Big Brother strikes again:

[url]http://news.yahoo.com/s/usatoday/nsahasmassivedatabaseofamericansphonecalls;_ylt=AgU5Tfeq5hIbILyqLmp0PY.s0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTA2Z2szazkxBHNlYwN0bQ--[/url]

OK, so they weren't actually recording the calls -- but they have a database that reflects who you called, who called you, when these calls took place and how long they lasted for almost 5 years. That's fucking outrageous. And, of course, the program was overseen by the dude nominated to be the new CIA chief.

Come on. Enough is enough.

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Hate to rain on the proverbial parade, but this has been going for a long time. As much as i'd like to blame the Bush administration for this, he's doing the same thing previous presidents have done. The media is sure quick to lay blame to Bush tho.

ECHELON. < heard of that?

On top of that, it's your cell phone company you should be pissed at, they're turning over the records VOLUNTARILY.

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hey im all for it, you should be too. cuz unless your planning on taking a few lives you have nothing to worry about. im sick of ppl whining about this. its been going on since the carter admin and its only there to see if ppl here are planning sinister shit. no one is gonna be arrested for calling in an order for 100 bucks of pot.

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Hey toasty, stop calling 976 numbers and you should have nothing to worry about.. :lol:

I'm with sightless on this one.

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werd, all they are doing is making sure akbar is not calling mohammed in morrocco to ask when they should strike.

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I stumbled on this a week ago from the LSU University paper. The american people should be outraged that this is happening. Martial Law is well on its way.

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^HELLO!!! it's been happening since the 70s!

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[quote=thesightless]hey im all for it, you should be too. cuz unless your planning on taking a few lives you have nothing to worry about. im sick of ppl whining about this. its been going on since the carter admin and its only there to see if ppl here are planning sinister shit. no one is gonna be arrested for calling in an order for 100 bucks of pot.[/quote]

All of the above makes sense. You won't even notice anything of it unless you're giving your uncle Osama a call.

However, it's not keeping those records in a database which is a threat to your privacy. The real danger comes lurking around the corner when data from different databases are combined and linked.

Little example: nowadays in Belgium, your ID card, your bank card, credit card and social security card (containing your medical record and a record of all medication you buy) comes with a little chip in it like you can see below (the yellow metalic thingie on the left side).

[IMG]http://kartyonline.net/galeria_data/lukas_chip_przod.jpg[/IMG]

This chip can contain a shitload of data, but nobody has any idea what is actually stored on it.

Now suppose that you're applying for a job. Your future employer could do a read out of that chip in order to get all relevant personal data in a structured way. Handy of course, but if databases are linked, would you find it ok if that guy would get an overview of your medical history? "Sorry Mr Smith, you have the best qualifications, but we prefer someone who isn't HIV positive."

Like Marshall McLuhan once said: "The more our lives are stored in databases, the less we exist."

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but that stuff cant be used by anyone outside of the security agencies....

as much as i dont mind the tracking, i am 1000% firmly against making it public.

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[quote=Jenks]^HELLO!!! it's been happening since the 70s![/quote]

doesn't mean we can't stop it now..

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[quote=thesightless]hey im all for it, you should be too. cuz unless your planning on taking a few lives you have nothing to worry about. im sick of ppl whining about this. its been going on since the carter admin and its only there to see if ppl here are planning sinister shit. no one is gonna be arrested for calling in an order for 100 bucks of pot.[/quote]

I agree with sightless also on this one!

and shockingly I don't feel as dirty as I thought I would! :mrgreen:

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If someone can show me a source that indicates that we've actually been cataloging info regarding every single phone call made in the US since the 70's, I might be persuaded that this isn't that big of a deal. Take a look at this, though:

[QUOTE]AT&T Corp., Verizon Communications Inc., and BellSouth Corp. telephone companies [B]began turning over records[/B] of tens of millions of their customers' phone calls to the NSA program shortly after Sept. 11, 2001, said USA Today, citing anonymous sources it said had direct knowledge of the arrangement.[/QUOTE] (emphasis added)

[url]http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=514&u=/ap/20060511/ap_on_go_pr_wh/nsa_phone_records_23[/url]

Seems to me that they would not be referring to "beginning to turn over records" if they'd been doing this all along.

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I'm with Kinky on this one.

Probably we of our generation will not really notice the side-effects of al those databases. But future generations well they can be fucked in the arse with indeed health care and much more.

Say there are a few muders in your neighbourhood. All they know is that ist a caucasian person from 1.80-1.90. Lets say you might have had some spicy internetconversations with somebody or phoned and just joked about not letting anybody fuck around with you. I know i say it sometimes...and you might just happen to be 1.80m - 1.90m and with your cellphone data they can see you were close to the area were a killing too place during a particular night. Then they can cut up your conversations and voila they have a case against you...

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Unfortunately this isn't just data the NSA has access to, there are services which sell CDR's to the public too.

On a related note Qwest refused to hand over the records to the NSA.

Toasty the best thing you can do is donate to organizations like EEF who will most certianly go after companies like this.

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I've not posted in the political forum as yet but this whole thing has got me really pissed off.

First off, Jenks, this has NOT been going on for years, at least not what's been happening since after 9/11. The major telecoms are bound by law to make available call records to the government WITH A COURT ORDER or by OTHER LAWFUL AUTHORIZATION. These records are not being provided due to a FISA court order. The NSA bypassed FISA which on its face makes this illegal.

I don't know why this is such a difficult concept to comprehend. The government has NO right to your phone calls, your emails, ANYTHING without a warrant showing PROBABLE CAUSE. Period. This government is actively pursuing ongoing surveillance in the absence of judicial oversight in the form of a court order. How is this legal? The apparatus has been in place for decades for the Bush Administration to obtain the warrants it needs to do the things it wants in the form of the FISA court. Why don't they do it?

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djrichwoods. That all looks very nice on paper, and how it SHOULD be... but unfortunately, you are wrong, and it has been going on for years. This whole scenario didn't suddenly occur after 9/11.

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I started to get upset until I realized the whole point of this is to make the new CIA appointee look bad before his hearings. Imo, they should concentrate soley on the terrorists making calls planning to do us harm.

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Govt has no right?? Rich, heard of this little thing called [B]The Patriot Act[/B]? What the govt is doing with your phone records that are VOLUNTARILY turned over, is legal.

And as far as the doubt that phone conversations have been recorded in the past as far back as the 70's...check out COINTELPRO.. an op that basically gave the FBI, CIA and other government agencies carte blanche to listen, record, poop on, anything they wanted under the guise of national security and in the 1970s. This isn't new. This isn't Bush.

I'm not saying this whole thing isn't the dogs balls, i'm just saying, of all things to be getting pissy over with Bush, this isn't one of them, he's just picking up where predecessors left off. We have plenty of bullshit to blame Bush for, but to suddenly pick this topic up is pretty ridiculous when it's been going on for decades. And as pointed out before, how timely by the press, right as an unpopular military genreal was nominated for the top spot in our government's civilian spy agency.

I still want to make this clear tho- the bush administration sucks.

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It's all about controlling the poor civilians. In a future state there's hardly none freedom left...hail our democratic system.

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The USA should bring all their troops home from everywhere and put them on the streets to prevent terrorism. Everytime we leave our homes we should have to go through a scan to show we don't have explosives on us. They should listen to all our phone calls and emails so that they can know of possible future terrorist activities. Also they should implant micro chips on us when we are young to prevent kidnapping so they know where we are at all times. We should also use this microchip and a finger print scan to pay for things to prevent credit card and bank fraud.

Do you see a trend here??

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[quote=runningman]The USA should bring all their troops home from everywhere and put them on the streets to prevent terrorism. Everytime we leave our homes we should have to go through a scan to show we don't have explosives on us. They should listen to all our phone calls and emails so that they can know of possible future terrorist activities. Also they should implant micro chips on us when we are young to prevent kidnapping so they know where we are at all times. We should also use this microchip and a finger print scan to pay for things to prevent credit card and bank fraud.

Do you see a trend here??[/quote]

Yeah, that LSD is really getting to you :mrgreen:

What the world needs, is precogs (minority report)

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i've never done LSD in my life. E is my drug of choice..

precogs..lol

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Jenks-

I have to confess that I wasn't aware of COINTELPRO or ECHELON before you mentioned them. Having looked into them a bit, though, I still see a difference in that both of those programs, and probably most every surveillance program in history, start with the proposition that there is some reason to need to conduct surveillance on a particular person or group. Under the current program, however, data is being stored on everyone, regardless of whether there is a reason to do so -- and by "reason," I'm not even talking about probable cause, I'm talking about any inkling that there is a need to check up on someone. The government is officially watching you, and if it has a desire to do so -- whether it has anything to do with terrorism or not -- it can go back and identify every phone call you've made or received since September 2001.

If you're OK with that, well, go forward. Personally, no one in the government has done anything to earn that level of trust from me.

And by the way, I am equally pissed at my phone company if in fact they voluntarily provided this information. It is one thing to voluntarily provide information as part of an ongoing investigation, because the cooperation is ultimately based upon the recognition that it would have to provide that information in response to a subpoena. Just turning over that info carte blanche to the government without that check, though, is problematic, IMO.

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[quote=toasty]If you're OK with that, well, go forward. Personally, no one in the government has done anything to earn that level of trust from me.

And by the way, I am equally pissed at my phone company if in fact they voluntarily provided this information. It is one thing to voluntarily provide information as part of an ongoing investigation, because the cooperation is ultimately based upon the recognition that it would have to provide that information in response to a subpoena. Just turning over that info carte blanche to the government without that check, though, is problematic, IMO.[/quote]

:RockOn:

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Not sure why it is a big deal now. They have been handing records over for years. Think of the many criminal trials where phone records were used to put away bad people or prove the the wrong people were jailed. What privacy are you losing? So what if you don't want someone knowing that you have a 976 call fetish or if you call your friends 3 times a day.

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what they know can always used against you, thats the problem with it. Even if it was ment anothyer way they can manipulate with such records to make you look bad and you are almost unable prove their wrong.

So fuck of, they have no right to know this..... but the government wants to get into or heads to see what makes us move and how they can control us as good as possible.

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^ I agree. They don't have a right to know it, but it has gone on since Geroge Washington, and will continue to go on. Get used to it or move..oh wait, where are you going to move? Maybe the Middle East, or Europe, and then deal with MI5, KGB, MOSSAD...

It's happening everywhere, i'm not arguing wether it's bullshit or not, it is, but this media frenzy to lay the spying blame just to Bush is ridiculous.

I'm not keen on the stored data thing either. The more databases we have out there with stored private information on our citizens, the more we can segregate in the future- the more we can alienate, try not to hate [FONT=Verdana][SIZE=5][SIZE=2] Hallucinate, Dessegregate, Mediate, Alleviate, Try not to hate, Love your mate, Don't suffocate on your own hate, Designate your love as fate, A one world state, As human freight, The number eight, A white black state, A gentle trait, The broken crate, A heavy weight, Or just too late, Like pretty Kate has sex ornate, Now devastate, Appreciate, Depreciate, Fabricate, Emulate, The truth dilate, Special date, The animal we ate, Guilt debate, The edge serrate, A better rate, The youth irate, Deliberate, Fascinate, Deviate, Reinstate, Liberate, To moderate, Recreate, Or detonate, Annihiliate, Atomic fate, Mediate, Clear the state, Activate, Now radiate, A perfect state, Food on plate, Gravitate, The Earth's own weight, Designate your love as fate, At ninety-eight we all rotate, Hallucinate, Dessegregate, Mediate, Alleviate, Try not to hate, Love your mate, Don't suffocate on your own hate, Designate your love as fate, A one world state, As human freight, The number eight, A white black state, A gentle trait, The broken crate, A heavy weight, Or just too late, Like pretty Kate has sex ornate, Now devastate, Appreciate, Depreciate, Fabricate, Emulate, The truth dilate, Special date, The animals we ate, Guilt debate, The edge serrate, A better rate, The youth irate, Deliberate, Fascinate, Deviate, Reinstate, Liberate, Liberate, Liberate, Liberate.

[/SIZE][/SIZE][/FONT] [FONT=Verdana][SIZE=5][SIZE=2]

[/SIZE][/SIZE][/FONT]

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[QUOTE=speciale]Think of the many criminal trials where phone records were used to put away bad people or prove the the wrong people were jailed. [/QUOTE]

You've just made my point. These phone records were used in the criminal setting, where you have protections in place to prevent an abuse of power. Gather records from everyone, systematically, and the government can do whatever it pleases with them without the benefit of those protections.

So many of you seem to be arguing that the end justifies the means. That's a dangerous position to take, because once "because the President thinks it is a good idea" becomes sufficient justification to waive our 4th Amendment rights, or any rights for that matter, we're leaving behind the checks and balances that are the foundation of our system of government...

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I want to drop this in here before i forget it, perfect timing with this conversation:

[I]Gideon's Spies - The Secret History of the Mossad[/I], by Gordon Thomas.

^fantastic read. Makes Bush look like Gomer Pile. Well...he does that on his own, but...seriously, great book for those interested in the spy game.

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if they can do this with phone records who is to say they just can't take your money from the bank if they need it. I doubt that people's money is locked in their houses where it should be..

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[QUOTE=runningman]I doubt that people's money is locked in their houses where it should be..[/QUOTE]

Mayonaise jar under my bed :RockOn:

Was that out loud? :unsure:

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[quote=toasty]You've just made my point. These phone records were used in the criminal setting, where you have protections in place to prevent an abuse of power. Gather records from everyone, systematically, and the government can do whatever it pleases with them without the benefit of those protections.

So many of you seem to be arguing that the end justifies the means. That's a dangerous position to take, because once "because the President thinks it is a good idea" becomes sufficient justification to waive our 4th Amendment rights, or any rights for that matter, we're leaving behind the checks and balances that are the foundation of our system of government...[/quote]

So do you think they are just going to frame you since the government has the records? I just think it is an issue where everyone is over-reacting. it is only phone records. Remember a few months ago whe they said that they were listening to our phone calls? I feel that is a something to get pissed about, not phone records.

I need a beer :roll:

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[quote=runningman]if they can do this with phone records who is to say they just can't take your money from the bank if they need it. I doubt that people's money is locked in their houses where it should be..[/quote]

now if they started taking our money, that would piss some people off. Remember in Argentina not to long ago, you were only allowed to take so much out of the bank each month.

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[QUOTE=speciale]So do you think they are just going to frame you since the government has the records? [/QUOTE]

Am I personally concerned that the Feds are going to dig up some dirt on me? No. I am concerned, however, about the systematic erosion of our civil liberties and freedoms starting with the Patriot Act. I want the government to keep the fuck out of our personal affairs.

Remember back when Reagan quipped that "I'm from the government and I'm here to help" were the 9 most terrifying words in the English language? That's pretty much my take on it. Keep in mind that we're talking about an administration that invaded a country by mistake -- and you want to give these guys the keys to the kindom? I wouldn't trust them with my library card.

[QUOTE=speciale]Remember a few months ago whe they said that they were listening to our phone calls? I feel that is a something to get pissed about, not phone records.
[/QUOTE]

Well, for what it's worth, I was whipped into a pretty good lather over that, too. Remembering back to that time, though, you may recall that Bush certainly suggested that the only warrantless surveillance that was going on had to do with international telephone traffic. This latest revelation seems inopposite to representations made at that point. Sure, then we were talking about actual eavesdropping and now we're just talking about gathering call detail data, but the existence of this program definitely seems inconsistent with the positions he had previously taken.

[QUOTE=speciale] I need a beer[/QUOTE]

On this point, we agree! :Cheerz:

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[quote=Xessex]It's all about controlling the poor civilians. In a future state there's hardly none freedom left...hail our democratic system.[/quote]

dude you arent stupid, i know this, but that is the dumbest comment i have heard. outside of what the US deems illegal drugs, what freedoms do we have that are limited and used to control us>? liek what more could you want? ok, they legalize weed, what else is banned that we need? we have little cencorship outside of the airborne TV and radio networks, we can go whereever we want, we can vote at all levels, there isnt anything that limits the public, and if you want to play the ""its better for the public"" card, then ban smoking, SUVs, etc cuz that shit hurts us more than it helps.....we arent a leftist regeim where your life is dictated, or a neo con regeim where your everyday habits are regulated like iran where a woman cant hang out with men until her arranged marriage occurs.

if the CIA has my cell records, how in the world is that limiting my life, if anything its extending my life the next time some fucking arab militant or the next tim mcveigh wants to bomb something. just look over in england where they just said that the limits on surveilence openly allowed the 7/7 bombings because they had no viable way to take two suspects in before hand. i live in NY, work in NYC and i dont need this shit again, its nice to act the part of ACLU from a random american town, but the target is on my head. the potential bombs wont hit third rate cities like st louis, san diego, tampa. they come to NYC, boston, miami, DC, LA chicago.......

im not trying to incite, but what more do you want?

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[quote=toasty] That's pretty much my take on it. Keep in mind that we're talking about an administration that invaded a country by mistake -- and you want to give these guys the keys to the kindom? I wouldn't trust them with my library card. [/quote]

trust me, that part does make me nervous. :Nerves:

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I hate it when people say "what do you have to hide?"

that's not the point.. the point is that the USA was formed to break away from the British government because they wanted freedom. The idea that people could have a free personal life. Now they have done a 180 on that and say they are collecting data on their own. If George Washington and Thomas Jefferson were alive now and saw what was happening they probably would have left it for the british.

The point is that the Government SERVES the people. Not the other way around. Now with the Patriot act they can take you out of your house for no reason whatsoever confiscate your bank account and call you a terrorist with no proof at all.. if your not scared its because you are to stupid to realize what is going on around you.

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umm, the US was based on religious freedom when the conservative groups of the english christians wanted to stick to their bible and not the ever changing bible of the english church. it was being changed so the royal family at the time could operate thier will....

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right freedm to believe in what they wanted not just the church of england.. I didn't want to get into fine details I was trying to stress freedom and it backfired..lol

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[quote=thesightless]umm, the US was based on religious freedom when the conservative groups of the english christians wanted to stick to their bible and not the ever changing bible of the english church. it was being changed so the royal family at the time could operate thier will....[/quote]

wasn't there more than just religion? taxes maybe?