Nobody has started a thread about the NSA/domestic spying?

[baffled]

The problem is these pattern of life tracking systems Just Work. There are nutcases and bad guys in the United States, as I type right now, that are planning to make crazy shit go down. Blow up levees, bomb public events, send mass mailing ricin-grams, and etc. They are planning, planning, planning.

It's hard to pull off the really good stuff without some coordination, i.e., without communicating over the nets. There's encryption available so the messages are not easily, readily readable if you want to make them such, but where the messages are coming from and going to is pretty easy to track. No harder than watching cars going by on the road. Hard to see in the trunk, easy to see the license plate. You can learn a lot that way.

Stuff is being caught by these nets. It works to keep us safe. Fact. People would be dead without them right now.

I also know that every power that can be abused does end up getting abused at some point. Trust in secret courts to review? Meh.

One positive thing is our top secret world has gotten so huge with so many people working in it, that you actually have a huge body of Average Joe Citizens with eyes on the process.

I'm sorry nafod, but I have no idea what's gone wrong with you as of late.

[nafod]

The problem is these pattern of life tracking systems Just Work. There are nutcases and bad guys in the United States, as I type right now, that are planning to make crazy shit go down. Blow up levees, bomb public events, send mass mailing ricin-grams, and etc. They are planning, planning, planning.

It's hard to pull off the really good stuff without some coordination, i.e., without communicating over the nets. There's encryption available so the messages are not easily, readily readable if you want to make them such, but where the messages are coming from and going to is pretty easy to track. No harder than watching cars going by on the road. Hard to see in the trunk, easy to see the license plate. You can learn a lot that way.

Stuff is being caught by these nets. It works to keep us safe. Fact. People would be dead without them right now.

I also know that every power that can be abused does end up getting abused at some point. Trust in secret courts to review? Meh.

One positive thing is our top secret world has gotten so huge with so many people working in it, that you actually have a huge body of Average Joe Citizens with eyes on the process.

I'm sorry nafod, but I have no idea what's gone wrong with you as of late.

There's a reason why the government is so hot on it. It works. Stop it and people die, followed immediately by calls for the government to do something anything.

Personally, I am OK with a steady stream of low grade terror attacks (Boston marathon-ish couple of times per year) in return for no internal surveillance. Think the IRA attacking Britain during the troubles. That is the cost. I'll adjust my life accordingly. I've lived in worse overseas.

But that is the price.

[baffled]

The problem is these pattern of life tracking systems Just Work. There are nutcases and bad guys in the United States, as I type right now, that are planning to make crazy shit go down. Blow up levees, bomb public events, send mass mailing ricin-grams, and etc. They are planning, planning, planning.

It's hard to pull off the really good stuff without some coordination, i.e., without communicating over the nets. There's encryption available so the messages are not easily, readily readable if you want to make them such, but where the messages are coming from and going to is pretty easy to track. No harder than watching cars going by on the road. Hard to see in the trunk, easy to see the license plate. You can learn a lot that way.

Stuff is being caught by these nets. It works to keep us safe. Fact. People would be dead without them right now.

I also know that every power that can be abused does end up getting abused at some point. Trust in secret courts to review? Meh.

One positive thing is our top secret world has gotten so huge with so many people working in it, that you actually have a huge body of Average Joe Citizens with eyes on the process.

I'm sorry nafod, but I have no idea what's gone wrong with you as of late.

There's a reason why the government is so hot on it. It works. Stop it and people die, followed immediately by calls for the government to do something anything.

Personally, I am OK with a steady stream of low grade terror attacks (Boston marathon-ish couple of times per year) in return for no internal surveillance. Think the IRA attacking Britain during the troubles. That is the cost. I'll adjust my life accordingly. I've lived in worse overseas.

But that is the price.

That's bullshit and you know it. The only proof of anything like this working is weak: that Zazi plot that may have been stopped after the Brits caught onto something, not the NSA.

It could be that the government is hot on it because there is quite a lot that can be gleaned from meta data, much of which has little to do with crime of any sort. The type of data we might find in the next IRS-type of scandal.

This is some serious Gestapo shit.

[Turdacious]

It could be that the government is hot on it because there is quite a lot that can be gleaned from meta data, much of which has little to do with crime of any sort. The type of data we might find in the next IRS-type of scandal.

IRS/BLS already uses metadata, but with serious restrictions to prevent Congress from abusing it.

[DrDonkeyLove]

edit:

Feinstein also thinks he's a traitor.

Both sides do.

When both sides are upset, the opposite is almost always true.

Did it really take 3 pages to realize this?
My political rule to live by is that when democrats and republicans agree on anything, the rest of us are fucked.
I'm all for going after Shafiq al Islam if law enforcement thinks he's planning on blowing shit up.
Date mining everyone is a different story.
So is the FBI going in and setting up Shafiq and his eight dumbass friends, which is what they've excelled at the last decade.

Snowden disclosed something that makes established and comfortable politicians of both parties look bad. That is an unforgivable sin to these people and the hive must be protected, so they circle the wagons and set their phasers on kill.

[Herv100]

The spying is not for terrorists. It's to snoop on those who oppose unconstitutional power grabs by the govt. Every foiled "terrorist attack" of the last few years has consisted on an undercover FBI agent convincing(and funding) some ham and eggers to try some ridiculous plan that would never work in the first place. LOL

[baffled]

It could be that the government is hot on it because there is quite a lot that can be gleaned from meta data, much of which has little to do with crime of any sort. The type of data we might find in the next IRS-type of scandal.

IRS/BLS already uses metadata, but with serious restrictions to prevent Congress from abusing it.

Shut the fuck up.

[Turdacious]

Get your lotion and happy sock.

[Protobuilder]

edit:

Feinstein also thinks he's a traitor.

Both sides do.

When both sides are upset, the opposite is almost always true.

Try to be positive - perhaps this will lift the country out of the partisan bickering that it has been engaged in for the past several decades.

Anybody who uses the words "conservative" or "liberal" in assigning blame here needs to step aside and not participate in the conversation. The biggest douchebags, as well as the few politicians making sense, come from both sides of the aisles. People like Obama, Feinstein and Peter King are never to be listened to nor believed on any matter again. Harry Reid and Linsey Graham have reaffirmed their cluelessness and apathy for doing anything related to what their job should entail. However, there are some bright spots - Rand Paul, Mark Udall, both Senators from Oregon, Justin Amash - who actually seem like they believe in the constitution.

[baffled]

Get your lotion and happy sock.

Do you have a point, or just a third grade sense of humor?

[buckethead]

Get your lotion and happy sock.

Do you have a point, or just a third grade sense of humor?

neither

[Turdacious]

Since October 2011, mosques have been off-limits to FBI agents. No more surveillance or undercover string operations without high-level approval from a special oversight body at the Justice Department dubbed the Sensitive Operations Review Committee.

Who makes up this body, and how do they decide requests? Nobody knows; the names of the chairman, members and staff are kept secret.

We do know the panel was set up under pressure from Islamist groups who complained about FBI stings at mosques. Just months before the panel's formation, the Council on American-Islamic Relations teamed up with the ACLU to sue the FBI for allegedly violating the civil rights of Muslims in Los Angeles by hiring an undercover agent to infiltrate and monitor mosques there.

Before mosques were excluded from the otherwise wide domestic spy net the administration has cast, the FBI launched dozens of successful sting operations against homegrown jihadists — inside mosques — and disrupted dozens of plots against the homeland.

If only they were allowed to continue, perhaps the many victims of the Boston Marathon bombings would not have lost their lives and limbs. The FBI never canvassed Boston mosques until four days after the April 15 attacks, and it did not check out the radical Boston mosque where the Muslim bombers worshipped.

http://news.investors.com/ibd-editorial ... osques.htm

Seems like domestic spying has already been limited.

[powerlifter54]

Since October 2011, mosques have been off-limits to FBI agents. No more surveillance or undercover string operations without high-level approval from a special oversight body at the Justice Department dubbed the Sensitive Operations Review Committee.

Who makes up this body, and how do they decide requests? Nobody knows; the names of the chairman, members and staff are kept secret.

We do know the panel was set up under pressure from Islamist groups who complained about FBI stings at mosques. Just months before the panel's formation, the Council on American-Islamic Relations teamed up with the ACLU to sue the FBI for allegedly violating the civil rights of Muslims in Los Angeles by hiring an undercover agent to infiltrate and monitor mosques there.

Before mosques were excluded from the otherwise wide domestic spy net the administration has cast, the FBI launched dozens of successful sting operations against homegrown jihadists — inside mosques — and disrupted dozens of plots against the homeland.

If only they were allowed to continue, perhaps the many victims of the Boston Marathon bombings would not have lost their lives and limbs. The FBI never canvassed Boston mosques until four days after the April 15 attacks, and it did not check out the radical Boston mosque where the Muslim bombers worshipped.

http://news.investors.com/ibd-editorial ... osques.htm

Seems like domestic spying has already been limited.

As long as an administration fears the Tea Party more than Jihadists we have this type of madness. While using drones to off some dead enders on the AG-Pakie border is commendable, it does not forgive the worldview that an opponents 503c3 is more dangerous than radicals in a Boston Mosque.

[Blaidd Drwg]

Since October 2011, mosques have been off-limits to FBI agents. No more surveillance or undercover string operations without high-level approval from a special oversight body at the Justice Department dubbed the Sensitive Operations Review Committee.

Who makes up this body, and how do they decide requests? Nobody knows; the names of the chairman, members and staff are kept secret.

We do know the panel was set up under pressure from Islamist groups who complained about FBI stings at mosques. Just months before the panel's formation, the Council on American-Islamic Relations teamed up with the ACLU to sue the FBI for allegedly violating the civil rights of Muslims in Los Angeles by hiring an undercover agent to infiltrate and monitor mosques there.

Before mosques were excluded from the otherwise wide domestic spy net the administration has cast, the FBI launched dozens of successful sting operations against homegrown jihadists — inside mosques — and disrupted dozens of plots against the homeland.

If only they were allowed to continue, perhaps the many victims of the Boston Marathon bombings would not have lost their lives and limbs. The FBI never canvassed Boston mosques until four days after the April 15 attacks, and it did not check out the radical Boston mosque where the Muslim bombers worshipped.

http://news.investors.com/ibd-editorial ... osques.htm

Seems like domestic spying has already been limited.

I don't want to join a mosque to opt out.

[Herv100]

NSA revelations only 'the tip of the iceberg,' says Dem lawmaker

By Daniel Strauss - 06/12/13 12:51 PM ET

The federal surveillance programs revealed in media reports are just "the tip of the iceberg," a House Democrat said Wednesday.

Rep. Loretta Sanchez (D-Calif.) said lawmakers learned "significantly more" about the spy programs at the National Security Agency (NSA) during a briefing on Tuesday with counterterrorism officials.

"What we learned in there," Sanchez said, "is significantly more than what is out in the media today."

Lawmakers are barred from revealing the classified information they receive in intelligence briefings, and Sanchez was careful not to specify what members might have learned about the NSA's work.

"I can't speak to what we learned in there, and I don't know if there are other leaks, if there's more information somewhere, if somebody else is going to step up, but I will tell you that I believe it's the tip of the iceberg," she said.

Sanchez's remarks on C-SPAN's "Washington Journal" came a day after House lawmakers were briefed by national security officials on clandestine data collection programs.
The briefing was meant to convince lawmakers that the surveillance programs are legal and necessary in fighting counterterrorism — an argument President Obama and other administration officials have made.

Lawmakers demanded the briefings after revelations last week about the NSA's collection of phone records and Internet data, and Sanchez said lawmakers were "astounded" by what they heard.

"I think it's just broader than most people even realize, and I think that's, in one way, what astounded most of us, too," Sanchez said of the briefing.

http://thehill.com/video/house/305047-d ... a-briefing

[nafod]

Lawmakers are barred from revealing the classified information they receive in intelligence briefings, and Sanchez was careful not to specify what members might have learned about the NSA's work.

Lawmakers demanded the briefings after revelations last week about the NSA's collection of phone records and Internet data, and Sanchez said lawmakers were "astounded" by what they heard.

Two thoughts. First, extraordinary security measures require extraordinary oversight, particularly from the legislative, particularly from the House of Representatives (the people's legislature). A larger group of elected officials should have eyes-on.

Second is, elected representatives don't hold a Security Clearance (tm) per say. They have been approved to look at secrets by the voters, so when they say they are barred, that's not anything legally binding. They can "vote their conscience" and bring this stuff to light.

Third, speaking of data mining, this is kind of funny. Jump to the 1:00 minute mark and listen for 30 seconds.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t27ie4qFlXM[/youtube]

[Turdacious]

First, extraordinary security measures require extraordinary oversight, particularly from the legislative, particularly from the House of Representatives (the people's legislature). A larger group of elected officials should have eyes-on.

What do you mean exactly? Lawmakers get EXSUMs, not details-- NSA FISA requests qualify (whether we like it or not) as a detail.

[nafod]

First, extraordinary security measures require extraordinary oversight, particularly from the legislative, particularly from the House of Representatives (the people's legislature). A larger group of elected officials should have eyes-on.

What do you mean exactly? Lawmakers get EXSUMs, not details-- NSA FISA requests qualify (whether we like it or not) as a detail.

No specifics, just the general idea that elected reps should getting more than EXSUMs, so they better understand what their Patriot Bill and similar votes have resulted in. To vote on something and then be prohibited from seeing the outcome doesn't make sense when it is time to revisit.

[Turdacious]

First, extraordinary security measures require extraordinary oversight, particularly from the legislative, particularly from the House of Representatives (the people's legislature). A larger group of elected officials should have eyes-on.

What do you mean exactly? Lawmakers get EXSUMs, not details-- NSA FISA requests qualify (whether we like it or not) as a detail.

No specifics, just the general idea that elected reps should getting more than EXSUMs, so they better understand what their Patriot Bill and similar votes have resulted in. To vote on something and then be prohibited from seeing the outcome doesn't make sense when it is time to revisit.

Implementation of the Patriot Act is an executive branch responsibility. Congress can either amend the act, replace it, repeal it, or defund implementation-- that's about it.

Besides, elected reps don't have time to review implementation. Thanks to campaign finance laws, they're too busy fundraising.

[DrDonkeyLove]

Lawmakers are barred from revealing the classified information they receive in intelligence briefings, and Sanchez was careful not to specify what members might have learned about the NSA's work.

Lawmakers demanded the briefings after revelations last week about the NSA's collection of phone records and Internet data, and Sanchez said lawmakers were "astounded" by what they heard.

Two thoughts. First, extraordinary security measures require extraordinary oversight, particularly from the legislative, particularly from the House of Representatives (the people's legislature). A larger group of elected officials should have eyes-on.

Second is, elected representatives don't hold a Security Clearance (tm) per say. They have been approved to look at secrets by the voters, so when they say they are barred, that's not anything legally binding. They can "vote their conscience" and bring this stuff to light.

Third, speaking of data mining, this is kind of funny. Jump to the 1:00 minute mark and listen for 30 seconds.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t27ie4qFlXM[/youtube]

I listen to Hannity now and then and thought that I remembered him saying just what's on this video. I wonder if any Dem guests will call him on this. Since it affects their bank, I suspect not.

[Andy83]

What we have here is a failure to communicate.

[cleaner464]

This guy used a thumb drive to get at this data? Outside of Staples, who the fuck lets anyone use thumb drives on their machines anymore?

We disabled the capacity to use external devices YEARS AGO. Plus we can't send out encrypted e-mail unless we CC internal security with an unencrypted version.

Pretty simple fixes. What kind of dummies are running IT for the NSA?

[Pinky]

It could be that the government is hot on it because there is quite a lot that can be gleaned from meta data, much of which has little to do with crime of any sort. The type of data we might find in the next IRS-type of scandal.

IRS/BLS already uses metadata, but with serious restrictions to prevent Congress from abusing it.

It's the Census Bureau that gets IRS data. (The BLS uses other administrative data with less information on individuals.) I've heard that Census once had a standoff over their data with the FBI, who wanted access for investigative purposes, and Census won.

[Turdacious]

It could be that the government is hot on it because there is quite a lot that can be gleaned from meta data, much of which has little to do with crime of any sort. The type of data we might find in the next IRS-type of scandal.

IRS/BLS already uses metadata, but with serious restrictions to prevent Congress from abusing it.

It's the Census Bureau that gets IRS data. (The BLS uses other administrative data with less information on individuals.) I've heard that Census once had a standoff over their data with the FBI, who wanted access for investigative purposes, and Census won.

That's right, got the two mixed up.

[Pinky]

This guy used a thumb drive to get at this data? Outside of Staples, who the fuck lets anyone use thumb drives on their machines anymore?

We disabled the capacity to use external devices YEARS AGO. Plus we can't send out encrypted e-mail unless we CC internal security with an unencrypted version.

Pretty simple fixes. What kind of dummies are running IT for the NSA?

First, ban Furbies. Then worry about thumb drives.