It’s starting to feel as if “20,000 at the bottom of the sea” isn’t even a good beginning.*
A requirement of the 2008 law is that the NSA “may not intentionally target any person known at the time of acquisition to be located in the United States.” A possible interpretation of that language, some legal experts said, is that the agency may vacuum up everything it can domestically — on the theory that indiscriminate data acquisition was not intended to “target” a specific American citizen.
NSA admits pretty much the whole shebang. Filthy, lying, spying, Orwellian, totalitarian, anti-Bill of Rights scum.
I’ll bet they — or their kissing cousins in the Injustice Department — turn out to be responsible for this, too.
Reality has become satire and satire, reality.
(H/T Carl-Bear)
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* Dear alphabet soupers, and Lives of Others creepers and peepers: The above is not written as a threat. Merely an observation. Frankly, I don’t think any decent person would want to dirty their hands on the likes of you.
I am sending an email to the young whippersnappers on Real News on the Blaze.
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Subject: First Shoot the Lawyers
From the time Chief Justice Marshal appropriated the power of judicial review for himself and his fellow judges, we have seen a constant and creeping revision of the Law in favor of the State. Lately we have seen government lackeys and talking-heads with law degrees claiming that the massive snooping of the NSA is legal. This is only because court precedent and long dead judges have determined that your phone records do not belong to you. If they don’t belong to you then the government can take them anytime they want. How stupid is that? The same geniuses that came up with this, somehow split the hair and continue to recognize that bank accounts still require a court order.
Now in light of recent reports that NSA analysts listen to phone calls without warrants, even this fig leaf has been ripped away. The Feds will still trot out the lawyers to still argue that everything is fine. Nothing to see here …move along folks.
The history of the rise of totalitarianism isn’t just thugs taking over at gun point. Much of the rise of Hitler, Mussolini and their ilk was aided by fools willing to legalize the unlawful. Natural law establishes that each of us must be free of surveillance, intimidation, meddling, harassment and archiving by faceless agents of the State. Anyone claiming otherwise and citing rosy notions of increased safety and security is merely one of those described by Lenin as “useful idiots”.
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What do you think?
–Alan
It’s also important to understand that it takes about one week for an Obama bald faced lie to be discredited. But as per normal, no mention in this article of Obama saying: “Nobody is listening to your telephone calls.” he also loves to tell his lies on Friday.
This is a great video. 2006 Joe Biden versus 7 June Obama.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=m4SRCOouw5I
Alan, actually they can get bank records with an NSL, too. You _could_ consider that a “court order” since NSL supposedly get reviewed after the fact. But I don’t.
First, tell me one thing the government should legitimately be doing. Then tell me how that (if you can think of anything) could be done without theft, lies, coercion, murder and all the rest. Last, tell me how you propose to make sure that’s all they ever do. Remember that the power to tax is the power to destroy, and the wellspring of control.
When the dog becomes rabid and aggressive, you put it down…. seems crazy to run out and buy it a nice new collar and leash instead.
Will they be conducting “indiscriminate searches” of all our property as well? All homes and businesses? For the slightest chance that they MIGHT find something, some indication of “terrorism” or “wrongdoing” in some way? Is that where all this is leading? (e.g. Watertown)
They already conduct indiscriminate search of our property and persons. DUI check points, inspections to verify seat belt usage, insurance and registration. If you live near the US/Mexico border you pass through illegal search check points sometimes daily. My vehicle is my property. They also have the capability to search my property without warrant through airborne collection, drones and tethered aerostats. The city government uses their non-LEO employees, including criminals, for snooping on residents. Don’t forget the privacy violations of Google Earth, which is available for free and is used widely by the government for snooping. They try to use utility workers and social workers to spy and report as well.
The biggest problem with the Mariana’s Trench? It’s not deep enough.
OT! OT!
One of the forums I go to posted a link to a Mozilla Firefox add-on that tells you whether or not the website you go to is being monitored by NSA by playing music if it is.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/dark-side-of-the-prism/
This was the first place I checked, and sure enough Backwoodshome and Claire’s blog are being monitored. Joel and TMM haven’t made the big time.
Very cool Claire!
Oh Karen,
Any idea how to uninstall the bloody thing now?!
I am not keen on listening to Pink Floyd continuously and appears to be impossible to uninstall.
Kevin, I haven’t tried it, but this is what a search found;
In order to uninstall a possibly unwanted extension, please do the following:
From the Firefox window click the Firefox button at the top left and select Add-ons, or, if the Firefox button is not shown, click the Tools menu and click Add-ons.
Once the Add-on Manager has opened in a new tab, click the Extensions button on the left side of the window.
You should now see a list of your installed extensions on the right side together with buttons on the right side of each extension.
To remove an extension from Firefox, simply click the Remove button. You should see a message that informs you about the successful removal of the add-on.
Note that some add-ons require a Firefox restart to be removed completely. To perform a Firefox restart after the add-on removal, click the Restart now link in the message.
Um … Karen, I’m … honored?
I saw the news about that plug-in this morning, but nothing I read said how the extension determined a site was being tracked by the NSA. Guess I’d better look into it more carefully now. But really, if the thing works and the fedspooks have missed Joel and TMM, then I’d say … well, I’d say HOORAY for typical government ineptitude!
Further (but still slight) research says any site with a Facebook “like” or Google + button (e.g. BHM but not Joel or TMM) is going to trigger Pink Floyd.
If so, that app is going to be playing a LOT of Pink Floyd.
I would be amazed, considering the content of this site, if it weren’t being monitored. I gave that serious consideration before deciding to become a contributor, if I can call myself that. I didn’t do it out of any spite or arrogance to thumb my nose at anyone or anything; I simply decided that free speech is a use it or lose it commodity and that I would prefer to use it, even though there were risks involved, such as becoming a person of interest. Joel and TMM might be getting on the list soon, though.
Back in the late ’60’s a couple of guys told me of having made a “shotgun” microphone. That style is so-called because there is a long sound absorbing tube resembling a shotgun barrel placed in front of the mike. The tube makes the mike highly directional, since any sound waves coming in at any appreciable angle will be absorbed and not get to the mike. They pointed the mike at an apartment across the street in which some girls lived and recorded a conversation. They called and played their conversation back to them, then hung up. A little later they called again and played back the girls’ responses to the first call. We’re kind of there now, like it or not.
Are you all keeping up with this, and if so, what do you think?:
“… the question isn’t is Edward Snowden a legitimate whistle-blower… the question is whether or not Glenn Greenwald is a legitimate journalist or just another tool?” …
http://mindbodypolitic.com/2013/06/16/edward-snowden-the-laura-poitras-connection/
I’m seeing a lot of guilt by association and/or strawman arguments in a lot of the “anti-Snowden” arguments (e.g. “Oh look! He chose to tell his story to a homosexual who lives in Brazil.” “Look, he chose to go hide out in China!”) I see a lot of complicated arguments that rarely address the merits of what he did.
I hope Snowden has no motives other than those he’s expressed all along. So far, I’m not seeing or hearing anything that indicates otherwise.
“I hope Snowden has no motives other than those he’s expressed all along.”
Me too.
Thanks for the reply.
… Still, I wonder.
Trust seems to be a four letter word these days.
‘Hope’ certainly is.
Does it matter what Snowden’s motives are if what he exposes is true?
Old Printer asked, “Does it matter what Snowden’s motives are if what he exposes is true?”
Yes. … Yes it does.
The conclusion, is what matters.
The direction people take as a result, is what matters.
Especially if The People are being played.
I’m uncertain about everything.
A careful eye is required.
The phrase, “too good to be true” comes to mind.
…Time will tell.
Thank you, Karen.
I like Pink Floyd and all, but hearing it non-stop every time I open a new site was like having a bad flash-back from 1973! Okay, okay, I get it! Everywhere I go on the interwebs is being monitored by our overlords…like I didn’t know that all ready? hahaha. I initially used the add-on to check one site in particular, uh and yes, duh, it is being monitored. This is my surprised face.
Perhaps what we all need to do is overload the system with so much of the “right chatter” the NSA is looking for that they can not possibly keep up.
Oh, and to all you statist pigs that are reading this, FUCK OFF!
Sorry for the F-bomb, Claire, but these traitorous snoops need to hear it.
TLOO is a good movie but it’s kind of dated as to the spying, at least compared to what they could do now. The East German puppet state was thugs all the way down, but even so, even with all the spying, intimidation, and police state tactics, the regime lost its nerve and the walls came down. Take that Piers Morgan.
TLOO also has a satisfying, almost h-wording (for those who don’t know my loathing for certain movie traits, that’s “heartwarming”), conclusion — something I fear won’t happen in the USSA.
But yes, it’s a wonderful movie. As to the dated spying … well, that just goes to show us how much more ruthless and dangerous the US government has the capacity to be. Sigh.
TLOO is timeless in the way it portrays an intelligent human discarding lifelong indoctrination when it is invalidated by personal experience. The movie is definitely not a documentary – Stasi agents supposedly never worked alone. The personal transformation of the Stasi agent into a “good man” seemed very real to me and I’m guessing most moles are familiar with the process. TLOO was one of the first things I thought about when I heard about Edward Snowden.