If you don't think collected information could be used

[boston bean]

nefariously to control elected officials, judges, politicians, the politically active or elections, I am going to be nice and say you are naive.

I don't give a shit about how nice a guy anyone thinks or knows Obama is.

Information collected is to tempting not to use for what a person or a group of persons think is best for this country in any multitude of ways.

History has shown us this over and over again. Why the disconnect?

When someone says something on facebook it is they who are giving up the privacy that one time or one instance. It is not for the gov't to scour over and collect innocent postings to be possibly used in some investigation, even if it was to rule them out!

When a company tries to use your personal information to sell you something, that is different than the gov't collecting your information to use in criminal investigations. Again, even if it is to rule you out. You should have never been suspect to begin with. This seems like common sense to me.

There is no need for our gov't to keep files on innocent americans. There is no national security threat greater to the american people than their own gov't keeping tabs on them. They cannot ever be trusted with this type of power and information. History has proved this over and over again.

[pecwae]

1. Thank you.

This is one of those "d'oh" moments. Why would they collect it if it won't be used? That's a lot of wasted resources and time for nothing. The government doing this is vastly different form private companies. We can't choose not to do business with our government.

[CrispyQ]

2. K&R

This morning my husband told me he read that 25% of the citizens were paying close attention to this issue, 40% were vaguely aware of it. That's only 65%. What about the other 35%? I know, they're working 4 jobs & trying to keep their heads above water. They got us just where they want us; divided, distracted & overworked.

We're in a bad place & I fear we are not going to turn back, but rather proceed down this path.

[Little Star]

3. Yep. n/t

[sibelian]

4. "History has shown us this over and over again. Why the disconnect?"

It feels nicer.

[NRaleighLiberal]

5. I think it taps in to a fundamental human need to trust - something or somebody.

for me, personally, that was broken long ago. Ads on TV - all lies (white or raging). News - massaged...and on and on. I trust myself, and my wife and my children. I am very skeptical about most everything else.

[IthinkThereforeIAM]

10. Great points and I agree...

... , what a cut throat world we live in, huh?

[RKP5637]

23. It's all lost credibility for me. I view most of whomever as a bunch of liars or

potential liars. We're living in really F'ed up times and despite my desire to be optimistic, I don't think we're experienced anything yet. The technology exists for information distortion and suppression of the masses.

[geek tragedy]

6. The big problem is that 95% of the work here is done before the government

even lifts a finger--all this data is compiled and stored by big, virtually unaccountable corporations.

Even if the program gets ended tomorrow, it would take very little effort to restart it at any point in the future.

[abelenkpe]

8. +1000

And those same corporations sell your information to one another over and over and over. They decide who can borrow, and at what rate, how much a person is worth etc etc etc

[sibelian]

9. +1 .. and the potential for abuse begets it

regardless of the prior intentions of the abuser.

It's amazing what distortions to our characters opportunity can bring about.

[Egalitarian Thug]

7. The wishful thinking of a child. The decision to live in a fantasy rather than face an

unpleasant reality. These are the traits of willing victims.

Of course, they whine and cry a lot when they find out what was going on the whole time, but they quiet down again once furnished with the next delusion.

[RKP5637]

24. " ... they quiet down again once furnished with the next delusion." Well said, one

delusion after another. This shit has been going on forever, what changes is the technology.

[Egalitarian Thug]

25. An interesting parallel came up earlier. After the horrible reign of Tiberius, Caligula was wildly

popular for a time especially as his first act was the public destruction of his grandfather's dossiers on Roman citizens. Of course, it didn't take long to discover that he was even worse, so the Praetorian Guard made Claudius Emperor thinking him to be easily controlled and so on. At each step the citizens believed that this time Rome would change its course, that the new leader would fix the problems and restore Rome to its rightful glory.

History doesn't repeat itself exactly, but it certainly does echo.

[snappyturtle]

11. Thank you boston bean for your post.....exactly! I also think we should stop

and consider all the info the gov't has on us as individuals that we more or less
have given up voluntarily. Records concerning our births, deaths, marriage, deeds,
social security, census info, vehicle registration, driver's licenscing, IRS records....
enough is enough.

[Pholus]

26. Of course, the data discussed here is worse -- it gets in our heads!

A small basic primer about how social network analyses work:

http://kieranhealy.org/blog/archives/2013/06/09/using-metadata-to-find-paul-revere/

Who you talk to is a direct measure of who you are. In some ways, our lives are lots of little random interactions driven by a subconcious we don't directly control. We may not even be aware that those surrounding us are exerting influences on us.

I would imagine that a perusal of the stored NSA data relevant to my life would probably teach me a few things about myself that I don't know (or worse, even believe differently about myself).

Think about that power sitting in an NSA database for just a minute.

[snappyturtle]

27. Thank you....interesting link. I poked around a bit. Will look more

later.

[ReRe]

12. Ha! Well, if you think that's bad....

K&R

... how would you feel that it's not the government that does most of this snooping now? If all this snooping was done by private corporate contractors? And already, at least right now on CNN, the new cover story (from the private contractor) is coming forward! And all of a sudden, an unscheduled hearing is taking place somewhere on Capital Hill....

[Dustlawyer]

13. COMPLETE CAMPAIGN FINANCE REFORM (CCFR)!!! This is the solution to most of our problems!

Lets get some new politicians in office that will fight for this! Publicly funded elections will help take the system of legalized bribery down and give us legislators who are willing to pass CCFR. Then maybe we can get rid of this government spying on its citizens!

[AtheistCrusader]

14. This is a tough one.

Like me, I bet most people feel they are 'good' people and have nothing to hide. I really don't. I am very open with everyone. Makes it easier to remember what to say when you only speak the truth.

And that makes it a conscious effort for me to remember that not everyone wishes to be so open, and they may not have any 'guilty' thoughts or acts to motivate that. Some people simply value their privacy more than I do. And they are welcome to it, and I have to remind myself that I MUST stand up for the basic civil liberties of others to ensure that ALL of our rights, including the ones I do make more use of, are protected.

I think that's the reason the polls show so many people not caring, because they really don't have a material grasp of when or why this might bite them on the ass if they don't do something about it.

[Divernan]

15. Either naive or spouting off for personal gain.

Own stock in those private companies involved in info gathering? Got a relative who works for one? Or actually paid to post trash about people like Daniel Ellsberg?

There's a lot of talk about transparency - what is transparent to me are the paid trolls. Yeah, times are tough and everyone's gotta work to survive, but as Joseph Welch famously said to Joseph McCarthy: "Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you no sense of decency?" I posit the answer to that question, as to the paid troll posters, is that they never had a sense of decency to begin with.

Welch then reprimanded McCarthy for his needless attack on Fisher repeatedly using the adjectives "cruel" and "reckless". But McCarthy, accusing Welch of filibustering the hearing and baiting Cohn, dismissed Welch's dissertation and casually resumed his attack on Fisher, at which point Welch angrily cut him short:

Senator, may we not drop this? We know he belonged to the Lawyer's Guild... Let us not assassinate this lad further, Senator; you've done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?

Infuriated by McCarthy's actions, Welch excluded himself from the remainder of the hearings with a parting shot to McCarthy: "You have seen fit to bring [the Fisher/NLG affair] out, and if there is a God in heaven, it will do neither you nor your cause any good!" After Welch deferred to Chairman Mundt to call the next witness, the gallery burst into applause

.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Army%E2%80%93McCarthy_hearings

[Johnny Noshoes]

16. Correction....

It was Senator JOSEPH McCarthy not Gene McCarthy.

[Divernan]

17. Thanks for the correction - DUH on my part!

And humble apologies to the memory of Gene McCarthy.

[starroute]

18. The idea that elected officials are being blackmailed has come up before

Certainly, many politicians seem to sell us out as soon as they get into office -- and the need to court wealthy donors can't explain all of it.

Certainly, there have been incidents in the past -- like the George Town Club in the 1970s -- when it was alleged that sexual services were being provided, and filmed, for purposes of political blackmail.

But what makes it most plausible is that large institutions tend to become self-blackmailing in order to enforce their own standards and protect their own secrets. They corrupt anybody within the organization who can be corrupted and expel or destroy anybody who can't.

Has the US government reached that stage? It's growing dysfunctionality suggests that it has. And in that case, we're all in trouble, because that would mean it's beyond reform.

[L0oniX]

19. Giving up rights for security is for cowards. Giving up rights for Facebook is not the same thing.

Hey DU ass carrots ...stop the false equivalency bullshit.

[snagglepuss]

20. Bang on. I also wonder why no one cares that these data files could be potentially

be hacked from anywhere in the world. Could not hackers change files or add incriminating evidence?

[TRoN33]

21. Very well said but...

There are certain elements inside the government that feels like they are closer to being the gods and that kind of power are hard to let go. Look at Cheney, he can't just let it go after he got retired on his own term. He keep attacking Obama. Look at Romney, he is this 'close' to being President and he is having trouble to let it go after he lost, badly. Look at Ari Fleischer, he constantly complaining about Obama and his administration yet he overlooked his former boss, W. Bush's nihilistic actions against the American and rest of the world.

It is told that the type of power of surveillance programs are closest thing to being the gods and they can watch people's lives, some said that some agents can literally enter other people's privacy lives and living it as if that life are their's. Some agents were so disrespectful when they eavesdropping the phone sex between soldiers and their wives/girlfriends.

These surveillance programs need to be stopped for good.

[siligut]

22. This information can be used by anyone who has access to it

IT people and managers included. As you say, it doesn't matter who is president, controlling this would be very difficult if not impossible.

[woo me with science]

28. K&R