General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsDavid Simon: We are shocked, shocked (NSA program)
http://davidsimon.com/we-are-shocked-shocked/You would think that the government was listening in to the secrets of 200 million Americans from the reaction and the hyperbole being tossed about. And you would think that rather than a legal court order which is an inevitable consequence of legislation that we drafted and passed, something illegal had been discovered to the governments shame.
Nope. Nothing of the kind. Though apparently, the U.K.s Guardian, which broke this faux-scandal, is unrelenting in its desire to scale the heights of self-congratulatory hyperbole. Consider this from Glenn Greenwald, the author of the piece: What this court order does that makes it so striking is that its not directed at any individual its collecting the phone records of every single customer of Verizon business and finding out every single call theyve made its indiscriminate and its sweeping.
Having labored as a police reporter in the days before the Patriot Act, I can assure all there has always been a stage before the wiretap, a preliminary process involving the capture, retention and analysis of raw data. It has been so for decades now in this country. The only thing new here, from a legal standpoint, is the scale on which the FBI and NSA are apparently attempting to cull anti-terrorism leads from that data. But the legal and moral principles? Same old stuff.
Allow for a comparable example, dating to the early 1980s in a place called Baltimore, Maryland.
Excellent blog from a great writer.
uponit7771
(90,371 posts)...the collection of meta data, something that has been happening since 2006 is being done under Obama with proper oversight.
jberryhill
(62,444 posts)Bolo Boffin
(23,796 posts)Whatever...
Cha
(298,021 posts)loaded with rage.
thanks for the David Simon article, Bolo
sheshe2
(84,057 posts)Better yet, The Point he is making
Thank you Bolo Boffin, David Simon is awesome!
Cha
(298,021 posts)with a couple of my favorite paragraphs..
"The question is not should the resulting data exist. It does. And it forever will, to a greater and greater extent. And therefore, the present-day question cant seriously be this: Should law enforcement in the legitimate pursuit of criminal activity pretend that such data does not exist. The question is more fundamental: Is government accessing the data for the legitimate public safety needs of the society, or are they accessing it in ways that abuse individual liberties and violate personal privacy and in a manner that is unsupervised.
And to that, the Guardian and those who are wailing jeremiads about this pretend-discovery of
U.S. big data collection are noticeably silent. We dont know of any actual abuse. No known illegal wiretaps, no indications of FISA-court approved intercepts of innocent Americans that occurred because weak probable cause was acceptable. Mark you, that stuff may be happening. As happens the case with all law enforcement capability, it will certainly happen at some point, if it hasnt already. Any data asset that can be properly and legally invoked, can also be misused particularly without careful oversight. But that of course has always been the case with electronic surveillance of any kind."
It's a neverending job debunking the Propaganda from the profiteering left and the gop.
to remind those people that are outraged, Cha.....
http://theobamadiary.com/2013/06/06/intelligence-agency-conducts-intelligence-news-at-11/
Cha
(298,021 posts)steaming piles of it at President Obama.
sheshe2
(84,057 posts)Again for exposure, Bolo Buffin!
DevonRex
(22,541 posts)I find this whole situation fucking hilarious.