Emphasis added-- nice little ad hominem. But you just assumed he wasn’t to be trusted to delve into this, and on that you’re just wrong. I watch his program almost every day, and he is not soft on Bush.
Anyway, I’m not trying to avoid the issue either. I’m just a little suspicious that we don’t have all the facts. This program was written about by the NYT several months ago and there was no uproar. What’s different now? I’m prepared to be outraged, but I want the news organization to digest this fully before deciding one way or another.
Nope. There’s a difference between insult and ad hiominem:
Emphasis mine. In no case have I attacked Tweety instead of an argument. I’ve just been unkind to him.
Link? Or did you give one earlier that I missed?
At any rate, I’ve long been beyond the point of desiring mere impeachment; I’m ready to join a mob of villagers with torches and pitchforks. (Wouldn’t that be a hell of a bit of protest theatre - a bunch of people standing in Lafayette Park across from the White House with torches and pitchforks? You’d have to de-weaponize them somehow in order to keep them from busting the protest, but that’s doable.) So this just adds more fuel to the fire for me.
I was able to track down a transcript link at TPM Muckracker, that indispensable resource. It’s in PDF form, so I won’t quote, but on p.7 and again on pp.18-19, he repeatedly makes it clear that he wouldn’t rule out eavesdropping on Americans inside the U.S. without warrants.
TMobile has already released a statement to their customers reassuring them that the NSA has none of their call records, nor will they be getting any unless the government ponies up a subpoena or twenty million. I’m feeling a bit less violated, since I don’t have a landline and have had my TMo account since early '03–the bastards probably don’t have many of my records. I was afraid I might have to cancel my service, which I’d be doing right the hell now if I had Verizon or Cingular. I wonder if their non-disclosure of release of records is grounds enough for customers to get out of early termination fees?
Nice to know that Deutsche Telekom is more punctilious about protecting customer privacy than all those “true blue American” companies who rolled over like a roofed bottom at a drunken orgy… :dubious: :wally :smack:
The main practical restraint on such abuses is to keep multiple people in the loop who are not bound by a common political interest. That puts the abuser at risk of being exposed when he initially attempts the abuse, rather than (possibly) some time after the fact.
This is why the telecom companies that cooperated without proper legal authorization deserve at least as much condemnation as the administration.
Earlier this week, Josh Marshall wondered how long it would be before we got the first outlier poll showing Bush’s approval ratings in the 20s. Didn’t take long at all, did it?
Nixon spent most of 1974 at ~26%. So Bush’s down to 1974 Nixon + 3%.
The GOP still controls the White House and both houses of Congress, so they can do a lot of damage if the Dems aren’t willing to fight. At this point, the Dems should block anything nonessential that they’re not strongly for, since they’ll be in a stronger negotiating position 8 months from now.
Well, obviously I’m out of the mainstream, as if I didn’t know that already. The local ABC news radio outlet, and that lovable old reactionary Paul Harvey, have been trumpeting an overnight poll that sez 2/3 of those asked were pefectly OK with the NSA having their phone records. So basically, according to them, 2/3 of the country sees no problem with its government trolling telecommunications on open-ended fishing expeditions, as long as the words ‘fighting terrorism’ appear somewhere as explanation.
:rolleyes: and :rolleyes: again.
Meanwhile, in this article, a spokesman for Verizon Wireless has said that they are “not involved in this situation”. Verizon (at least in this article) does not deny it turned over land line call info, however, nor does both Cingular and Sprint Nextel. I’ve already mailed my letter anyway.
Hell, I’ve called Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, emailed people there(not all Western People either) and I look weekly at the Arab News on line. I just KNOW I’m being monitered. (What’s the frequency Kenneth??)
I didn’t see Chris Matthews’ show, so I can’t comment on whatever he said. But, like you, I don’t feel very warm or fuzzy about the talk from Washington about it all being legal, and about our privacy still being respected. I also don’t buy the bit about getting a warrant. There’s already been a few flaps about that… FISA says they can do their thing, and have 72 hours to get a warrant afterwards. The flap at that time was, they didn’t bother going to the FISA judges or get a warrant, at all. So no, I don’t believe them this time. Besides, if it were all lewgal and proper, then why block the Dept of Justice investigation? It’s all a bit too fishy.
God…that’s the funniest thing I think I’ve ever read on this board.
I could see The Daily Show putting up a graphic, comparing various approval ratings:
Barry Bonds’ performance: 34%
Getting skidmarks in your underwear: 31%
President Bush’s performance: 29%
Getting dumped by your girlfriend: 23%
Having a bird shit on your car: 18%
BlackKnight, I removed the contact info from your post. I know you were just quoting the NSA website, but our rules on posting contact info don’t allow it. People can follow the link if they want to contact NSA. (Or just speak clearly into their home telephone.)
When I called Sprint yesterday, the spokesman I talked to assured me that they do not turn over information to the NSA or anybody else without a warrant that has been gone over by their legal team. He was just a flunky, but he said that’s their policy. He also said he’d been getting calls about it all day long. I told him to strongly encourage his higher-ups at corporate to issue an offical statement about the company’s policy.
And as for what political oppression uses social network data mining could be put to, I can think of dozens off the top of my head. If someone on the staff of a political appointment made frequent calls to someone who was a suspected drug dealer or prostitute, you could have that person arrested on suspicion to embarass your opponent. Or if you wanted to blackmail someone, there’s plenty of opportunity in the phone records. You could deny goverment contracts to anyone who had called your political opponent’s offices. You could launch an investigation into any women who had called Planned Parenthood. You could break up ELF or Earth First cells by tracing the call patterns. You could find the “nodes”–political organizers–and just arrest them to disrupt a poltical party. Or, of course in extreme circumstances you could just round up everybody who had called an “enemy of the state” and throw them in a concentration camp.
