Big Brother Files [Archive] - SoonerFans.com Message Boards

SicEmBaylor

6/3/2013, 01:13 PM

Several of you around here still seem to have your head in the sand that this country is turning into a Big Brother police state. I'm just going to reserve this thread to continuall post the latest evidence of such.

I give you the SCOTUS decision allowing cops to take your DNA immediately upon arrest well before you've been charged much less convicted of a crime.

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20130603/DA6MB4680.html

olevetonahill

6/3/2013, 01:18 PM

But IF you've done Nothing wrong you have nothing to fear!:boxing:

badger

6/3/2013, 01:20 PM

It's timely, because CBS is returning its sh!tty Big Brother (http://www.examiner.com/article/cbs-big-brother-15-rumors-more-houseguests-100-days-13-weeks) show to the airwaves soon. It's summer after all :mad:

OULenexaman

6/3/2013, 01:22 PM

The popo would never mishandle DNA samples....what could possibly go wrong??:concern:

rock on sooner

6/3/2013, 01:31 PM

But IF you've done Nothing wrong you have nothing to fear!:boxing:

And, if you have, then you're in deep trouble. Interesting to note that
three of the four dissenters are so-called left of center....

I think it's good that this guy got caught. I really don't have a problem
with that process. Oh my, I just said I agreed with right wing justices
of the Supreme Court.:hororr:

OULenexaman

6/3/2013, 01:34 PM

you'll live...

BermudaSooner

6/3/2013, 01:35 PM

rock on sooner

6/3/2013, 01:41 PM

you'll live...

I dunno, soon as I realized I might have crossed over, my
heart started racing, shortness of breath, tingling down my
left arm...

SicEmBaylor

6/3/2013, 01:54 PM

Well, it is an interesting question. So SicEm, do you also believe that fingerprinting is a violation of your rights as well? In other words, is this any different than fingerprinting? I'm willing to bet fingerprinting and a fingerprinting database has led to the capture of thousands of criminals that would have never been caught. Why is DNA different?

(BTW, I'm not necessarily disagreeing, but am curious to hear the debate).
Good question. The Supreme Court doesn't seem to differentiate, at this point, between different types of biometrics which should leave the door open for iris scans as well.

However, I absolutely don't believe in being forced to give the government anything until you're actually convicted of a crime and that includes fingerprints. However many criminals have been caught using various forms of biometrics is well beside the point. Mandatory surveillance cameras in every single room of every home and on every street corner would also help catch a lot of criminals, but hopefully as a society we're not willing to go that far. I just wish we weren't so accepting of the government's demand that we give them deeply personal identifying information for a national database until we're actually convicted of having done something wrong and illegal.

SoonerInFortSmith

6/3/2013, 02:02 PM

Go ahead and just record everyone's DNA at birth. Dead body? Easily identifiable. Rape case? Instantly know who the perp is. Any crime where the perp left hair or blood or tissue behind? Case solved.

KABOOKIE

6/3/2013, 02:14 PM

Go ahead and just record everyone's DNA at birth. Dead body? Easily identifiable. Rape case? Instantly know who the perp is. Any crime where the perp left hair or blood or tissue behind? Case solved.

That'll be awesome. When you innocently brush your hair in your friends bathroom and leave a few strands behind after you're done and leave their house. Then two hours later your friend is brutally murdered. Nice knowing you.

olevetonahill

6/3/2013, 02:21 PM

And, if you have, then you're in deep trouble. Interesting to note that
three of the four dissenters are so-called left of center....

I think it's good that this guy got caught. I really don't have a problem
with that process. Oh my, I just said I agreed with right wing justices
of the Supreme Court.:hororr:

I were being a Smartass.

sappstuf

6/3/2013, 02:35 PM

KantoSooner

6/3/2013, 02:36 PM

rock on sooner

6/3/2013, 02:48 PM

I were being a Smartass.

I just wanted to make the point of 3 left of center justices
were dissenting....:smile:

olevetonahill

6/3/2013, 03:01 PM

I just wanted to make the point of 3 left of center justices
were dissenting....:smile:

Oh so you were being a smartass also?

KABOOKIE

6/3/2013, 03:14 PM

If you have no reasonable assumption of privacy, there's no problem with it.
For example: if you walk on a street and are photographed and that photograph is used to ID as being a fugitive, you really have no complaint.
Likewise if you leave fingerprints on a water glass as a restaurant. You left them voluntarily, you got up and walked away.
Or if you leave the aforementioned hair follicles, chew gum and spit it out, spit on the street or any of a number of things you might do and leave DNA behind.
It's a question of invasiveness. And, barring profiling or some other police misconduct, collection of DNA during a stop is just not a big intrusion.

I think that the time and energy spent on 'issues' such as this detract from more important fights and simply dilute the civil liberties cause.

Yeah, big brother is to be trusted. You have nothing to fear.... :rolleyes:

Studies of DNA databases elsewhere have revealed similar findings. In 2006, for instance, Illinois officials searched the state's offender database, which at the time contained 233,000 profiles. They found 903 pairs with nine or more matching DNA markers. Among geneticists and statisticians, these findings have eroded faith in the FBI’s DNA rarity statistics, which were based on data from just 200 or 300 people and are used by crime labs across the country. Laurence Mueller, an ecology and evolutionary biology professor at University of California, Irvine, told me that anyone who knows statistics finds the figures "laughable."

jkjsooner

6/3/2013, 03:18 PM

Mandatory surveillance cameras in every single room of every home and on every street corner

These are two very different things. It is a little creepy being recorded so many places but in public spaces you don't have the expectation of privacy.

In your home that's a different matter but we're nowhere near that sort of threat. Unless you're on probation or something no court would allow that.

Your neighbor could have cameras installed in his own house for his own security (but may have to put up a sign notifying visitors of such and can't do it in areas where privacy is expected).

jkjsooner

6/3/2013, 03:23 PM

That'll be awesome. When you innocently brush your hair in your friends bathroom and leave a few strands behind after you're done and leave their house. Then two hours later your friend is brutally murdered. Nice knowing you.

If you're visiting your friend two hours before s/he is murdered you're going to be questioned anyway. You'd probably be best to go ahead and tell them you were there and you used his/her brush.

So in that case having your DNA ahead of time probably isn't going to make a difference...

KABOOKIE

6/3/2013, 03:36 PM

If you're visiting your friend two hours before s/he is murdered you're going to be questioned anyway. You'd probably be best to go ahead and tell them you were there and you used his/her brush.

So in that case having your DNA ahead of time probably isn't going to make a difference...

I'd like to think probably is not a good strategy for my defense. You may want to read my next post about how DNA isn't so statistically cracked up as the government would have you believe.

KantoSooner

6/3/2013, 03:43 PM

Yeah, big brother is to be trusted. You have nothing to fear.... :rolleyes:

Show me that again in my post.

Oh, I see, you can't because it's not there.

You don't have to like it, but everyone needs to get their heads around the fact that in today's world you leave a pretty broad trail behind yourself every day. Every time you use a credit card, everytime you pass a store with a security cam and all the bio data as well. And I think it will become more pervasive as time goes on.

Frankly, I am more concerned with what criminals do with the data than I am with what various police orgs might. Number of times I've been riipped off by cyber thieves: 4. Number of times I've been illegitimately hassled by the police of this or any other country: 1. So far the cops are not being the majority of the problem in my life.

Soonerjeepman

6/3/2013, 05:42 PM

I HAD to do 2 background checks, including finger prints for a summer job..and my CC. Guess, I'm giving in but I really want that summer job~

olevetonahill

6/3/2013, 06:12 PM

Cause we definitely wanta trust the PoPo

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/video-captures-jasper-texas-police-officers-beating-woman-204501776.html

SicEmBaylor

6/3/2013, 06:15 PM

I went through a Secret Service background check prior to being cleared to volunteer for the Western White House in Crawford. The job I wanted was driving vans of staff and journalists from TSTC and/or the Waco Airport to the Ranch, but my driving record had so many tickets and accidents on it that they rejected me for that particular job. :D So they put me to work doing other stuff.

Tulsa_Fireman

6/3/2013, 08:22 PM

Fewer scooter wheelies would get you far in life, Sic'em.

olevetonahill

6/3/2013, 08:58 PM

TAFBSooner

6/6/2013, 09:23 AM

TitoMorelli

6/6/2013, 10:37 AM

Item #2 (Day 3 of this thread):

NSA required Verizon to turn over all of its call metadata for a two month period. It's unclear whether this was in response to a particular incident (Boston?), or the latest installment of a continuing program. Obama claims that this was all legal (which would be the real crime).

Uh, I'm just asking out of idle curiosity, but are they collecting call information only, or does this include smartphone porn? :dread:

SicEmBaylor

6/6/2013, 12:38 PM

Uh, I'm just asking out of idle curiosity, but are they collecting call information only, or does this include smartphone porn? :dread:

Evidently, it includes everything. Call, text, and data information. The whole thing....from EVERY Verizon customer. Not just a few....if you have a Verizon phone then the government has your entire history.

Bourbon St Sooner

6/6/2013, 12:41 PM

Before this gets leaked, I'll just put it out there now.

I'm terrible at Words with Friends.

SicEmBaylor

6/6/2013, 12:52 PM

And, by the way, the authority for this comes from the Patriot Act. You know who all said that those of us who were concerned about civil liberties violations were just reactionary and paranoid? All of you Republicans out there. The same sort of things you said in response to our concerns about the increasing size and scope of the police state.

So, yeah, clearly nothing to worry about here. Run along and continue to do as you're told without questioning anything. :eyeroll:

rock on sooner

6/6/2013, 01:04 PM

Evidently, it includes everything. Call, text, and data information. The whole thing....from EVERY Verizon customer. Not just a few....if you have a Verizon phone then the government has your entire history.

I think I heard that only calling info...that is phone #'s, cell towers
used, length of call, supposedly no text or call recordings...

SicEmBaylor

6/6/2013, 01:31 PM

I think I heard that only calling info...that is phone #'s, cell towers
used, length of call, supposedly no text or call recordings...

The NSA already intercepts call recordings and filters them via key word and that was way way way before this program and they do get your e-mail data via email providers. But, yes you're right, Verizon seems to be call-data. No less egregious.

Midtowner

6/6/2013, 01:54 PM

The argument that you shouldn't worry if you have nothing to hide doesn't play well with me. In this country, the people have rights and the government has powers. Rights exist as a negative mandate to the exercise of government power and the powers have to be specifically granted.

While the government does have the power WITH A WARRANT or at least probable cause to search me, this invocation of "national security" and the use of the FISA court (which is a pointless procedural bandaid to pretend there's such a thing as due process, might as well not exist considering they approve every search they're asked to) is something we should all have a problem with. The Obama administration has used this invocation of national security to actually commit murder against some of our own citizens abroad. Those who think the IRS and Benghazi affairs are a big deal need to recalibrate. THIS is a big *** deal and no one in Washington who matters is saying anything and that's really scary.

If we treat our rights like they don't mean anything, there'll come a day when they don't.

KantoSooner

6/6/2013, 03:29 PM

Bourbon St Sooner

6/6/2013, 03:53 PM

If you know Zawahri's phone number, why don't you subpeona the phone records then. They don't need to keep these phone records for everybody that has a phone. It's clearly unreasonable search and seizure.

Midtowner

6/6/2013, 03:55 PM

While FISA courts are typically pretty compliant, I'd argue that's because most of the government requests are pretty damn reasonable. And this was approved by a FISA court in full compliance with the law, from what I understand.

Really, gathering the phone numbers I call and that call me is pretty minimally invasive. And, once you know, say, Zawahari's phone number, finding out who's in his call circle is pretty valuable intelligence.

I'm going with the FISA court on this one.

Oh, and by the way, Feinstein said today it had been going on for 7 years.

I can't justify a blatant invasion of privacy as justifiable because it's a "minimal invasion." There's no such thing as a minimal violation of the Constitution. If it violates, it violates. It's a similar concept to not being able to be just a little pregnant.

KantoSooner

6/6/2013, 04:31 PM

Mid, Strive hard against the scourge of naivete. They weren't capturing content, just the numbers. That seems like a pretty good compromise. And you're simply not going to have an 18th century notion of private space in today's world.
It was said, by an idiot prior to WWII that 'Gentlemen do not read other people's mail' in a put down to spymasters of the time. So long as I have the process of eleven judges allowing or disallowing a given surveillance, I'm good with that.

BTW
I can't even remember what happened with NSA's key word search programs, Raptor and Carnivore (as I recall). Were they shot down? Or did the public move on to the next shiny thing and lose track?

And, oh, here's another way to skin this cat: fund a small company in a safe place. Say, Tuvalu in the South Pac. Staff it with foreign 'contractors' (I'd prefer Aussies, reliable, in the main) and let them hack in and get what you want. Move the data to an analysis center, again, off shore, where the digested product is finally handed over to US analysts for inclusion in reports to 'The Intelligence Community' (god I love how warm and fuzzy that sounds!). Bingo, deal done, you've got what you want and, if not especially legal, then at least buried beneath the nose of all but the most gifted bloodhounds.

Midtowner

6/6/2013, 10:01 PM

Mid, Strive hard against the scourge of naivete. They weren't capturing content, just the numbers.

This shows who you associate with and speak to. That's no small thing. I'm not into compromising my right to privacy.

I can't even remember what happened with NSA's key word search programs, Raptor and Carnivore (as I recall). Were they shot down? Or did the public move on to the next shiny thing and lose track?

Dunno, but this is pretty scary:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/06/nsa-prism-data-mining_n_3399310.html

That's why I don't do attorney-client stuff on Gmail. The FBI isn't going to get access to my email server without a warrant. Google on the other hand could be subject to a warrantless subpoena. I can't tell you how many of my colleagues have AOL, Gmail or Yahoo addresses. There's a discussion in the legal community going on which could possibly result in any of those webmail services being discoverable in discovery since when you communicate there, you're at least consenting to the company itself scanning your emails for ad targeting and now possible warrantless searches by law enforcement. Can you say malpractice?

And, oh, here's another way to skin this cat: fund a small company in a safe place. Say, Tuvalu in the South Pac. Staff it with foreign 'contractors' (I'd prefer Aussies, reliable, in the main) and let them hack in and get what you want. Move the data to an analysis center, again, off shore, where the digested product is finally handed over to US analysts for inclusion in reports to 'The Intelligence Community' (god I love how warm and fuzzy that sounds!). Bingo, deal done, you've got what you want and, if not especially legal, then at least buried beneath the nose of all but the most gifted bloodhounds.

I'm pretty sure you'd have one of those 'fruit of the poisonous tree' situations if you could show that's how the data was stolen. I have no doubt the feds would stoop to something like that though.

KABOOKIE

6/6/2013, 11:17 PM

Obama was against it before he was for it.

yermom

6/6/2013, 11:28 PM

W 2.0

TAFBSooner

6/7/2013, 08:17 AM

Item #3 (Day 4 of this thread):

NSA: All your internet search is belong to us.

KantoSooner

6/7/2013, 08:27 AM

I'm pretty sure you'd have one of those 'fruit of the poisonous tree' situations if you could show that's how the data was stolen. I have no doubt the feds would stoop to something like that though.

I am not talking about gathering information for a legal process. Rather, if I found something that indicated a terrorist intent, for example, I'd be gathering the data for something a bit more final.

jkjsooner

6/7/2013, 01:49 PM

This shows who you associate with and speak to. That's no small thing. I'm not into compromising my right to privacy.

But wouldn't they only do this with a warrant for someone who is already under suspicion? If someone under suspicion calls you (or vice versa) and the government queries the suspects calling records, you're going to show up. I'd bet it's been that way for decades.

Same with emails or anything else. If you're a suspect and they search you're computers and an email incriminates me, I can't go back and complain about it.

Now the question is about keeping all these records to begin with but the phone companies have been doing that for a long time.

As for the general pattern searches, this is where I think it gets more tricky. I think there needs to be rules around what can and can't be done. I'd say if there's not a specific suspect or warrant, all outputs would have to be either macroscopic (for lack of a better word - not identifying any individual) or be masked.

Let's say some algorithm finds a calling pattern that is suspicious. Let's say it originates from phone number A. The algorithm would not be able to identify the phone number. Instead it would identify that there is a number with suspicious activity. Then the NSA/CIA/FBI (whoever) would have to go to a court with this evidence and try to get a warrant to uncover this phone number. I'd be fine with that.

SicEmBaylor

6/7/2013, 05:02 PM

If the NSA cannot be trusted to not monitor American citizens, then it needs to be abolished.

If the CIA cannot be trusted not to spy on Americans (which is already illegal) then it needs to be abolished.

If the President cannot ensure the agencies and departments under his administration don't abuse their power, then he needs to be impeached.

If the President knew and/or approved of the abuse of power by any agency or department under his administration, then he needs to be convicted of impeachment charges and removed from office and possibly face jail time.

If a member of Congress (such as Lindsey Graham), whether it be House or Senate, sees absolutely no problem with the government seizing our personal records or monitoring us then that member needs to be removed by the citizens of his or her district or state.

Midtowner

6/7/2013, 05:14 PM

But wouldn't they only do this with a warrant for someone who is already under suspicion? If someone under suspicion calls you (or vice versa) and the government queries the suspects calling records, you're going to show up. I'd bet it's been that way for decades.

Same with emails or anything else. If you're a suspect and they search you're computers and an email incriminates me, I can't go back and complain about it.

It's different because in your hypo, there's maybe some probable cause. In this case, we have blanket subpoenas for all of the records.

Now the question is about keeping all these records to begin with but the phone companies have been doing that for a long time.

I'm sure you understand the difference between a company I do business with having related records and the government having access to those records for "national security" purposes.

As for the general pattern searches, this is where I think it gets more tricky. I think there needs to be rules around what can and can't be done. I'd say if there's not a specific suspect or warrant, all outputs would have to be either macroscopic (for lack of a better word - not identifying any individual) or be masked.

We have rules. The 4th Amendment in pretty plain English was supposed to protect us from this sort of thing. Legally speaking, it's kind of irrelevant in a lot of cases and if you use the words "national security," then the rules just don't apply anymore.

I think what we call terror these days is really interesting. A demented sociopath walks into a school and shots a bunch of kids? We call that a really awful bad day. Two punk kids blow up a pressure cooker in a crowded area? Terrorism. Why is one treated as a crime and the other one treated as a threat to national security?

Let's say some algorithm finds a calling pattern that is suspicious. Let's say it originates from phone number A. The algorithm would not be able to identify the phone number. Instead it would identify that there is a number with suspicious activity. Then the NSA/CIA/FBI (whoever) would have to go to a court with this evidence and try to get a warrant to uncover this phone number. I'd be fine with that.

No, because I don't think the NSA/CIA/FBI should have that data in the first place. If I could, I'd only contract with companies which were willing to take the feds to the mat over constitutional issues like this.

Tulsa_Fireman

6/7/2013, 05:16 PM

TAFBSooner

6/8/2013, 09:13 PM

If the President cannot ensure the agencies and departments under his administration don't abuse their power, then he needs to be impeached.

I want to put out a theory, and we can see how well it fits the data.

The president (any president) is not in charge of the "national security" apparatus. They are permanent, and in charge. This includes the CIA, NSA,

. . . and Secret Service.

Late comedian Bill Hicks:
I have this feeling man, 'cause you know, it's just a handful of people who run everything, you know … that's true, it's provable. It's not … I'm not a ****ing conspiracy nut, it's provable. A handful, a very small elite, run and own these corporations, which include the mainstream media. I have this feeling that whoever is elected president, like Clinton was, no matter what you promise on the campaign trail – blah, blah, blah – when you win, you go into this smoke-filled room with the twelve industrialist capitalist scum-****s who got you in there. And you're in this smoky room, and this little film screen comes down … and a big guy with a cigar goes, "Roll the film." And it's a shot of the Kennedy assassination from an angle you've never seen before … that looks suspiciously like it's from the grassy knoll. And then the screen goes up and the lights come up, and they go to the new president, "Any questions?" "Er, just what my agenda is." "First we bomb Baghdad." "You got it …"

Personally, I would love to see this theory destroyed, so have at it.

sappstuf

6/8/2013, 11:52 PM

W 2.0

Please. W didn't pull off 20% of what Obama is doing.

yermom

6/8/2013, 11:54 PM

where was all the outrage then? the same people were all saying "what do you have to hide?"

W laid the groundwork with the same kinda BS in the name of the "war on terror"

soonerhubs

6/9/2013, 12:25 AM

where was all the outrage then? the same people were all saying "what do you have to hide?"

W laid the groundwork with the same kinda BS in the name of the "war on terror"

... and that justifies these current violations?

Great way to get at the big picture!

SicEmBaylor

6/9/2013, 01:16 AM

I want to put out a theory, and we can see how well it fits the data.

The president (any president) is not in charge of the "national security" apparatus. They are permanent, and in charge. This includes the CIA, NSA,

. . . and Secret Service.
I'm sorry but this is absolute nonsense. Every single one of those agencies is no more or less permanent than any other department or agency under the executive branch of which the President is in charge of. The Director of the FBI is not autonomous and is not a lifetime appointment -- ditto the CIA -- ditto the NSA -- ditto the Secret Service, etc. etc. The President is absolutely head of the entire national security apparatus as the Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces AND the head of the executive branch.

Not only that, but the President sets and directs national security policy. A gallant effort to get the President off the hook, but ultimately pure nonsense.

yermom

6/9/2013, 02:07 AM

... and that justifies these current violations?

Great way to get at the big picture!

Not sure how comparing the current loser to the last one is justifying anything

SCOUT

6/9/2013, 02:34 AM

Not sure how comparing the current loser to the last one is justifying anything

I agree that it isn't justifying anything directly. It does seem like a tacit endorsement of the current group though. If you weren't justifying the current situation, why bring it up? If it was wrong under W and wrong under Obama, why not just say so?

yermom

6/9/2013, 03:19 AM

Jesus you people are dense

soonerhubs

6/9/2013, 05:58 AM

Jesus you people are dense

I suppose that makes you all transcendental and stuff. Be patient with us while we try to reach that high horse upon which you so nobly ride.

If you can't comprehend human nature and how it played into the fears of the population post 9/11, then it may be time to humbly reflect on your own level of density. Bottom line: The money being spent to violate our privacy was a waste then, and it's a waste now. The irrational fear of terrorism has dropped off, though.

SoonerProphet

6/9/2013, 09:44 AM

I suppose that makes you all transcendental and stuff. Be patient with us while we try to reach that high horse upon which you so nobly ride.

If you can't comprehend human nature and how it played into the fears of the population post 9/11, then it may be time to humbly reflect on your own level of density. Bottom line: The money being spent to violate our privacy was a waste then, and it's a waste now. The irrational fear of terrorism has dropped off, though.

Meh, you'll have to forgive some of us transcendental types as we engage in a little schadenfreude. After all it was many pundits on the Team Edward side who told us civil libertarians to pipe down, if we did nothing wrong all would be okay. Now that same punditocracy and its sheep see Big Brother all of a sudden.

So it was cool when John Yoo and Dick Cheney did it, but bad when Obama and the Team Jacob crew does the same thing?

soonerhubs

6/9/2013, 09:56 AM

Meh, you'll have to forgive some of us transcendental types as we engage in a little schadenfreude. After all it was many pundits on the Team Edward side who told us civil libertarians to pipe down, if we did nothing wrong all would be okay. Now that same punditocracy and its sheep see Big Brother all of a sudden.

So it was cool when John Yoo and Dick Cheney did it, but bad when Obama and the Team Jacob crew does the same thing?

Enjoy that enlightened state of obfuscation. That condescending, soapbox approach is so effective in shaping world views and winning support for a paradigm. Right?

It wasn't cool either time, and you know it.

Civil libertarian, eh? Interesting.

SoonerProphet

6/9/2013, 10:06 AM

Enjoy that enlightened state of obfuscation. That condescending, soapbox approach is so effective in shaping world views and winning support for a paradigm. Right?

It wasn't cool either time, and you know it.

Civil libertarian, eh? Interesting.

You are right, the pointy headed holier than thou approach is off putting.

I do know it, that is the point. Those who don't live by the my team your team worldview were pissed then and remain so. Those of us who have bitched about the erosion of the 4th Amendment for decades are truly heartened by those who only now see the light. But alas, a new "war", whether on booze, drugs, porn, terror, etc. will quickly have people looking under their beds for boogey men.

soonerhubs

6/9/2013, 10:14 AM

You are right, the pointy headed holier than thou approach is off putting.

I do know it, that is the point. Those who don't live by the my team your team worldview were pissed then and remain so. Those of us who have bitched about the erosion of the 4th Amendment for decades are truly heartened by those who only now see the light. But alas, a new "war", whether on booze, drugs, porn, terror, etc. will quickly have people looking under their beds for boogey men.

I agree with you, and I experience cognitive dissonance when I see supposed libertarian leaning folks siding with liberty-killing nut jobs like Sarah Palin. Too be fair, many 5th grade children would appear to transcend her epistemology. ;)

SoonerProphet

6/9/2013, 10:45 AM

http://lewrockwell.com/roberts/roberts397.html

FaninAma

6/9/2013, 11:42 AM

Peter King, John McCain and Lindsey Graham.....3 reasons why the GOP is viewed as the party of no principles. It sickens me to watch these members of the so called limited government party running around defending the NSA telephone and e-mail data mining.

yermom

6/9/2013, 11:44 AM

W 2.0

Please. W didn't pull off 20% of what Obama is doing.

where was all the outrage then? the same people were all saying "what do you have to hide?"

W laid the groundwork with the same kinda BS in the name of the "war on terror"

I suppose that makes you all transcendental and stuff. Be patient with us while we try to reach that high horse upon which you so nobly ride.

If you can't comprehend human nature and how it played into the fears of the population post 9/11, then it may be time to humbly reflect on your own level of density. Bottom line: The money being spent to violate our privacy was a waste then, and it's a waste now. The irrational fear of terrorism has dropped off, though.

this whole exchange started when i said that Obama wasn't much better than a second coming of Little Bush with my what should be trademarked "W 2.0"

sapp goes to defend his boy because he was on the right team when he was doing it. somehow me defending my comparison of the two equals my "tacit approval" for what is going on now. nothing could be further from the truth.

"human nature" is being trumped up now just as it was then with all the mass shootings. hell Boston was where 9/11 started, and now it's been bombed. guess we need more surveillance...

soonerhubs

6/9/2013, 01:54 PM

this whole exchange started when i said that Obama wasn't much better than a second coming of Little Bush with my what should be trademarked "W 2.0"

sapp goes to defend his boy because he was on the right team when he was doing it. somehow me defending my comparison of the two equals my "tacit approval" for what is going on now. nothing could be further from the truth.

"human nature" is being trumped up now just as it was then with all the mass shootings. hell Boston was where 9/11 started, and now it's been bombed. guess we need more surveillance...

My apologies. I honestly mistook your post as a defense of the current administration's actions. Sorry, Yermom.

SicEmBaylor

6/9/2013, 04:13 PM

This man is a hero, and I agree with everything he said.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/09/nsa-whistleblower-edward-snowden-why

8timechamps

6/9/2013, 06:41 PM

yermom

6/9/2013, 06:53 PM

the possible correlations aren't as innocent as it seems. the EFF covers some of it here better than i could:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/06/why-metadata-matters

and this is just what they have been caught doing. there have been rumors for a long time that things are much worse than that.

SicEmBaylor

6/9/2013, 07:02 PM

8timechamps

6/9/2013, 07:28 PM

Because people have a right to expect a degree of privacy. Because we, as Americans, are supposed to pride ourselves on our individual rights. Because, the government is collecting deeply personal information in such a way that it represents a major and egregious violation of the United States Constitution. Because, if the government can spy on our individual actions to this degree then there is truly no limit to the degree to which the government can become an insidious and invasive part of our lives.

Fair enough, but this is 2013, and technology isn't going to stop because I feel like I need privacy. If it's not the government doing it, it's going to be the private sector (which I am sure already do).

When I first got access to the internet, I knew that anything I did online wasn't private. When I send a text, I know that somewhere, someone (other than the intended recipient) could see it if they really wanted. When I use my credit card online, I know there is a possibility that a hacker could attain my information.

I guess what I'm saying is that those risks already exist without the government. If the government can deter any type of criminal activity through data collection, then why not? Could it be used for bad things? Sure, it could, but I'm 100 times more concerned about the private sector securing my information, and there is no answering to the public when it comes to that.

I completely agree with the foundation of your opinion, I just think the time has past (literally) to avoid big brother.

olevetonahill

6/9/2013, 07:36 PM

Fair enough, but this is 2013, and technology isn't going to stop because I feel like I need privacy. If it's not the government doing it, it's going to be the private sector (which I am sure already do).

When I first got access to the internet, I knew that anything I did online wasn't private. When I send a text, I know that somewhere, someone (other than the intended recipient) could see it if they really wanted. When I use my credit card online, I know there is a possibility that a hacker could attain my information.

I guess what I'm saying is that those risks already exist without the government. If the government can deter any type of criminal activity through data collection, then why not? Could it be used for bad things? Sure, it could, but I'm 100 times more concerned about the private sector securing my information, and there is no answering to the public when it comes to that.

I completely agree with the foundation of your opinion, I just think the time has past (literally) to avoid big brother.

I agree Bro. Just look at how many Tracking cookies you pick up in a day. Its bout to the Point if you Dont want Big Gov. or Big Business Snooping on yer private stuff, you need to completely go off the grid, and Never come back. Puters have made life way to easy, for Most to ever give em up.

yermom

6/9/2013, 07:38 PM

TAFBSooner

6/9/2013, 09:04 PM

A gallant effort to get the President off the hook, but ultimately pure nonsense.

Not at all. I want to believe there is hope of getting out from under this advancing tyranny. As it is, it seems to get worse every administration.

Have you noticed there are hold-overs in certain jobs from one president to the next? Obama didn't replace SecDef Gates or General Petraeus in 2009. There are also people who change jobs but stay in those positions. But truly, I hope you're right.

olevetonahill

6/9/2013, 09:18 PM

Not at all. I want to believe there is hope of getting out from under this advancing tyranny. As it is, it seems to get worse every administration.

Have you noticed there are hold-overs in certain jobs from one president to the next? Obama didn't replace SecDef Gates or General Petraeus in 2009. There are also people who change jobs but stay in those positions. But truly, I hope you're right.

Thats because the President is NOT the Most powerful Person in the world. Those who control and get them elected are the Most powerful.
If you dont believe that Then yer naive

TAFBSooner

6/9/2013, 09:25 PM

SicEm, you say the President does in fact control the national security apparatus. And, you are adamant that the current degree to which our government spies on us is an abomination.

Do you see any way that "we the people" can turn this around? It doesn't seem to matter who we elect. You get an occasional Ron Paul or Dennis Kucinich, who at least talk a good game, but they are shot down by the Main Street Media. Anyone who organizes (cf. Tea Party and Occupy) gets "extra attention" for their troubles.

TAFBSooner

6/9/2013, 09:30 PM

Thats because the President is NOT the Most powerful Person in the world. Those who control and get them elected are the Most powerful.
If you dont believe that Then yer naive

So, do you think the best we can do is try to stay off the radar and go on about our lives?

olevetonahill

6/9/2013, 09:43 PM

So, do you think the best we can do is try to stay off the radar and go on about our lives?

For the Most part yes. The Gov Or the Bigs dont really GAF about us. as long as we color between their lines.
The only other option we as Free people have would be to stage another For real Tea Party

BoulderSooner79

6/9/2013, 10:50 PM

Maybe I'm part of the problem, but I really don't give a rats *** if the government has information about who I call and when. Maybe I'm naive.

I haven't read the whole thread, but can someone who is really worked up over the current state of "big brother" in this country explain why it's such a bad thing (not being sarcastic, honest question)?

8time, I definitely think you are being naive.

Because people have a right to expect a degree of privacy. Because we, as Americans, are supposed to pride ourselves on our individual rights. Because, the government is collecting deeply personal information in such a way that it represents a major and egregious violation of the United States Constitution. Because, if the government can spy on our individual actions to this degree then there is truly no limit to the degree to which the government can become an insidious and invasive part of our lives.

SicEm, your response is full of high ideals and somewhat vague language and this is why I don't normally agree with you - or not completely. I'm a pragmatist at heart. I think this guy that leaked the story is a hero and for much more pragmatic reasons. This situation is a huge and obvious slippery slope. I'm talking a 45 degree roof covered with ice with banana peels and snot piled on top. This whistle blower guy is young and fairly new to the game and I'm sure he doesn't know about a fraction of what is going on. When the POTUS says we are not listening to your phone calls, he probably means it. But is he including computer programs listening to your phone calls? Somehow I doubt it. And I guarantee someone in government will think up new uses for this technology beyond rooting out terror. I'm sure they already have. And yes, private industry does this too in order to target you as a customer for their wonderful stuff. But these issues are being worked in public and by the court system the way it should be. The NSA gag order on Verizon and others to even mention what is going on is the most dangerous aspect of all. Private companies can't do that, thank goodness. I do value my privacy, but that's not my main concern. Once we (the people) get over the moral hurdle of giving up privacy in order to be safe, the next step down on that slippery slope will be fully justified as "good for us" just as the terror argument was.

I really hope this episode results in a national dialogue on what we will and will not accept in this area. And it needs to conclude with a way to keep the secret parts of our gov. from stepping outside it's bounds. I hope this young whistleblower's efforts don't fade away with the public's short attention span because he will on doubt pay dearly for the rest of his life.

olevetonahill

6/9/2013, 10:58 PM

So, do you think the best we can do is try to stay off the radar and go on about our lives?

Nuther other thing, Ya ever hear the old saw about puttin a frog in Boiling water?

If ya put a Live frog in a Pan of boiling water hes gonna Jump right out. But if ya put him in a pan of Cold water and slowly heta it up he will sit there and Boil to death.

Kinda same thing here, They givein it to us in small doses and lettin us adjust before turnin the heat up some more,

jkjsooner

6/10/2013, 09:34 AM

I agree Bro. Just look at how many Tracking cookies you pick up in a day. Its bout to the Point if you Dont want Big Gov. or Big Business Snooping on yer private stuff, you need to completely go off the grid, and Never come back. Puters have made life way to easy, for Most to ever give em up.

Or the comprehensive records they keep and sell when you use your shopper's card at the grocery store. I imagine the credit card companies are doing the same...

It's been that way for at least a couple of decades. But is is for our benefit. ;-)

olevetonahill

6/10/2013, 09:42 AM

Or the comprehensive records they keep and sell when you use your shopper's card at the grocery store. I imagine the credit card companies are doing the same...

It's been that way for at least a couple of decades. But is is for our benefit. ;-)

Heh, We can all disagree about politics, Call each other Morans or Rubes It aint gonna change a dayum thing.
Hell we could vote in a Purple people eater next Potus and things are still gonna chug right along going to hell.

cleller

6/10/2013, 09:44 AM

cleller

6/10/2013, 09:55 AM

I agree Bro. Just look at how many Tracking cookies you pick up in a day. Its bout to the Point if you Dont want Big Gov. or Big Business Snooping on yer private stuff, you need to completely go off the grid, and Never come back. Puters have made life way to easy, for Most to ever give em up.

Oh yeah, think I better run Spybot and CCleaner right now.

Here's something to think about. Recently there have been about 3 cases of people mailing a certain poison made from a certain bean to judges in attempts to frame someone. Do you feel comfortable heading over to Google and searching "How to make R----"?

I don't. Seriously.

FaninAma

6/10/2013, 12:16 PM

FaninAma

6/10/2013, 12:23 PM

Oh yeah, think I better run Spybot and CCleaner right now.

Here's something to think about. Recently there have been about 3 cases of people mailing a certain poison made from a certain bean to judges in attempts to frame someone. Do you feel comfortable heading over to Google and searching "How to make R----"?

I don't. Seriously.
I think it speaks volumes about where this country is when not a single person on this board wouldn't think twice about sending an email with certain words like the one above contained in the correspondence. Pretty chilling actually.

yermom

6/10/2013, 12:54 PM

I'm not sure if I can watch breaking bad anymore :(

TAFBSooner

6/11/2013, 09:42 AM

The trend of government intrusion into our private lives has been accelerating at a frightening rate since that asswipe GW was in office. I think all doubt can now be removed that there is any real difference between the two major political parties as to their goal of growing the federal government's control over our lives.

I would put it earlier than that, with Ruby Ridge under Bush the Greater (R) and Waco under Clinton (D). Even then it was a "bipartisan" effort.

Off-topic (Or IS it?): I'm still not putting a modifier to denote "which Clinton?" But the radio this morning said Hillary has a Twitter account now, and in her bio it says her 2016 plans are "TBD." A bit of a change from her denying any interest, when she left the SecState job.

jkjsooner

6/11/2013, 02:04 PM

Oh yeah, think I better run Spybot and CCleaner right now.

Here's something to think about. Recently there have been about 3 cases of people mailing a certain poison made from a certain bean to judges in attempts to frame someone. Do you feel comfortable heading over to Google and searching "How to make R----"?

I don't. Seriously.

I didn't feel comfortable searching for something like that in 1995. That's why none of this shocks me.

8timechamps

6/11/2013, 05:22 PM

then you ARE part of the problem :D

Just so you know, I have been tracking your whereabouts and monitoring your phone calls. :)

8timechamps

6/11/2013, 05:30 PM

8time, I definitely think you are being naive.

Can you elaborate? I am not afraid of the government, and since they've pretty much always had the ability to gain information about me, none of this comes as even a remote shock to me. As I said earlier, I'm much more concerned with the private sector's ability to gain information.

Maybe this is a cop out (although I don't see it that way), but at this point, what can we do about it? Like Vet said, the ONLY way you can ever escape it is to go completely off the grid. I'm not willing to do that, so I suppose it's the price I pay to live the way I do.

My argument (not particularly with you) is that things change. This isn't the 1950's. terrorism or really any criminal activity isn't going to happen the way it used to happen. People looking to do harm to this country aren't going to depend on another Pearl Harbor, or even 9/11. There are terrorist living in the US as we have this conversation. They are living here as US citizens. What are we supposed to do, hope they are dumb enough to get caught before they kill? Nah, I'm perfectly fine with the NSA keeping tabs. I have zero concern that they (the NSA) are looking to somehow track and kill me or my family.

In addition, there are a number of things the government does that you and I don't know about. I like it that way.

8timechamps

6/11/2013, 05:34 PM

I have a few of the same feelings, but when I look at the big picture, even I don't feel comfortable with all of it.

It feels like a slow creep toward the kind of regimes you used to see Ben Gazarra get tangled up with on Run For Your Life. Little toadies listening in on the phone, photographing you at certain coffee shops, monitoring your mail, bank, etc. Pretty soon you end up with a dead girl in your bed.

I understand that people want/deserve their privacy. I feel the same way, but technology has made that almost impossible now. I'm not worried that the government is bugging my home or looking to bring me in for questioning for anything. If I were operating an illegal enterprise, then I would be concerned. I hate the "if you're not doing anything wrong, then you have nothing to worry about" saying, because it's overused. However, in this case, I think it rings true.

If the government want's to listen in to my conversation with my 70 year old mother, go for it. I just highly doubt that has been, or will ever be the case.

BoulderSooner79

6/11/2013, 07:33 PM

Can you elaborate? I am not afraid of the government, and since they've pretty much always had the ability to gain information about me, none of this comes as even a remote shock to me. As I said earlier, I'm much more concerned with the private sector's ability to gain information.

Maybe this is a cop out (although I don't see it that way), but at this point, what can we do about it? Like Vet said, the ONLY way you can ever escape it is to go completely off the grid. I'm not willing to do that, so I suppose it's the price I pay to live the way I do.

My argument (not particularly with you) is that things change. This isn't the 1950's. terrorism or really any criminal activity isn't going to happen the way it used to happen. People looking to do harm to this country aren't going to depend on another Pearl Harbor, or even 9/11. There are terrorist living in the US as we have this conversation. They are living here as US citizens. What are we supposed to do, hope they are dumb enough to get caught before they kill? Nah, I'm perfectly fine with the NSA keeping tabs. I have zero concern that they (the NSA) are looking to somehow track and kill me or my family.

In addition, there are a number of things the government does that you and I don't know about. I like it that way.

I only used the word naive because you said "maybe I'm being naive".

Your reasons for accepting what the government is doing is common and rational on the surface.
1) It helps prevent terror attacks and catch the bad guys.
2) If you're not doing anything wrong, there is no problem.

It's point #2 that is the slippery slope, IMO. As you say things change. You may agree with what is considered wrong today, but that can easily drift to include me (or you) tomorrow. And it could well be politics that decides what is right and wrong and not (the oh so uncommon) common sense. And I think that point #1 is over-stated by those wanting to keep and expand on the government's power. There really is a tradeoff between liberty and safety here and that's a tough call because every individual will draw that line differently. As I said, I'm not an idealist as I perceive SicEm to be (no offense). I'm a pragmatist and I also realize this is not the 1950s or the late 1700s when the constitution was drafted. I accept the government needs to do some tracking. For example, if people are visiting on visas, I can see not treating them the same as citizens. Yes, there are going to be terror casualties of some some percentage of our population. But that will happen regardless of the NSA activities and the only question is how much can be averted. But if the government has free rein, it will impact us all - guaranteed. Because the government is made up of people and that's what people do when they can. Power is as compelling and addictive as any drug.

8timechamps

6/11/2013, 07:48 PM

I only used the word naive because you said "maybe I'm being naive".

Your reasons for accepting what the government is doing is common and rational on the surface.
1) It helps prevent terror attacks and catch the bad guys.
2) If you're not doing anything wrong, there is no problem.

It's point #2 that is the slippery slope, IMO. As you say things change. You may agree with what is considered wrong today, but that can easily drift to include me (or you) tomorrow. And it could well be politics that decides what is right and wrong and not (the oh so uncommon) common sense. And I think that point #1 is over-stated by those wanting to keep and expand on the government's power. There really is a tradeoff between liberty and safety here and that's a tough call because every individual will draw that line differently. As I said, I'm not an idealist as I perceive SicEm to be (no offense). I'm a pragmatist and I also realize this is not the 1950s or the late 1700s when the constitution was drafted. I accept the government needs to do some tracking. For example, if people are visiting on visas, I can see not treating them the same as citizens. Yes, there are going to be terror casualties of some some percentage of our population. But that will happen regardless of the NSA activities and the only question is how much can be averted. But if the government has free rein, it will impact us all - guaranteed. Because the government is made up of people and that's what people do when they can. Power is as compelling and addictive as any drug.

I didn't mean my post to come across abrasive, sorry if it did. I was just curious why you (or anyone thought I might be naive...when clearly I wrote that in an earlier post...whoops).

To the point, I want to make sure that my position on this specific matter does not come across as a proponent of giving the government free reign. I would be/am absolutely against that.

I suppose I'm approaching this more on a conversation level (if that makes sense). I completely agree that we, as US citizens should have privacy. And I also agree that what the NSA has done is shady (for lack of a better word). Where I think I differ is that I am not too upset with it, and since you can't put the toothpaste back in the tube, I don't think there is ever going to be a way to right the "wrong" many feel has occurred.

At this point in human evolution, the only way to avoid being tracked by someone, somewhere, is to remove yourself from the technological mainstream. While it is absolutely possible, it's highly improbable for most in this country (and in most countries). I made the point earlier, and I'll repeat it; it's the price we pay for living the way we do.

FirstandGoal

6/11/2013, 08:21 PM

I only used the word naive because you said "maybe I'm being naive".

Your reasons for accepting what the government is doing is common and rational on the surface.
1) It helps prevent terror attacks and catch the bad guys.
2) If you're not doing anything wrong, there is no problem.

It's point #2 that is the slippery slope, IMO. As you say things change. You may agree with what is considered wrong today, but that can easily drift to include me (or you) tomorrow. And it could well be politics that decides what is right and wrong and not (the oh so uncommon) common sense. And I think that point #1 is over-stated by those wanting to keep and expand on the government's power. There really is a tradeoff between liberty and safety here and that's a tough call because every individual will draw that line differently. As I said, I'm not an idealist as I perceive SicEm to be (no offense). I'm a pragmatist and I also realize this is not the 1950s or the late 1700s when the constitution was drafted. I accept the government needs to do some tracking. For example, if people are visiting on visas, I can see not treating them the same as citizens. Yes, there are going to be terror casualties of some some percentage of our population. But that will happen regardless of the NSA activities and the only question is how much can be averted. But if the government has free rein, it will impact us all - guaranteed. Because the government is made up of people and that's what people do when they can. Power is as compelling and addictive as any drug.

I still don't see where #2 is that slippery of a slope. Just like 8TC says, I also truly believe that this is a case of where "if you're doing nothing wrong, you have nothing to fear" is applicable.

I get up and go to work every day. During the course of the day I probably send and receive dozens upon dozens of texts. I also might send off the occasional email or two. Also usually about once a day I login to FB to see what's going on in the world of my far-flung friends and to keep up with them. I also usually poke around (and make the occasional inane post or two) here and at the hideout a couple times a day. Most days I finish off the day by talking on the phone to my BF for an hour or two. Then it is off to bed to rinse, wash and repeat.
Now, if the government really wants to read my texts and see how much time I waste trying to get various shifts covered and communicating with all of my employees, then more power to them. I promise it is boring even to me and there is absolutely nothing to see there. Whereas my nightly phone calls with my BF are quite enjoyable and fun and amusing for us, I cannot imagine it being of interest to any third party.

rock on sooner

6/11/2013, 08:42 PM

I would put it earlier than that, with Ruby Ridge under Bush the Greater (R) and Waco under Clinton (D). Even then it was a "bipartisan" effort.

Off-topic (Or IS it?): I'm still not putting a modifier to denote "which Clinton?" But the radio this morning said Hillary has a Twitter account now, and in her bio it says her 2016 plans are "TBD." A bit of a change from her denying any interest, when she left the SecState job.

Couple things here, what do you expect the almost certain front runner
in 2016 to do or say? She has at least three superpacs already working
for her, without her sanctions. And, the Pubs have no clue how extensive
her ground game will be in late 2014, early 2015. What Obama had is
small in comparison, jus' sayin...

Gov't intrusion? So long as the Taliban, Al Queda, Al Shabab and any others
you want to name exist, then I, for one, want the best, most dedicated mf'ers
in the world looking out for me. I have nothing to hide, not worried about my
guns, no shame in my politics and can logically, with passion, argue with all the
RWers that care to get rowdy. Bottom line, we ALL need the nosiness, intel and
dedication that the finest we have to offer working for us. Intrusive? Probably.
Necessary? Arguable. BUT, I would rather err on the side of caution.

Now, I'm absolutely certain this flies in the face of most on this board..gov't too
big, too nosy, too heavy handed...so be it. If I was a lot younger, I'd re-up and
do it all again!!!! Jus sayin...

BoulderSooner79

6/12/2013, 12:06 AM

I didn't mean my post to come across abrasive, sorry if it did. I was just curious why you (or anyone thought I might be naive...when clearly I wrote that in an earlier post...whoops).
...

No worries - I didn't sense anything abrasive at all. I was responding in my conversational tone (keyboards only have so much bandwidth).

I still think the attitude that "if you are not doing anything wrong, there's nothing to worry about" has too many counter examples in history for me to buy in. I'm also surprised there are many in this forum that feel that way as most come across as very paranoid of the government. 8time, when you say you don't fear your government you are stating the solution. We need a government that the vast majority don't fear. I don't fear my government yet, but I am wary of the direction. Technology has advanced far faster than society and that will result in abuse. The question is whether the abuse leads to learning and correction or more insidious abuse. I am heartened by the apparent public outrage over this current incident and the resulting dialogue it is forcing. Almost makes me feel like we have some democracy and accountability (well, almost :).

RUSH LIMBAUGH is my clone!

6/12/2013, 12:18 AM

The trend of government intrusion into our private lives has been accelerating at a frightening rate since that asswipe GW was in office. I think all doubt can now be removed that there is any real difference between the two major political parties as to their goal of growing the federal government's control over our lives.haha. You go! Run for office, or find someone to back who is conservative. Yeah, I doubt he or she would consider running as a democrat, huh? You SHOULD know the predictable result if that person runs 3rd party, right? Yup, democrats win again. Simple math. hard to believe you or anyone here wouldn't seem to accept the inevitable reality of the math..

yermom

6/12/2013, 12:35 AM

Haha!

KantoSooner

6/12/2013, 08:56 AM

I think we should consider a slightly different angle on this. So far, we've treated this 'intrusion' as though all such are the same. I would argue that they are not. Recording the phone numbers of who I call and who calls me is very different from monitoring the content of those calls or mounting surveillance cameras in my house or any of a number of other actions we could cite.

How many of you are aware that if you want to transfer $10,000 or more you need to register the transaction, and provide a reason for it? Intrusive? A bit, but not a constitutional issue, in my opinion.

And it continues to mundane things: in Minnesota, you can't legally operate a motor boat without completion of a water safety course and a marking on your driver's license. Intrusive? A bit, but see above.

Some airports in the US and other countries are equipped with sensitive mics that are attached to voice recognition software that is listening for certain keywords. When it hears one, the system alarms to airport security. Thus one's lame pickup lines at the airport bar are being constantly scanned for terroristic intent.Intrusive? Not really.

Contrary to some opinion, the guarantees in our constitution are not terribly clear in each and every circumstance.That's because the drafters knew that they could not anticipate every future circumstance and wanted enough flexibility for the document to be applied long after the drafters were dead and gone. Particularly the closer you get to 'the line' the more arguable constitutional judgements become.

In the present case, procedures laid down by congress and signed into law by a previous president were followed. In other words, the process was not evaded or avoided. A decision was made that a government action was both permissible and valuable enough to warrant doing.

We may agree or disagree, but it is imperative that we understand that, whichever side of the conclusion we wish to support, we are not dealing with any existential issue. We're at most arguing over a judgement call. Our nation needs rational debate, not an assumption that each and every difference of opinion warrants WW3.

jkjsooner

6/12/2013, 09:52 AM

How many of you are aware that if you want to transfer $10,000 or more you need to register the transaction, and provide a reason for it? Intrusive? A bit, but not a constitutional issue, in my opinion.

What is an issue for me is that if you routinely transferred $9999 you could be charged with money laundering. That's true even if you had no ill motives.

I personally feel that money laundering laws are by and large wrong. I don't know what exact legal/constitutional justification to use to say these laws are wrong but they just feel wrong to me. They're also a scapegoat to use when the government can't prove other charges or the main crime (if there is one) doesn't offer a stiff enough penalty.

Anyway, that's pretty far off topic. I do agree with most everything you've said above.

BoulderSooner79

6/12/2013, 10:18 AM

For the most part I agree with you, Kanto. But this clause is one that is troubling:

...
Some airports in the US and other countries are equipped with sensitive mics that are attached to voice recognition software that is listening for certain keywords. When it hears one, the system alarms to airport security. Thus one's lame pickup lines at the airport bar are being constantly scanned for terroristic intent.Intrusive? Not really.
...

What's the difference between a computer program listening to my conversation and a person doing so? Most of use have either used SIRI or had it demonstrated to us. It's pretty impressive at what it recognizes given the constraints of zillions of simultaneous users and having to work in real time. But this is just a consumer product and I'm sure the NSA has more sophisticated programs that can review tagged conversations for more extensive study (doesn't have to respond in realtime). Now extend that technology 10-20 years into the future with computing power doubling every 2 years. Same thing applies to automated video analysis.

These technologies WILL advance to the point of a computer being able to mimic a human in terms of understanding. Microphones and cameras are dirt cheap and will be everywhere. The only thing that will stop a "big brother" society is our collective will to not let it happen through culture and laws reflecting that culture. As far as currently being legal, there are parts of the Patriot Act that have been challenged and certainly not culturally accepted by all. But even if it all turns out to be deemed legal, the NSA's ability to gag private companies such as Verizon, Google, etc. gives them great temptation to work outside the bounds. That same program that listens at airports could easily listen to a conversation on a cell connection even though it's not supposed to happen. Some NSA minion could just be trying to impress his boss by a novel use of the technology. As I've said, the government is made of people with all the flaws and baggage that implies.

BoulderSooner79

6/12/2013, 10:26 AM

One thing I'll add is that it's disappointing this thread appears in "ObamaFest". I guess that's where all political carp lands, but this issue much bigger than the current POTUS and should be bipartisan in nature. But at least it's being discussed.

jkjsooner

6/12/2013, 10:28 AM

For the most part I agree with you, Kanto. But this clause is one that is troubling:

What's the difference between a computer program listening to my conversation and a person doing so?

What makes you think that a conversation in a public space is private? You're not in your home when talking in an airport. If it was sensitive enough to pick up whispers between two people (something they might assume to be private) then you'd have an argument.

I agree that some of these things might go overboard but in a legal sense I don't think you have the expectation of privacy in an airport.

A government agent standing around you listening to what you are saying isn't a search and isn't against the fourth amendment.

One thing I'll add is that it's disappointing this thread appears in "ObamaFest". I guess that's where all political carp lands, but this issue much bigger than the current POTUS and should be bipartisan in nature. But at least it's being discussed.

It's a political issue whether bipartisan or not.

But I agree that there are people like Clone who someone manages (or tries) to turn this into a partisan issue.

KantoSooner

6/12/2013, 11:07 AM

For the most part I agree with you, Kanto. But this clause is one that is troubling:

What's the difference between a computer program listening to my conversation and a person doing so? Most of use have either used SIRI or had it demonstrated to us. It's pretty impressive at what it recognizes given the constraints of zillions of simultaneous users and having to work in real time. But this is just a consumer product and I'm sure the NSA has more sophisticated programs that can review tagged conversations for more extensive study (doesn't have to respond in realtime). Now extend that technology 10-20 years into the future with computing power doubling every 2 years. Same thing applies to automated video analysis.

These technologies WILL advance to the point of a computer being able to mimic a human in terms of understanding. Microphones and cameras are dirt cheap and will be everywhere. The only thing that will stop a "big brother" society is our collective will to not let it happen through culture and laws reflecting that culture. As far as currently being legal, there are parts of the Patriot Act that have been challenged and certainly not culturally accepted by all. But even if it all turns out to be deemed legal, the NSA's ability to gag private companies such as Verizon, Google, etc. gives them great temptation to work outside the bounds. That same program that listens at airports could easily listen to a conversation on a cell connection even though it's not supposed to happen. Some NSA minion could just be trying to impress his boss by a novel use of the technology. As I've said, the government is made of people with all the flaws and baggage that implies.

Those are real concerns, both prospective and present. I think you would also agree that we face real threats from some very vicious adversaries. And that simply ignoring them or attempting to appease them are not policies that are likely to produce desireable results. And I think you'd agree that some, at least, of our protective measures involve secrecy as a sine qua non.

So, how to balance things and avoid throwing the baby out with the bathwater? I personally think we've got a pretty good solution in the intelligence committees. A representative selection of our representatives get pretty much unlimited access and then exercise their judgement on behalf of the rest of us. To me that's a pretty common sense way to make sure that the citizenry has oversight. If you have a competing model, I'll be very happy to hear it.

The Agency, NSA and others are always going to be pushing the edges of what's allowable. That is, in a sense, their job. So there will always be tension. But this number analysis dealio? Passes muster for me. I might not have the same answer for the next proposed program, but to be shocked that something like this was going on is naive. And to be opposed to it on absolutist grounds is, in my opinion, unrealistic.

Midtowner

6/12/2013, 10:14 PM

olevetonahill

6/12/2013, 10:29 PM

8timechamps

6/12/2013, 11:14 PM

What is an issue for me is that if you routinely transferred $9999 you could be charged with money laundering. That's true even if you had no ill motives.

I personally feel that money laundering laws are by and large wrong. I don't know what exact legal/constitutional justification to use to say these laws are wrong but they just feel wrong to me. They're also a scapegoat to use when the government can't prove other charges or the main crime (if there is one) doesn't offer a stiff enough penalty.

Anyway, that's pretty far off topic. I do agree with most everything you've said above.

Do you mean you could be accused of money laundering? I transfer far more than that on a daily basis, and have been for the past 8 years. I've never been charged with money laundering. Everything I transfer is registered, and so long that it is, there is absolutely no issue. IF I were to transfer money (in amounts exceeding the 10K mark) offshore, and failed to register the transaction, then red flags would fly, and I would be questioned. Then, if the facts were uncovered that I was laundering money, I would be charged. If I was legitimately transferring funds in excess of $10K on a regular basis, and made the proper documentation, There would be no charge. Suspicion? Sure, but once investigated (as has been the case more than once with me), everything was given the green light.

8timechamps

6/12/2013, 11:21 PM

For the most part I agree with you, Kanto. But this clause is one that is troubling:

What's the difference between a computer program listening to my conversation and a person doing so? Most of use have either used SIRI or had it demonstrated to us. It's pretty impressive at what it recognizes given the constraints of zillions of simultaneous users and having to work in real time. But this is just a consumer product and I'm sure the NSA has more sophisticated programs that can review tagged conversations for more extensive study (doesn't have to respond in realtime). Now extend that technology 10-20 years into the future with computing power doubling every 2 years. Same thing applies to automated video analysis.

These technologies WILL advance to the point of a computer being able to mimic a human in terms of understanding. Microphones and cameras are dirt cheap and will be everywhere. The only thing that will stop a "big brother" society is our collective will to not let it happen through culture and laws reflecting that culture. As far as currently being legal, there are parts of the Patriot Act that have been challenged and certainly not culturally accepted by all. But even if it all turns out to be deemed legal, the NSA's ability to gag private companies such as Verizon, Google, etc. gives them great temptation to work outside the bounds. That same program that listens at airports could easily listen to a conversation on a cell connection even though it's not supposed to happen. Some NSA minion could just be trying to impress his boss by a novel use of the technology. As I've said, the government is made of people with all the flaws and baggage that implies.

But, we volunteer ourselves and choose to take that risk. Doesn't that put just as much responsibility back on us? I know that there is a set of cameras with facial recognition ability near downtown, and if I'm going downtown, I could just as easily avoid that area. I don't, so I am choosing to accept the risk. Same can be said for just about anything.

I think that your point is the real concern is that people don't get too comfortable and the government takes advantage. I don't think that will ever happen. There will always be people that view anything done by the government behind closed doors as 'evil' or 'wrong'. As long as those people make their concerns known, and stay in the discussion, there will be a de facto check and balance system.

8timechamps

6/12/2013, 11:23 PM

jkjsooner

6/13/2013, 09:28 AM

Do you mean you could be accused of money laundering? I transfer far more than that on a daily basis, and have been for the past 8 years. I've never been charged with money laundering. Everything I transfer is registered, and so long that it is, there is absolutely no issue. IF I were to transfer money (in amounts exceeding the 10K mark) offshore, and failed to register the transaction, then red flags would fly, and I would be questioned. Then, if the facts were uncovered that I was laundering money, I would be charged. If I was legitimately transferring funds in excess of $10K on a regular basis, and made the proper documentation, There would be no charge. Suspicion? Sure, but once investigated (as has been the case more than once with me), everything was given the green light.

I think the idea is that if you transfer just under $10k often then you are attempting to hide the transfers since each individual transfer doesn't have to be reported.

I may be wrong about that in itself being illegal. There might be a further requirement that the money was obtained illegally although I've seen conflicting information on this requirement.

Midtowner

6/13/2013, 10:42 AM

Holy Hell you are one Weird retarded mother ****er.

It's not that nuts. We lost ~3K folks on 9/11. I'm sure we killed way more than 30,000 Afghans, so far.

Total war is like that though and it wouldn't be the first time in even recent history we've targeted civilians.

TAFBSooner

6/13/2013, 12:38 PM

I'd much rather develop a policy of disproportionate and inhuman retribution for the sins of terrorist organizations than give up our civil liberties, e.g., you blow up one of our people? We kill 100 of yours for every one of ours you kill. Completely indiscriminately. Terrorism is the only thing which can defeat terrorism. Hell, we're facing a world population problem anyhow... two birds/one stone.

We shouldn't have to change our way of life when we are so incredibly good at killing people and breaking things.

So maybe that's not realistic, but it sure does feel good to think in those terms.

Surprised to hear this from you, but maybe Vet has had a point all along.

We've killed closer to 300,000 people in Iraq, plus smaller numbers in Afghanistan, Yemen, Pakistan, and others. All we do by killing more of them is to motivate still more of them to attack us. Not That There's Anything RIGHT With That - killing innocent women and children is wrong no matter who does it or what the motivation is.

Facts matter. This article: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/apr/24/boston-terrorism-motives-us-violence quotes many of the Muslims who have tried or succeeded in attacking us.

Neither overwhelming force nor ruthlessness will prevent people from fighting back.

Even if we had no moral qualms about killing people that have done nothing wrong, these "targeted" killings are making us less safe - and that alone is reason to stop doing them.

Besides quotes from the perps themselves, think about the two movies Red Dawn. A highly modernized force of Soviets or "North Koreans" invades and occupies the US. There is no organized US military left to fight them. The occupiers are ruthless and kill civilians at a whim. So do the civilians that are left just give in to being occupied? No, the young men and women take to the back ways and the dark of night to fight back with whatever weapons they can obtain. The danger is in thinking this is an example of US exceptionalism, while in reality it's the way of conquered people everywhere. Now apply this to the young men (and a few women) in the Muslim world when it's the US who is bombing and occupying them.

True, there is a difference between the Red Dawn situation and Muslim terrorists - the latter are attacking civilians while the former were attacking an occupying military. The common thread is that people whose tribesmen are being killed WILL fight back.

None of this means that I hate my country - in fact I love it enough to have served in the military and to have a son in the Guard today. But nowhere is it written that love of country means that you love or approve of everything that it does in your name. In the United States, exceptionally, love of country means you do everything you can to make it a better place to live.

FaninAma

6/13/2013, 03:14 PM

I'm just putting you all on notice that I'll be monitoring all of your posts and anything that trips my key word or key phrase alert criteria will be forwarded to the NSA or FBI.

pphilfran

6/13/2013, 03:15 PM

Bomb

FaninAma

6/13/2013, 03:18 PM

Bomb

http://www.dhs.gov/how-do-i/report-suspicious-activity.

https://forms.us-cert.gov/report/

Reported.

BoulderSooner79

6/13/2013, 03:22 PM

But, we volunteer ourselves and choose to take that risk. Doesn't that put just as much responsibility back on us? I know that there is a set of cameras with facial recognition ability near downtown, and if I'm going downtown, I could just as easily avoid that area. I don't, so I am choosing to accept the risk. Same can be said for just about anything.

I think that your point is the real concern is that people don't get too comfortable and the government takes advantage. I don't think that will ever happen. There will always be people that view anything done by the government behind closed doors as 'evil' or 'wrong'. As long as those people make their concerns known, and stay in the discussion, there will be a de facto check and balance system.

Sure you volunteer to make your actions public when you go to, well, public places. But that's my point. 10 years ago, that wasn't saying much. There were cameras, but they were low tech devices that mostly recorded stuff. It took a human being time and effort to review the data which would only be done if there was some event like a robbery or something that might have been in range. The public far out numbered any potential watchers, so we were all lost in a crowd by default. Zoom forward to today, and those devices are more numerous and now they are all connected online. So technology has changed your little foray into the public square. Extrapolate that forward another 10 years or so and the only way to avoid most of your life being public is to buy rural land, and live the life of a recluse. And it seems the folks willing to do that also feel the need to stockpile food, and weapons and wait for the day they will have to defend themselves from the feds. I don't consider that a meaningful way to live.

So I'm like you, I bank online and interact as a citizen in public. I'm trying to be one of those people you mention in your 2nd paragraph - make it clear I want my government to be transparent. Be part of the check and balance by my vote and voice. I don't consider what the gov does secretly 'evil' or 'wrong' per say. I just consider it ripe for abuse. I shudder to think what would have happened in the 50's if we had today's technology behind the anti-communist movement. People were scared and willing to give up there rights and gave a nut case like McCarthy tons of power. People were harassed and some lives ruined just for joining a political party or being *accused* of being in that party. I experienced a little of that myself after the 9/11 aftermath. I happen to share names with a person that was critical of the Bush administration. That guy published an anti-Bush book and immediately got put on the no-fly list. Well, that put me and everyone else by that name on the no-fly list. I had to go through a hassle at the airport for every flight for years afterward just to get my boarding pass. It was a clear abuse by the government to use the freshly minted patriot act to get back at it's political enemies. I was just collateral damage.

I'm not protesting in the streets, I'm just wary. I work in technology and I see the inevitable march forward of these capabilities and hoping society can keep up with the implications. If the choice comes down to having my behavior controlled by an oppressive government or living as a recluse defending a chunk of dirt with automatic weapons, I'll choose none of the above. I'd look around for a different nation to see if I could find one more civilized.

FaninAma

6/13/2013, 03:29 PM

I don't bank online. I don't get financial statements online. I don't pay bills online. I use a credit card only when required that has a limit less than $1000 for reservations.

KantoSooner

6/14/2013, 08:45 AM

You do realize that your bank stores its records online, right?

8timechamps

6/14/2013, 05:59 PM

Sure you volunteer to make your actions public when you go to, well, public places. But that's my point. 10 years ago, that wasn't saying much. There were cameras, but they were low tech devices that mostly recorded stuff. It took a human being time and effort to review the data which would only be done if there was some event like a robbery or something that might have been in range. The public far out numbered any potential watchers, so we were all lost in a crowd by default. Zoom forward to today, and those devices are more numerous and now they are all connected online. So technology has changed your little foray into the public square. Extrapolate that forward another 10 years or so and the only way to avoid most of your life being public is to buy rural land, and live the life of a recluse. And it seems the folks willing to do that also feel the need to stockpile food, and weapons and wait for the day they will have to defend themselves from the feds. I don't consider that a meaningful way to live.

So I'm like you, I bank online and interact as a citizen in public. I'm trying to be one of those people you mention in your 2nd paragraph - make it clear I want my government to be transparent. Be part of the check and balance by my vote and voice. I don't consider what the gov does secretly 'evil' or 'wrong' per say. I just consider it ripe for abuse. I shudder to think what would have happened in the 50's if we had today's technology behind the anti-communist movement. People were scared and willing to give up there rights and gave a nut case like McCarthy tons of power. People were harassed and some lives ruined just for joining a political party or being *accused* of being in that party. I experienced a little of that myself after the 9/11 aftermath. I happen to share names with a person that was critical of the Bush administration. That guy published an anti-Bush book and immediately got put on the no-fly list. Well, that put me and everyone else by that name on the no-fly list. I had to go through a hassle at the airport for every flight for years afterward just to get my boarding pass. It was a clear abuse by the government to use the freshly minted patriot act to get back at it's political enemies. I was just collateral damage.

I'm not protesting in the streets, I'm just wary. I work in technology and I see the inevitable march forward of these capabilities and hoping society can keep up with the implications. If the choice comes down to having my behavior controlled by an oppressive government or living as a recluse defending a chunk of dirt with automatic weapons, I'll choose none of the above. I'd look around for a different nation to see if I could find one more civilized.

I think we're on the same page.

Looking back at history, would things have been different under the current technological abilitues? Certainly an interesting topic. We can only do our part (to make the government transparent), with the understanding that some things 'need' to remain private (at least that's my opinion). Your situation with the no-fly list sounds terrible, and I can't compare anything I've been through to that. Sadly, the government did abuse the Patriot Act. Hopefully, important things were learned over the period and will not be repeated in the future.

FaninAma

6/14/2013, 06:04 PM

You do realize that your bank stores its records online, right?
That's fine but I'll know who to blame and who to get reimbursemnet from if somebody comes up my ID and records. It won't be from my home computer.

yermom

6/14/2013, 07:19 PM

i'd rather it be online than on paper in the mail (hi Dean)

and i'd much rather have a screw up on a credit card than my bank account where a few days of missing funds could be a nightmare

cleller

6/15/2013, 09:07 AM

On the Big Brother cameras issue: If you've got Netflix, watch some of the modern British detective shows. You know, Inspector this-or-that. Obviously its just TV, but CCTV footage is a huge part of their lives over there. Huge, really gigantic, Donald Trump might say.

The shows are also better than most US stuff, but hardly make life in Britain look more palatable than in the US.

KantoSooner

6/17/2013, 08:45 AM

There was a great feed on cable in Japan that showed the Shibuya intersection (that's the one you saw in Tokyo Drift with six different streets intersecting, where all the cross walks go at once, etc.) It was a normal security cam type shot, not so interesting, until.....

Creative youngsters started going there at one in the morning and having outdoor crazed monkey sex knowing that their antics were being broadcast citywide....but in resolution too low to actually identify them.

It took the cops about 6 weeks to catch on to this. Meantime it became a fixture on bar teevees across the city.

So CCTV has its upside. Just sayin'

SicEmBaylor

7/22/2013, 03:07 AM

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323848804578608040780519904.html

By RADLEY BALKO
On Jan. 4 of last year, a local narcotics strike force conducted a raid on the Ogden, Utah, home of Matthew David Stewart at 8:40 p.m. The 12 officers were acting on a tip from Mr. Stewart's former girlfriend, who said that he was growing marijuana in his basement. Mr. Stewart awoke, naked, to the sound of a battering ram taking down his door. Thinking that he was being invaded by criminals, as he later claimed, he grabbed his 9-millimeter Beretta pistol.

The police say that they knocked and identified themselves, though Mr. Stewart and his neighbors said they heard no such announcement. Mr. Stewart fired 31 rounds, the police more than 250. Six of the officers were wounded, and Officer Jared Francom was killed. Mr. Stewart himself was shot twice before he was arrested. He was charged with several crimes, including the murder of Officer Francom.

The police found 16 small marijuana plants in Mr. Stewart's basement. There was no evidence that Mr. Stewart, a U.S. military veteran with no prior criminal record, was selling marijuana. Mr. Stewart's father said that his son suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder and may have smoked the marijuana to self-medicate.

Early this year, the Ogden city council heard complaints from dozens of citizens about the way drug warrants are served in the city. As for Mr. Stewart, his trial was scheduled for next April, and prosecutors were seeking the death penalty. But after losing a hearing last May on the legality of the search warrant, Mr. Stewart hanged himself in his jail cell.

The police tactics at issue in the Stewart case are no anomaly. Since the 1960s, in response to a range of perceived threats, law-enforcement agencies across the U.S., at every level of government, have been blurring the line between police officer and soldier. Driven by martial rhetoric and the availability of military-style equipment—from bayonets and M-16 rifles to armored personnel carriers—American police forces have often adopted a mind-set previously reserved for the battlefield. The war on drugs and, more recently, post-9/11 antiterrorism efforts have created a new figure on the U.S. scene: the warrior cop—armed to the teeth, ready to deal harshly with targeted wrongdoers, and a growing threat to familiar American liberties.

The acronym SWAT stands for Special Weapons and Tactics. Such police units are trained in methods similar to those used by the special forces in the military. They learn to break into homes with battering rams and to use incendiary devices called flashbang grenades, which are designed to blind and deafen anyone nearby. Their usual aim is to "clear" a building—that is, to remove any threats and distractions (including pets) and to subdue the occupants as quickly as possible.

The country's first official SWAT team started in the late 1960s in Los Angeles. By 1975, there were approximately 500 such units. Today, there are thousands. According to surveys conducted by the criminologist Peter Kraska of Eastern Kentucky University, just 13% of towns between 25,000 and 50,000 people had a SWAT team in 1983. By 2005, the figure was up to 80%.

The number of raids conducted by SWAT-like police units has grown accordingly. In the 1970s, there were just a few hundred a year; by the early 1980s, there were some 3,000 a year. In 2005 (the last year for which Dr. Kraska collected data), there were approximately 50,000 raids.

A number of federal agencies also now have their own SWAT teams, including the Fish & Wildlife Service, NASA and the Department of the Interior. In 2011, the Department of Education's SWAT team bungled a raid on a woman who was initially reported to be under investigation for not paying her student loans, though the agency later said she was suspected of defrauding the federal student loan program.

The details of the case aside, the story generated headlines because of the revelation that the Department of Education had such a unit. None of these federal departments has responded to my requests for information about why they consider such high-powered military-style teams necessary.

Americans have long been wary of using the military for domestic policing. Concerns about potential abuse date back to the creation of the Constitution, when the founders worried about standing armies and the intimidation of the people at large by an overzealous executive, who might choose to follow the unhappy precedents set by Europe's emperors and monarchs.

The idea for the first SWAT team in Los Angeles arose during the domestic strife and civil unrest of the mid-1960s. Daryl Gates, then an inspector with the Los Angeles Police Department, had grown frustrated with his department's inability to respond effectively to incidents like the 1965 Watts riots. So his thoughts turned to the military. He was drawn in particular to Marine Special Forces and began to envision an elite group of police officers who could respond in a similar manner to dangerous domestic disturbances.

Enlarge Image
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Standard-Examiner/Associated Press
When A strike force raided the home of Matthew David Stewart, one officer was killed.
Mr. Gates initially had difficulty getting his idea accepted. Los Angeles Police Chief William Parker thought the concept risked a breach in the divide between the military and law enforcement. But with the arrival of a new chief, Thomas Reddin, in 1966, Mr. Gates got the green light to start training a unit. By 1969, his SWAT team was ready for its maiden raid against a holdout cell of the Black Panthers.

At about the same time, President Richard Nixon was declaring war on drugs. Among the new, tough-minded law-enforcement measures included in this campaign was the no-knock raid—a policy that allowed drug cops to break into homes without the traditional knock and announcement. After fierce debate, Congress passed a bill authorizing no-knock raids for federal narcotics agents in 1970.

Over the next several years, stories emerged of federal agents breaking down the doors of private homes (often without a warrant) and terrorizing innocent citizens and families. Congress repealed the no-knock law in 1974, but the policy would soon make a comeback (without congressional authorization).

During the Reagan administration, SWAT-team methods converged with the drug war. By the end of the 1980s, joint task forces brought together police officers and soldiers for drug interdiction. National Guard helicopters and U-2 spy planes flew the California skies in search of marijuana plants. When suspects were identified, battle-clad troops from the National Guard, the DEA and other federal and local law enforcement agencies would swoop in to eradicate the plants and capture the people growing them.

Advocates of these tactics said that drug dealers were acquiring ever bigger weapons and the police needed to stay a step ahead in the arms race. There were indeed a few high-profile incidents in which police were outgunned, but no data exist suggesting that it was a widespread problem. A study done in 1991 by the libertarian-leaning Independence Institute found that less than one-eighth of 1% of homicides in the U.S. were committed with a military-grade weapon. Subsequent studies by the Justice Department in 1995 and the National Institute for Justice in 2004 came to similar conclusions: The overwhelming majority of serious crimes are committed with handguns, and not particularly powerful ones.

The new century brought the war on terror and, with it, new rationales and new resources for militarizing police forces. According to the Center for Investigative Reporting, the Department of Homeland Security has handed out $35 billion in grants since its creation in 2002, with much of the money going to purchase military gear such as armored personnel carriers. In 2011 alone, a Pentagon program for bolstering the capabilities of local law enforcement gave away $500 million of equipment, an all-time high.

The past decade also has seen an alarming degree of mission creep for U.S. SWAT teams. When the craze for poker kicked into high gear, a number of police departments responded by deploying SWAT teams to raid games in garages, basements and VFW halls where illegal gambling was suspected. According to news reports and conversations with poker organizations, there have been dozens of these raids, in cities such as Baltimore, Charleston, S.C., and Dallas.

In 2006, 38-year-old optometrist Sal Culosi was shot and killed by a Fairfax County, Va., SWAT officer. The investigation began when an undercover detective overheard Mr. Culosi wagering on college football games with some buddies at a bar. The department sent a SWAT team after Mr. Culosi, who had no prior criminal record or any history of violence. As the SWAT team descended, one officer fired a single bullet that pierced Mr. Culosi's heart. The police say that the shot was an accident. Mr. Culosi's family suspects the officer saw Mr. Culosi reaching for his cellphone and thought he had a gun.

Assault-style raids have even been used in recent years to enforce regulatory law. Armed federal agents from the Fish & Wildlife Service raided the floor of the Gibson Guitar factory in Nashville in 2009, on suspicion of using hardwoods that had been illegally harvested in Madagascar. Gibson settled in 2012, paying a $300,000 fine and admitting to violating the Lacey Act. In 2010, the police department in New Haven, Conn., sent its SWAT team to raid a bar where police believed there was underage drinking. For sheer absurdity, it is hard to beat the 2006 story about the Tibetan monks who had overstayed their visas while visiting America on a peace mission. In Iowa, the hapless holy men were apprehended by a SWAT team in full gear.

Unfortunately, the activities of aggressive, heavily armed SWAT units often result in needless bloodshed: Innocent bystanders have lost their lives and so, too, have police officers who were thought to be assailants and were fired on, as (allegedly) in the case of Matthew David Stewart.

In my own research, I have collected over 50 examples in which innocent people were killed in raids to enforce warrants for crimes that are either nonviolent or consensual (that is, crimes such as drug use or gambling, in which all parties participate voluntarily). These victims were bystanders, or the police later found no evidence of the crime for which the victim was being investigated. They include Katherine Johnston, a 92-year-old woman killed by an Atlanta narcotics team acting on a bad tip from an informant in 2006; Alberto Sepulveda, an 11-year-old accidentally shot by a California SWAT officer during a 2000 drug raid; and Eurie Stamps, killed in a 2011 raid on his home in Framingham, Mass., when an officer says his gun mistakenly discharged. Mr. Stamps wasn't a suspect in the investigation.

What would it take to dial back such excessive police measures? The obvious place to start would be ending the federal grants that encourage police forces to acquire gear that is more appropriate for the battlefield. Beyond that, it is crucial to change the culture of militarization in American law enforcement.

Consider today's police recruitment videos (widely available on YouTube), which often feature cops rappelling from helicopters, shooting big guns, kicking down doors and tackling suspects. Such campaigns embody an American policing culture that has become too isolated, confrontational and militaristic, and they tend to attract recruits for the wrong reasons.

If you browse online police discussion boards, or chat with younger cops today, you will often encounter some version of the phrase, "Whatever I need to do to get home safe." It is a sentiment that suggests that every interaction with a citizen may be the officer's last. Nor does it help when political leaders lend support to this militaristic self-image, as New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg did in 2011 by declaring, "I have my own army in the NYPD—the seventh largest army in the world."

The motivation of the average American cop should not focus on just making it to the end of his shift. The LAPD may have given us the first SWAT team, but its motto is still exactly the right ideal for American police officers: To protect and serve.

SWAT teams have their place, of course, but they should be saved for those relatively rare situations when police-initiated violence is the only hope to prevent the loss of life. They certainly have no place as modern-day vice squads.

Many longtime and retired law-enforcement officers have told me of their worry that the trend toward militarization is too far gone. Those who think there is still a chance at reform tend to embrace the idea of community policing, an approach that depends more on civil society than on brute force.

In this very different view of policing, cops walk beats, interact with citizens and consider themselves part of the neighborhoods they patrol—and therefore have a stake in those communities. It's all about a baton-twirling "Officer Friendly" rather than a Taser-toting RoboCop.

SicEmBaylor

7/22/2013, 06:48 PM

http://www.heraldtribune.com/article/20130718/COLUMNIST/130719612?p=1&tc=pg

By Tom Lyons

After leaving her operating room scrub nurse duties at Sarasota's Doctors Hospital on Wednesday, Louise Goldsberry went to her Hidden Lake Village apartment.

Her boyfriend came over, and after dinner — about 8 p.m. — Goldsberry went to her kitchen sink to wash some dishes.

That's when her boyfriend, Craig Dorris — a manager for a security alarm company — heard her scream and saw her drop to the floor.

Goldsberry, 59, said she had looked up from the sink to see a man “wearing a hunting vest.”

He was aiming a gun at her face, with a red light pinpointing her.

“I screamed and screamed,” she said.

But she also scrambled across the floor to her bedroom and grabbed her gun, a five-shot .38-caliber revolver. Goldsberry has a concealed weapons permit and says the gun has made her feel safer living alone. But she felt anything but safe when she heard a man yelling to open the door.

He was claiming to be a police officer, but the man she had seen looked to her more like an armed thug. Her boyfriend, Dorris, was calmer, and yelled back that he wanted to see some ID.

But the man just demanded they open the door. The actual words, the couple say, were, “We're the f------ police; open the f------ door.”

Dorris said he moved away from the door, afraid bullets were about to rip through.

Goldsberry was terrified but thinking it just might really be the police. Except, she says she wondered, would police talk that way? She had never been arrested or even come close. She couldn't imagine why police would be there or want to come in. But even if they did, why would they act like that at her apartment? It didn't seem right.

Then, to the couple's horror — and as Goldsberry huddled in the hallway with gun in hand — the front door they had thought was locked pushed open. A man edged around the corner and pointed a gun and a fiercely bright light at them, and yelled even more.

“Drop the f------ gun or I'll f------ shoot you,” he shouted, then said it again and again, Goldsberry and Dorris say.

Goldsberry was screaming, but Dorris was the calmer one. He could see the armed man was holding a tactical shield for protection. Some zealous gun thug could have one, but, though it was hard to see much, Dorris decided this guy looked well enough equipped to be a cop on a serious felony raid.

Dorris remained frozen and kept his hands in sight. He saw more people outside, and decided it probably was a police action. But he started fearing that in this case that was not much better than a home invasion. With his freaked out girlfriend and the macho commando-style intruder aiming at each other and shouting, someone could be dead at any second.

Dorris told the man at the door he would come outside and talk to them. When he got permission and walked out slowly, hands up, he was amazed at what he saw as he was quickly grabbed and handcuffed.

The cop at the door, and some others, had words on their clothes identifying them as federal marshals, but there were numerous Sarasota Police officers, too, and others he couldn't identify, though his security company job involves work with police.

More than two dozen officers, maybe more than 30, were bustling around, many in tactical jackets.

It was like nothing he had ever seen.

“It was a Rambo movie,” Dorris said.

Soon Dorris yelled to his girlfriend that it was OK to drop the gun and come out, but Goldsberry was too afraid.

She had been yelling, “I'm an American citizen” and saying they had no right to do this. Their standoff continued several more minutes.

Then she set the gun down and walked out, shaking and crying, and also was quickly handcuffed.

They remained cuffed for close to half an hour as the apartment was searched for a wanted man who wasn't there, never had been, and who was totally unknown to them.

They were shown his picture.

Then they were released, the police left, and that was that.

The officer's story

Matt Wiggins was the man at the door.

He's with the U.S. Marshal's fugitive division.

I asked him what happened. He said they had a tip that a child-rape suspect was at the complex.

That suspect, Kyle Riley, was arrested several hours later in another part of Sarasota.

The tip was never about Goldsberry's apartment, specifically, Wiggins acknowledged. It was about the complex.

But when the people in Goldsberry's apartment didn't open up, that told Wiggins he had probably found the right door. No one at other units had reacted that way, he said.

Maybe none of them had a gun pointed at them through the kitchen window, I suggested. But Wiggins didn't think that was much excuse for the woman's behavior. He said he acted with restraint and didn't like having that gun aimed at him.

“I went above and beyond,” Wiggins said. “I have to go home at night.”

Goldsberry was at home, I said. She had a gun pointed at her, too, and she wasn't wearing body armor and behind a shield. She had no reason to expect police or think police would ever aim into her kitchen and cuss at her through her door to get in. It seemed crazy. She was panicked.

“We were clearly the police,” Wiggins insisted. “She can't say she didn't know.”

She does say so, actually.

“I couldn't see them. They had a big light in my eyes,” Goldsberry said the next day. And that man she saw aiming a gun through her window had nothing visible that said “cop,” in her mind.

“I was thinking, is this some kind of nutjob?”

No, just a well-trained officer who knows how to go after a man assumed to be a dangerous felon, but isn't so good at understanding a frightened woman confronted with an aggressive armed stranger coming after her in her own home.

“I feel bad for her,” Wiggins conceded, finally. “But at the same time, I had to reasonably believe the bad guy was in her house based on what they were doing.”

Goldsberry wasn't arrested or shot despite pointing a gun at a cop, so Wiggins said, “She sure shouldn't be going to the press.”

Tom Lyons can be contacted at [email protected] or (941) 361-4964.

SicEmBaylor

7/22/2013, 06:53 PM

'Merica.

soonerhubs

7/22/2013, 11:31 PM

That Ogden Utah story was just down the street. Crazy!

TAFBSooner

7/23/2013, 05:02 PM

http://www.heraldtribune.com/article/20130718/COLUMNIST/130719612?p=1&tc=pgWiggins said. “I have to go home at night.”

There have been far too many innocent civilians who will never go home ever again, thanks to police thinking and acting like this. Who died and made them God?

I will say kudos to this particular officer for holding fire. Maybe he'll start a trend . . .

jkjsooner

7/24/2013, 08:52 AM

This first issue is ridiculous. I have to commend SicEm for concentrating some attention to local police units. Too often some people only concern themselves with the actions of federal authorities especially if it happens to be the ATF. These no knock raids are troublesome whether the target is the black panthers or a grandmother.

As for the second one, it's a tough situation that none of us want to be in. That's one reason I don't arm myself. I don't know whether I'd make the correct decision in all cases. I'd rather be killed than kill a cop.

I don't like no-knock raids because they present a confusing situation where a gun fight can ensue by accident and of course the civilian almost never gets the benefit of the doubt. However, in the second case the lady appeared to remain armed well after the police identified themselves. At that point it becomes her fault. Whent someone identifies themselves as a police officer, whether it be from an unmarked police car making a traffic stop, a policeman knocking at your door, or a raid in your home, we have to put trust in them. That is why I think that impersonating an officer has to be one of the most severe crimes there is.

TAFBSooner

7/24/2013, 11:41 AM

. Whent someone identifies themselves as a police officer, whether it be from an unmarked police car making a traffic stop, a policeman knocking at your door, or a raid in your home, we have to put trust in them.

How does the average civilian know the difference between a home invasion and a no-knock raid? Are the criminals more likely to come in shooting?

This is a serious question. My experience with police has been traffic stops and collecting my schizophrenic son when he takes off walking for a day or three, and in no case (going back about 4 decades) has the officer been anything less than professional.

jkjsooner

7/24/2013, 01:17 PM

How does the average civilian know the difference between a home invasion and a no-knock raid? Are the criminals more likely to come in shooting?

First, I said I have problems with no-knock raid except in the most extreme cases. Ideally they will clearly identify themselves verbally as they enter the residence and show identification once it is possible to do so.

Of course it isn't hard to say you're the police if you are not and probably not too hard to get a real looking ID. That's why impersonating the police to commit a crime (other than the impersonation) should get you locked up for life (at best).

TAFBSooner

7/27/2013, 10:09 PM

http://www.alternet.org/print/civil-liberties/sen-ron-wyden-nsa-spying-its-bad-snowden-says

Part 1 of 2

Sen. Ron Wyden On NSA Spying: It's As Bad As Snowden Says
July 25, 2013 |

Editor's note: This is a transcript from a speech given on Tuesday, July 23, at the Center for American Progress in Washington.

When the Patriot Act was last reauthorized, I stood on the floor of the United States Senate and said, “I want to deliver a warning this afternoon. When the American people find out how their government has interpreted the Patriot Act, they are going to be stunned and they are going to be angry.”

From my position on the Senate Intelligence Committee, I had seen government activities conducted under the umbrella of the Patriot Act that I knew would astonish most Americans. At the time, Senate rules about classified information barred me from giving any specifics of what I’d seen except to describe it as "secret law"—a secret interpretation of the Patriot Act, issued by a secret court, that authorizes secret surveillance programs; programs that I and colleagues think go far beyond the intent of the statute.

If that is not enough to give you pause, then consider that not only were the existence of and the legal justification for these programs kept completely secret from the American people, senior officials from across the government were making statements to the public about domestic surveillance that were clearly misleading and at times simply false. Senator Mark Udall and I tried again and again to get the executive branch to be straight with the public, but under the classification rules observed by the Senate we are not even allowed to tap the truth out in Morse code * and we tried just about everything else we could think of to warn the American people. But as I’ve said before, one way or another, the truth always wins out.

Edward Snowden’s Revelations

Last month, disclosures made by an NSA contractor lit the surveillance world on fire. Several provisions of secret law were no longer secret and the American people were finally able to see some of the things I’ve been raising the alarm about for years. And when they did, boy were they stunned, and boy, are they angry.

You hear it in the lunch rooms, town hall meetings and senior citizen centers. The latest polling, the well*-respected Quinnipiac poll, found that a plurality of people said the government is overreaching and encroaching too much on Americans’ civil liberties. That’s a huge swing from what that same survey said just a couple years ago, and that number is trending upward. As more information about sweeping government surveillance of law*abiding Americans is made public and the American people can discuss its impacts, I believe more Americans will speak out. They’re going to say, in America, you don’t have to settle for one priority or the other: laws can be written to protect both privacy and security, and laws should never be secret.

After 9/11, when 3,000 Americans were murdered by terrorists, there was a consensus that our government needed to take decisive action. At a time of understandable panic, Congress gave the government new surveillance authorities, but attached an expiration date to these authorities so that they could be deliberated more carefully once the immediate emergency had passed. Yet in the decade since, that law has been extended several times with no public discussion about how the law has actually been interpreted. The result: the creation of an always expanding, omnipresent surveillance state that ** hour by hour ** chips needlessly away at the liberties and freedoms our founders established for us, without the benefit of actually making us any safer.

So, today I’m going to deliver another warning: If we do not seize this unique moment in our constitutional history to reform our surveillance laws and practices, we will all live to regret it. I’ll have more to say about the consequences of the omnipresent surveillance state, but as you listen to this talk, ponder that most of us have a computer in our pocket that potentially can be used to track and monitor us 24/7. The combination of increasingly advanced technology with a breakdown in the checks and balances that limit government action could lead us to a surveillance state that cannot be reversed.

What’s Happened Since 9/11

At this point, a little bit of history might be helpful. I joined the Senate Intelligence Committee in January 2001, just before 9/11. Like most senators I voted for the original Patriot Act, in part because I was reassured that it had an expiration date that would force Congress to come back and consider these authorities more carefully when the immediate crisis had passed. As time went on, from my view on the Intelligence Committee there were developments that seemed farther and farther removed from the ideals of our founding fathers.

This started not long after 9/11, with a Pentagon program called Total Information Awareness, which was essentially an effort to develop an ultra* large-*scale domestic data*mining system. Troubled by this effort, and its not-exactly-modest logo of an all*-seeing eye on the universe, I worked with a number of senators to shut it down. Unfortunately, this was hardly the last domestic surveillance overreach. In fact, the NSA’s infamous warrantless wiretapping program was already up and running at that point, though I, and most members of the Intelligence Committee didn’t learn about it until a few years later. This was part of a pattern of withholding information from Congress that persisted throughout the Bush administration * I joined the Intelligence Committee in 2001, but I learned about the warrantless wiretapping program when you read about it in the New York Times in late 2005.

The Bush administration spent most of 2006 attempting to defend the warrantless wiretapping program. Once again, when the truth came out, it produced a surge of public pressure and the Bush administration announced that they would submit to oversight from Congress and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, also known as the FISA court. Unfortunately, because the FISA court’s rulings are secret, most Americans had no idea that the court was prepared to issue incredibly broad rulings, permitting the massive surveillance that finally made headlines last month.

It’s now a matter of public record that the bulk phone records program has been operating since at least 2007. It’s not a coincidence that a handful of senators have been working since then to find ways to alert the public about what has been going on. Months and years went into trying to find ways to raise public awareness about secret surveillance authorities within the confines of classification rules. I and several of my colleagues have made it our mission to end the use of secret law.

When Oregonians hear the words "secret law," they have come up to me and asked, “Ron, how can the law be secret? When you guys pass laws that’s a public deal. I’m going to look them up online.” In response, I tell Oregonians that there are effectively two Patriot Acts **the first is the one that they can read on their laptop in Medford or Portland, analyze and understand. Then there’s the real Patriot Act—the secret interpretation of the law that the government is actually relying upon. The secret rulings of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court have interpreted the Patriot Act, as well as section 702 of the FISA statute, in some surprising ways, and these rulings are kept entirely secret from the public. These rulings can be astoundingly broad. The one that authorizes the bulk collection of phone records is as broad as any I have ever seen.

This reliance of government agencies on a secret body of law has real consequences. Most Americans don’t expect to know the details about ongoing sensitive military and intelligence activities, but as voters they absolutely have a need and a right to know what their government thinks it is permitted to do, so that they can ratify or reject decisions that elected officials make on their behalf. To put it another way, Americans recognize that intelligence agencies will sometimes need to conduct secret operations, but they don’t think those agencies should be relying on secret law.

Now, some argue that keeping the meaning of surveillance laws secret is necessary, because it makes it easier to gather intelligence on terrorist groups and other foreign powers. If you follow this logic, when Congress passed the original Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act back in the 1970s, they could have found a way to make the whole thing secret, so that Soviet agents wouldn’t know what the FBI’s surveillance authorities were. But that’s not the way you do it in America.

It is a fundamental principle of American democracy that laws should not be public only when it is convenient for government officials to make them public. They should be public all the time, open to review by adversarial courts, and subject to change by an accountable legislature guided by an informed public. If Americans are not able to learn how their government is interpreting and executing the law then we have effectively eliminated the most important bulwark of our democracy. That’s why, even at the height of the Cold War, when the argument for absolute secrecy was at its zenith, Congress chose to make US surveillance laws public.

Without public laws, and public court rulings interpreting those laws, it is impossible to have informed public debate. And when the American people are in the dark, they can’t make fully informed decisions about who should represent them, or protest policies that they disagree with. These are fundamentals. It’s Civics 101. And secret law violates those basic principles. It has no place in America.

The Truth About the FISA Court

Now let’s turn to the secret court* the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, the one virtually no one had heard of two months ago and now the public asks me about at the barber. When the FISA court was created as part of the 1978 FISA law, its work was pretty routine. It was assigned to review government applications for wiretaps and decide whether the government was able to show probable cause. Sounds like the garden-variety function of district court judges across America. In fact, their role was so much like a district court that the judges who make up the FISA court are all current federal district court judges.

After 9/11, Congress passed the Patriot Act and the FISA Amendments Act. This gave the government broad new surveillance powers that didn’t much resemble anything in either the criminal law enforcement world or the original FISA law. The FISA court got the job of interpreting these new, unparalleled authorities of the Patriot Act and FISA Amendments Act. They chose to issue binding secret rulings that interpreted the law and the Constitution in the startling way that has come to light in the last six weeks. They were to issue the decision that the Patriot Act could be used for dragnet, bulk surveillance of law*-abiding Americans.

Outside the names of the FISA court judges, virtually everything else is secret about the court. Their rulings are secret, which makes challenging them in an appeals court almost impossible. Their proceedings are secret too, but I can tell you that they are almost always one*sided. The government lawyers walk in and lay out an argument for why the government should be allowed to do something, and the court decides based solely on the judge’s assessment of the government’s arguments. That’s not unusual if a court is considering a routine warrant request, but it’s very unusual if a court is doing major legal or constitutional analysis. I know of absolutely no other court in this country that strays so far from the adversarial process that has been part of our system for centuries.

It may also surprise you to know that when President Obama came to office, his administration agreed with me that these rulings needed to be made public. In the summer of 2009 I received a written commitment from the Justice Department and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence that a process would be created to start redacting and declassifying FISA court opinions, so that the American people could have some idea of what the government believes the law allows it to do. In the last four years exactly zero opinions have been released.

TAFBSooner

7/27/2013, 10:11 PM

Part 2 of 3

Now that we know a bit about secret law and the court that created it, let’s talk about how it has diminished the rights of every American man, woman and child. Despite the efforts of the intelligence community leadership to downplay the privacy impact of the Patriot Act collection, the bulk collection of phone records significantly impacts the privacy of million of law*-abiding Americans. If you know who someone called, when they called, where they called from, and how long they talked, you lay bare the personal lives of law*abiding Americans to the scrutiny of government bureaucrats and outside contractors. This is particularly true if you’re vacuuming up cell phone location data, essentially turning every American’s cell phone into a tracking device. We are told this is not happening today, but intelligence officials have told the press that they currently have the legal authority to collect Americans’ location information in bulk.

Especially troubling is the fact that there is nothing in the Patriot Act that limits this sweeping bulk collection to phone records. The government can use the Patriot Act’s business records authority to collect, collate and retain all sorts of sensitive information, including medical records, financial records, or credit card purchases. They could use this authority to develop a database of gun owners or readers of books and magazines deemed subversive. This means that the government’s authority to collect information on law*abiding American citizens is essentially limitless. If it is a record held by a business, membership organization, doctor, or school, or any other third party, it could be subject to bulk collection under the Patriot Act.

Authorities this broad give the national security bureaucracy the power to scrutinize the personal lives of every law*-abiding American. Allowing that to continue is a grave error that demonstrates a willful ignorance of human nature. Moreover, it demonstrates a complete disregard for the responsibilities entrusted to us by the founding fathers to maintain robust checks and balances on the power of any arm of the government. That obviously raises some very serious questions. What happens to our government, our civil liberties and our basic democracy if the surveillance state is allowed to grow unchecked?

As we have seen in recent days, the intelligence leadership is determined to hold on to this authority. Merging the ability to conduct surveillance that reveals every aspect of a person’s life with the ability to conjure up the legal authority to execute that surveillance, and finally, removing any accountable judicial oversight, creates the opportunity for unprecedented influence over our system of government.

Why Checks And Balances Are Needed

Without additional protections in the law, every single one of us in this room may be and can be tracked and monitored anywhere we are at any time. The piece of technology we consider vital to the conduct of our everyday personal and professional life happens to be a combination phone bug, listening device, location tracker, and hidden camera. There isn’t an American alive who would consent to being required to carry any one of those items and so we must reject the idea that the government may use its powers to arbitrarily bypass that consent.

Today, government officials are openly telling the press that they have the authority to effectively turn Americans’ smart phones and cell phones into location*-enabled homing beacons. Compounding the problem is the fact that the case law is unsettled on cell phone tracking and the leaders of the intelligence community have consistently been unwilling to state what the rights of law*abiding people are on this issue. Without adequate protections built into the law there’s no way that Americans can ever be sure that the government isn’t going to interpret its authorities more and more broadly, year after year, until the idea of a telescreen monitoring your every move turns from dystopia to reality.

Some would say that could never happen because there is secret oversight and secret courts that guard against it. But the fact of the matter is that senior policymakers and federal judges have deferred again and again to the intelligence agencies to decide what surveillance authorities they need. For those who believe executive branch officials will voluntarily interpret their surveillance authorities with restraint, I believe it is more likely that I will achieve my life*long dream of playing in the NBA.

But seriously, when James Madison was attempting to persuade Americans that the Constitution contained sufficient protections against any politician or bureaucrat seizing more power than that granted to them by the people, he did not just ask his fellow Americans to trust him. He carefully laid out the protections contained in the Constitution and how the people could ensure they were not breached. We are failing our constituents, we are failing our founders, and we are failing every brave man and woman who fought to protect American democracy if we are willing, today, to just trust any individual or any agency with power greater than the checked and limited authority that serves as a firewall against tyranny.

Now I want to spend a few minutes talking about those who make up the intelligence community and day in and day out work to protect us all. Let me be clear: I have found the men and women who work at our nation’s intelligence agencies to be hard*working, dedicated professionals. They are genuine patriots who make real sacrifices to serve their country. They should be able to do their jobs secure in the knowledge that there is public support for everything that they are doing. Unfortunately, that can’t happen when senior officials from across the government mislead the public about the government’s surveillance authorities.

And let’s be clear: the public was not just kept in the dark about the Patriot Act and other secret authorities. The public was actively misled. I’ve pointed out several instances in the past where senior officials have made misleading statements to the public and to Congress about the types of surveillance they are conducting on the American people, and I’ll recap some of the most significant examples.

For years, senior Justice Department officials have told Congress and the public that the Patriot Act’s business record authority * which is the authority that is used to collect the phone records of millions of ordinary Americans * is “analogous to a grand jury subpoena.” This statement is exceptionally misleading. It strains the word “analogous” well beyond the breaking point. It’s certainly true that both authorities can be used to collect a wide variety of records, but the Patriot Act has been secretly interpreted to permit ongoing bulk collection, and this makes that authority very, very different from regular grand jury subpoena authority. Any lawyers in here? After the speech is over come up and tell me if you’ve ever seen a grand jury subpoena that allowed the government on an ongoing basis to collect the records of millions of ordinary Americans.

The fact is that no one has seen a subpoena like that is because there aren’t any. This incredibly misleading analogy has been made by more than one official on more than one occasion and often as part of testimony to Congress. The official who served for years as the Justice Department’s top authority on criminal surveillance law recently told the Wall Street Journal that if a federal attorney “served a grand*jury subpoena for such a broad class of records in a criminal investigation, he or she would be laughed out of court.”

Years of Deceiving Congress

Defenders of this deception have said that members of Congress have the ability to get the full story of what the government is doing on a classified basis, so they shouldn’t complain when officials make misleading public statements, even in congressional hearings. That is an absurd argument. Sure, members of Congress could get the full story in a classified setting, but that does not excuse the practice of half truths and misleading statements being made on the public record. When did it become all right for government officials’ public statements and private statements to differ so fundamentally? The answer is that it is not all right, and it is indicative of a much larger culture of misinformation that goes beyond the congressional hearing room and into the public conversation writ large.

For example, last spring the director of the National Security Agency spoke over at the American Enterprise Institute, where he said publicly that “we don’t hold data on U.S. citizens.” That statement sounds reassuring, but of course the American people now know that it is false. In fact, it’s one of the most false statements ever made about domestic surveillance. Later that same year, at the annual hackers’ conference known as DefCon, the same NSA director said that the government does not collect “dossiers” on millions of Americans. Now I’ve served on the Intelligence Committee for a dozen years and I didn’t know what “dossiers” meant in this context. I do know that Americans not familiar with the classified details would probably hear that statement and think that there was no bulk collection of the personal information of hundreds of millions of Americans taking place.

After the director of the NSA made this statement in public, Senator Udall and I wrote to the director asking for a clarification. In our letter we asked whether the NSA collects any type of data at all on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans. Even though the director of the NSA was the one who had raised this issue publicly, intelligence officials declined to give us a straight answer.

TAFBSooner

7/27/2013, 10:13 PM

Part 3 of 3

A few months ago, I made the judgement that I would not be responsibly carrying out my oversight powers if I didn’t press intelligence officials to clarify what the NSA director told the public about data collection. So I decided it was necessary to put the question to the director of National Intelligence. And I had my staff send the question over a day in advance so that he would be prepared to answer. The director unfortunately said that the answer was no, the NSA does not knowingly collect data on millions of Americans, which is obviously not correct.

After the hearing, I had my staff call the director’s office on a secure line and urge them to correct the record. Disappointingly, his office decided to let this inaccurate statement stand. My staff made it clear that this was wrong and that it was unacceptable to leave the American public misled. I continued to warn the public about the problem of secret surveillance law over the following weeks, until the June disclosures.

Even after those disclosures, there has been an effort by officials to exaggerate the effectiveness of the bulk phone records collection program by conflating it with the collection of Internet communications under Section 702 of the FISA statute. This collection, which involves the PRISM computer system, has produced some information of real value. I will note that last summer I was able to get the executive branch to declassify the fact that the FISA court has ruled on at least one occasion that this collection violated the Fourth Amendment in a way that affected an undisclosed number of Americans. And the court also said that the government has violated the spirit of the law as well. So, I think section 702 clearly needs stronger protections for the privacy of law*-abiding Americans, and I think these protections could be added without losing the value of this collection. But I won’t deny that this value exists.

Meanwhile, I have not seen any indication that the bulk phone records program yielded any unique intelligence that was not also available to the government through less intrusive means. When government officials refer to these programs collectively, and say that “these programs” provided unique intelligence without pointing out that one program is doing all the work and the other is basically just along for the ride, in my judgment that is also a misleading statement.

And there have also been a number of misleading and inaccurate statements made about section 702 collection as well. Last month, Senator Udall and I wrote to the NSA director to point out that the NSA’s official fact sheet contained some misleading information and a significant inaccuracy that made protections for Americans’ privacy sound much stronger than they actually are. The next day that fact sheet was taken down from the front page of the NSA website. Would the misleading fact sheet still be up there if Senator Udall and I hadn’t pushed to take it down? Given what it took to correct the misleading statements of the director of National Intelligence and the National Security Agency that may well be the case.

What Are You Going To Do About It?

So having walked you through how secret law, interpreted by a secret court, authorized secret surveillance, the obvious question is, what is next? Ron, what are you going to do about it?

A few weeks ago more than a quarter of the U.S. Senate wrote to the director of National Intelligence demanding public answers to additional questions about the use of the government’s surveillance authorities. It’s been two months since the disclosures by Mr. Snowden, and the signers of this letter—including key members of the senate leadership and committee chairs with decades of experience—have made it clear they are not going to accept more stonewalling or misleading statements. Patriot Act reform legislation has also been introduced. The centerpiece of this effort would require that the government show a demonstrated link to terrorism or espionage before collecting Americans’ personal information.

Senators have also proposed legislation that would ensure that the legal analysis of secret court opinions interpreting surveillance law is declassified in a responsible manner. And I am collaborating with colleagues to develop other reforms that will bring openness, accountability, and the benefits of an adversarial process to the anachronistic operations of the most secretive court in America. And most importantly, I and my colleagues are working to keep the public debate alive. We have exposed misleading statements. We are holding officials accountable. And we are showing that liberty and security are not incompatible. The fact is, the side of transparency and openness is starting to put some points on the board.

As many of you are now aware, the NSA also had a bulk email records program that was similar to the bulk phone records program. This program operated under section 214 of the Patriot Act, which is known as the “pen register” provision, until fairly recently. My Intelligence Committee colleague Senator Udall and I were very concerned about this program’s impact on Americans’ civil liberties and privacy rights, and we spent a significant portion of 2011 pressing intelligence officials to provide evidence of its effectiveness. It turned out that they were unable to do so, and that statements that had been made about this program to both Congress and the FISA court had significantly exaggerated the program’s effectiveness. The program was shut down that same year. So that was a big win for everyone who cares about Americans’ privacy and civil liberties, even though Senator Udall and I weren’t able to tell anyone about it until just a few weeks ago.

More recently, when the annual Intelligence Authorization bill was going through the Intelligence Committee late last year it included a few provisions that were meant to stop intelligence leaks but that would have been disastrous to the news media’s ability to report on foreign policy and national security. Among other things, it would have restricted the ability of former government officials to talk to the press, even about unclassified foreign policy matters. And it would have prohibited intelligence agencies from making anyone outside of a few high*level officials available for background briefings, even on unclassified matters. These provisions were intended to stop leaks, but it’s clear to me that they would have significantly encroached upon the First Amendment, and led to a less*informed public debate on foreign policy and national security matters.

These anti*leaks provisions went through the committee process in secret, and the bill was agreed to by a vote of 14-*1 (I’ll let you all guess who that nay vote was). The bill then made its way to the Senate floor and a public debate. Once the bill became public, of course, it was promptly eviscerated by media and free speech advocates, who saw it as a terrible idea. I put a hold on the bill so that it could not be quickly passed without the discussion it deserved and within weeks, all of the anti*leaks provisions were removed.

A few months later, my colleagues and I were finally able to get the official Justice Department opinions laying out what the government believes the rules are for the targeted killings of Americans. You probably know this as the drones issue. These documents on killing Americans weren’t even being shared with members of Congress on a classified basis, let alone with the American people. You may have heard me say this before, but I believe every American has the right to know when their government thinks it is allowed to kill them. My colleagues and I fought publicly and privately to get these documents, used whatever procedural opportunities were available, and eventually got the documents we had demanded.

Since then we’ve been looking them over and working out a strategy that would allow for the pertinent portions of these documents to be made public. I don’t take a backseat to anybody when it comes to protecting genuinely sensitive national security information, and I think most Americans expect that government agencies will sometimes conduct secret operations. But those agencies should never rely on secret law or authorities granted by secret courts.

SicEmBaylor

7/28/2013, 09:12 PM

SWAT Officers Dragged 10-Year-Old from Bathtub, Made Him Stand Naked Next to 4-Year-Old Sister, Terrorized Family

http://www.alternet.org/print/news-amp-politics/lawsuit-swat-officers-dragged-10-year-old-bathtub-made-him-stand-naked-next-4-year