NSA + FBI Files Leaked, Massive Snooping on Millions of Americans

[O maestre]

its no secret that information is collected by government agencies, prism surveillance is just the tip of the iceberg... that quite literally has been in our face for some time. I blame apathy for how our world is slowly turning into one of those 80's dystopian society.

However I can comfort myself, with the knowledge that humans are still the ones behind the data processing, and there is no way that they can process all that gathered data effectively, and for that matter timely enough for any information to be used.

 

[Goro]

Security companies capture everything, then discard 99.9% of that as irrelevant. A tiny percentage is further filtered and a teeny-tiny bit is sent to a human to look at, probably without identifying features. You'd divulge more personal information to eBay or any shopping site so they can bimbard you with targeted ads. I'm not threatened by surveillance because I'm not doing anything wrong.

I've been seeing quite a bit of this attitude, both in this thread and beyond. I just want to give you guys, especially the international guys, a view from what you could call a "Constitutionalist". Let me start by giving you a rundown of some of the basic ideas Americans such as myself consider highly important, necessary to our freedom, and what *should* be endemic to our very culture:

1. A person is to be presumed innocent, until they are proven, beyond a shadow of a doubt, guilty.
2. A person should be protected from search/seizure(taking their stuff) until there is reasonable/probable cause that they have committed a crime.
3. The government should be looking out for the good of it's people, being comprised of the same people, and subject to the same as the people it governs. In other words, a government of the people, for the people, by the people.

Now, let me pose to you a hypothetical scenario. You and your neighbors hire a security company to protect your community. Given this is a small neighborhood, many of your neighbors have been hired as well, for more manpower. Somewhere along the line, this security company starts treating you like crap, out of nowhere and for no reason. They intrude into your house, rifle through your belongings, record your emails and calls, looking for evidence of you committing a crime, even though you haven't. But it's mostly okay, you think, because they aren't *too* intrusive, and their ill-treatment of you hasn't gotten too bad. But now remember that you're paying them to do all this.

That's where people like me shake our heads at those who still have the attitude of "I've got nothing to hide, so I don't care." That's the attitude you should have with a cop at a traffic stop, provided he's following the letter of the law as well. That is not the attitude you should have with your government. Yes, technically you are paying for both the government and the cop, but the police are otherwise necessary for the well-being of your community, and the stop is taking up ten minutes of your time. The government, on the other hand, is spending billions of dollars it could be spending on infrastructure, on crumbling bridges and roads, or on education, raising teachers above poverty lines and moving us back into a worldwide player in the market for educated professionals, rather than the continual slide to ever-growing droves of children that can't even pass already laughable standardized tests.

Instead, billons of dollars, your healthy tax contribution included, are spent on treating you like a potential criminal. I can understand where people get that mentality, I really do. I'm an American, I'm a Verizon customer, but I have yet to physically notice myself being monitored. So I do understand the mentality of, "Well, it's bad, but it's not really affecting my daily life, so it's not all that worth getting worked up about." Well, it is, actually. Because the real problem isn't the surveillance, it's the mentality behind it.

It's the mentality of many in our government that because of the office they hold, they are no longer 'one of them'. In many cases, regardless of whether they say it outright, their actions speak for them. We up here, are going to pass a bunch of laws that make you down there do what we want. It's the mentality of the elected officials and the appointed directors that think, "Hey, we can do all these questionable things, and we can't get in trouble for it, because our laws are decades behind our technology, so it isn't *technically* illegal."

And you, the citizen, are paying for, and enabling, all of it. But we can't stop, because then you're a criminal for not paying taxes. And at this point, we see very few politicians that we can elect to actually change things for the better, because most we do see simply promise that they will to get elected, then ride the paycheck and get nothing done.

That, is why people like me are unhappy about such issues, and you should be as well.

You make an excellent point, and one that I hadn't considered. Economically, the practice is reprehensible. I think my somewhat laissez faire attitude stems from the fact that I'm employed in law enforcement and the military, so I've been vetted by every agency this country has. I've also had the pleasure of working a few shifts at CCTV monitoring sites and for the first 15 minutes it's 'cool! She's hot! What's he got in his jacket?' And the next 11.75 hours is 'if I don't get a coffee from the Starbucks on camera 10 I'm going postal'. My colleagues and I are also very aware of the usage limitations and legal barriers, but being drones we don't consider the policy implications for expansion.
You've made me think a bit outside my own secure little box here, I still think the practice is fairly innocuous from a citizen rights perspective, but it does take up a lot of resources for the results. A tip of the hat, good sir.

 

[Strazdas]

This was reported by escapsit too you know.
ALso, the original source is The Guardian. basically a upper class tabloid, that was known to fake documents in the past. Obama is defending phone records scaning, internet not really.

Mass surveillance is never ok...

yes it is.
Your going to respond with an argument for privacy and no, you should not have privacy in public location.

Capcha: badger, mushroom
trying to change the topic ech?

I've been seeing quite a bit of this attitude, both in this thread and beyond. I just want to give you guys, especially the international guys, a view from what you could call a "Constitutionalist". Let me start by giving you a rundown of some of the basic ideas Americans such as myself consider highly important, necessary to our freedom, and what *should* be endemic to our very culture:
1. A person is to be presumed innocent, until they are proven, beyond a shadow of a doubt, guilty.
2. A person should be protected from search/seizure(taking their stuff) until there is reasonable/probable cause that they have committed a crime.
3. The government should be looking out for the good of it's people, being comprised of the same people, and subject to the same as the people it governs. In other words, a government of the people, for the people, by the people.

and what they are doing does not break any of the three regardless of whether i agree with them or not.
Searching your publicly send information is if anything colelcting evidence so that you can be proven guilty or not proven guilty. just because they colelct it does not make they assume you are guilty.

Now, let me pose to you a hypothetical scenario. You and your neighbors hire a security company to protect your community. Given this is a small neighborhood, many of your neighbors have been hired as well, for more manpower. Somewhere along the line, this security company starts treating you like crap, out of nowhere and for no reason. They intrude into your house, rifle through your belongings, record your emails and calls, looking for evidence of you committing a crime, even though you haven't. But it's mostly okay, you think, because they aren't *too* intrusive, and their ill-treatment of you hasn't gotten too bad. But now remember that you're paying them to do all this.

and this scenario relates to current case in question how?

That's where people like me shake our heads at those who still have the attitude of "I've got nothing to hide, so I don't care." That's the attitude you should have with a cop at a traffic stop, provided he's following the letter of the law as well. That is not the attitude you should have with your government.

that is an attitude you should have with every rational being, for if you are following the letter of the law (yes, you have to follow it too, not only cops) you have nothing to hide.

 

[Devil's Due]

This was reported by escapsit too you know.

Yes, and if you read my post and their post you'd realize I posted the thread a full day before The Escapist made their article about it. Thanks for pointing that out, though!

The only thread to beat me was the one in Religion and Politics, but no one ever views R&P and I felt that this subject had been ignored long enough. Even the websites that hosted all this information don't even talk about it anymore. Hell, we have a thread about girls being topless in a city of 100,000 citizens that has over 300 replies in one day while this thread about a constitutional breach of the world's only super power with 320,000,000 people has had less than 50 replies in 3 days.

 

[MeChaNiZ3D]

To address your edit, it's because while I think this is some horrific invasion of privacy, I don't have anything to add. If anyone would like to argue that the FBI should be allowed to see everything you do and that isn't unnecessary and an invasion of privacy, by all means, but I don't expect that's going to happen. Sexism is something I have views about, strong opposing views are represented by others on the site, and I can sort of justify where I'm coming from.

 

[KelDG]

This was reported by escapsit too you know.
ALso, the original source is The Guardian. basically a upper class tabloid, that was known to fake documents in the past. Obama is defending phone records scaning, internet not really.

Mass surveillance is never ok...

yes it is.
Your going to respond with an argument for privacy and no, you should not have privacy in public location.

Capcha: badger, mushroom
trying to change the topic ech?

I've been seeing quite a bit of this attitude, both in this thread and beyond. I just want to give you guys, especially the international guys, a view from what you could call a "Constitutionalist". Let me start by giving you a rundown of some of the basic ideas Americans such as myself consider highly important, necessary to our freedom, and what *should* be endemic to our very culture:
1. A person is to be presumed innocent, until they are proven, beyond a shadow of a doubt, guilty.
2. A person should be protected from search/seizure(taking their stuff) until there is reasonable/probable cause that they have committed a crime.
3. The government should be looking out for the good of it's people, being comprised of the same people, and subject to the same as the people it governs. In other words, a government of the people, for the people, by the people.

and what they are doing does not break any of the three regardless of whether i agree with them or not.
Searching your publicly send information is if anything colelcting evidence so that you can be proven guilty or not proven guilty. just because they colelct it does not make they assume you are guilty.

Now, let me pose to you a hypothetical scenario. You and your neighbors hire a security company to protect your community. Given this is a small neighborhood, many of your neighbors have been hired as well, for more manpower. Somewhere along the line, this security company starts treating you like crap, out of nowhere and for no reason. They intrude into your house, rifle through your belongings, record your emails and calls, looking for evidence of you committing a crime, even though you haven't. But it's mostly okay, you think, because they aren't *too* intrusive, and their ill-treatment of you hasn't gotten too bad. But now remember that you're paying them to do all this.

and this scenario relates to current case in question how?

That's where people like me shake our heads at those who still have the attitude of "I've got nothing to hide, so I don't care." That's the attitude you should have with a cop at a traffic stop, provided he's following the letter of the law as well. That is not the attitude you should have with your government.

that is an attitude you should have with every rational being, for if you are following the letter of the law (yes, you have to follow it too, not only cops) you have nothing to hide.

And WOOOOSHHHHH, it went.... right over your head, so far over your head you did not even see it.

You would fit in well in North Korea.

(ps - it was the perfect analogy of that your government is doing to you)

 

[Defeated Detective]

Ron Paul predicted things like this would happen, and look at that. I'm really sad to see that Obama just won due to him being a popular "democrat" and that's it.

People don't even know what's the difference between a Democrat and a Republican other than the difference of spelling and pronunciation.

 

[Bertylicious]

Recent activities in Russia whereby detractors of the government have ludicrous criminal prosecutions leveled against them by the state in order to shut them up, in those instances where they aren't simply killed, remind us that states do not need the internet to mobilise their resources to destroy one of their citizens. They don't even need the truth.

The problem posed by this new technology is more subtle. Let us say that the Democrats in power use the technology to get a precise geographic map from the digital content of citizens showing support of republicans and/or democrat policy and then restructuring the voting districts in order to fragment and marginalise the voting power of people who may be more inclined to vote against them?

Truth be told I don't see how the rabbit can be put back in the hat now that this tech is in the open. The fact of the matter is that governments now have this ability. What steps should be taken to preserve a world we all want to live in?

 

[Strazdas]

And WOOOOSHHHHH, it went.... right over your head, so far over your head you did not even see it.

You would fit in well in North Korea.

(ps - it was the perfect analogy of that your government is doing to you)

Thanks for kind remarks but i will stay in countries that are not ruled by dictatorship yet.
P.S. no. a perfect analogy would be if the security guys would silently follow you around watching you do stuff in order to make sure you are protected. what you wrote is far from it.

P.S. 2. for some reaosn i subconciuosly wrote " to make sure you are not protected.", i guess im trying to tell me something

Yes, and if you read my post and their post you'd realize I posted the thread a full day before The Escapist made their article about it. Thanks for pointing that out, though!

The only thread to beat me was the one in Religion and Politics, but no one ever views R&P and I felt that this subject had been ignored long enough. Even the websites that hosted all this information don't even talk about it anymore. Hell, we have a thread about girls being topless in a city of 100,000 citizens that has over 300 replies in one day while this thread about a constitutional breach of the world's only super power with 320,000,000 people has had less than 50 replies in 3 days.

Fair enough in this case. I do read R&P but not daily. ANd yes, this is internet, it will always be tits>everything here.
Though i wouldnt agree on constitutional breach just yet.

 

[KOMega]

But we can't stop, because then you're a criminal for not paying taxes. And at this point, we see very few politicians that we can elect to actually change things for the better, because most we do see simply promise that they will to get elected, then ride the paycheck and get nothing done.

That, is why people like me are unhappy about such issues, and you should be as well.

I'm not american or even read much into politics very much, so I don't know how the process works, but then what can you guys do about things you don't like then?

Being unhappy and spreading the news is fine.
But we know a lot of people will probably just glance over this and pick up the next story about female body parts:

Hell, we have a thread about girls being topless in a city of 100,000 citizens that has over 300 replies in one day while this thread about a constitutional breach of the world's only super power with 320,000,000 people has had less than 50 replies in 3 days.

Is there somewhere this news should be directed to?

 

[moggett88]

Im not in the USA, but if it were happening in my country I would have to say...so?

Im not doing anything I shouldnt, so it doesnt matter one bit to me what information they harvest. I never did understand the whole "right to privacy" thing.

 

[Thaluikhain]

Im not in the USA, but if it were happening in my country I would have to say...so?

Im not doing anything I shouldnt, so it doesnt matter one bit to me what information they harvest. I never did understand the whole "right to privacy" thing.

Define "shouldn't".

There are plenty of things that people are well within their rights to do, but that they wouldn't want the world at large finding out about. Which adults they were or were not having consensual sex with comes to mind. Hell, or medical details.

 

[Esotera]

This was reported by escapsit too you know.
ALso, the original source is The Guardian. basically a upper class tabloid, that was known to fake documents in the past. Obama is defending phone records scaning, internet not really.

Mass surveillance is never ok...

yes it is.
Your going to respond with an argument for privacy and no, you should not have privacy in public location.

Capcha: badger, mushroom
trying to change the topic ech?

You're trying to imply that the guardian is faking this?

I wasn't in a public location when I accessed those sites, I was in my own house on a private network. I also spend a reasonable amount of effort to stay anonymous on the internet whilst balancing that with a social life, and the thing that gets me most about this is that the UK was trying to legislate for this, but is doing it anyway in the meantime, however you spin it. There's no opt-out, no accountability, and there's no reason to trust any government that has participated when they say that more invasive searching doesn't happen. There's also no available evidence to show that this benefits the public at all.

As the governments say to us, you have nothing to hide if you're not guilty...

 

[barbzilla]

To everyone who is saying "I am not breaking the law, I don't have anything to hide". I want you to really think about what you are saying. Unless you believe that there is zero corruption in Law Enforcement Agencies (you know the place with dirty cops, and with reports of cops driving drunk girls home and then raping them) or government (you know the people who perjured themselves over the Benghazi attack), then you should really reconsider your stance on this. This will affect people who speak out against these agencies (lawfully) when those agencies get tired of it, this can literally create evidence that you are a terrorist if they wanted to (I'm not saying they will, just that they can).

I am not a huge conspiracy nut, but there is a reason we protect our privacy so well. There is a reason we have so many rules in place to prevent law enforcement and government from obtaining information on its citizens through spy networks. That reason is so that we can continue to live our lives without fear of this turning into 1984 (more or less).

 

[moggett88]

Im not in the USA, but if it were happening in my country I would have to say...so?

Im not doing anything I shouldnt, so it doesnt matter one bit to me what information they harvest. I never did understand the whole "right to privacy" thing.

Define "shouldn't".

There are plenty of things that people are well within their rights to do, but that they wouldn't want the world at large finding out about. Which adults they were or were not having consensual sex with comes to mind. Hell, or medical details.

Anything illegal. Anything else, anybody is welcome to, including the examples you gave. If you dont want people knowing who you have slept with, maybe you should sleep with people that make you less self-conscious?

 

[Thaluikhain]

Anything illegal. Anything else, anybody is welcome to, including the examples you gave. If you dont want people knowing who you have slept with, maybe you should sleep with people that make you less self-conscious?

That was just an example.

Anyway, are you seriously telling me there is nothing about your life you would like to keep private? I could ask you any question about you at all, and you would have no issue with posting a totally truthful answer (or perhaps one I can take out of context) on here for all to see?

 

[Amir Kondori]

Hahahahahahahaha!

I find this incredibly funny. I'm not American so I can do that.

I have no doubt that my own government is looking more over my shoulder than I realise but I'd prefer they come talk to me directly rather than simply watching. It'd make for a more interesting day. Who knows, I might be able to talk my way into some work for them. There are worse careers than Big-Brothering the general populace who I have no real affinity for. I wouldn't care either way if I found somebody who was up to no good, I could just report them and be done with it. Move onto the next random.

I don't know how funny you should find it, the US has also been shown to be spying on a lot of non-Americans too, and if you use any of these online service providers for search, email, hosting, etc., you are likely have your information intercepted by the American spying machine.

Why do so many people assume that this information is just being used to find criminals? There are several examples throughout history of the government and figures within the government using their power, knowledge and influence to do things like intimidate rivals, persecute activists, etc.

To me the scariest part is not the surveillance but that fact that no Americans seem to care about it.

 

[Belaam]

Both parties have been steadily increasing presidential power, and particularly the ability to run quiet wars and engage in whatever espionage against whatever targets they want since the Reagan Administration. Yes, the Patriot Act pretty much gave carte blanche, but this hasn't been news since Reagan walked on Iran/Contra.

The public (and yeah, I'll include myself in that) don't seem willing to even vote out the incumbents, if we manage to vote at all. Forget about doing anything else like running for office ourselves or anything that actually has a chance of effecting change.

 

[Amir Kondori]

Im not in the USA, but if it were happening in my country I would have to say...so?

Im not doing anything I shouldnt, so it doesnt matter one bit to me what information they harvest. I never did understand the whole "right to privacy" thing.

Define "shouldn't".

There are plenty of things that people are well within their rights to do, but that they wouldn't want the world at large finding out about. Which adults they were or were not having consensual sex with comes to mind. Hell, or medical details.

Anything illegal. Anything else, anybody is welcome to, including the examples you gave. If you dont want people knowing who you have slept with, maybe you should sleep with people that make you less self-conscious?

WOW, how out there. You know there was a time where being known as gay meant you would never get elected to any political office, you would be passed over for promotions or even fired, and in many cases targeted for physical abuse. There have been times in this nation where your life could be at risk if was known you were sleeping with someone of another race, especially if you were a black man.

It flabbergasts me that some people think "hey, its no problem for all this info to be out there without any expectations of privacy, there is no way that could go wrong". Is it just extreme naivete? Is it willful ignorance? Is it trolling?

Go look up MK Ultra. Look up the Tuskegee syphilis experiment. Go read about the thousands of people killed by alcohol the US government poisoned during prohibition, without ever telling anyone they had poisoned it. Go look up Watergate. Read up on the My Lai Massacre. Go read up about COINTELPRO. Go read about FBI infiltration into activist groups and anti-war groups. Go read about the CIA backed overthrown of Iran's democratically elected president Mohammad Mosaddegh which directly led to most of the problems we have in that region today.

That is literally not even half of the examples of immoral and illegal action by our US government. Do you people just not know about these things? Is it a lack of education? Or do you really just not care. Because given the power our government will abuse it. Every time. Maybe not this administration, not this term, but it will happen. You know all this talk about "state secrets"? The first time the Supreme Court affirmed this legal principle it was over the case United States v. Reynolds. I won't get into the details but the Air Force was being sued by the widows of three civilian crew members of a crashed plane. They claimed state secrets and did not have to give out the crash report, in 1953. Fast forward 50 years, the reports were declassified and guess what? From Wikipedia:
"In 2000, the accident reports were declassified and released, and it was found that the assertion that they contained secret information was fraudulent. The reports did, however, contain information about the poor condition of the aircraft itself, which would have been very compromising to the Air Force's case. Many commentators have alleged government misuse of secrecy in this landmark case."

Any student of history should trust our US government(or any government) only so far as the law reigns them in.