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2nd Term Part 4: Donkeys, Elephants, and Porcupines

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Re: 2nd Term Part 4: Donkeys, Elephants, and Porcupines

FlagDUDE08 said:
Hey lefty whiners, it's been FIVE years... and you're STILL blaming your predecessor?!?!?! http://twitchy.com/2013/06/06/shock...todd-ties-nsa-scandal-to-bush-administration/
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The context of the Chuck Todd quote:

This is part of a secret surveillance — domestic surveillance — program that was first launched during the Bush administration. And in order to do this court order, the Obama administration is essentially exploiting a part of the highly controversial Patriot Act.
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So he said both administrations are equally to blame for the natural progression of this surveillance, which they are. But, I know - OUTRAGE!1!!11! :rolleyes:
 
Old Pio said:
In Rover World, anyone to the right of John Lindsay is a dangerous lunatic.
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So even more posts from you about Dicks, lips, and a same sex incident from 25 years ago. Are you sure you're you're not trying to tell us something Opie?:p
 
Re: 2nd Term Part 4: Donkeys, Elephants, and Porcupines

FadeToBlack&Gold said:
The context of the Chuck Todd quote:



So he said both administrations are equally to blame for the natural progression of this surveillance, which they are. But, I know - OUTRAGE!1!!11! :rolleyes:
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Here's the thing, though: They had two years to repeal it without issue. But no, they spent their time rewarding fiscal irresponsibility and destroying health care.
 
Re: 2nd Term Part 4: Donkeys, Elephants, and Porcupines

Old Pio said:
I'm inclined to apply the cost/benefit standard here and in similar cases. Also, are the activities of the government being abused? We waterboarded a handful of savage jihadists and killed another handful with Hellfire missiles fired from drones. I'm not particularly concerned. As an example, if any administration used the immense power of the federal government to single out political opponents for "special treatment," then we'd have a problem. As we in fact do, with the IRS.

In the case at hand, we don't know enough about the NSA's activities to draw reasonable conclusions about that cost/benefit ratio. The NSA is very secret. And they like it that way. Remember when the Soviets shot down KAL flight 007? They lied comprehensively about the incident, until UN mbassador Jeanne Kirkpatrick produced audio tapes of conversations between the pilot and his ground control establishing beyond any doubt that his actions were not accidental and that he knew he was blowing up a civilian plane. Case closed. And the capabilities of the NSA have increased by many orders of magnitude since then. And that's a good thing. The agency is trying to protect American lives and interests. The program as explained doesn't concern me much. They might learn I'm phoning "Dial a date," but as long as they don't have the actual conversation, I can live with it. We all understand that 'phone companies keep records of who we've called and when and for how long. There is no expectation of privacy for those data.
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Pio, it surprises me a little that you'd take this position.

The government can justify a lot of things in the interest of "protecting American lives and interests." Shutting down free speech and press. Searches of homes and offices. Intercepting mail.

I don't really care if our government wants to go out and tap into the lines of the Chinese, Saudis, Brits, etc... But our own citizens bothers me a little.

Here is the primary reason. They can say they gather this information in case they need it, or to make it available to target a specific individual suspected of terrorist activities. The problem is, once it's collected it's too easy for it to be misused, maybe not by the government as an institution, but people who have access to it.

As a marginally similar example, Minneapolis has a program of having cameras in it's police cars scan and track all license plates that car drives by. That data is then maintained in a large data base. It's presumably done in the interests of public safety, to help police find stolen cars, to help locate people who may be involved in crimes, etc...

But then the City finds out the information, once collected, is being used for more uncomfortable reasons. To track ex-wives. Maybe to see who is and who is not showing up at the local strip club. Once the information is collected in an easy to use format, it's too tempting.

And having your car parked on a city street, with it's license plate available to tracking, is a long, long way from the privacy you expect in your telephone calls or internet searches.
 
Re: 2nd Term Part 4: Donkeys, Elephants, and Porcupines

Just trying to catch up on some of the posts from this NSA thing that hit yesterday. The simplest version of my thoughts on the issue:

  • We all knew this was happening, and has been happening for a LONG time, although I'll admit that the scope of it is far worse than what I would have thought.
  • You can't politicize this issue. Both parties have been responsible for it, and the perpetrators include both the overspending government that one party favors and the "benevolent" corporations that the other party thinks should be left alone to do as they please.
  • Honestly? I don't know what to do about this. We're all powerless to do anything about this in the voting booth (see point #2), and I don't even know where to begin when it comes to bringing my patronage to companies that aren't whoring us out to the NSA. I'd have to give up/jailbreak my iPhone, stop using google, get a new e-mail address, personally encrypt any file I put online (and I'm sure the NSA would find a way around that)... and that's before Mrs. EoDS and I have to try to figure out if our financials are really secure where they are.


These are sad, pathetic times. For all his campaign promises that go against everything that's happening, I'd love nothing more than to see Obama be impeached and/or resign. But I know in my bitter heart that I'd hate the next guy just the same, regardless of which party he came from.
 
Re: 2nd Term Part 4: Donkeys, Elephants, and Porcupines

ExileOnDaytonStreet said:
Just trying to catch up on some of the posts from this NSA thing that hit yesterday. The simplest version of my thoughts on the issue:

  • We all knew this was happening, and has been happening for a LONG time, although I'll admit that the scope of it is far worse than what I would have thought.
  • You can't politicize this issue. Both parties have been responsible for it, and the perpetrators include both the overspending government that one party favors and the "benevolent" corporations that the other party thinks should be left alone to do as they please.
  • Honestly? I don't know what to do about this. We're all powerless to do anything about this in the voting booth (see point #2), and I don't even know where to begin when it comes to bringing my patronage to companies that aren't whoring us out to the NSA. I'd have to give up/jailbreak my iPhone, stop using google, get a new e-mail address, personally encrypt any file I put online (and I'm sure the NSA would find a way around that)... and that's before Mrs. EoDS and I have to try to figure out if our financials are really secure where they are.


These are sad, pathetic times. For all his campaign promises that go against everything that's happening, I'd love nothing more than to see Obama be impeached and/or resign. But I know in my bitter heart that I'd hate the next guy just the same, regardless of which party he came from.
Click to expand...

The only thing to do about this would involve facing three billion rounds.
 
Re: 2nd Term Part 4: Donkeys, Elephants, and Porcupines

I'm more of the mind that these things can and should be scaled back. The War on Terror needs to be declared over and a new phase can begin with new rules. Far from blasting the Bush administration, I think a good case can be made that in the aftermath of the worst terrorist attach in history some extraordinary surveillance measures needed to be taken. Now in hindsight the govt can determine first of all what works and what doesn't (torture, Gitmo), and what is too much of an intrusion on people's privacy. If Congress is too wimpy to do so right now I believe the Patriot Act needs reauthorization every so often. That would be the perfect time to define what can and can't be collected and stored. Obama has some good ideas in this regard (moving drones to military from CIA) and some not so good ones (Gitmo should have been closed long ago. It didn't take this long to try the freakin' Nazi's). I'm curious where he goes on the domestic spying front.
 
Re: 2nd Term Part 4: Donkeys, Elephants, and Porcupines

Rover said:
I'm curious where he goes on the domestic spying front.
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Well, considering what all his "transparent government" promises have led to so far, I'm going to go out on a limb and say that he won't do much to stop what's already been going on.

And, to be fair to him and his immediate predecessors, I'd be shocked if this kind of thing is really all that new of a development. What we're seeing now is just an expansion of the scope of what we already new was happening.
 
Re: 2nd Term Part 4: Donkeys, Elephants, and Porcupines

ExileOnDaytonStreet said:
And, to be fair to him and his immediate predecessors, I'd be shocked if this kind of thing is really all that new of a development. What we're seeing now is just an expansion of the scope of what we already new was happening.
Click to expand...

IIRC, it stems back to a Supreme Court ruling from 1979 that allowed police to view a person's long-distance telephone records without a warrant. I believe if I'm not mistaken it was Harry Blackmum who wrote the opinion, saying basically "if you get an itemized list of all your long-distance calls on your phone bill every month, you have to know that the phone company is keeping track of who you call."
 
Re: 2nd Term Part 4: Donkeys, Elephants, and Porcupines

ExileOnDaytonStreet said:
Well, considering what all his "transparent government" promises have led to so far, I'm going to go out on a limb and say that he won't do much to stop what's already been going on.

And, to be fair to him and his immediate predecessors, I'd be shocked if this kind of thing is really all that new of a development. What we're seeing now is just an expansion of the scope of what we already new was happening.
Click to expand...

Maybe the media reporting this stuff is the administration's idea of "transparency". ;)
 
Re: 2nd Term Part 4: Donkeys, Elephants, and Porcupines

FreshFish said:
IIRC, it stems back to a Supreme Court ruling from 1979 that allowed police to view a person's long-distance telephone records without a warrant. I believe if I'm not mistaken it was Harry Blackmum who wrote the opinion, saying basically "if you get an itemized list of all your long-distance calls on your phone bill every month, you have to know that the phone company is keeping track of who you call."
Click to expand...
But can you assume in good faith that the phone company is recording your calls, even when you're calling your bank and providing detailed information on your private life? Can you assume that they're selling that information to the NSA to track you? That they're doing the same thing to everyone, and that it wouldn't take much effort for a mid-level official to collect enough insider information on major transactions to commit fraud on Wall St.?
 
Re: 2nd Term Part 4: Donkeys, Elephants, and Porcupines

ExileOnDaytonStreet said:
Seems to be the only transparency we'll get from any administration. The only difference is that this one promised to be different, and really is not.
Click to expand...

Actually, it is. The others did notn create such a totalitarian police state. Aside from MAYBE FDR...
 
Re: 2nd Term Part 4: Donkeys, Elephants, and Porcupines

Rover said:
I'm more of the mind that these things can and should be scaled back. The War on Terror needs to be declared over and a new phase can begin with new rules. Far from blasting the Bush administration, I think a good case can be made that in the aftermath of the worst terrorist attach in history some extraordinary surveillance measures needed to be taken. Now in hindsight the govt can determine first of all what works and what doesn't (torture, Gitmo), and what is too much of an intrusion on people's privacy. If Congress is too wimpy to do so right now I believe the Patriot Act needs reauthorization every so often. That would be the perfect time to define what can and can't be collected and stored. Obama has some good ideas in this regard (moving drones to military from CIA) and some not so good ones (Gitmo should have been closed long ago. It didn't take this long to try the freakin' Nazi's). I'm curious where he goes on the domestic spying front.
Click to expand...
I think we need to rethink every "War on". Most are not working.
 
Re: 2nd Term Part 4: Donkeys, Elephants, and Porcupines

All this spying really makes me want to trust the "Cloud" to hold all my computer files, etc. (not that I use the Cloud now)

Makes you want to have a home computer that's not connected to the net or anything to keep important stuff like financials on.
 
Re: 2nd Term Part 4: Donkeys, Elephants, and Porcupines

ExileOnDaytonStreet said:
But can you assume in good faith that the phone company is recording your calls, even when you're calling your bank and providing detailed information on your private life? Can you assume that they're selling that information to the NSA to track you? That they're doing the same thing to everyone, and that it wouldn't take much effort for a mid-level official to collect enough insider information on major transactions to commit fraud on Wall St.?
Click to expand...

But that would be against the law! surely you aren't suggesting that government employees, those selfless public "servants", would ever do anything illegal?

I'm shocked.
 
Re: 2nd Term Part 4: Donkeys, Elephants, and Porcupines

SJHovey said:
Pio, it surprises me a little that you'd take this position.

The government can justify a lot of things in the interest of "protecting American lives and interests." Shutting down free speech and press. Searches of homes and offices. Intercepting mail.

I don't really care if our government wants to go out and tap into the lines of the Chinese, Saudis, Brits, etc... But our own citizens bothers me a little.

Here is the primary reason. They can say they gather this information in case they need it, or to make it available to target a specific individual suspected of terrorist activities. The problem is, once it's collected it's too easy for it to be misused, maybe not by the government as an institution, but people who have access to it.

As a marginally similar example, Minneapolis has a program of having cameras in it's police cars scan and track all license plates that car drives by. That data is then maintained in a large data base. It's presumably done in the interests of public safety, to help police find stolen cars, to help locate people who may be involved in crimes, etc...

But then the City finds out the information, once collected, is being used for more uncomfortable reasons. To track ex-wives. Maybe to see who is and who is not showing up at the local strip club. Once the information is collected in an easy to use format, it's too tempting.

And having your car parked on a city street, with it's license plate available to tracking, is a long, long way from the privacy you expect in your telephone calls or internet searches.
Click to expand...

I broke my rule and watched Fox last night, I had read that Bob Beckel had a melt down on this subject and wanted to see it. God bless him, in his sputtering rage, he kept referencing "listening to 'phone calls," then correcting himself. He did it several times. As I say, I have no expectation of privacy on the calls I place. On the content? Sure. How many times in "Law & Order" do you see them "checking the luds" to see who a suspect has called, how often, when, and for how long? I'd need more than this before I move into that bunker with Elizabeth Clare Prophet.
 
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