US agency (NSA) “collecting phone records“

[username]

I heard a report that he may be on the run again.

[Cynical Ninja]

Maybe he can get a room next door to Julian Assange in the Ecuadorian embassy in London.

[Duchess]

This is the Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper. In your opinion, is he lying in his response to Congress?

Here's the word-for-word exchange in the March hearing of the relevant Senate Intelligence Committee -

Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore.—who has long warned about excessive government surveillance of Americans, though in veiled terms because the information is classified—had just one question for Clapper.

Wyden: "And this is for you, Director Clapper, again on the surveillance front. And I hope we can do this in just a yes or no answer, because I know Sen. Feinstein wants to move on.

"Last summer the NSA director was at a conference and he was asked a question about the NSA surveillance of Americans. He replied, and I quote here, '... the story that we have millions or hundreds of millions of dossiers on people is completely false.'

"The reason I'm asking the question is, having served on the committee now for a dozen years, I don't really know what a dossier is in this context. So what I wanted to see is if you could give me a yes or no answer to the question: Does the NSA collect any type of data at all on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans?"

Clapper: "No, sir."

Wyden: "It does not."

Clapper: "Not wittingly. There are cases where they could inadvertently perhaps collect, but not wittingly."

Wyden: "All right. Thank you. I'll have additional questions to give you in writing on that point, but I thank you for the answer."

[Cynical Ninja]

Ever since the cold war nations have been snooping on each other and their own citizens I'm surprised that so many people are so surprised to be honest.

All nations are paranoid about the “enemy within” whether its reds under the bed or taliban in the tumbledryer.

[username]

Snowden's supporters claim that he was uncovering a crime; Clapper's "perjury" before congress.

If I understand it though, the NSA is collecting meta-data and looking specifically for patterns. If a pattern emerges, I believe they have to get permission from the FISA court to proceed. I'm not sure based on what I've read so far that I would characterize Clapper's statements as lies. He just wasn't asked the right questions at the time.

Still, that FISA court has apparently denied only 1 request. That request got bumped up to the next level where it was approved.

[Maggot]

People on facebook reveal more than they actually say on the phone. If you want to know when someone is going on vacation just do a little internet leg work. Hell they tell you their dogs name there.

[crash]

I read in the paper today that Snowden quoted Bradley Manning as an inspiration. I wonder if we'll see anymore copycats come out in the near future. I bet the NSA have vetted the fuck out of every even remotely suspicious motherfucker contracting for them in the past month or two.

[username]

I am concerned about additional information that he might have brought with him or that exists in his head.

He mentioned in the interview that there's a CIA cell in the Hong Kong embassy. No surprise there, I imagine they're at every embassy but just the fact that he's flapping his lips and intimidating he could "take down surveillance in an afternoon" (paraphrasing) bothers me. Fucker.

[Maggot]

Reporters are having a hard time getting their inside sources too say anything lately. Washington is clamming up about things. Soon any info will be tough to get. The noose is tightening.

[Maggot]

Everyones getting scanned.......................except if you are in a mosque.

islamic immunity

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.

[Cynical Ninja]

Every Mosque in the west should have its own spook with their beady fucking eye on them 24/7.

[Maggot]

Well ........The head "spook" wont allow it.

[Cynical Ninja]

That really is stoopid its the ragheads that are the main concern and have been for a long time. Radicalization often takes place by average ragheads listening to extremist ragheads and their anti west rhetoric inside Mosques.

Arrrrrggghhh! We should microchip the whole lot of them.

[Duchess]

Former CIA agent Valerie Plame said Wednesday that she views NSA leaker Edward Snowden as neither a hero nor a traitor, but that Americans should be grateful that he brought the conversation about liberty and security to the national forefront.

"I don't think [Snowden's] a hero, I don't condone what he did. At the same time he's certainly not a traitor as he was called by Dick Cheney". "In a way, we as U.S. citizens owe Edward Snowden a thank you for having brought this issue to the forefront and so that we can begin to have a serious and genuine conversation about these issues."

Plame also rolled her eyes at Cheney labeling Snowden a traitor, given the Bush administration's involvement in leaking her identity to columnist Robert Novak.

Story

[Maggot]

I'm still listed in the phone book my first phone number was 5-7066 if you dialed it from anywhere in the state you would get me. Anyone ever have a party line? You could PU the phone at any given moment and someone else would be yapping. They were 1.99 per month.

[aussiefriend]

I personally think that he betrayed his employer. He entered into an agreement and did not keep his part of the contract. Also, the Chinese are protecting him, what other information has he given them in order to do so. You don't know he could have placed all of us not just the US in jeopardy.

Even in my job on a minor level I am trusted with confidential information, and I take that seriously it is part of my job. You don't discuss what you should not be discussing. It is part of being a professional.

Having said that....you have carte blanche to bag subversive little upstarts.

Addit: Plame is sitting on the fence.

[Cynical Ninja]

In my previous job working for the police and my current job working for social services I had to sign the official secrets act.

That should be the clue right there, if you sign that act you know what is expected of you as a professional. Snowden would have signed something similar unless he was an idiot he knew what he was getting into.

Has anyone been able to explain why he decided to run away and hide in, of all places, China? No one here is genuinely perturbed by that?

[HairOfTheDog]

Today, The Guardian published the top secret docs related to the US government's collection of data for non-US citizens and US citizens.

PDFs of both docs linked below.


Procedures used by NSA to target non-US persons: Exhibit A – full document
Top-secret documents show Fisa judges have signed off on broad orders allowing the NSA to make use of information 'inadvertently' collected from domestic US communications without a warrant.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/interact...a-document

Procedures used by NSA to minimize data collection from US persons: Exhibit B – full document
The documents detail the procedures the NSA is required to follow to target 'non-US persons' under its foreign intelligence powers – and what the agency does to minimize data collected on US citizens and residents.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/interact...s-document

[username]

If he wasn't a traitor before, verbally spilling secrets, handing over classified documents is a sure sign of treason. Fuck him.

[Donovan]

What's really disturbing is how many of you are going all "hey I'll give up my personal freedoms so some distant sheep farmer won't attack me on Maple Street." As fucking if. Snitches get stitches right? Who cares if we are rapidly pissing away everything that made those other places jealous of us to start with? Jesus it's like explaining trigonometry to toddlers.

Unwarranted illegal spying on your own citizens as a "deterrent to unnamed possible activity" of a nebulous and vaguely defined enemy doesn't protect us from a threat. It IS the threat. The world will watch us implode and it will laugh like kids on a playground when the biggest bully does a face plant tripping on his shoelace.