They are monitoring calls. Seems they have every number I call, when and how often I call it, and who the people at those numbers call, and so forth.
They are not monitoring the content of calls en masse. But they are unquestionably monitoring the calls.
And then there’s the unanswered question about their monitoring of email contacts.
But not the rest of us, unless we have the option of having Qwest as our local phone provider.
I’m not so concerned about privacy as I am that this is the kind of operation they waste our tax dollars on.
Gee, I have a “route”! And I didn’t even know it. Route Mace. I like it! Can I charge tolls, too? Can I set my own speed limits? Mace Autobahn would be even cooler.
But who decides when the war is over? Who decides who the enemy is?
Exactly.
Nonsense. You are dumber than a box of hammers. The President was not asked a generic, open-ended question. He was asked about the NSA’s monitoring of the content of international telephone calls. This is a separate program, one that collects data about the origin and destination of calls, but not their content. What he said about the monitoring program in no way gives fair rise to the accusation of a lie because of this data collection program.
I’m not wild about this current program. But quoting Bush’s comments about a completely separate program, in the context of THIS one, and calling him a liar as a result, is simply stupid.
Sorry if I seemed jumpy, but I guess I am, rather. Lady Lacha is one of the vociferous non- fans of the current administration, and has often said that one day I’ll come home from work, and she’ll be gone – spirited away. One step closer to that reality, it seems, if I want to be completely knee-jerk about it. Assuming that we’re being told the truth about the fact that calls weren’t listened in on (only tracked), though, it seems like the average garden-variety dissenter may live to piss & moan another day.
In the words of John McEnroe, “You CANNOT be serious!”
So when asked about domestic content monitoring, you think it’s acceptable to deny doing it without qualifying, “but we do have this here completely separate program that collects numbers, origins, and other data domestically.”
The fact that you don’t see the deception says a lot about you personally. I don’t mean that as an insult. I mean that as a statement of fact. You creep me out.
You think. You have, I’m willing to guess, no evidence that this is all they’re doing with the information other than your good faith in the administration.
Just as I have no evidence that, say, some unscrupulous administration member is going to use this information in the future to identify potential future contributors to the Democratic party by identifying calls to Democratic-aligned charities. But the potential for such an abuse is why we have laws constraining government power in the first place.
Except they’re not. Unless the FCC is now part of the Dept of Justice. Which it ain’t. The FCC is an independent federal agency directly responsible to Congress.
A press conference is not pillow talk between lovers. It’s not an exposition. It’s the President, in a limited time span, answering questions that are put to him.
If you view this as a lie, then I assume you hold similar ire for every single President of the last hundred years or so, since undoubtedly each of them engaged in conduct that you’d call “deception” as well. You’re perfectly welcome to hold that view, of course, but frankly it becomes kind of meaningless if no one can ever realistically reach the standard you seem to be setting before you’ll feel comfortable with their candor.
It is also not an audit, interrogation, or cross examination. Once the offer is made to answer such a question, it is incumbent upon the president to offer enough information to provide a response which does not mislead the public.
Few people live up to my expectations over time, presidents included. I’m not prepared to compromise my principles because someone like you points out that deception is common. Common is not equivalent to acceptable.
Ah, the tried and true Bush-lickspittle method of “just making shit up.” So good to see an active proponent still willing to work this method here at the SDMB.
What was the exact quote of the specific question asked of Bush, about which you claim knowledge? Seems to me instead that Bush’s quote comes in the middle of a prepared speech in which he is describing the Terrorist Surveillance Program. Seems to me he makes no specific reference to wiretapping or “monitoring the content of international telephone calls,” but rather is speaking more generally about his TSP.
But wasn’t the purpose of the DHS to aggregate all these discrete sources of data and put them all together? Don’t we have a whole fucking organization for that? Wasn’t that the biggest screwup that led to 9/11?
Someone please tell me - did we learn nothing from 9/11, or is Lil’ Bricker just clinging to any straw he can, no matter how illogical?
-Joe
I don’t personally give a shit what the NSA might think it needs my calling records for, and I don’t have a single thing to hide that I know of (well, not much, anyway), but this affair really steams my beans. One, it’s illegal (AFAIK) to conduct domestic surveillance of this nature. Two, where the fuck do the communications companies in question get off turning over call data for their entire customer base, without any kind of notification to their customers, regardless of who asked for it? I’ve been fairly dismissive of some class-action lawsuits, but if ever there was a case for one, seems like this would be it.
BTW, I’m a Verizon Wireless customer. This evening they’re gonna get a letter from me politely requesting an explanation as to what, if any, customer data they have in fact turned over to the government, and why they didn’t bother to notify me of this fact. I also very much want to hear the White Hose – er, White HOUSE’s explanation as to why the President forgot to mention the domestic element of his surveillance program at the time he so begrudging copped to the international part of it.
Yeah, I’m pretty naive to think any complaint I may make is going to make any difference.
I’m sure that works quite well in a courtroom.
But out here, whatever technical distinctions there may be between assorted domestic electronic surveillance programs, they sure look like one big, interwoven domestic electronic surveillance program. In a way, having a bunch of similar programs like this is itself part of the deception, because he can say “this program didn’t do X” at a time when we didn’t know about the other program that did do X.
It’s a technical truth that is fundamentally a deception.
Sez you. But here’s what he says in the context of this one, just for kicks:
I especially like the part with:
So was the clause beginning with “Third” a lie? You seem to agree it was illegal.
And how about the “Fourth” statement? Keeping a record of every call we’ve ever made or received seems to be a funny way of “fiercely protecting” our privacy. And they certainly are trolling through the personal lives of millions of innocent Americans; I consider who I call, and who I don’t, to be part of my personal life, even if they don’t listen to the actual content of the call. I suppose you could say they’ve got their definition of ‘privacy’ and ‘personal life’, and I’ve got mine, but I suspect mine would be easily the majority view. People will read his words by their own understanding of what these terms mean, and his speechwriters know it. Again, it’s a lie in the everyday sense, though not in the courtroom sense. (C’mon out and get some fresh air.)
And “Our efforts are focused on links to al Qaeda and their known affiliates,” which is why we’re collecting data on everyone’s calls.
Lordy.
I’m not hearing anything this time about leaking classified information. Am I missing that? If this wasn’t classified, why didn’t the Congressmembers who were briefed about it say something? Even if it was classified, could one of them have said something like “And this [meaning the original NSA wiretap program] isn’t the only covert action being taken which is illegal, but I can’t give any details about other programs.”
Don’t worry, folks, Bricker will change his tune the moment a Democrat gets elected POTUS.
Cite?
from here
so somehow, millions of Americans are “links to al Queda and their known affiliates” ??
::looks suspiciously around::