Read this article and tell me what the the Obama administration is doing. Is everyone in the country a potential terrorist? What would you have said if W or the Rs had done this? http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/storie...ME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2013-06-06-10-02-36 So Red, NC, Gumborue, MasterMind and all you defenders of the present administration what say you about the latest? They have access to all voice and data communications in Verizon's system. I wouldn't be surprised it is the same for AT&T, Sprint and the others. If you read the order there are NO limits on the administrations gathering and use of them. Where is the 4th amendment anymore? How do you defend the indefensible? Gee the president is a constitutional scholar...question is what constitution is a scholar of?
Why are you singling people out to reply to your post are you that starved for attention. Post your article and stfu. If its worth replying to someone will. If not, crickets and so be it. This started in 2005, please try to read all the information you can before making a point. They have been doing this for a while through the FISA court.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/201...trail:Network front - special trail:Position1 I have had mixed feelings people want to be safe, but nobody wants to deal or accept how the government goes about it.
A couple of quotes from the article MM noted: "The document shows for the first time that under the Obama administration the communication records of millions of US citizens are being collected indiscriminately and in bulk – regardless of whether they are suspected of any wrongdoing" "The court order appears to explain the numerous cryptic public warnings by two US senators, Ron Wyden and Mark Udall, about the scope of the Obama administration's surveillance activities. For roughly two years, the two Democrats have been stridently advising the public that the US government is relying on "secret legal interpretations" to claim surveillance powers so broad that the American public would be "stunned" to learn of the kind of domestic spying being conducted." What does this have to do with our safety? It has been said time and time again by both sides of the political divide thet if we give up our freedom and rights because of terrorism then we have lost. This seems to me a strong assault on our freedom and rights.
Also from the article, it was over a 3 month period, what if they picked up chatter but didnt have a strong lead and needed this to stop something eminent. So you are burning the candle at both ends in your criticism. Basically trying to have it both ways as most of your post indicate.
There is going to be massive amounts of outrage until NFL training camps start. Really though...they did this stuff on The Wire and it was one of the best TV series ever to air. Really though......this is noting compared to what the IRS has been doing for the past 3 years and the justice dept going after reporters. This stuff is just good police work.
All of this began under the Patriot Act, under the auspices of "keeping us safe." There were plenty who waved their arms and called the Patriot Act a slippery slope toward revoking our 4th Amendment rights. You and I have discussed before the necessity of citizens to relinquish some of their rights in the name of national security, but at some point we have to also reign in the government once those exceptions are no longer needed to maintain operational safety. Are we at that point yet? I don't know the answer to that question.....I'm not privy to enough information to really say. That said, the conversation needs to start now. I don't like the idea of the government looking over my shoulder any more than you do but don't act like this is exclusive to the Obama administration because it's not. Obama is definitely hypocritical because he so ardently raged against these same practices when GWB was President but in all honesty I think we need to take a second look at some of the policies GWB espoused that were unpopular among Dems, like Obama at the time, but that were kept in place once Obama took office. It says something that he totally reversed course and decided to keep some of the measures in place. It says that maybe GWB got a few things right in the way of national security. A President's number one priority is to keep the American people safe and sometimes I think in an effort to do just that, they sometimes end up trampling all over the very rights that vowed to protect. It's a dangerous and slipperty slope but not one that I believe is being waged maliciously by either D's or R's. Quite the contrary, they both want to protect our citizens. However, it is up to the citizens to say, "Okay, enough is enough, we'll take our chances with the terrorists but we want our rights restored......the war is over."
I have to say, liberals are pretty hypocritical when it comes to this, most aren't nearly as loud when a democrat tramples our civil rights.
I've pretty much accepted the fact that I have no privacy. The internet, phones, computers......zero privacy. When you sign on to Facebook or Twitter or even your cell phone service, you are essentially signing your privacy away. That's the world we live in. If you REALLY look at it, unless you are a child pornography sleeze bag or a terrorist then your internet and cell phone activity is the same as 99.9% of the rest of the American populous so fuck it.
