Verizon providing all call records to U.S. under court order

[WhiteLight]

The National Security Agency appears to be collecting the telephone records of tens of millions of American customers of Verizon, one of the nation’s largest phone companies, under a top-secret court order issued in April.

The order appears to require a Verizon subsidiary to provide the NSA with daily information on all telephone calls by its customers within the United States and from foreign locations into the United States.

Verizon providing all call records to U.S. under court order - The Washington Post

 

[Dave_W]

Welcome to the post 9-11 world of the Patriot Act. It quietly and single handedly striped away a large portion of our civil liberties. Frankly, I'm a little surprised that people are taking this so hard. We've been under the microscope for almost 12 yrs now, it's not like there's anything new going on.

 

[Krs_2007]

We were under the microscope long before that, its just that we are now hearing about it. I dont have anything to hide but still dont care too much for it. Land of the free, right. Oh well, I left politics a while back and refuse to go back to it. Nothing on the national level but still just as bad.

 

[Dave_W]

My wife is part of the HOA board committee and if you think our national politics are rough, you should sit in on one of our meetings. It's like a Jerry Springer show!

 

[BackdoorArts]

The odd thing is that, as I understand it, this is a renewal of a request for data that has been in place for half a decade. I suspect the motivation behind making an issue of it now has to do with the other bits floating around in the news. The right wants one more reason to pound the White House, the left wants to distract the populace from the bigger issues floating around the President. As Dave said, just one more liberty we gave up in the name of "safety". The Patriot Act was nothing but a blanket grab at personal freedoms, all but making a joke of the Bill of Rights, whether we want to still tout it or not. There's not a lot our government can't do to any of us simply by labeling us in a way that slides us under the umbrella of the PA. We should all lose sleep over it, if we could honestly do anything about it.

 

[WhiteLight]

We've been under the microscope for almost 12 yrs now, it's not like there's anything new going on.

Are we certain about that Dave?
You rightly stated that this has been happening or has happened 12 years back.. and we hearing about it today..
You can imagine what may have transpired in the last 12 years...
which we may probably hear about 10 years down the line.. if we are lucky...

But as Jake said, it is definitely something to loose sleep over cos the USA has been a leader in all respects by a far distance.
The American way of life was only a dream for most other countries... and they have been following the path set by America...
But not certain the direction that path has been taking in the recent past.. and with everyone else following, we are not just at risk on a national level, but possibly on a planetary level.
A fight for the most basic right - freedom

 

[AC016]

The US Government has been spying on it's own citizens for a lot longer than anyone thinks and well before 9/11, cellphones, Facebook, Twitter, etc. Let's not be surprised here. It's time to go off the grid

 

[Dave_W]

Are we certain about that Dave?
You rightly stated that this has been happening or has happened 12 years back.. and we hearing about it today..
You can imagine what may have transpired in the last 12 years...
which we may probably hear about 10 years down the line.. if we are lucky...

But as Jake said, it is definitely something to loose sleep over cos the USA has been a leader in all respects by a far distance.
The American way of life was only a dream for most other countries... and they have been following the path set by America...
But not certain the direction that path has been taking in the recent past.. and with everyone else following, we are not just at risk on a national level, but possibly on a planetary level.
A fight for the most basic right - freedom

Yes, I agree with you. But not to sound overly cynical, our freedoms are only there when they're convenient. One need only look at the Japanese-Americans during WWII or J.Edgar Hoover's FBI treatment of the civil rights and anti-war organizations in the 1960's. I would venture to say there are few things going on now that weren't going on before the Patriot Act. The only difference is the information gleaned can be used in a court of law whereas before it couldn't.

 

[ohkphoto]

All I have to say about all of this is:

1. Sadly, we live in a culture of fear, and that tends to bring out the worst in many . . . on one extreme you have those who cringe in fear of everything and over-react by reporting innocent photographers in a park as potential sex offenders (as an example) and on the other, you have "officials" exploiting the "fear of the masses" with over zealous "monitoring" in the name of "protection"

2. What is the REALISTIC definition of freedom . . . like the saying goes, "Your freedom ends where my nose begins."

3. I would not want to be the "low level analyst" who is assigned the insane task of sorting through the mindless dribble that has to be in all those texts and phone records.

 

[WhiteLight]

Some more interesting bits of info...

U.S. government admits to massive online spying

The U.S. government has been secretly collecting emails, chats and other personal information about foreigners from companies including Facebook, Google and Apple, officials admit.
The secret program, revealed at first by the Washington Post and the Guardian newspapers, said the FBI and the National Security Agency can scour data including emails, chats, stored files, video and audio to help analysts track a person's movements and contacts.
Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Facebook, PalTalk, AOL, Skype, YouTube and Apple are all said to be part of the program —known as Prism. Most have denied giving the government access to their data.
Late Thursday, James Clapper, U.S. director of national intelligence, confirmed the existence of Prism and another recently revealed surveillance program — under which Verizon handed over the phone records of U.S. customers — in an effort to tamp down the public uproar.

U.S. government admits to massive online spying - World - CBC News

Paper: UK Government Getting US Spy Agency's Data

Britain's Guardian newspaper says that the U.K. government has been secretly gathering communications data from American Internet giants through the medium of the U.S. National Security Agency.
The paper says that it has seen documents showing how the British eavesdropping agency GCHQ has had access to America's "Prism" system since at least June 2010.
It says the program has generated 197 intelligence reports in the past year.
GCHQ declined to comment on the story Friday, saying only that it takes its legal obligations "very seriously."
The Guardian has recently published a series of stories on America's secret surveillance dragnet, revealing the stunning details of an undisclosed intelligence operation targeting millions of Americans' phone, email, and Internet records.

Paper: UK Government Getting US Spy Agency's Data - ABC News

U.S., British intelligence mining data from nine U.S. Internet companies in broad secret program

The National Security Agency and the FBI are tapping directly into the central servers of nine leading U.S. Internet companies, extracting audio and video chats, photographs, e-mails, documents, and connection logs that enable analysts to track foreign targets, according to a top-secret document obtained by The Washington Post. The program, code-named PRISM, has not been made public until now. It may be the first of its kind. The NSA prides itself on stealing secrets and breaking codes, and it is accustomed to corporate partnerships that help it divert data traffic or sidestep barriers. But there has never been a Google or Facebook before, and it is unlikely that there are richer troves of valuable intelligence than the ones in Silicon Valley.

U.S., British intelligence mining data from nine U.S. Internet companies in broad secret program - The Washington Post

 

[Dave_W]

"That thing that hath been, it is that which shall be;
and that which is done is that which shall be done:
there is no new thing under the sun."


Ecclesiastes 1:9

 

[ABN Panzer]

I was going to call and give them a piece of my mind.... But they have my records and already know what I am thinking