US mines personal internet data

[dedanna1029]

The Guardian is all over this:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree ... rveillance

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/ju ... akers-live

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/video/2 ... view-video

Bush may have put it into place, but nowhere near used it like O has. The surveillance has gone world-wide (let's not understate this either, shall we?) and could have broken even international law. It's only spying on every single citizen of the U.S., wherever in the world they are (all telephone records), and on others around the world that, out of our own government's paranoia, have had their privacy invaded (the constitution?), not to mention even major worldwide corporations. This is also that the U.S. government is launching a criminal investigation, and will probably destroy another whistleblower's life - which will be worse than what happened with Julian Assange.

Go see for yourself. This has affected the UK (William Hague's speech, anyone?), Russia, Hong Kong, quite a few other countries. I don't care how you cut it, whether Bush put it into place or not, O knows right from wrong (supposedly), and stated he would kick out Bush's policies, not expand them. He's done it now with war, and with this. It's all wrong.

Go see this for yourself, and what/who all it affects:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/search?q=NSA&section=uk|world

People are culpable and responsible for their own actions. Two terms in, one would think that Obama would've learned this. Since one week into his first term, I learned to research well, and also learned that I will never vote for a neocon, whatever party, again, and haven't.

The full court ruling is here, as ruthless as it gets. I hold both parties and presidents responsible. Just because a law is "there", doesn't mean it has to be enacted; in fact, it was *supposed* to have been struck down. This also blows completely away, Obama's promise of transparency in government.

[dedanna1029]

Cough up to it. There is no minimizing the damage from this, and there is no getting around the fact of how wrong it is, or how far the effects go. Between O and Dianne Feinstein (who has far, far too much power in government), we are very very screwed right now. All of us are.

[viking60]

Yes

The Architecture of oppression is in place - now you can only wait for a real oppressor.

In East Germany it was called State security in short STASI (Staatssicherheit).
And they had nowhere near the same possibilities...

In English we could call it STASEC - And The NSA would need a new great logo too - like the one above.

It truly scares me that not more people are protesting against the Big Brother state - it is here! and only few seem to care....

[dedanna1029]

I have no doubt they will get it, too.

Oh, btw, about the cloud... if you don't keep your data in your own hands, encrypted, you might be feeding the NSA, too. Wait. No "might" about it. You will be.

[viking60]

The next edition of this song will be slightly edited - nothing major so you don't even have to know.
And no important parts are changed.....

O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?

Nothing to worry about - trust me!

There is some hope though:
http://www.ibtimes.com/jim-sensenbrenne ... ar-1297697

I does not matter what party you like - if you like freedom and privacy in some form It makes a lot of sense to be strongly opposed to this. This is above party politics - it is a fundamental issue.

It is about the core of democracy.
Nobody can call a journalist and expose "Watergate" anymore. Nobody can send him an email.... and forget the phone.
You could try a homing pigeon. But they probably have a list over everybody that keeps birds....

What is the most important task of the Press? Is it not to be the Fourth Estate?
How can they even begin to fill that function with PRISM?

[dedanna1029]

Thank you.

[viking60]

Privacy is the enemy of power - that is why everyone in power always so easily accept the injustices that do not target themselves.

The internet can be used to turn over governments - like in Libya and Egypt .
The freedom to communicate and gather is dangerous especially when it is targeted at the government.

They want to control that - to stay in power - and that is not always a matter of national security. It could be quite the opposite. You never know because it will always be done secretly. So it will escalate.

National security demands it....

I too find it amusing when they make Iranian Nuclear plants play AC/DC's thunderstruck.

When they save everything that is on my Dropbox (and they have done that!) then it is not so amusing anymore. And thankfully they will have a helluva time reading it - In fact they will not be able to...

The mining procedure works like that - They save everything - and if the need should occur, they have everything and can look closer into the life of every person, including Americans.

They say they would not do that - but the cookie jar is there so they can and they will. (National security demands the occasional lie too - it is almost a noble patriotic thing - in every country).

Because they are not controlled - they are controlling...

That is the dilemma here. Total control for your agencies will cost you your freedom. Total control of the agencies could leave you a naive target for terrorists and hostile nations.

But in a democracy you should be given the opportunity to participate in the decision of where to draw the line (the human rights would be such a line).
And you cannot, since it all is kept a secret (That is the scandal here).

National security; you see....

[dedanna1029]

[This post has been deleted due to national security concerns]

[viking60]

Yup
That demonstrates the effect this will have. Who is going to speak his mind freely after this? You need to keep it mainstream and popular.

Freedom of speech for those with the correct opinions....

We all need to accept that there are limits - usually this is a good limit:

Your freedom to move ends at the tip of my nose (Would be nice if our governments would stick to this too)

As a tech minded site - the possibilities provided by today's computers are endless. Man cannot limit himself to not explore those capabilities - it is not in his nature.

Curiosity killed the cat...

Update:
It looks like the NSA can listen in on your phone calls without a warrant

The news, which was first reported by sister site CNET's Declan McCullagh, cited Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) who was told during a briefing to members of Congress that phone calls could be listened to "simply based on an analyst deciding that."

[dedanna1029]

Yup, it's all thanks to that thing called the Patriot Act (I'd like to know how they use the word "patriot" in that - it has nothing to do with being a patriot, and everything to do with screwing the people over), which our wonderful U.S. leaders on all sides of the fence think is so great, good, and wonderful. In particular, this oh-so-great (*sarcasm) "constitutional" lawyer (*sarcasm again) we have now for our fearless (*ahem, gag) leader.

TBH, I don't care what they want me to say or not. They can keep right on listening to me if they want and get the earful they deserve. It's the people who value their right to privacy that I stick up for in that earful.

Oh, and I really hope they dig on the anal sex that people have these days, the super saggy boobs that we old ladies have, the awful new rock 'n roll that people listen to and hearing things like "I need a fertilizer BOMB for my garden," "I want to KILL those damn fruit flies on the counter so I'm going to ATTACK them with a DIRTY BOMB," "AL QAEDA can go f*ck my mother," "I had a dream about a TERRORIST last night, that was like a horror movie," "HOMELAND SECURITY, otherwise known as 'Homeland Insecurity' SUCKS BALLS," "I had some PORK in a CLOUD in MEXICO, and fed some to the DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY TEAM with ANTHRAX in it for the purpose of commiting a TERRORIST ACT on them," "The NSA has commited a real ASSASSINATION of our civil and human rights," "That was sure some great HOME GROWN pot we all had last night," and finally, the coup de gras... "I have a friend from CHINA that I went out for dinner with last night."

"Here, watch this!" *flips up shirt along with middle finger
"Snap that, you bastards!"

Heh. We could give them all the earful they deserve, and more, if we wanted to. Let's do it, OK? It would be way too much fun!

[dedanna1029]

Although Silicon Valley has roots in the U.S. military — the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency was central to the development of the Internet — today's big tech companies are keen to demonstrate their independence from the government and often display a libertarian streak.

Many engineers in Silicon Valley are sympathetic to "hacker" culture. Above all, Silicon Valley tech titans are wary of losing the trust of consumers, which could endanger their businesses. These companies are no doubt well aware of the numerous more secure alternatives to their services, some of which enable users to roam the Internet anonymously.

Right. Coming from CNN, well...

[viking60]

Facebook claim that there have been only a few requests. Those request could be something like "give me everything about NN and all his friends".
It could also be "give me everything from country NN" since "foreigners" are allowed.

In the process they inevitably collect data from US citizens which they are not allowed to read. This raises an interesting issue:

"If they are receiving large amounts of data that they are not actually authorized to look at, the question then becomes what are the procedures by which they determine what they can look at?" said Kevin Bankston, an attorney at the Center for Democracy & Technology. "Do they simply store that forever in case later they are authorized to look at it?"

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/facebook ... z2WdvpsIrv

PRISM is only a small part of the surveillance program that cover the bits they could not collect before.
The data retention has been going on since 2000 and I am not sure if there are any rules on how and when data shall be removed in the US.
In the EU most countries do this too but not Germany - and the data have to be deleted after a given time.