Isn't computer hacking considered a terrorist activity now under the patriot act? So the NSA are terrorist according to our own law. Lets send them to Gitmo.
What would it take for people to care? That's my question. Before the NSA leaks, suggesting this level of government intrusion into American lives would have drawn remarks like: - Why are you such a conspiracy theorist? - Do you have any proof that they are doing these things? - How could they possibly monitor that many people? - My President would never do that. But now, it's: - Who cares? - It makes me safer. - Everyone does it. - Blame the Dems. - Blame the Reps. Like little children. The only answer I can come up with is: they will only care once they are not afraid of foreigners. That's the rug which needs to be pulled from under the US government's feet. The rug that has been there for too many decades now. The artificially created elephant in the room which allows everyone to think of the next iPhone rather than the next set of improvements to the constitution and laws. Only then, IMO, will people react to this kind of constitutional attack by going after elected leaders and holding them seriously accountable. Until then, even the most concerned will begrudgingly accept this situation because of what they believe they know about the rest of the world from the TV in the living room of the bubble they occupy. The only other groups are those too busy worrying about what's going to happen to welfare, or the group that is making so much damn money off the whole mess.
Our glorious NSA director asks how he's supposed to do his job without collecting everyone's metadata. Newsflash to Mr. Alexander (and Obama by proxy) - if you can't figure out how to "do your job" without massively breaking the law, you should be fired.
And now **** get real. IBM Corp has been sued by the Louisiana Sheriffs' Pension & Relief Fund which accused it of concealing how its ties to what became a major U.S. spying scandal reduced business in China and ultimately caused its market value to plunge more than $12 billion. In related news, estimates of US cloud computing losses due to the scandal range as high as $45 Billion.
unconstitutional http://www.politico.com/story/2013/12/national-security-agency-phones-judge-101203.html
There's that other thread asking if Liberal and Conservatives can agree on anything. I think this might be one of the extremely rare examples.
Meanwhile: *FULL ARTICLE* http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way...prfacebook&utm_source=npr&utm_medium=facebook
Good point, but they are also similar in their yawning (for the most part) whenever this issue gets raised. It's almost as if it's so bad, and so obviously bad, that they can't yell at one another about it, so they move back to talking about taxes or gay marriage. Ugh.
Snowden open letter to Brazilians: More at link http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/dec/17/edward-snowden-letter-brazilian-people
A business that I am close to has had three OSHA inspections in the last 2 years. On each occasion, the Chief Operating Officer was out of the state and unable to supervise the inspection. The COO rarely travels out of the state. We are convinced that the the government is tracking his whereabouts using his cell phone and dispatching OSHA when he is unavailable to attend the inspection. This is a company that has donated substantial amounts of money to causes that oppose Obama. It's also a business that had the most invasive IRS audit known to mankind last year. Welcome to the digital era and rampant abuse of power. There are no more secrets and governments will do anything to achieve and retain power.
When this government has a proven track record of targeting and harassing political opponents using the IRS and government, and this government has a proven track record of collecting personal information unlawfully, then they lose the benefit of the doubt. Their actions have created a lack of trust.
This govt. absolutely has a track record of illegally collecting data. They don't really have a proven track record of using the IRS to target political enemies.
Most Transparent Administration Ever! spends $4MM, utilizes terrorism and "state secrets" defense, to cover up a typo on a form. Remember kids - the government would never abuse these mechanisms! Bonus points for again showing that James Clapper is a big fat liar.
And now that IBM has been caught, suddenly they feel the need to safeguard the data and distance themselves from the NSA. Naturally this means absolutely nothing as the NSA (with the blessing of the Most Transparent Administration Ever!) can secretly request any data they want (IBM will of course acquiesce), get a rubber stamp approval from a kangaroo court, and then forbid IBM to speak about it. Democracy!
