically open the mail, OCR scan the mail, repackage. Save the OCR scan data for a future date when we might need it, or start searching for key words and phrases. File away all the metadata pertaining to the to/from, the PO Box dropped, the time, the amount of postage, etc, etc.

All legal, right?

Actually, to bring it down a notch, what if the government permanently recorded the metadata about every piece of mail (sender, recipient, date, quality of service (first class, overnight, etc.), service used (FedEx, UPS, etc.), size, weight)? Would this violate 4th Amendment protections?

 

[RCon]

Also, to follow up on an earlier question, if it's legal for the federal government to do this, is it also legal for state and local governments to do the same?

 

[timschochet]

I'd like to go back to the e-mail versus physical mail distinction. How is storing the contents of every e-mail any different than, say, opening and photocopying every piece of physical mail before delivery?

*bump*

There is no means for the government to search through billions of physical mail- therefore any search they intend has to be more specific, and therefore a warrant is required; if they perform the search without a warrant that would violate the 4th amendment. But with emails the government is able to perform mass searches without needing to focus on specific parties- thus no warrant is required and these searches do not violate the 4th IMO

So the fourth amendment only applies to searching the documents of private citizens when it's logistically hard to do?

In a way. The distinguishing factor is the purpose of the search IMO.

If there were some magical way that the government could search through physical documents without any regard for their specificity, as a means of a larger goal, then I would have no problem with it and it wouldn't violate the 4th Amendment. But they can't do that. Any physical search requires a specific targeting, and any specific targeting requires 4th Amendment protections. It is the very massiveness of the email search, the non-specificity of it, which makes it, at least IMO, not a violation of essential privacy rights.

 

[Nikki2200]

I'm sure if the someone threw enough money at the idea, an automated physical mail scanning system could be developed. OCR the to/from addresses, automatically open the mail, OCR scan the mail, repackage. Save the OCR scan data for a future date when we might need it, or start searching for key words and phrases. File away all the metadata pertaining to the to/from, the PO Box dropped, the time, the amount of postage, etc, etc.

All legal, right?

As long as scan enough of them yes. Gross exploitations of the Bill of Rights is ok.

Is appears the cut off is 1 million. As long as it's over 1 million people affected the Patriot Act kicks in and it is legal.

 

[timschochet]

Also, to follow up on an earlier question, if it's legal for the federal government to do this, is it also legal for state and local governments to do the same?

I can't come up with a reasonable purpose for state and local governments to do this, so I doubt it.

 

[timschochet]

I'm sure if the someone threw enough money at the idea, an automated physical mail scanning system could be developed. OCR the to/from addresses, automatically open the mail, OCR scan the mail, repackage. Save the OCR scan data for a future date when we might need it, or start searching for key words and phrases. File away all the metadata pertaining to the to/from, the PO Box dropped, the time, the amount of postage, etc, etc.

All legal, right?

As long as scan enough of them yes. Gross exploitations of the Bill of Rights is ok.

Is appears the cut off is 1 million. As long as it's over 1 million people affected the Patriot Act kicks in and it is legal.

It's a number I just through out there.

Make fun of me all you want; I'm not backing away from my point.

 

[Nikki2200]

I'd like to go back to the e-mail versus physical mail distinction. How is storing the contents of every e-mail any different than, say, opening and photocopying every piece of physical mail before delivery?

*bump*

There is no means for the government to search through billions of physical mail- therefore any search they intend has to be more specific, and therefore a warrant is required; if they perform the search without a warrant that would violate the 4th amendment. But with emails the government is able to perform mass searches without needing to focus on specific parties- thus no warrant is required and these searches do not violate the 4th IMO

So the fourth amendment only applies to searching the documents of private citizens when it's logistically hard to do?

In a way. The distinguishing factor is the purpose of the search IMO.

If there were some magical way that the government could search through physical documents without any regard for their specificity, as a means of a larger goal, then I would have no problem with it and it wouldn't violate the 4th Amendment. But they can't do that. Any physical search requires a specific targeting, and any specific targeting requires 4th Amendment protections. It is the very massiveness of the email search, the non-specificity of it, which makes it, at least IMO, not a violation of essential privacy rights.

I'm sure if we threw $80 billion at the USPS, they could do it.

 

[timschochet]

I'd like to go back to the e-mail versus physical mail distinction. How is storing the contents of every e-mail any different than, say, opening and photocopying every piece of physical mail before delivery?

*bump*

I didn't answer because you already know my thoughts on this. Emails by design are not as private as regular mail. How could they be? The email company you use keeps records of all of them. If your email is through Yahoo, then Yahoo is already a third party with access. That doesn't exist in physical mail. The entire email system is nowhere near as private as regular mail.There is no means for the government to search through billions of physical mail- therefore any search they intend has to be more specific, and therefore a warrant is required; if they perform the search without a warrant that would violate the 4th amendment. But with emails the government is able to perform mass searches without needing to focus on specific parties- thus no warrant is required and these searches do not violate the 4th IMO

To summarize and answer some of these points, several of which have already been answered...

1. Tons and tons of e-mail goes through providers other than Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail, etc. My company maintains its own mail servers on our own premises. OK or not OK for government to search? Another company maintains its own mail servers on virtual servers hosted by Amazon. OK or not OK for government to search? Another company is part of a multi-tenant mail service provided by Microsoft. OK or not OK?

2. Even public mail services such as Gmail and the like do not store e-mail forever. I have public mail accounts, but my Outlook software is set to download the messages to my computer and delete from the server. How is this any different at all than the post office or FedEx? I'm sending and receiving private correspondence, and just using Google or Yahoo the same way I might use FedEx or UPS to move the item from one place to another.

3. Even you must realize that the protections granted by the 4th Amendment protections can't possibly be based on the difficulty in performing the search and seizure. If it was, government could simply hire more police to get around the protections afforded. "What's that, judge? Oh no, the 4th doesn't apply here. You see, we've hired fifty thousand temporary officers for the next six months, so it will be fairly trivial for us to inspect the twenty thousand homes in town. Good for the economy too, you know."

1. Anytime you're talking about millions of emails it is OK for the government to run searches through the NSA and Patriot Act. And yes, I think it's a proper purpose for government.

2. I've already explained what I believe to be the distinguishing factor between personal and physical mail.

3. This focus on the difficulty factor overlooks my main point. The difficulty factor creates the reason for a distinction, but it is not the distinction itself. The distinction is the purpose of the search. So long as the search is not targeting any group of people or individuals specifically, it's OK.

For instance, let's say we've learned that a terrorist strike is going to occur in Manhattan at the Four Seasons restaurant, and it will be performed by Egyptians.

Mass search that includes the words "Manhattan", "Four Seasons", "attack" and certain code words in Egyptian: perfectly OK.

Targeted search of anyone who is either an Egyptian national or of Egyptian descent- not OK.

 

[timschochet]

I'd like to go back to the e-mail versus physical mail distinction. How is storing the contents of every e-mail any different than, say, opening and photocopying every piece of physical mail before delivery?

*bump*

There is no means for the government to search through billions of physical mail- therefore any search they intend has to be more specific, and therefore a warrant is required; if they perform the search without a warrant that would violate the 4th amendment. But with emails the government is able to perform mass searches without needing to focus on specific parties- thus no warrant is required and these searches do not violate the 4th IMO

So the fourth amendment only applies to searching the documents of private citizens when it's logistically hard to do?

In a way. The distinguishing factor is the purpose of the search IMO.

If there were some magical way that the government could search through physical documents without any regard for their specificity, as a means of a larger goal, then I would have no problem with it and it wouldn't violate the 4th Amendment. But they can't do that. Any physical search requires a specific targeting, and any specific targeting requires 4th Amendment protections. It is the very massiveness of the email search, the non-specificity of it, which makes it, at least IMO, not a violation of essential privacy rights.

I'm sure if we threw $80 billion at the USPS, they could do it.

I doubt that. But if you're right, then let them. It's probably not worth the money, but to be consistent, I would have no problem with it.

 

[Slapdash]

Wow.

 

[tommyboy]

we've already seen the IRS tamp down on the Tea party groups and other conservative groups from 2011-2012, which was a coordinated attack on democracy going into a presidential election season, IMO. What's to make you think whomever has the levers of power won't use the massive amount of data mining as a way to control or influence future elections, or even votes in congress>?

so i'll take off the tinfoil hat now and return to just plain common sense.

we have constitutional rights, if we give them away like little #####es willing to get slapped around we deserve the country we end up with. A lot of people died to retain those rights for us. And i'm not about to sit around and let some ####### lawyer in washington DC take them away from me.

 

[timschochet]

Here is a link to a CBS news story (not the Daily Mail!) how PRISM helped to foil a New York subway terrorist attack:

http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2013/06/08/intelligence-official-phone-records-tracking-helped-foil-subway-bomb-plot/

NEW YORK (CBSNewYork/AP) — A senior U.S. intelligence official has said the secret program that tracked hundreds of millions of domestic phone records helped disrupt a 2009 terror plot to bomb the New York City subways.

The official said the plot was thwarted because of the secret collection of phone records by the National Security Agency. The official would not provide other details.

The official was not authorized to discuss the plot publicly and requested anonymity.

Afghan-American Najibullah Zazi pleaded guilty to the 2009 plot, saying he had been recruited by al Qaeda in Pakistan to carry out a suicide bombing in the subways.

Zazi was the ring leader of the operation, and said he first returned from Pakistan to the family’s Denver-area home to practice making homemade bombs. He then drove to New York with plans to attack the subway system, but learned he learned he was being watched by the FBI and fled back to Colorado.

Zazi is awaiting sentencing as he has testified against others in the case.

Zazi’s father, Mohammed Wali Zazi, was convicted of conspiracy and obstruction of justice and sentenced Friday to 4 1/2 years behind bars in 2012.

Another defendant, Adis Medunjanin, was convicted in 2012 of helping with the plot and sentenced to life in prison. Fur other defendants have also been convicted in the case.

Newspaper reports revealed this week that the NSA has been collecting the phone records of hundreds of millions of Americans each day for a database used to determine whether terror suspects have been in contact with people in the U.S.

Granted by the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court on April 25, the order states that the phone company Verizon must, on an “ongoing, daily basis,” give the NSA information on all telephone calls in its systems, both within the U.S. and between the U.S. and other countries, CBS News reported.

 

[Slapdash]

Here is a link to a CBS news story (not the Daily Mail!) how PRISM helped to foil a New York subway terrorist attack:

http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2013/06/08/intelligence-official-phone-records-tracking-helped-foil-subway-bomb-plot/

NEW YORK (CBSNewYork/AP) — A senior U.S. intelligence official has said the secret program that tracked hundreds of millions of domestic phone records helped disrupt a 2009 terror plot to bomb the New York City subways.

The official said the plot was thwarted because of the secret collection of phone records by the National Security Agency. The official would not provide other details.

The official was not authorized to discuss the plot publicly and requested anonymity.

Afghan-American Najibullah Zazi pleaded guilty to the 2009 plot, saying he had been recruited by al Qaeda in Pakistan to carry out a suicide bombing in the subways.

Zazi was the ring leader of the operation, and said he first returned from Pakistan to the family’s Denver-area home to practice making homemade bombs. He then drove to New York with plans to attack the subway system, but learned he learned he was being watched by the FBI and fled back to Colorado.

Zazi is awaiting sentencing as he has testified against others in the case.

Zazi’s father, Mohammed Wali Zazi, was convicted of conspiracy and obstruction of justice and sentenced Friday to 4 1/2 years behind bars in 2012.

Another defendant, Adis Medunjanin, was convicted in 2012 of helping with the plot and sentenced to life in prison. Fur other defendants have also been convicted in the case.

Newspaper reports revealed this week that the NSA has been collecting the phone records of hundreds of millions of Americans each day for a database used to determine whether terror suspects have been in contact with people in the U.S.

Granted by the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court on April 25, the order states that the phone company Verizon must, on an “ongoing, daily basis,” give the NSA information on all telephone calls in its systems, both within the U.S. and between the U.S. and other countries, CBS News reported.

That isn't PRISM.

 

[timschochet]

we've already seen the IRS tamp down on the Tea party groups and other conservative groups from 2011-2012, which was a coordinated attack on democracy going into a presidential election season, IMO. What's to make you think whomever has the levers of power won't use the massive amount of data mining as a way to control or influence future elections, or even votes in congress>?

so i'll take off the tinfoil hat now and return to just plain common sense.

we have constitutional rights, if we give them away like little #####es willing to get slapped around we deserve the country we end up with. A lot of people died to retain those rights for us. And i'm not about to sit around and let some ####### lawyer in washington DC take them away from me.

1. No we haven't.

2. Do you have any evidence that it was a "coordinated attack on democracy"? Because the evidence I have points otherwise.

3. Because I'm not paranoid.

4. No constitutional rights are being given away.

5. Is this a threat? What do you intend to do about it?

 

[Nikki2200]

Wow.

I'm fascinated.

Sorry Tim. Nothing personal but this is a rather interesting train of thought to follow.

 

[RCon]

I'd like to go back to the e-mail versus physical mail distinction. How is storing the contents of every e-mail any different than, say, opening and photocopying every piece of physical mail before delivery?

*bump*

I didn't answer because you already know my thoughts on this. Emails by design are not as private as regular mail. How could they be? The email company you use keeps records of all of them. If your email is through Yahoo, then Yahoo is already a third party with access. That doesn't exist in physical mail. The entire email system is nowhere near as private as regular mail.There is no means for the government to search through billions of physical mail- therefore any search they intend has to be more specific, and therefore a warrant is required; if they perform the search without a warrant that would violate the 4th amendment. But with emails the government is able to perform mass searches without needing to focus on specific parties- thus no warrant is required and these searches do not violate the 4th IMO

To summarize and answer some of these points, several of which have already been answered...

1. Tons and tons of e-mail goes through providers other than Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail, etc. My company maintains its own mail servers on our own premises. OK or not OK for government to search? Another company maintains its own mail servers on virtual servers hosted by Amazon. OK or not OK for government to search? Another company is part of a multi-tenant mail service provided by Microsoft. OK or not OK?

2. Even public mail services such as Gmail and the like do not store e-mail forever. I have public mail accounts, but my Outlook software is set to download the messages to my computer and delete from the server. How is this any different at all than the post office or FedEx? I'm sending and receiving private correspondence, and just using Google or Yahoo the same way I might use FedEx or UPS to move the item from one place to another.

3. Even you must realize that the protections granted by the 4th Amendment protections can't possibly be based on the difficulty in performing the search and seizure. If it was, government could simply hire more police to get around the protections afforded. "What's that, judge? Oh no, the 4th doesn't apply here. You see, we've hired fifty thousand temporary officers for the next six months, so it will be fairly trivial for us to inspect the twenty thousand homes in town. Good for the economy too, you know."

1. Anytime you're talking about millions of emails it is OK for the government to run searches through the NSA and Patriot Act. And yes, I think it's a proper purpose for government.

2. I've already explained what I believe to be the distinguishing factor between personal and physical mail.

3. This focus on the difficulty factor overlooks my main point. The difficulty factor creates the reason for a distinction, but it is not the distinction itself. The distinction is the purpose of the search. So long as the search is not targeting any group of people or individuals specifically, it's OK.

For instance, let's say we've learned that a terrorist strike is going to occur in Manhattan at the Four Seasons restaurant, and it will be performed by Egyptians.

Mass search that includes the words "Manhattan", "Four Seasons", "attack" and certain code words in Egyptian: perfectly OK.

Targeted search of anyone who is either an Egyptian national or of Egyptian descent- not OK.

1. You didn't answer the question. Coca-Cola's e-mail servers house many millions of e-mails. Cool to search, right? Hell, companies with 20 employees might easily have a million e-mails.

2. The ONLY distinction in the example I gave here is the ease with which the search is performed. There is literally no other distinction.

3. So in my hypothetical, it's entirely cool for the FBI to raid every house in a town of twenty thousand. There's no specificity in the target, they just have intelligence that a Town A resident is planning an attack.

Or, in other words, you're just making this up as you go along?

 

[timschochet]

Here is a link to a CBS news story (not the Daily Mail!) how PRISM helped to foil a New York subway terrorist attack:

http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2013/06/08/intelligence-official-phone-records-tracking-helped-foil-subway-bomb-plot/

NEW YORK (CBSNewYork/AP) — A senior U.S. intelligence official has said the secret program that tracked hundreds of millions of domestic phone records helped disrupt a 2009 terror plot to bomb the New York City subways.

The official said the plot was thwarted because of the secret collection of phone records by the National Security Agency. The official would not provide other details.

The official was not authorized to discuss the plot publicly and requested anonymity.

Afghan-American Najibullah Zazi pleaded guilty to the 2009 plot, saying he had been recruited by al Qaeda in Pakistan to carry out a suicide bombing in the subways.

Zazi was the ring leader of the operation, and said he first returned from Pakistan to the family’s Denver-area home to practice making homemade bombs. He then drove to New York with plans to attack the subway system, but learned he learned he was being watched by the FBI and fled back to Colorado.

Zazi is awaiting sentencing as he has testified against others in the case.

Zazi’s father, Mohammed Wali Zazi, was convicted of conspiracy and obstruction of justice and sentenced Friday to 4 1/2 years behind bars in 2012.

Another defendant, Adis Medunjanin, was convicted in 2012 of helping with the plot and sentenced to life in prison. Fur other defendants have also been convicted in the case.

Newspaper reports revealed this week that the NSA has been collecting the phone records of hundreds of millions of Americans each day for a database used to determine whether terror suspects have been in contact with people in the U.S.

Granted by the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court on April 25, the order states that the phone company Verizon must, on an “ongoing, daily basis,” give the NSA information on all telephone calls in its systems, both within the U.S. and between the U.S. and other countries, CBS News reported.

That isn't PRISM.

Actually you're correct. Mistake on my part. But it's the same concept we've been discussing all along. It's mass datamining. It saved lives in this instance, without violating anyone's essential rights. Who knows how many lives it has saved in other instances we don't know about?

 

[Slapdash]

Wow.

I'm fascinated.

Sorry Tim. Nothing personal but this is a rather interesting train of thought to follow.

Interesting isn't the word I'd use for the idea that something is Constitutional as long as isn't specifically targeted at small groups of people.

 

[RCon]

Also, to follow up on an earlier question, if it's legal for the federal government to do this, is it also legal for state and local governments to do the same?

I can't come up with a reasonable purpose for state and local governments to do this, so I doubt it.

Huh, didn't see anything about "reasonable purpose" in the text of the amendment...

Not to mention, I already gave you a reasonable purpose a few pages back. Perhaps the state is simply scanning for code words indicative of child pornographers/molesters?

 

[Slapdash]

Here is a link to a CBS news story (not the Daily Mail!) how PRISM helped to foil a New York subway terrorist attack:

http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2013/06/08/intelligence-official-phone-records-tracking-helped-foil-subway-bomb-plot/

NEW YORK (CBSNewYork/AP) — A senior U.S. intelligence official has said the secret program that tracked hundreds of millions of domestic phone records helped disrupt a 2009 terror plot to bomb the New York City subways.

The official said the plot was thwarted because of the secret collection of phone records by the National Security Agency. The official would not provide other details.

The official was not authorized to discuss the plot publicly and requested anonymity.

Afghan-American Najibullah Zazi pleaded guilty to the 2009 plot, saying he had been recruited by al Qaeda in Pakistan to carry out a suicide bombing in the subways.

Zazi was the ring leader of the operation, and said he first returned from Pakistan to the family’s Denver-area home to practice making homemade bombs. He then drove to New York with plans to attack the subway system, but learned he learned he was being watched by the FBI and fled back to Colorado.

Zazi is awaiting sentencing as he has testified against others in the case.

Zazi’s father, Mohammed Wali Zazi, was convicted of conspiracy and obstruction of justice and sentenced Friday to 4 1/2 years behind bars in 2012.

Another defendant, Adis Medunjanin, was convicted in 2012 of helping with the plot and sentenced to life in prison. Fur other defendants have also been convicted in the case.

Newspaper reports revealed this week that the NSA has been collecting the phone records of hundreds of millions of Americans each day for a database used to determine whether terror suspects have been in contact with people in the U.S.

Granted by the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court on April 25, the order states that the phone company Verizon must, on an “ongoing, daily basis,” give the NSA information on all telephone calls in its systems, both within the U.S. and between the U.S. and other countries, CBS News reported.

That isn't PRISM.

Actually you're correct. Mistake on my part. But it's the same concept we've been discussing all along. It's mass datamining. It saved lives in this instance, without violating anyone's essential rights. Who knows how many lives it has saved in other instances we don't know about?

I'm not going answer a question when the premise is bull####.

 

[RCon]

Wow.

I'm fascinated.

Sorry Tim. Nothing personal but this is a rather interesting train of thought to follow.

Interesting isn't the word I'd use for the idea that something is Constitutional as long as isn't specifically targeted at small groups of people.

How about "bat#### insane"?

 

[timschochet]

Wow.

I'm fascinated.

Sorry Tim. Nothing personal but this is a rather interesting train of thought to follow.

I don't take anything personally. Well, that's not exactly true but it's pretty rare. In this particular case I admire most of you who are arguing against me. I know that people like Slapdash and Rich Conway and yourself mean it, and that this issue is important to you guys.

tommyboy I'm a little more suspicious of. Where was he when Bush was doing the same thing?

 

[timschochet]

Wow.

I'm fascinated.

Sorry Tim. Nothing personal but this is a rather interesting train of thought to follow.

Interesting isn't the word I'd use for the idea that something is Constitutional as long as isn't specifically targeted at small groups of people.

How about "bat#### insane"?

Can I take back what I just wrote about respecting you?

 

[Slapdash]

Would people rather live free with no monitoring or surveillance and react to a terrorist event or would you rather want to live with surveillance in the hope of preventing a terrorist event. I would prefer the no monitoring because it has shown that with monitoring bad things still happen such as Boston.

Rememeber that there have been many instances of attacks being thwarted. Now imagine no monitoring and the # of ssuccessful attacks increases. What is it worth then? You can never have 100% certainty that all attacks will be thwaerted. That is impossible.

Great point. Per the Daily Mail, this NSA program helped stop New Yorks subways from being blown up. So innocent lives have already been saved.

The Daily Mail?

Im trying to verify this. Is it your assertion that this program has not saved any lives?

You know what else would save lives? A department of Homeland Pool Security. One federal agent for every pool in America. Kids would never drown again. It would save far more lives than this program.

Hey. About 15,000 more people are murdered in this country every year by non-terrorists than terrorists. Why don't we use this fancy system to try to prevent all of those deaths and/or catch the murderers too. On account of we don't need a warrant and all.

We could mass search for violent code words such as "kill", "hate", "b****". This could be very effective and since it's easy to do, we don't have to go through the normal annoying channels of warrants due to it being real easy.

Or I wonder if there's some reason why it's not OK to do that.

Maybe we could data mine to install breathalyzers on anyone's car who drinks too.

Find anyone using fast food and make them go on statins to be eligible for Obamacare subsidies.

 

[Good Posting Judge]

we've already seen the IRS tamp down on the Tea party groups and other conservative groups from 2011-2012, which was a coordinated attack on democracy going into a presidential election season, IMO. What's to make you think whomever has the levers of power won't use the massive amount of data mining as a way to control or influence future elections, or even votes in congress>?

so i'll take off the tinfoil hat now and return to just plain common sense.

we have constitutional rights, if we give them away like little #####es willing to get slapped around we deserve the country we end up with. A lot of people died to retain those rights for us. And i'm not about to sit around and let some ####### lawyer in washington DC take them away from me.

Man, I'm kind of agreeing with Tommyboy here. Civil liberties make strange bedfellows.

 

[timschochet]

I'm impressed at how you guys keep trying to catch me being inconsistent. I regret to say that if you try hard enough, you probably will. I am no lawyer, no Constitutional expert, and any attempt that I make personally to justify these actions under the 4th Amendment is going to be full of screw ups, I'm sure. I don't pretend to be any good this.

Also, quite frankly, I may be wrong. The mass searches don't bother me, but maybe they are a violation of the 4th Amendment. I don't think they are, but what the hell do I know? I've sort of put myself out on a limb here because I seem to be the only person posting sympathetic to the government on this issue. I'm not comfortable in that position, and if I'm making a mess of things, I apologize.

Let's present this issue to the Supreme Court, and see what they think about it. Whatever they decide is fine with me.

 

[Politician Spock]

I don't pretend to be any good this.

Yes you do.

 

[Slapdash]

Also, to follow up on an earlier question, if it's legal for the federal government to do this, is it also legal for state and local governments to do the same?

I can't come up with a reasonable purpose for state and local governments to do this, so I doubt it.

Huh, didn't see anything about "reasonable purpose" in the text of the amendment...

Not to mention, I already gave you a reasonable purpose a few pages back. Perhaps the state is simply scanning for code words indicative of child pornographers/molesters?

"Reasonable purpose" is right in there next to "over a million people". I guess you didn't recieve your secret Consitution Decoder glasses? Mine say Made in Fort Meade.

 

[timschochet]

Joe Klein's take:

http://swampland.time.com/2013/06/10/the-civil-liberties-freakout/

Unaccustomed as I am to agreeing with Marc Thiessen, hell has frozen over and he’s on the right track about the National Security Agency–leaks nonscandal.

First of all, we pretty much knew everything that has “broken” in the past week. The NSA has been involved in a legal data-mining operation for almost a decade. Its legality was clarified in the renewal of the Patriot Act, which I supported. It has been described, incorrectly, as electronic eavesdropping. What is really happening is that phone and Internet records are being scanned for patterns that might illuminate terrorist networks. If there is a need to actually eavesdrop, the government has to go to the FISA court for permission.

Those who see the federal government as a vast corporate conspiracy or a criminal enterprise — in other words, paranoids of the left and right — are concerned about this. More moderate sorts should also have cause for concern — especially if a rogue government, like Nixon’s, were in power. We have to remain vigilant that the snooping stays within reasonable bounds; that’s why we have congressional oversight committees. And that’s where the paranoid tinge comes in: the FISA court, the congressional committees, the President and journalists like me are obviously incompetent or caught up in the conspiracy. Of course, there has been absolutely no evidence presented that the current parameters are unreasonable. Yes, I expect that some of my phone and e-mail traffic has been picked up in the data trawling. I travel fairly frequently to places like Iran, Afghanistan, Egypt, the West Bank and the rest of the region; part of my job is to talk to partisans on all sides — and also to talk to sources in the U.S. military and intelligence communities. I have no problem with the government knowing that I’m doing my job.

I do have a problem with individuals like Bradley Manning divulging secrets that may well put lives in danger; his reckless actions require criminal sanction. I also have a problem with sources within the government who leak news that endangers the lives of U.S. intelligence assets overseas — the leaker or leakers who gave the Associated Press the story about the second undie bomber, for example. That leak compromised a highly sensitive operation that involved the Saudi bombmaker our government considers the most dangerous man in the world. (I think that the Department of Justice hounding the Fox News reporter, or any other journalist, was well over the line, though.)

This is a difficult issue and will become even more difficult in the future as technology becomes more sophisticated. I applaud civil libertarians like Glenn Greenwald who draw our attention to it. But it is important to keep it in perspective. Far too many people get their notions of what our government is all about from Hollywood; the paranoid thriller is a wonderful form of entertainment, but it’s a fantasy. The idea that our government is some sort of conspiracy, that it’s a somehow foreign body intent on robbing us of our freedoms, is corrosive and dangerous to our democracy. This remains, and always will be, an extremely libertarian country; it’s encoded in our DNA. We now face a constant, low-level terrorist threat that needs to be monitored. A great many lives are potentially at stake … and our national security is more important than any marginal — indeed, mythical — rights that we may have conceded in the Patriot Act legislation. In the end, the slippery-slope, all-or-nothing arguments advanced by extreme civil libertarians bear an uncomfortable resemblance to the slippery-slope, all-or-nothing arguments advanced by the National Rifle Association.



XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Wow! Does this guy get it right! He is so dead on that it's remarkable; I feel like I could have written this (if only I were a better writer. I love love love his comment on libertarianism- he gets what it's really about, and not the pseudo-libertarianism that people like Rand Paul talk about. Best piece on this issue yet written!

 

[timschochet]

In the end, the slippery-slope, all-or-nothing arguments advanced by extreme civil libertarians bear an uncomfortable resemblance to the slippery-slope, all-or-nothing arguments advanced by the National Rifle Association.

Yep. Be proud of yourselves, progressives. The gun nuts are your new bedfellows.

 

[5 digit know nothing]

Good news! Not paranoid!

 

[Slapdash]

Yay! Another "Radical Centrist" that hits all of Tim's key buzzwords!

 

[5 digit know nothing]

In the end, the slippery-slope, all-or-nothing arguments advanced by extreme civil libertarians bear an uncomfortable resemblance to the slippery-slope, all-or-nothing arguments advanced by the National Rifle Association. Yep. Be proud of yourselves, progressives. The gun nuts are your new bedfellows.

Just goes to show you are wrong on two fronts.

 

[timschochet]

Yay! Another "Radical Centrist" that hits all of Tim's key buzzwords!

 

[tommyboy]

Let's present this issue to the Supreme Court, and see what they think about it. Whatever they decide is fine with me.

that may be the difference in a nutshell between you and many others in this thread so far, you're waiting for a signal that this is wrong when others have already decided for themselves that its wrong.

 

[Slapdash]

I can't think for myself, so I'm glad we have another firm member of the political class here to tell us rights lost in the Patriot Act were mythical.

 

[Slapdash]

Let's present this issue to the Supreme Court, and see what they think about it. Whatever they decide is fine with me.

that may be the difference in a nutshell between you and many others in this thread so far, you're waiting for a signal that this is wrong when others have already decided for themselves that its wrong.

New to Tim? Signals are about all he seems interested in.

 

[timschochet]

Let's present this issue to the Supreme Court, and see what they think about it. Whatever they decide is fine with me.

that may be the difference in a nutshell between you and many others in this thread so far, you're waiting for a signal that this is wrong when others have already decided for themselves that its wrong.

No. I've already decided it is right- at least for me. What I am waiting for is a signal that it is a violation of the 4th Amendment. I don't think it is, but I'm no Constitutional scholar. And no offense to the posters that disagree with me on this, but I'm not aware that any of them are Constitutional scholars either. So that issue I refer to those who are.

 

[timschochet]

I can't think for myself, so I'm glad we have another firm member of the political class here to tell us rights lost in the Patriot Act were mythical.

They're certainly more mythical than the "political class". How would you define the "political class"? Are they just those who disagree with you?

 

[Slapdash]

Let's present this issue to the Supreme Court, and see what they think about it. Whatever they decide is fine with me.

that may be the difference in a nutshell between you and many others in this thread so far, you're waiting for a signal that this is wrong when others have already decided for themselves that its wrong.

No. I've already decided it is right- at least for me. What I am waiting for is a signal that it is a violation of the 4th Amendment. I don't think it is, but I'm no Constitutional scholar. And no offense to the posters that disagree with me on this, but I'm not aware that any of them are Constitutional scholars either. So that issue I refer to those who are.

Many of your posts are just you invoking the authority of commentators or "constitutional scholars" who agree with you.

 

[timschochet]

Let's present this issue to the Supreme Court, and see what they think about it. Whatever they decide is fine with me.

that may be the difference in a nutshell between you and many others in this thread so far, you're waiting for a signal that this is wrong when others have already decided for themselves that its wrong.

New to Tim? Signals are about all he seems interested in.

I used to live on Signal Hill.

 

[Slapdash]

I can't think for myself, so I'm glad we have another firm member of the political class here to tell us rights lost in the Patriot Act were mythical.

They're certainly more mythical than the "political class". How would you define the "political class"? Are they just those who disagree with you?

Politicians and those that make a living off them that are primarily concerned with expanding their own power/influence.

 

[timschochet]

Let's present this issue to the Supreme Court, and see what they think about it. Whatever they decide is fine with me.

that may be the difference in a nutshell between you and many others in this thread so far, you're waiting for a signal that this is wrong when others have already decided for themselves that its wrong.

No. I've already decided it is right- at least for me. What I am waiting for is a signal that it is a violation of the 4th Amendment. I don't think it is, but I'm no Constitutional scholar. And no offense to the posters that disagree with me on this, but I'm not aware that any of them are Constitutional scholars either. So that issue I refer to those who are.

Many of your posts are just you invoking the authority of commentators or "constitutional scholars" who agree with you.

But in this case I'm trying to pay just as much attention to those who disagree with me.