Snowden again.. Why? (Page 2)

I read an article the other day that spoke of "President Palin" having access to all this information in four years.  It was a take on Obama supporters being all for it now, but big time against it with somebody they despise in office.  It was obviously hypothetical, but kind of entertaining.

I know the slippery slope argument is often discredited, but you are right that on the surface having access to who I called isn't that big of a deal.  However, even the most innocent things can easily become a really big deal.
There was a story last week about a couple in New York (i think) who had their house raided because of searches on their computer for pressure cookers and backpacks.  It wasn't the NSA that tipped it off, but an IT person at a company who noticed it, but it's the same idea.  As we go further and further down this road, the most innocuous of things we may do on the internet or with our cellphones can potentially lead to our doors being broken in by the PoPo and used against you/me in court.

I am personally very skeptical of the police and how they use the information they're given.  I did something very innocent back in 2006 and when the police came to ask me about it I explained everything.  I allowed them to look at my computers and anything else they wanted because I did nothing wrong and had nothing to hide.  They twisted what I said and used stuff on my computer that had nothing to do with the event to ultimately put me in jail for 60 days with a misdemeanor conviction.  So, I've lived it first hand and I will fight till my dying days for our civil rights in this country.

"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." -Benjamin Franklin

I'm not sure where I was cherry picking his quote.  If you have a different quote where he says it's OK to give up your 4th amendment rights if the times change then I'll rescind my quote.  Benjamin Franklin was a strong supporter of the 4th amendment and his quote was a warning to us all.

I think you grossly ignore the threats that our FF's were facing in their day as well.  It is estimated that almost 150k civilians were killed in the revolutionary war, 35k civilians in the war of 1812, and 500k civilians during the civil war.  
In comparison we've lost a little over 3k civilians in the war on terror.  So, yes we face a foe that wants to kill us, but how exactly is the terrorism threat today worse than what our FF's faced in their long gone world?

Also, I'm not sure what Ben Franklin being an atheist and the establishment clause has to do with the NSA violating the 4th amendment in the name of security.

So, if the NSA violated my 4th amendment rights, and tried to use that evidence in court to indite me for.. whatever offense. (I"m assuming that the uproar is over this very fact) Then the evidence would not be admissable in court.. correct? 

I'm really trying to understand the hoopla. I can understand NSA's premiss of combing through a lot of hay (data) to look for trends in order to find the needle in the haystack.. (a terrorist), but I'm not sure how the government has, so far, used the information to hurt ordinary citizens. 

Is that the best you can come up with?  Data being used to catch drug runners and money launderers?

Oh the horrors.

This is honestly the struggle with this whole thing.  In a normal court of law with an effective defense, you are absolutely correct.  If the NSA hypothetically arrested and charged me because I was searching for pressure cooker bombs or something like that.  However, with the legal system the way it is in America the poor are often unable to put up an effective defense.  If you don't have money, you have a pretty good shot of going to jail under just about any charge.

The other part is when you throw things like this on top of the Patriot Act which allows the government to detain without charge a US citizen INDEFINITELY.  They only have to suspect that someone is a terrorist to detain them.  No, the government isn't out rounding people up and doing this, but the mere fact that there are laws in place that allow the executive branch to arrest and indefinitely detain a US citizen should scare the crap out of people.

The government watches every email, every phone call, every internet search for "terrorist activity".  If the executive branch feels the activity raises to a certain level then they feel they have the legal right to arrest and indefinitely detain that individual.  How is this any different than the KGB of old in Russia?

The ends still don't justify the means, because normal people doing nothing wrong can easily be sucked into the suspicion of trafficking drugs.

There was a local story here in Nebraska several weeks ago.  A couple was traveling cross country and was pulled over for speeding.  They allowed the police to search their vehicle and they found close to $1M in cash in the car.  They arrested them and confiscated the money for the simple reason that they suspected it was drug money.  They didn't break any laws at all, other than speeding, yet the money was confiscated.

Turns out the owner was an exotic dancer who saved her money and had tax returns to show it all was legitimate.  It took her over a year and a lot of money fighting in court to get a ruling that the money had to be returned.  Even with the court ruling the police are still refusing to return her money because they are convinced it's drug money.

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2013/07/judge-orders-1-million-returned-to-exotic-dancer/

So where are your limits on the government if you feel the constitution is irrelevant in the war on terror?

I understand how you can be emotional about this and I am as well.  I was working in the sears tower in Chicago the morning of Sep 11th and it is not a feeling I ever want to have again.  As passionate as I am about rooting out terrorism, I am far more passionate about protecting our civil rights as a nation.  Without them, our country becomes irrelevant and dies which was the goal of the terrorists to begin with.

I'm not sure what political axe I'm grinding.  The NSA spying scandal is one of the most bi-partisan issues in the last 8 years.  Back in July the House almost passed an amendment to immediately stop the entire program and make it illegal to do.  It failed with a 205/217 vote with 94 republicans and 111 democrats voting in favor of halting the program.
Apparently all those democrats had a political axe to grind and sold ad space on Fox. 

I agree with tuwood's post above.  Yes, terrorism has taken lives and we should mourn them.  But we've lost many more lives of soldiers who fought to uphold our freedom and way of life.  And now I think people are all too eager to toss those freedoms in the garbage for an illusion of safety.

That said, look at another side of the coin - the loss of trust in our government.  Even if you ignore politics, the NSA programs are a violation of the public trust.

One place where that trust is lost is in the market.  The USA is a service-based economy.  And much of that is in big data computing.  That requires some level of trust in the service that you're using.  Maybe you're storing credit card info or medical records or the Coca-Cola formula, or who knows what else.  All those things suddenly become unreliable when the NSA can circumvent due process and in some cases the Constitution.  Without that trust, people want to take their business outside the USA.

The FISA court is another source of distrust.  We should not have secret courts in this country, especially not one that approves something like 99.97% of its requests for warrants within 48 hours.  Judicial oversight - yeah right.  It's a rubber stamp.  Also from Wikipedia: due to the classified nature of its proceedings, usually only government attorneys are permitted to appear before the court.  Does that sound a little biased to you?

Of course the cynical person might say the NSA *wants* businesses to move their data out of the USA, since they can then spy to their hearts' content when it's no longer "spying on Americans".

Terrorists want to disrupt our way of life and the economy is a big target.  Blowing up planes, shutting down all our flights and general fear of flying had a direct effect.  But the indirect costs of the NSA spying can be far more costly over time.

Food for thought.

Personally, it's not an area I even care about. It's hard to catch the crooks... if they can pull an a-hole off the street with a tip that leads to a bust and arrest, so be it.

As far as the argument about setting an innocent person up?.. I'm thinking crooked cops could do that with or without a SOD tip.. 

The FISA court is a big part of the problem with the NSA's involvement at home right now.

a) Open the FISA court.  I understand they can't and shouldn't give away classified info regarding ongoing investigations.  But this court should be scrutinized carefully after a waiting period.  Right now they have no checks and balances.

b) Right now the judges on the FISA court are all nominated by the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.  That's too much power in one person's hands. The judges should be appointed from a wide cross section of the U.S.  (perhaps have each federal appeals court nominate one judge for the FISA court).

c) The FISA court is now making law by precedent, something they never did before until maybe the past few years.  Refer to above about too much power.

d) NSA activities are strictly limited to foreign surveillance.  I'd want this spelled out carefully.  Right now they're operating under laws that were written from the telephone era and have little relevance to computer networks of today.  That means a lot of loopholes and avenues for abuse.  Their mission needs to be clarified and narrowly focused.

e) NSA demands made to USA corporations should be open and on the record.  The *implementation* of how they do these things can remain secret.  But the public should know who they're dealing with and when.

Right now, if you think about it, email is almost completely insecure.  You and I can encrypt our email end-to-end but the NSA still knows we're talking to each other.  And that's just assuming home computers.  As soon as I open and read it on a cellphone?  Oh yeah, AT&T, Verizon, Apple, Google... names sound familiar?  All in the NSA's pocket.

Terrorists know this already and have known it for some time.  It's time the public at large became aware of it.

Why? 

If my neighbors were to start disappearing and we started hearing about ordinary citizens  ending up in kangaroo court, then I'd be the first to line up and throw a fit.. 

But I'm really not interested in knowing the details about how NSA goes about catching the bad guys. In fact, I feel safer if it's kept under wraps. I'm assuming that those in the terrorist world know about it because some their efforts have been thwarted by this surveillance. 

Nice blinders. I especially love how dismissive you are of anyone that has a problem with a overreaching government power. I had a problem with it when Bush did it. Anything called the "Patriot" act... is BS from the start.

I'm actually speechless. Why don't you go tell the ACLU to close shop if the 4th A is no big deal? And I also must say... individual liberty is not one bit different today that it was 1000 years ago. It's sad to think that a cell phone in your hand makes you think somehow it is.

And exactly how do you think you will ever find out or hear about "that" person?

Nice. You are usually much more reasoned that this. I don't do conspiracies. Real life is good enough. I mean hell, no police department has ever framed anyone. No body has ever been put to death because of an over zealous prosecutor. No law enforcment agency has used their wieght to harm anyone. No government has ever done anything wrong. I mean hell... the presumption if innocence is a pretty outdated way of thinking... something that can't possibly have any bearing in the modern age.

It isn't my job to prove to the government why I need protections... I already have them garanteed. It is their job to prove why they get to ignore them. And as terrible as 9/11 was, your 3000 people do not get to wipe out the civil liberties of millions.

Hell, those pescky court trials get in the way too... who the heck needs them in the Constitution? What the heck were they smoking back then?