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

[Slapdash]

Big brother is always watching

Are you trying to bait Tim back into this thread? You know how much he hates that reference.

I don't give a #### how much he hates that reference. We need to call this what it is.

 

[Ilov80s]

Big brother is always watching

Are you trying to bait Tim back into this thread? You know how much he hates that reference.

I don't give a #### how much he hates that reference. We need to call this what it is.

It is a perfect literary reference. Governments are stealing pictures of people that they thought were private.

 

[timschochet]

What was the meaning behind "Big Brother is watching you"? Orwell's totalitarian government was warning its citizens: be careful! Rather than deny the extent of government power, the purpose of that phrase was to hype the amount of government power- in other words, the exact OPPOSITE of what the NSA is doing in this situation. Furthermore, the Big Brother government used its power in a deliberate and ironically very open way to shape public opinion by spreading terror, akin to the Stalinist years of Soviet Russia, and by clamping down on open discussion and freedom of thought- again, none of which our own government is engaged in.

It's a terrible analogy in just about every way.

 

[Politician Spock]

 

[timschochet]

Don't worry. I was only coming in to comment on the analogy, not to defend the NSA. And I won't stick around.

 

[Slapdash]

What was the meaning behind "Big Brother is watching you"?

In 1984 the government was literally monitoring the behaviours of its citizens from telescreens. Which is exactly the type of activity the article reveals (and we've all known). Take your bull#### elsewhere.

 

[Slapdash]

I'm not going to avoid pointing out appropriate parallels because some random ####### from the internet doesn't agree.

 

[timschochet]

I'm not going to avoid pointing out appropriate parallels because some random ####### from the internet doesn't agree.

It disappoints me greatly that we can't engage in a reasonable discussion about these issues. I would enjoy further debate with someone with your knowledge and intelligence. But your responses in this thread, which have consistently contained personal insults, have prevented that.

 

[StrikeS2k]

I'm not going to avoid pointing out appropriate parallels because some random ####### from the internet doesn't agree.

It disappoints me greatly that we can't engage in a reasonable discussion about these issues. I would enjoy further debate with someone with your knowledge and intelligence. But your responses in this thread, which have consistently contained personal insults, have prevented that.

 

[The Commish]

I'm not going to avoid pointing out appropriate parallels because some random ####### from the internet doesn't agree.

It disappoints me greatly that we can't engage in a reasonable discussion about these issues. I would enjoy further debate with someone with your knowledge and intelligence. But your responses in this thread, which have consistently contained personal insults, have prevented that.

Get over yourself dude. It's time

 

[wazoo11]

I'm not going to avoid pointing out appropriate parallels because some random ####### from the internet doesn't agree.

It disappoints me greatly that we can't engage in a reasonable discussion about these issues. I would enjoy further debate with someone with your knowledge and intelligence. But your responses in this thread, which have consistently contained personal insults, have prevented that.

 

[Politician Spock]

I'm not going to avoid pointing out appropriate parallels because some random ####### from the internet doesn't agree.

Good point. It's not about Tim, despite how much he tries to make it about him.

 

[SacramentoBob]

How much fap material was in those webcam images?

 

[tom22406]

Not sure if anybody caught these quotes yesterday but I found them quite entertaining.

A Key NSA Overseer's Alarming Dismissal of Surveillance CriticsThe NSA's inspector general mischaracterized Edward Snowden's critique of the agency in remarks at Georgetown.
Conor Friedersdorf Feb 27 2014, 8:57 AM ET



11

The National Security Agency's overseers have a spotty-at-best post-9/11 track record. The NSA carried out an illegal program of warrantless wiretapping during the Bush Administration. Even after the President's Surveillance Program was reformed, the agency built a surveillance dragnet that collected information on the private communications of millions of totally innocent Americans, a dramatic change in approach carried out without popular input or consent. And according to the FISA-court judges charged with overseeing the NSA—the very people who signed off on the phone dragnet, among other things—the agency has violated the Fourth Amendment and the law on at least thousands of occasions.

Some of those violations affected millions of people.

As well, insufficient operational security recently resulted in the theft of a still unknown number of highly classified documents by an employee of an NSA subcontractor. Civil libertarians and national-security statists alike have reason to be upset.

For all of these reasons, it must be a tough time to be George Ellard, the NSA's inspector general. The entity that he heads declares itself "the independent agent for individual and organizational integrity" within the NSA. "Through professional inspections, audits, and investigations," its website adds, "we work to ensure that the Agency respects Constitutional rights, obeys laws and regulations, treats its employees and affiliates fairly, and uses public resources wisely."

Since taking his post in 2007, Ellard has scarcely made a public statement. This week, however, he participated in a conference at Georgetown, and while efforts were reportedly made to keep his press exposure to a minimum, his remarks have been reported.

They're interesting—and do not inspire confidence. We begin with the account provided by Kevin Gosztola:

Even on their own, these comments are strange. Many aspects of the Section 215 phone dragnet are now public. Edward Snowden is on record with specific objections to them. The same goes for lots of other NSA initiatives: As they've been publicly fleshed out, Snowden has articulated why he believes the public ought to know about them. If Ellard understands what has transpired since last June, why is he speaking as if Snowden's leaks could've been averted if his supposed "misperceptions" had been corrected? That possibility isn't consistent with the facts. Knowing their actual nature, Snowden still thinks the programs should be public.

Ellard was asked what he would have done if Snowden had come to him with complaints. Had this happened, Ellard says would have said something like, "Hey, listen, fifteen federal judges have certified this program is okay." (He was referring to the NSA phone records collection program.) "I would also have an independent obligation to assess the constitutionality of that law," Ellard stated. "Perhaps it’s the case that we could have shown, we could have explained to Mr. Snowden his misperceptions, his lack of understanding of what we do."

Misunderstanding Snowden so completely is strange. A subsequent statement is worrisome. It comes via Politico:

It is difficult to know exactly what this means, but it certainly appears as if the inspector general of the NSA is questioning whether the Senate Intelligence Committee members expressing alarm at surveillance practices are actually earnest.

“Perhaps it’s the case that we could have shown, we could have explained to Mr. Snowden his misperceptions, his lack of understanding of what we do,” Ellard said.

And if Snowden wasn’t satisfied, Ellard said the NSA would have then allowed him to speak to the House and Senate intelligence committees. ”Given the reaction, I think somewhat feigned, of some members of that committee, he’d have found a welcoming audience,” Ellard said in a reference to outspoken NSA critics on the panel, including Sens. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Mark Udall (D-Colo.).

The Politico article continues:

It's worth mentioning that Snowden never took an oath to protect national-security interests. As a CIA employee, he did take an oath to protect and defend the Constitution. Many Americans, myself included, believe that Snowden upheld his oath when he alerted the public to mass surveillance, Fourth Amendment violations, and thousands of instances of NSA lawbreaking. Other Americans believe that he violated his oath by leaking classified information to the press. “Whether in the end he’d have been satisfied, I don’t know,” Ellard added. “But allowing people who have taken an oath to protect the constitution, to protect these national security interest, simply to violate or break that oath, is unacceptable.”

Let's return to Gosztola's account for another Ellard quote:

"I don’t think there have been any real questions raised about the efficacy of the oversight. Nobody is asserting, for instance, that the NSA intentionally violated the law. Some people are saying that the law violates the constitution. But we abided precisely by the contours of the law,” Ellard claimed, when asked to address how effective oversight had been. “The crisis is, however, that I suspect a broad swath of people in this room don’t believe that.”

In fact, what Ellard said is factually inaccurate. I, for one, am emphatically asserting that the NSA intentionally violated the law, by which I mean that they administered programs that they knew would result in unlawful collection, knowing all the while that they'd just label that unlawful collection "incidental" after the fact. It would be as if I wrote tax-preparation software to file my 2014 return, knowing full well that its aggressive algorithm would result in more deductions claimed than I was actually owed, and then said when called on my "mistakes" by the IRS that I didn't wittingly claim any individual deduction that I knew to be bogus.

As for the claim that the NSA abided "precisely by the contours of the law," the Washington Post says otherwise:

The National Security Agency has broken privacy rules or overstepped its legal authority thousands of times each year since Congress granted the agency broad new powers in 2008, according to
http://apps.washingtonpost.com/g/pa...-violations-in-the-first-quarter-of-2012/395/an internal audit
http://apps.washingtonpost.com/g/pa...-violations-in-the-first-quarter-of-2012/395/and other top-secret documents.
Most of the infractions involve unauthorized surveillance of Americans or foreign intelligence targets in the United States, both of which are restricted by statute and executive order. They range from significant violations of law to typographical errors that resulted in unintended interception of U.S. e-mails and telephone calls.
A final alarming moment came when Ellard compared Snowden to convicted spy Robert Hanssen. Snowden "was manic in his thievery, which was exponentially larger than Hanssen’s" he wrote. "Hanssen’s theft was in a sense finite whereas Snowden is open-ended, as his agents decide daily which documents to disclose." So the NSA's IG refers to journalists from The Guardian, the New York Times, the Washington Post, and elsewhere as Snowden's "agents"?

Ellard suggests that if the public knew what national-security officials with access to classified information know, we would feel differently about Snowden's leaks.

It's possible.

But it's difficult to trust Ellard's characterizations of classified realities when his remarks about public information are so contrary to facts that we actually do know.

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/02/a-key-nsa-overseers-alarming-dismissal-of-surveillance-critics/284090/

 

[Slapdash]

I'm not going to avoid pointing out appropriate parallels because some random ####### from the internet doesn't agree.

It disappoints me greatly that we can't engage in a reasonable discussion about these issues. I would enjoy further debate with someone with your knowledge and intelligence. But your responses in this thread, which have consistently contained personal insults, have prevented that.

It disappoints me greatly that, after over 600 posts on the subject, you'd still prefer to muddy the waters by discussing Stalinism instead of addressing the fact that the government is actively watching its citizens as they go about their lives.

 

[timschochet]

I think what the government is doing is worth discussing- and in many ways, worth condemning as well. I've come pretty far around on this thanks to you and others.

But you're the one muddying the waters not me. Because IMO when you call it Big Brother you're making an implication that is FAR beyond the worst that is actually happening. Orwells book was about Stalinism and totalitarian regimes, and bears no resemblance to what we have in the USA.

 

[Slapdash]

I think what the government is doing is worth discussing- and in many ways, worth condemning as well. I've come pretty far around on this thanks to you and others.

But you're the one muddying the waters not me. Because IMO when you call it Big Brother you're making an implication that is FAR beyond the worst that is actually happening. Orwells book was about Stalinism and totalitarian regimes, and bears no resemblance to what we have in the USA.

All I'm implying is that the government is literally spying on its citizens in a manner consistent with Big Brother. Watching the actions of citizens through screens is EXACTLY the behavior described in 1984.

Yet again, you're construction strawmen to fight and wasting everyone's time.

 

[tom22406]

Just a few of things that went on in the book 1984

Comparisons between Orwell's novel about a tightly controlled totalitarian future ruled by the ubiquitous Big Brother and today are, in fact, quite apt. Here are a few of the most obvious ones.



Telescreens -- in the novel, nearly all public and private places have large TV screens that broadcast government propaganda, news and approved entertainment. But they are also two-way monitors that spy on citizens' private lives. Today websites like Facebook track our likes and dislikes, and governments and private individuals hack into our computers and find out what they want to know. Then there are the ever-present surveillance cameras that spy on the average person as they go about their daily routine.

The endless war -- In Orwell's book, there's a global war that has been going on seemingly forever, and as the book's hero, Winston Smith, realizes, the enemy keeps changing. One week we're at war with Eastasia and buddies with Eurasia. The next week, it's just the opposite. There seems little to distinguish the two adversaries, and they are used primarily to keep the populace of Oceania, where Smith lives, in a constant state of fear, thereby making dissent unthinkable -- or punishable. Today we have the so-called war on terror, with no end in sight, a generalized societal fear, suspension of certain civil liberties, and an ill-defined enemy who could be anywhere, and anything.

Doublethink -- Orwell's novel defines this as the act of accepting two mutually contradictory beliefs as correct. It was exemplified by some of the key slogans used by the repressive government in the book: War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, Ignorance is Strength. It has also been particularly useful to the activists who have been hard at work introducing legislation regulating abortion clinics. The claim is that these laws are only to protect women's health, but by forcing clinics to close because of stringent regulations, they are effectively shutting women off not only from abortion, but other health services.

Newspeak -- the fictional, stripped down English language, used to limit free thought. OMG, RU serious? That's so FUBAR. LMAO.
Memory hole -- this is the machine used in the book to alter or disappear incriminating or embarrassing documents. Paper shredders had been invented, but were hardly used when Orwell wrote his book, and the concept of wiping out a hard drive was years in the future. But the memory hole foretold both technologies.

Anti-Sex League -- this was an organization set up to take the pleasure out of sex, and to make sure that it was a mechanical function used for procreation only. Organizations that promote abstinence-only sex education, or want to ban artificial birth control, are the modern versions of thishttp://www.cnn.com/2013/08/03/opinion/beale-1984-now/

Keep in mind this was done last year and we know a ton more things that are being done.

I think it is a very fair comparison

 

[tom22406]

The only real question I have for Tim is that since he has made the statement(quite a few times)that he feels safer with this program going on even though it has been proven it has done very little(stopped 1 threat,not the over 50 claimed)to actually stop terrorism.Do you still stand behind this and why?

 

[Politician Spock]

I think what the government is doing is worth discussing- and in many ways, worth condemning as well. I've come pretty far around on this thanks to you and others.

But you're the one muddying the waters not me. Because IMO when you call it Big Brother you're making an implication that is FAR beyond the worst that is actually happening. Orwells book was about Stalinism and totalitarian regimes, and bears no resemblance to what we have in the USA.

All I'm implying is that the government is literally spying on its citizens in a manner consistent with Big Brother. Watching the actions of citizens through screens is EXACTLY the behavior described in 1984.

Yet again, you're construction strawmen to fight and wasting everyone's time.

Tim does not want to hear what you are saying. He wants to tell you what you are saying.

 

[StrikeS2k]

I think what the government is doing is worth discussing- and in many ways, worth condemning as well. I've come pretty far around on this thanks to you and others.

But you're the one muddying the waters not me. Because IMO when you call it Big Brother you're making an implication that is FAR beyond the worst that is actually happening. Orwells book was about Stalinism and totalitarian regimes, and bears no resemblance to what we have in the USA.

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/technology/yahoo-webcam-images-intercepted-and-stored-1.1707529

 

[RCon]

I think what the government is doing is worth discussing- and in many ways, worth condemning as well. I've come pretty far around on this thanks to you and others.

But you're the one muddying the waters not me. Because IMO when you call it Big Brother you're making an implication that is FAR beyond the worst that is actually happening. Orwells book was about Stalinism and totalitarian regimes, and bears no resemblance to what we have in the USA.

I'd rather have a government that watches me and tells me exactly what they're watching than one which does so in secret and denies watching.

 

[timschochet]

The only real question I have for Tim is that since he has made the statement(quite a few times)that he feels safer with this program going on even though it has been proven it has done very little(stopped 1 threat,not the over 50 claimed)to actually stop terrorism.Do you still stand behind this and why?

Good question. I honestly don't know. When I wrote that I felt safer and I meant it- I wasn't trolling it trying to start an argument- it was honestly how I felt. But there have been a lot of stuff that I've learned since that would trouble any thinking person. So I really can't say.

 

[StrikeS2k]

The only real question I have for Tim is that since he has made the statement(quite a few times)that he feels safer with this program going on even though it has been proven it has done very little(stopped 1 threat,not the over 50 claimed)to actually stop terrorism.Do you still stand behind this and why?

Good question. I honestly don't know. When I wrote that I felt safer and I meant it- I wasn't trolling it trying to start an argument- it was honestly how I felt. But there have been a lot of stuff that I've learned since that would trouble any thinking person. So I really can't say.

You can't say whether you feel safer or not? Seems like a yes/no type question.

 

[timschochet]

The only real question I have for Tim is that since he has made the statement(quite a few times)that he feels safer with this program going on even though it has been proven it has done very little(stopped 1 threat,not the over 50 claimed)to actually stop terrorism.Do you still stand behind this and why?

Good question. I honestly don't know. When I wrote that I felt safer and I meant it- I wasn't trolling it trying to start an argument- it was honestly how I felt. But there have been a lot of stuff that I've learned since that would trouble any thinking person. So I really can't say.

You can't say whether you feel safer or not? Seems like a yes/no type question.

for you just about everything is a yes/no question. I'm not sure.

 

[StrikeS2k]

The only real question I have for Tim is that since he has made the statement(quite a few times)that he feels safer with this program going on even though it has been proven it has done very little(stopped 1 threat,not the over 50 claimed)to actually stop terrorism.Do you still stand behind this and why?

Good question. I honestly don't know. When I wrote that I felt safer and I meant it- I wasn't trolling it trying to start an argument- it was honestly how I felt. But there have been a lot of stuff that I've learned since that would trouble any thinking person. So I really can't say.

You can't say whether you feel safer or not? Seems like a yes/no type question.

for you just about everything is a yes/no question. I'm not sure.

Not really. but on some things for sure. But I get your schtick. It's easier to be wishy washy when you try not to commit to anything. Except illegal aliens.

 

[Slapdash]

If the government can't even convince someone like Tim that massively violating privacy rights makes them safer, you'd think they're going to have a tough go of it.

Of course, popular opinion really has no power to change these practices.

 

[Penguin]

Things will get much better after Google buys Verizon, they don't share anything

 

[tom22406]

The only real question I have for Tim is that since he has made the statement(quite a few times)that he feels safer with this program going on even though it has been proven it has done very little(stopped 1 threat,not the over 50 claimed)to actually stop terrorism.Do you still stand behind this and why?

Good question. I honestly don't know. When I wrote that I felt safer and I meant it- I wasn't trolling it trying to start an argument- it was honestly how I felt. But there have been a lot of stuff that I've learned since that would trouble any thinking person. So I really can't say.

So do you still contend these programs by the NSA are something they should continue doing even if they don't really make anyone safer?

And if the answer is yes,what good are they doing?

 

[Fennis]

The only real question I have for Tim is that since he has made the statement(quite a few times)that he feels safer with this program going on even though it has been proven it has done very little(stopped 1 threat,not the over 50 claimed)to actually stop terrorism.Do you still stand behind this and why?

Good question. I honestly don't know. When I wrote that I felt safer and I meant it- I wasn't trolling it trying to start an argument- it was honestly how I felt. But there have been a lot of stuff that I've learned since that would trouble any thinking person. So I really can't say.

so you're saying you're not troubled?

 

[St. Louis Bob]

#### them to hell. #### them.

 

[Ilov80s]

What was the meaning behind "Big Brother is watching you"? Orwell's totalitarian government was warning its citizens: be careful! Rather than deny the extent of government power, the purpose of that phrase was to hype the amount of government power- in other words, the exact OPPOSITE of what the NSA is doing in this situation. Furthermore, the Big Brother government used its power in a deliberate and ironically very open way to shape public opinion by spreading terror, akin to the Stalinist years of Soviet Russia, and by clamping down on open discussion and freedom of thought- again, none of which our own government is engaged in.

It's a terrible analogy in just about every way.

It is not the opposite. The opposite of the govt spying on everyone and trying to keep it a secret is the govt spying on nobody and not trying to keep it a secret.

 

[Slapdash]

NPR was talking about how this stuff directly parallels 1984 on the ride home

 

[timschochet]

The only real question I have for Tim is that since he has made the statement(quite a few times)that he feels safer with this program going on even though it has been proven it has done very little(stopped 1 threat,not the over 50 claimed)to actually stop terrorism.Do you still stand behind this and why?

Good question. I honestly don't know. When I wrote that I felt safer and I meant it- I wasn't trolling it trying to start an argument- it was honestly how I felt. But there have been a lot of stuff that I've learned since that would trouble any thinking person. So I really can't say.

So do you still contend these programs by the NSA are something they should continue doing even if they don't really make anyone safer?

And if the answer is yes,what good are they doing?

If it's not making us safer, they shouldn't be doing it.

 

[timschochet]

Of course, popular opinion really has no power to change these practices.

Ultimately this isn't true.

 

[Ilov80s]

The only real question I have for Tim is that since he has made the statement(quite a few times)that he feels safer with this program going on even though it has been proven it has done very little(stopped 1 threat,not the over 50 claimed)to actually stop terrorism.Do you still stand behind this and why?

Good question. I honestly don't know. When I wrote that I felt safer and I meant it- I wasn't trolling it trying to start an argument- it was honestly how I felt. But there have been a lot of stuff that I've learned since that would trouble any thinking person. So I really can't say.

So do you still contend these programs by the NSA are something they should continue doing even if they don't really make anyone safer?And if the answer is yes,what good are they doing?

If it's not making us safer, they shouldn't be doing it.

In not sure making us safe is the purpose of it.

 

[Slapdash]

Of course, popular opinion really has no power to change these practices.

Ultimately this isn't true.

Support for these practices are bipartisan and institutional.

 

[Politician Spock]

The only real question I have for Tim is that since he has made the statement(quite a few times)that he feels safer with this program going on even though it has been proven it has done very little(stopped 1 threat,not the over 50 claimed)to actually stop terrorism.Do you still stand behind this and why?

Good question. I honestly don't know. When I wrote that I felt safer and I meant it- I wasn't trolling it trying to start an argument- it was honestly how I felt. But there have been a lot of stuff that I've learned since that would trouble any thinking person. So I really can't say.

So do you still contend these programs by the NSA are something they should continue doing even if they don't really make anyone safer?And if the answer is yes,what good are they doing?

If it's not making us safer, they shouldn't be doing it.

Government functions on intent, not results.

 

[tom22406]

Snowden: I raised NSA concerns internally over 10 times before going rogue

Former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden said he repeatedly tried to go through official channels to raise concerns about government snooping programs but that his warnings fell on the deaf ears. In testimony to the European Parliament released Friday morning, Snowden wrote that he reported policy or legal issues related to spying programs to more than 10 officials, but as a contractor he had no legal avenue to pursue further whistleblowing.
Asked specifically if he felt like he had exhausted all other avenues before deciding to leak classified information to the public, Snowden responded:

Yes. I had reported these clearly problematic programs to more than ten distinct officials, none of whom took any action to address them. As an employee of a private company rather than a direct employee of the US government, I was not protected by US whistleblower laws, and I would not have been protected from retaliation and legal sanction for revealing classified information about lawbreaking in accordance with the recommended process.

In an August news conference, President Obama said there were "other avenues" available to someone like Snowden "whose conscience was stirred and thought that they needed to question government actions." Obama pointed to Presidential Policy Directive 19 -- which set up a system for questioning classified government actions under the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. However, as a contractor rather than an government employee or officer, Snowden was outside the protection of this system. "The result," Snowden said, "was that individuals like me were left with no proper channels."

Elsewhere in his testimony, Snowden described the reaction he received when relating his concerns to co-workers and superiors. The responses, he said, fell into two camps. "The first were well-meaning but hushed warnings not to 'rock the boat,' for fear of the sort of retaliation that befell former NSA whistleblowers like Wiebe, Binney, and Drake." All three of those men, he notes, were subject to intense scrutiny and the threat of criminal prosecution.

"Everyone in the Intelligence Community is aware of what happens to people who report concerns about unlawful but authorized operations," he said.

The other responses, Snowden said, were similar: suggestions that he "let the issue be someone else's problem." Even the highest-ranking officials he told about his concerns could not recall when an official complaint resulted in the shutdown of an unlawful program, he testified, "but there was a unanimous desire to avoid being associated with such a complaint in any form."

Snowden has claimed that he brought up issues with what he considers unlawful government programs before. The NSA disputes his account, previously telling The Washington Post that, "after extensive investigation, including interviews with his former NSA supervisors and co-workers, we have not found any evidence to support Mr. Snowden’s contention that he brought these matters to anyone’s attention.”

Both Obama and his national security adviser, Susan E. Rice, have said that Snowden should return to the United States and face criminal sanctions for his actions. Snowden was charged with three felonies over the summer and has been living in Russia since fleeing the United States in the wake of the leaks.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2014/03/07/snowden-i-raised-nsa-concerns-internally-over-10-times-before-going-rogue/

 

[tom22406]

Court rejects NSA request to keep dataBy Julian Hattem


The secretive federal surveillance court has denied the National Security Agency’s (NSA) attempt to hold onto people’s phone records for longer than the law allows.
In an order released on Friday, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court said the Justice Department’s attempt to authorize keeping the records beyond the current five-year legal limit “is simply unpersuasive."

“The Court has not found any case law supporting the government’s broad assertion that its duty to preserve supersedes statutory or regulatory requirements,” Judge Reggie Walton wrote in the court’s decision.

Last month, the Obama administration asked the court to let it keep the phone records, called metadata, past the five-year limit. The Justice Department said that it needs to hold on to the records in order to deal with a handful of lawsuits from the ACLU, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and others challenging the agency’s surveillance program.

The spy agency said that it would keep the records “for non-analytic purposes” until the cases were finalized.

The government, the court declared, “makes no attempt to explain why it believes the records that are subject to destruction are relevant to the civil cases.”

“To sum up, the amended procedures would further infringe on the privacy interests of United States persons whose telephone records were acquired in vast numbers and retained by the government for five years to aid in national security investigations,” Walton wrote.

“The government seeks to retain these records, not for national security reasons, but because some of them may be relevant in civil litigation in which the destruction of those very same records is being requested.”

The court noted that the groups challenging the NSA’s program, however, “have expressed no desire to acquire the records.”

The NSA’s program to collect metadata about millions of Americans’ phone calls was the most controversial government effort revealed in documents leaked by former contractor Edward Snowden.

President Obama has called for the program to be ended “as it currently exists,” and is weighing different proposals for reforming it.
http://thehill.com/blogs/hillicon-valley/technology/200236-spy-court-nsa-cant-keep-phone-records-longer#ixzz2vNWeV7d9

 

[Ilov80s]

https://firstlook.org/theintercept/article/2014/03/07/nsa-advice-columnist-seriously/

You can't make this up, the NSA has it's own internal "Dear Abbey" advice column and one of the topics is about employees concerned about being spied on by their bosses.

 

[BigSteelThrill]

https://firstlook.org/theintercept/article/2014/03/07/nsa-advice-columnist-seriously/

You can't make this up, the NSA has it's own internal "Dear Abbey" advice column and one of the topics is about employees concerned about being spied on by their bosses.

And even then they are totally full of ####.

 

[BigSteelThrill]

Snowden: I raised NSA concerns internally over 10 times before going rogue

Former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden said he repeatedly tried to go through official channels to raise concerns about government snooping programs but that his warnings fell on the deaf ears. In testimony to the European Parliament released Friday morning, Snowden wrote that he reported policy or legal issues related to spying programs to more than 10 officials, but as a contractor he had no legal avenue to pursue further whistleblowing.
Asked specifically if he felt like he had exhausted all other avenues before deciding to leak classified information to the public, Snowden responded:

Yes. I had reported these clearly problematic programs to more than ten distinct officials, none of whom took any action to address them. As an employee of a private company rather than a direct employee of the US government, I was not protected by US whistleblower laws, and I would not have been protected from retaliation and legal sanction for revealing classified information about lawbreaking in accordance with the recommended process.

In an August news conference, President Obama said there were "other avenues" available to someone like Snowden "whose conscience was stirred and thought that they needed to question government actions." Obama pointed to Presidential Policy Directive 19 -- which set up a system for questioning classified government actions under the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. However, as a contractor rather than an government employee or officer, Snowden was outside the protection of this system. "The result," Snowden said, "was that individuals like me were left with no proper channels."

Elsewhere in his testimony, Snowden described the reaction he received when relating his concerns to co-workers and superiors. The responses, he said, fell into two camps. "The first were well-meaning but hushed warnings not to 'rock the boat,' for fear of the sort of retaliation that befell former NSA whistleblowers like Wiebe, Binney, and Drake." All three of those men, he notes, were subject to intense scrutiny and the threat of criminal prosecution.

"Everyone in the Intelligence Community is aware of what happens to people who report concerns about unlawful but authorized operations," he said.

The other responses, Snowden said, were similar: suggestions that he "let the issue be someone else's problem." Even the highest-ranking officials he told about his concerns could not recall when an official complaint resulted in the shutdown of an unlawful program, he testified, "but there was a unanimous desire to avoid being associated with such a complaint in any form."

Snowden has claimed that he brought up issues with what he considers unlawful government programs before. The NSA disputes his account, previously telling The Washington Post that, "after extensive investigation, including interviews with his former NSA supervisors and co-workers, we have not found any evidence to support Mr. Snowden’s contention that he brought these matters to anyone’s attention.”

Both Obama and his national security adviser, Susan E. Rice, have said that Snowden should return to the United States and face criminal sanctions for his actions. Snowden was charged with three felonies over the summer and has been living in Russia since fleeing the United States in the wake of the leaks.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2014/03/07/snowden-i-raised-nsa-concerns-internally-over-10-times-before-going-rogue/

A hero to freedom.

 

[Slapdash]

https://firstlook.org/theintercept/article/2014/03/07/nsa-advice-columnist-seriously/

You can't make this up, the NSA has it's own internal "Dear Abbey" advice column and one of the topics is about employees concerned about being spied on by their bosses.

Irony is off the charts there

 

[StrikeS2k]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/feinstein-cia-searched-intelligence-committee-computers/2014/03/11/982cbc2c-a923-11e3-8599-ce7295b6851c_story.html

 

[RCon]

So Feinstein is OK with the NSA and CIA searching everyone else's e-mail, phones, and internet history, but not hers. Then it's a violation of the Fourth Amendment. Is she still a great patriot, or just another run of the mill political hypocrite?

 

[BigSteelThrill]

So Feinstein is OK with the NSA and CIA searching everyone else's e-mail, phones, and internet history, but not hers. Then it's a violation of the Fourth Amendment. Is she still a great patriot, or just another run of the mill political hypocrite?

I think you just convoluted the CIA into the NSA. She might argue you those specifics with you.

But I agree and she can suck a bag of dicks when it comes to usurping our citizens privacy.

 

[RCon]

So Feinstein is OK with the NSA and CIA searching everyone else's e-mail, phones, and internet history, but not hers. Then it's a violation of the Fourth Amendment. Is she still a great patriot, or just another run of the mill political hypocrite?

I think you just convoluted the CIA into the NSA. She might argue you those specifics with you.

But I agree and she can suck a bag of dicks when it comes to usurping our citizens privacy.

I did mix the two together, yes. However, my reading of the Fourth Amendment doesn't say the CIA can't or NSA can't; it says the government can't. There's really no way to interpret the text in such a way that makes it legal for the NSA to search everyone but illegal for the CIA to do the same, so I'm OK with mixing and matching there.

 

[StrikeS2k]

So Feinstein is OK with the NSA and CIA searching everyone else's e-mail, phones, and internet history, but not hers. Then it's a violation of the Fourth Amendment. Is she still a great patriot, or just another run of the mill political hypocrite?

I think you just convoluted the CIA into the NSA. She might argue you those specifics with you.

But I agree and she can suck a bag of dicks when it comes to usurping our citizens privacy.

Actually I did. But this thread has kind of grown beyond just the NSA in to more of a "government invading everyone's privacy" type of thread so I posted it here. Someone else has started a separate thread regarding this specific issue. I just find it extremely ironic that Feinstein is whining about this and wanted to share.

 

[tom22406]

So Feinstein is OK with the NSA and CIA searching everyone else's e-mail, phones, and internet history, but not hers. Then it's a violation of the Fourth Amendment. Is she still a great patriot, or just another run of the mill political hypocrite?

A great hypocrite sounds about right for her.

Time and time again she has shown she should be trusted as far as you can throw her.