Congress Finally Decides NSA Surveillance Violates

[EscoLehGo]

I love how all of the brony supporters followed me into this thread, how convenient, I'm sure you guys definitely wouldn't want any of your recent web searches reviewed but the government. You are the same babies that would cry why the government didn't do more to prevent a future terrorist attack that harmed many people and despite your feelings there are many more of you out there than there are me, do a web search and you'll find several fellow freakazoids who are very "up in arms" about being potentially spied on.

If you think that's what this is about, you're demented. We have the right to privacy sir, and you acting like a sheep when it is violated is atrocious. I believe this quote from Benjamin Franklin expresses my opinion quite well:

 

 

They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.

 

I hope you understand, you don't deserve your liberties or safeties. You deserve to be put into a hard labour, and never be released, because as of right now, my personal opinion of you is low.

Yes brony, because labor camps are being developed as we speak to contain all those who oppose mighty Obama and his big bad government scheme. Please go back to "clopping" and stay far, far away from political concerns.

[Spaghetti Cat]

 

I love how all of the brony supporters followed me into this thread, how convenient, I'm sure you guys definitely wouldn't want any of your recent web searches reviewed but the government. You are the same babies that would cry why the government didn't do more to prevent a future terrorist attack that harmed many people and despite your feelings there are many more of you out there than there are me, do a web search and you'll find several fellow freakazoids who are very "up in arms" about being potentially spied on.

If you think that's what this is about, you're demented. We have the right to privacy sir, and you acting like a sheep when it is violated is atrocious. I believe this quote from Benjamin Franklin expresses my opinion quite well:

 

 

They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.

 

I hope you understand, you don't deserve your liberties or safeties. You deserve to be put into a hard labour, and never be released, because as of right now, my personal opinion of you is low.

Yes brony, because labor camps are being developed as we speak to contain all those who oppose mighty Obama and his big bad government scheme. Please go back to "clopping" and stay far, far away from political concerns.

Not quite sure if your serious or what here...

 

 

 

At any rate, as I've said many times before, general warrants like this are illegal under the Fourth Amendment. Doesn't really matter what Congress says or doesn't say. The Constitution isn't up for a vote. If these boatload of fools can't figure it out, time to put some new folks in. 2014 is getting closer and closer. *knock knock* hello IRS are you listening?

[EscoLehGo]

I love how all of the brony supporters followed me into this thread, how convenient, I'm sure you guys definitely wouldn't want any of your recent web searches reviewed but the government. You are the same babies that would cry why the government didn't do more to prevent a future terrorist attack that harmed many people and despite your feelings there are many more of you out there than there are me, do a web search and you'll find several fellow freakazoids who are very "up in arms" about being potentially spied on.

If you think that's what this is about, you're demented. We have the right to privacy sir, and you acting like a sheep when it is violated is atrocious. I believe this quote from Benjamin Franklin expresses my opinion quite well:

 

 

They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.

 

I hope you understand, you don't deserve your liberties or safeties. You deserve to be put into a hard labour, and never be released, because as of right now, my personal opinion of you is low.

Yes brony, because labor camps are being developed as we speak to contain all those who oppose mighty Obama and his big bad government scheme. Please go back to "clopping" and stay far, far away from political concerns.

Not quite sure if your serious or what here...

 

 

 

At any rate, as I've said many times before, general warrants like this are illegal under the Fourth Amendment. Doesn't really matter what Congress says or doesn't say. The Constitution isn't up for a vote. If these boatload of fools can't figure it out, time to put some new folks in. 2014 is getting closer and closer. *knock knock* hello IRS are you listening?

Yes, I'm very serious about the brony staying away from politics and sticking to "clopping". The labor camps, not so much.

[sivispacem]

I love how all of the brony supporters followed me into this thread, how convenient, I'm sure you guys definitely wouldn't want any of your recent web searches reviewed but the government. You are the same babies that would cry why the government didn't do more to prevent a future terrorist attack that harmed many people and despite your feelings there are many more of you out there than there are me, do a web search and you'll find several fellow freakazoids who are very "up in arms" about being potentially spied on.

If you think that's what this is about, you're demented. We have the right to privacy sir, and you acting like a sheep when it is violated is atrocious. I believe this quote from Benjamin Franklin expresses my opinion quite well:

 

 

They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.

 

I hope you understand, you don't deserve your liberties or safeties. You deserve to be put into a hard labour, and never be released, because as of right now, my personal opinion of you is low.

Yes brony, because labor camps are being developed as we speak to contain all those who oppose mighty Obama and his big bad government scheme. Please go back to "clopping" and stay far, far away from political concerns.

Not quite sure if your serious or what here...

 

 

 

At any rate, as I've said many times before, general warrants like this are illegal under the Fourth Amendment. Doesn't really matter what Congress says or doesn't say. The Constitution isn't up for a vote. If these boatload of fools can't figure it out, time to put some new folks in. 2014 is getting closer and closer. *knock knock* hello IRS are you listening?

Isn't that a bit counter intuitive given that the citizenry have no say or voice with regard to what or how the constitution is interpreted, and therefore your personal musings on the issue, whilst interesting, hold absolutely no weight? You don't have the authority to assess what is constitutional or not in anything other than your own interpretation because you aren't a member of the judiciary, surely?

[Bellic 4 life]

I love how all of the brony supporters followed me into this thread, how convenient, I'm sure you guys definitely wouldn't want any of your recent web searches reviewed but the government. You are the same babies that would cry why the government didn't do more to prevent a future terrorist attack that harmed many people and despite your feelings there are many more of you out there than there are me, do a web search and you'll find several fellow freakazoids who are very "up in arms" about being potentially spied on.

If you think that's what this is about, you're demented. We have the right to privacy sir, and you acting like a sheep when it is violated is atrocious. I believe this quote from Benjamin Franklin expresses my opinion quite well:

 

 

They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.

 

I hope you understand, you don't deserve your liberties or safeties. You deserve to be put into a hard labour, and never be released, because as of right now, my personal opinion of you is low.

Yes brony, because labor camps are being developed as we speak to contain all those who oppose mighty Obama and his big bad government scheme. Please go back to "clopping" and stay far, far away from political concerns.

Not quite sure if your serious or what here...

 

 

 

At any rate, as I've said many times before, general warrants like this are illegal under the Fourth Amendment. Doesn't really matter what Congress says or doesn't say. The Constitution isn't up for a vote. If these boatload of fools can't figure it out, time to put some new folks in. 2014 is getting closer and closer. *knock knock* hello IRS are you listening?

Yes, I'm very serious about the brony staying away from politics and sticking to "clopping". The labor camps, not so much.

I don't clop you poor, deluded... man... child... thing? You've only picked up that terminology because it was used against you in a arguement, and you can't think of anything else to come up with. You need to stayout of politics if something as bad as this doesn't get you mad.

[baguvix_wanrltw]

 

Isn't that a bit counter intuitive given that the citizenry have no say or voice with regard to what or how the constitution is interpreted, and therefore your personal musings on the issue, whilst interesting, hold absolutely no weight? You don't have the authority to assess what is constitutional or not in anything other than your own interpretation because you aren't a member of the judiciary, surely?

Dude. Really? I mean like. Seriously. Because lol. And you know why.

 

If you want we can start at the actual *intention* of laws and things like constitutions, which was NEVER (or should at least never be in any so called civilized nation) to go Stasi 2.0 (and please don't bother pointing out the american constitution was drafted a day or two before the Stasi was even thought up). And 2.0 is a f*cking understatement here, as ex Stasi officials have pointed out themselves, they wouldn't have imagined anything like this in their wettest dreams (their own words).

 

 

But maybe you just meant to say, in a, well, imho suboptimal way, that we have to leave stuff like this to the courts... which is reasonable but still entirely missing the point.

 

EDIT: Woah, and I'm late to the party. My apologies.

[sivispacem]

 

Isn't that a bit counter intuitive given that the citizenry have no say or voice with regard to what or how the constitution is interpreted, and therefore your personal musings on the issue, whilst interesting, hold absolutely no weight? You don't have the authority to assess what is constitutional or not in anything other than your own interpretation because you aren't a member of the judiciary, surely?

Dude. Really? I mean like. Seriously. Because lol. And you know why.

 

If you want we can start at the actual *intention* of laws and things like constitutions, which was NEVER (or should at least never be in any so called civilized nation) to go Stasi 2.0 (and please don't bother pointing out the american constitution was drafted a day or two before the Stasi was even thought up). And 2.0 is a f*cking understatement here, as ex Stasi officials have pointed out themselves, they wouldn't have imagined anything like this in their wettest dreams (their own words).

 

 

But maybe you just meant to say, in a, well, imho suboptimal way, that we have to leave stuff like this to the courts... which is reasonable but still entirely missing the point.

 

EDIT: Woah, and I'm late to the party. My apologies.

I think you missed the mark here by a pretty wide margin, I was referring to the apparent claim that Spaghetti Cat's personal whims determine what counts as constitutional or otherwise despite them being largely irrelevant as the citizenry has no political role in interpreting the constitution.

[MIKON8ERISBACK]

Yes it is very sad that it took this long, but at least they came down with the right decision in the end. The American government seems to have gotten away Scott free with a lot of bad things in the past few years and I'm glad that they got this right. Going up against the NSA and their friends is a very ballsy thing to do and I applaud their courage.

[sivispacem]

Yes it is very sad that it took this long, but at least they came down with the right decision in the end. The American government seems to have gotten away Scott free with a lot of bad things in the past few years and I'm glad that they got this right. Going up against the NSA and their friends is a very ballsy thing to do and I applaud their courage.

You have read the rest of the thread, including the bits that show the original post was factually incorrect, no?

[Maryo_Nicle7]

Oh, well this will change everything. Right?

Indonesia not changed, dude

[MIKON8ERISBACK]

 

You have read the rest of the thread, including the bits that show the original post was factually incorrect, no?

Okay, sorry. I know to take anything from Alex Jones' Infowars.com with a large truckful of salt (I haven't believed a f*cking thing that con artist has said in about five years). I didn't realize the topic was that long until it was too late. My apologies.

 

On topic, I think society has really started to feel the momentum of the slippery slope caused by trying to in theory reduce risks by taking more and more "small" slices from freedoms and rights. You make a great point when you talked about how We The People have no say in how the constitution is interpreted. It again brings up the fact that We The People need to not only be more effectively represented, but also given a say in how the constitutions are interpreted, and I'm talking about all "free" countries, not just the United States.

Edited July 30, 2013 by MIKON8ERISBACK

[Spaghetti Cat]

 

Isn't that a bit counter intuitive given that the citizenry have no say or voice with regard to what or how the constitution is interpreted, and therefore your personal musings on the issue, whilst interesting, hold absolutely no weight? You don't have the authority to assess what is constitutional or not in anything other than your own interpretation because you aren't a member of the judiciary, surely?

Dude. Really? I mean like. Seriously. Because lol. And you know why.

 

If you want we can start at the actual *intention* of laws and things like constitutions, which was NEVER (or should at least never be in any so called civilized nation) to go Stasi 2.0 (and please don't bother pointing out the american constitution was drafted a day or two before the Stasi was even thought up). And 2.0 is a f*cking understatement here, as ex Stasi officials have pointed out themselves, they wouldn't have imagined anything like this in their wettest dreams (their own words).

 

 

But maybe you just meant to say, in a, well, imho suboptimal way, that we have to leave stuff like this to the courts... which is reasonable but still entirely missing the point.

 

EDIT: Woah, and I'm late to the party. My apologies.

I think you missed the mark here by a pretty wide margin, I was referring to the apparent claim that Spaghetti Cat's personal whims determine what counts as constitutional or otherwise despite them being largely irrelevant as the citizenry has no political role in interpreting the constitution.

I am the Law!!!

 

Well that was my best Sly Stone impression. But seriously, it's not up to my interpretation, its right there no general warrants. I'm all for finding the bad guys, but not while making everyone a suspect in the process. In my opinion, programs like this do little to prevent serious acts of terrorism, and are only useful when investigating after the act. Ft. Hood and Boston being prime examples.

 

 

More OT: I believe this was voted down the other day. I'd say more but I just came in to look at the pretty new V pics. Well that wasn't OT, but whatevs

[GrandMaster Smith]

Yes it is very sad that it took this long, but at least they came down with the right decision in the end. The American government seems to have gotten away Scott free with a lot of bad things in the past few years and I'm glad that they got this right. Going up against the NSA and their friends is a very ballsy thing to do and I applaud their courage.

You have read the rest of the thread, including the bits that show the original post was factually incorrect, no?

What was originally wrong? That the NSA is doing mass surveillance?

[sivispacem]

Yes it is very sad that it took this long, but at least they came down with the right decision in the end. The American government seems to have gotten away Scott free with a lot of bad things in the past few years and I'm glad that they got this right. Going up against the NSA and their friends is a very ballsy thing to do and I applaud their courage.

You have read the rest of the thread, including the bits that show the original post was factually incorrect, no?

What was originally wrong? That the NSA is doing mass surveillance?

As you're evidently far too lazy to scroll back through the topic:

 

 

Congress has finally decided that massive, unprecedented and unwarranted surveillance of the American people conducted by the National Security Agency is against the law. Members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which has broad jurisdiction over matters related to federal criminal law, arrived at the conclusion months after the American people reached a similar conclusion.

“We never, at any point in this debate, have approved the type of unchecked, sweeping surveillance of United States citizens employed by our government,” said House fixture John Conyers, a Michigan Democrat, during a hearing on the NSA. “If the government cannot provide a clear, public explanation for how its program is consistent with the statute, it must stop collecting this information immediately.”

 

It's a shame it took this long.

 

Full Article

I do love the Infowars line on bullsh*t. Original source, actually referenced in the article. I can see you looked really hard to corroborate what Infowars was saying...

 

 

The U.S. National Security Agency and Department of Justice exceeded their legal authority to conduct surveillance when collecting the telephone records of millions of U.S. residents, several U.S. lawmakers said Wednesday.

 

Several members of the U.S. House of Representatives Judiciary Committee, both Republicans and Democrats, ripped into representatives of the DOJ and the U.S. intelligence community for their collection of U.S. phone call records, saying the bulk collection violates Patriot Act restrictions that limit surveillance to information relevant to an antiterrorism investigation...

 

...During the hearing, lawmakers raised few concerns about the PRISM program, in which the NSA collects the content of email and other Internet communications sent by people not believed to be U.S. citizens. Former NSA contractor Edward Snowden revealed both the phone records collection and the Prism program in news stories published in early June.

 

“Our primary responsibility at the National Security Agency ... is to defend the nation,” Inglis said. “These programs are a core part of those efforts. We use them to protect Americans and our allies and partners worldwide.”

 

While officials defended the surveillance court’s review of the collection requests, several lawmakers suggested the court is a rubber stamp. Since the court was established in 1979, U.S. agencies have made nearly 34,000 surveillance requests to the court, and 490 of those were amended at the court’s request, said Representative Hakeem Jeffries, a New York Democrat. In that time, the court rejected just 11 requests, he said.

 

Those statistics don’t capture significant negotiations in many cases between the court and the NSA and DOJ before the judges grant the orders, said Robert Litt, general counsel for the U.S. Office of the Director of National Intelligence.

 

Several lawmakers called on the agencies to release more information about the surveillance programs and better explain to the public why the programs are necessary.

 

So, it becomes clear that Congress has not made any judgement on the legality or otherwise of surveillance conducted by the NSA, and that in actual fact it is several individual congressmen assessing that a single NSA project- the collection of telecommunications metadata- overstretched their legal interception capacity as outlined under the PATRIOT act. Which isn't a new development, because several members of both Congress and the House have come out as saying they believed that warrantless metadata collection violated the limits of what is legal under PATRIOT.

 

But hey, let's not let the sources that InfoWars provides only to explicitly contradict get in the way of a good bit of conspiracy sh*t-stirring.

 

You really have to be a special kind of idiot to buy into this stuff.

The entire premise of it is incorrect.

[GrandMaster Smith]

Not too lazy to look back but rather too lazy to try and make sense out of your posts since they are rarely ever delivered giving a clear message..

 

 

The entire premise of what? That Congress has declared it a violation of our rights or that members of Congress are saying it is? To me it doesn't sound entirely incorrect just more so a case still in development.

 

 

[sivispacem]

 

The entire premise of what? That Congress has declared it a violation of our rights or that members of Congress are saying it is?

The former. The initial post with the quote attributed to Kurt Nimmo said "Congress has finally decided that massive, unprecedented and unwarranted surveillance of the American people conducted by the National Security Agency is against the law". Which is factually incorrect as they hadn't, and for that matter haven't and based on recent sittings probably won't. Even if they had, the congressional discussion was in regard to a single aspect of the NSA's activity (the collection of telecommunication metadata) so it still wouldn't be right. Always nice to see InfoWars posting links to their apparent sources which completely contradict what the InfoWars articles say and attribute to that source.

Edited July 30, 2013 by sivispacem

[Clem Fandango]

I like how people continue to support the existence of states, but still get up in arms about things like this. Governments already employ police to harass you, exploit you economically to no end while giving plutocrats a leg up, take half your paycheck to spend on wars, put you in jail for smoking pot and use all kinds of social mechanisms to exclude you from the decision making process... but "oh no we're living a police state" because the government might be compiling evidence of your fart fetish?

[Spaghetti Cat]

 

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The National Security Agency has broken privacy rules or overstepped its legal authority thousands of times each year since 2008, the Washington Post reported on Thursday, citing an internal audit and other top-secret documents.

 

Most of the infractions involved unauthorized surveillance of Americans or foreign intelligence targets in the United States, both of which are restricted by law and executive order, the paper said.

 

They ranged from significant violations of law to typographical errors that resulted in unintended interception of U.S. emails and telephone calls, it said.

 

The Post said the documents it obtained were part of a trove of materials provided to the paper by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, who has been charged by the United States with espionage. He was granted asylum in Russia earlier this month.

 

The documents included a level of detail and analysis that is not routinely shared with Congress or the special court that oversees surveillance, the paper said. In one of the documents, agency personnel are instructed to remove details and substitute more generic language in reports to the Justice Department and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.

 

In one instance, the NSA decided it need not report the unintended surveillance of Americans, the Post said. A notable example in 2008 was the interception of a “large number” of calls placed from Washington when a programming error confused U.S. area code 202 for 20, the international dialing code for Egypt. ((whoops))

 

The Post said the NSA audit, dated May 2012, counted 2,776 incidents in the preceding 12 months of unauthorized collection, storage, access to or distribution of legally protected communications.

 

The paper said most were unintended. Many involved failures of due diligence or violations of standard operating procedure. It said the most serious incidents included a violation of a court order and unauthorized use of data about more than 3,000 Americans and green-card holders. ((but you know, trust us))

 

In 2008, the FISA Amendments Act granted NSA broad new powers in exchange for regular audits from the Justice Department and the office of the Director of National Intelligence and periodic reports to Congress and the surveillance court, the Post said.

 

“We’re a human-run agency operating in a complex environment with a number of different regulatory regimes, so at times we find ourselves on the wrong side of the line,” a senior NSA official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, told the Post.

 

“You can look at it as a percentage of our total activity that occurs each day,” he said. “You look at a number in absolute terms that looks big, and when you look at it in relative terms, it looks a little different.”

 

In what the Post said appeared to be one of the most serious violations, the NSA diverted large volumes of international data passing through fiber-optic cables in the United States into a repository where the material could be stored temporarily for processing and selection.

 

The operation collected and commingled U.S. and foreign emails, the Post said, citing a top-secret internal NSA newsletter. NSA lawyers told the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court that the agency could not practicably filter out the communications of Americans.  ((nah, that's crazy talk))

 

In October 2011, months after the program got underway, the court ruled that the collection effort was unconstitutional.  ((what are you a judge or something? shut up!))

 

Some members of the Senate Intelligence Committee, including Democrat Ron Wyden of Oregon, have been trying for some time to get the NSA to give some kind of accounting of how much data it collects “incidentally” on Americans through various electronic dragnets. The Obama administration has strongly resisted such disclosures.

 

NOthing to see here folks, keep moving right along.