I think this guy who blew the whistle on the US snooping might be a Chinese agent.

[JuTMSY4]

you're right

And also, you needed a warrant or at least under suspicions to get spied on. Now, that's not even necessary. All your phone records, emails are handed over to the U.S. government regardless of suspicions or issued warrants.
That's a bad thing if you don't see it.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/23/politics/23cnd-wiretap.html

President Bush today opened what amounts to a weeklong media blitz against criticism of the National Security Agency's warrantless eavesdropping program, calling it a "terrorist surveillance program" that had saved lives.

[Melchior]

And also, you needed a warrant or at least under suspicions to get spied on. Now, that's not even necessary. All your phone records, emails are handed over to the U.S. government regardless of suspicions or issued warrants.
That's a bad thing if you don't see it.

You're wrong. Nothing has changed. The process and limitations are the same as they were under Bush. This isn't new to Obama.

The problem is, the POTUS, the judicial and legislative branches all take the word of our intelligence agencies as gospel, so there's no legitimate checks and balances when it comes to domestic spying. Everyone's too afraid of looking "soft on terror" to really challenge them.

I will only authorize surveillance for national security purposes consistent with FISA and other federal statutes.

The spying they're doing today is consistent with FISA and other federal statutes. That's the problem.

[bobbyuk]

He's a coward--at least Bradley Manning, while a traitor (at least in my eyes, anyone who is given access to classified material and then turns it over to unauthorized organizations is a traitor) is facing the music and I hope they throw the book at him. By running to Hong Kong, this guy is nothing but a low life coward.

And Ashaman, if you think this is new and just started with Obama, uhhhh...NO. I worked for the Air Force Security Service, later renamed the the Electronic Security Command, and now the Air Force Intelligence Service. And I can tell you that the Cold War enemy weren't the only people we were monitoring.

The only reason it's being brought to light now is that back in the 70s and 80s--and BEFORE that, there was no internet, and the only news you got was in the papers, on radio and TV. And really, if you're a law obiding citizen, what do you have to worry about--it's like someone said, it's not like the CIA or the FBI is going to come kick your door in.

[JuTMSY4]

And really, if you're a law obiding citizen, what do you have to worry about--it's like someone said, it's not like the CIA or the FBI is going to come kick your door in.

to me, this isn't a valid excuse. You could apply that to anyone who is innocent and seeks to use the 4th amendment as a defense.

If it's my privacy, should I be entitled to it?

But if you want people to trade privacy for security, so be it. But at least be open and honest when you're offering them the trade.

[slag]

I don't really want to get into this again, but you do not have to be worried about the fucking CIA or FBI kicking down your door to have an issue with the privacy invasion and warehousing of information going on here.

[Eagle Road]

Some of you might want to read this; esp. the last paragraph.


The Court Overseeing NSA Spying Has Already Found It Violated The Constitution
By Michael Kelley | Business Insider – 4 hours ago
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REUTERS/Lucas Jackson
Broken glass covers an armed forces recruiting poster at the scene of an explosion outside the U.S. Armed Forces Career Center in New York's Times Square, March 6, 2008.
It's becoming increasingly difficult to give the government the benefit of the doubt in regards to dragnet domestic surveillance.
Even before Glenn Greenwald published a top secret court order compelling Verizon to give the NSA information on all telephone calls in its systems and interviewed NSA whistleblower Eric Snowden, there were credible reports that the NSA was intercepting U.S. communications.
The most significant of those occurred in July, when the court that was established to "hear applications for and grant orders approving electronic surveillance," called the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC), found that the NSA violated the Fourth Amendment's restriction against unreasonable searches and seizures "on at least one occasion."
Here's the letter from Senator Ron Wyden:
"… on at least one occasion the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court held that some collection carried out pursuant to section 702 minimization procedures used by the government was unreasonable under the Fourth Amendment."
We don't know the details of the classified order, but it's clear that it's a very important aspect of the domestic spying apparatus that even the court overseeing the program found it straying into illegal territory.
Here's the relevant text of the amendment:
"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."
So in violating that law, the NSA is violating the constitutional right to privacy provided to Americans.
Here's a rundown of the other reports that corroborate Snowden's claims:
Former spy Mike Frost told 60 minutes about a secret government surveillance network called Echelon, in which all electronic communications are captured and analyzed for key words by super computers.
In April 2012 Wired's James Bamford — author of the book " The Shadow Factory: The NSA from 9/11 to the Eavesdropping on America " — reported how the U.S. government hired two secretive Israeli companies to wiretap AT&T .
AT&T engineer Mark Klein discovered the "secret room" at AT&T central office in San Francisco , through which the NSA actively "vacuumed up Internet and phone-call data from ordinary Americans with the cooperation of AT&T" through the wiretapping rooms, emphasizing that "much of the data sent through AT&T to the NSA was purely domestic."
NSA whistleblower Thomas Drake corroborated Klein's assertions, testifying that the NSA is using Israeli-made hardware to " seize and save all personal electronic communications."
William Binney — one of the best mathematicians and code breakers in NSA history — has been very vocal since building the original program that crunched that data to identify, in real time, networks of connections between individuals based on their electronic communications.
Individually, each one of those claims is both stunning and damning. Taken together, they suggest that America is a full-blown surveillance state where the government has decided to violate the fundamental rights of its citizens.

[Mt Iggle]

Wow! That's very scary to me, but I see that many people in America no longer care about privacy, or their own personal freedom so much anymore. I really don't get it.
So, I'm just glad I won't have to be involved in it all very much longer, so everyone can just think whatever they want, and it won't make any difference to me.

[The Duck]

I see that many people in America no longer care about privacy, or their own personal freedom so much anymore. I really don't get it.

The people defending this don't believe their freedom is at stake. It simply doesn't apply to them, because they have nothing to hide.

"First they came for the..."

The world has heard this song before.

[The Duck]

No, it allowed spying on U.S. citizens phone calls that INVOLVED foreign nationals. If a call has a foreign national on one side of the conversation, then that's what the Patriots Act allowed to spy on.

That's what we were told, but according to the NSA official on Beck's show on Friday, it wasn't the case. They'd been conducting warrantless monitoring of domestic communications since 2003 under provisions specifically outlined in the Patriot Act. Not quite to this extent, but the machine was certainly put into place and everyone knew exactly what it was capable of. And the language of the PA was intentionally vague to allow the broadest possible application of the law.

We were sold a bill of goods with the foreign nationals business. It was the camel's nose in the tent and a cover for something far worse than we allowed ourselves to believe. The Bush admin did this... the Obama admin took it to another level. A McCain admin or Romney admin (I'm done talking about these puppet personalities like they're actual people) would have done the exact same thing.

Welcome to the one-party police state.

[ishimonster]

That's what we were told, but according to the NSA official on Beck's show on Friday, it wasn't the case. They'd been conducting warrantless monitoring of domestic communications since 2003 under provisions specifically outlined in the Patriot Act. Not quite to this extent, but the machine was certainly put into place and everyone knew exactly what it was capable of. And the language of the PA was intentionally vague to allow the broadest possible application of the law.

We were sold a bill of goods with the foreign nationals business. It was the camel's nose in the tent and a cover for something far worse than we allowed ourselves to believe. The Bush admin did this... the Obama admin took it to another level. A McCain admin or Romney admin (I'm done talking about these puppet personalities like they're actual people) would have done the exact same thing.

Welcome to the one-party police state.

This. It's not Bush vs. Obama, it's all the same with minor changes..

[noguano]

So, you're confident that the NSA under Bush wasn't spying on U.S. citizens? Or that even prior to Bush the NSA wasn't eavesdropping on conversations involving US citizens?

The NSA has been around a long time.

I don't believe Bush used any of these agencies to attack his political opponents. But Obama has. The IRS auditing Romney donors and denying 501's to TP groups should scare everyone. That was blatant voter suppression.

I don't trust this administration with this kind of information. They are supposed to be stopping Boston Bombers not harassing conservatives, or any other political enemy.

[JuTMSY4]

This. It's not Bush vs. Obama, it's all the same with minor changes..

that's sort of the problem...

[CbEagle]

Before you post things like this do some research, especially the 2004 election and primaries.

[The Ref]

Most Americans approve

[bobbyuk]

Here is some interesting reading

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/comment/2013/06/edward-snowden-nsa-leaker-is-no-hero.html

And there's another columnist that thinks he's a hero. Interesting that part of the documents he leaked was a court order allowing Verizon to monitor phone calls and emails. As I said to someone else, if it helps prevent one terrorist atrocity--and we've seen plenty from Okalhoma City, to London's 7/7 attacks, to a soldier getting hacked to death on a busy London street to 9/11--then I would swap it every day of the week.