Spying on US citizens

[VABills]

FYI, this has been going on a while, nothing new here, move along:

 

http://www.denverspiritualcommunity.org/Am...tm#anchor125421

 

This is not the first example of the government promoting technology to facilitate its snooping. News of a previous computer component called the "Clipper Chip," which afforded intelligence agencies a "back door" into people's computers, was exposed almost 10 years ago by privacy groups.

 

The Clipper chip is a device that was promoted by the government in the late 1990s.

 

Where is the outrage over the administration in the late 90's doing the same thing?

 

Or this one: Echelon goe back to at least the 70's :

 

http://fly.hiwaay.net/~pspoole/echelon.html

 

Again, facts vs. the media trying to make Bush Bad even though this has been happening forever.

Political spying: Since the close of World War II, the US intelligence agencies have developed a consistent record of trampling the rights and liberties of the American people. Even after the investigations into the domestic and political surveillance activities of the agencies that followed in the wake of the Watergate fiasco, the NSA continues to target the political activity of “unpopular” political groups and our duly elected representatives. One whistleblower charged in a 1988 Cleveland Plain Dealer interview that, while she was stationed at the Menwith Hill facility in the 1980s, she heard real-time intercepts of South Carolina Senator Strom Thurmond. A former Maryland Congressman, Michael Barnes, claimed in a 1995 Baltimore Sun article that under the Reagan Administration his phone calls were regularly intercepted, which he discovered only after reporters had been passed transcripts of his conversations by the White House. One of the most shocking revelations came to light after several GCHQ officials became concerned about the targeting of peaceful political groups and told the London Observer in 1992 that the ECHELON dictionaries targeted Amnesty International, Greenpeace, and even Christian ministries.

[GG]

I don't know the details but I doubt it.  The info is just not useable in court if they tap and don't ultimately get a warrant.  If nothing is turned up, there is no need to ever get the actual warrant.  It would be a waste of time.  No one is going to get all bent out of shape for them dropping an investigation before ever having been required to get a warrant.  If that is the case, this is all going to get dropped pretty quickly but I highly doubt that is the issue.  If it were, the administration talking heads could have just said that over the weekend when they were all dispatched to defend this on "Press the Meat" and the rest.

 

Its not an argument, that I'm aware of, being made by the people on the inside who know exactly what happened so I see no reason to speculate that this is the case.  Their defense is that they tapped US citizens without a warrant but it was within the President's constitutional authority and that the President's handpicked attorney general obligingly reached that conclusion.

536736[/snapback]

 

Thing is that much of this is still uncertain. All we know is that NYT published an article claiming that NSA engaged in domestic spying without warrant. What I found interesting is the article hinted that NSA could spy internationally without a warrant. This is where the mini-Marine may have stumbled onto a bit of a point. It's not the fact that the Internet is a public entity, but where you collect the info.

 

NSA was targeting AQ connections in US. What happens if you start the monitoring in the US, but you're really eavesdropping on a server in Bosnia? What if you tapped into a telephone switch in Turkey that handles routing of calls between US & Saudi Arabia?

 

I'm guessing it's a bit more complicated than NSA rolling a truck with hearing devices down Main Street USA.

[Alexander Hamilton]

FYI, this has been going on a while, nothing new here, move along:

 

http://www.denverspiritualcommunity.org/Am...tm#anchor125421

 

The Denver Spiritual Community?

 

This is not the first example of the government promoting technology to facilitate its snooping. News of a previous computer component called the "Clipper Chip," which afforded intelligence agencies a "back door" into people's computers, was exposed almost 10 years ago by privacy groups.

 

The Clipper chip is a device that was promoted by the government in the late 1990s.

 

Where is the outrage over the administration in the late 90's doing the same thing?

 

There was tons of outrage and backlash over the Clipper Chip, and it was such a disastrous proposal--proposal mind you and not a spy program enacted without a warrant--that the Clipper Chip died on the vine.

Or this one: Echelon goe back to at least the 70's :

 

Again, facts vs.  the media trying to make Bush Bad even though this has been happening forever.

536748[/snapback]

 

If a US citizen was the target of a wiretap, without warrant, it's illegal.

 

You argue that no one has a right to privacy for basically anything that ever touches the public. Do I have an expectation of privacy in a closed phone booth? Can the FBI use a listening device to target my conversation in that booth, without a warrant?

[VABills]

The Denver Spiritual Community?

There was tons of outrage and backlash over the Clipper Chip, and it was such a disastrous proposal--proposal mind you and not a spy program enacted without a warrant--that the Clipper Chip died on the vine.

Or this one:  Echelon goe back to at least the 70's :

If a US citizen was the target of a wiretap, without warrant, it's illegal.

 

You argue that no one has a right to privacy for basically anything that ever touches the public. Do I have an expectation of privacy in a closed phone booth? Can the FBI use a listening device to target my conversation in that booth, without a warrant?

536769[/snapback]

Phone booth is public. No you have no rights.

 

Your own home, on your own phone, you have a right.

 

But way to ignore the facts that this has been going on a long time. That would mean Bush, Clinton, Bush I, Reagan, Carter and probably Nixon all bad.

[Mickey]

Again, I have an issue with a hardwire tap, those going through a telephone companies line.  But once it hits the airwaves, it is fair game on capture.  Also, I agree if you have an intranet, inside communication on;y then again private.  Throw it out to the internet and on government funded switches and routers and it is fair game for capture.

 

As far as the courts and their interpretting law, this goes back to the whole activist judges who change law without a basis in fact or constitution.

536721[/snapback]

Do you have any idea whatsoever of the judicial and constitutional history of the phrase "...reasonable expectation of privacy..."? The constitution quite plainly states that "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."

 

The question quite obviously is posed, what is an "unreasonable" search and seizure? The Supreme Court, tasked properly to interpret the Constitution, has held that it is "unreasonable" for the government to seize a communication in which a person has a "reasonble expectation of privacy." This interpreation was neither invented by liberals nor allowed to survive as the prevailing rule by liberals. It is an interpretation that has been supported and shared virtually universally by judges from across the political spectrum.

 

In fact, the argument you make about land lines vs. the internet is not really based at all on who owns the devices carrying the communication. If so, there would be no reason to object to tapping a phone line owned by the phone company as opposed to tapping the internet owned by whoever.

 

The argument you are making is that, all things considered, you see no reasonable expectation of privacy with the internet communication but you do as to the phone line. In short, you have very quickly moved on your own to using the same logic used in the law which you belittle as the product of activist judges.

[Alexander Hamilton]

Phone booth is public.  No you have no rights. 

 

536775[/snapback]

 

Thank you. I'll let the wolves eat you up now.

[Mickey]

Thing is that much of this is still uncertain.  All we know is that NYT published an article claiming that NSA engaged in domestic spying without warrant.  What I found interesting is the article hinted that NSA could spy internationally without a warrant.  This is where the mini-Marine may have stumbled onto a bit of a point.  It's not the fact that the Internet is a public entity, but where you collect the info.

 

NSA was targeting AQ connections in US.  What happens if you start the monitoring in the US, but you're really eavesdropping on a server in Bosnia?  What if you tapped into a telephone switch in Turkey that handles routing of calls between US & Saudi Arabia? 

 

I'm guessing it's a bit more complicated than NSA rolling a truck with hearing devices down Main Street USA.

536752[/snapback]

Certainly it is more complicated. Again, though, I just don't see why the FISA procedure was too cumbersome for them to bother with it. It might be all perfectly legal based on what was actually done but that doesn't seem to be the arguemtent they are making....yet. I think Rice did mention that what they tapped were communications between US Citizens and other persons outside of the US so maybe that is going to be part of the argument that it was legal. If it was, she could have just said, "..therefore, it was not a violation of law to tap those communications without a warrant..." She didn't though, instead she just said she wasn't a lawyer and Gonzalez would explain it all for us later.

 

It still doesn't answer the question, why? Why was FISA such an obstacle to them that they had to find a way to side step it?

[GG]

Phone booth is public.  No you have no rights. 

 

Your own home, on your own phone, you have a right.

 

536775[/snapback]

 

You're wrong on this. The public phone is property of the phone company, not the public. The government cannot get that communication without a warrant. Your communication over a cell network is also property of the cell company, it doesn't go over "public" airspace. That airspace is leased by the cell company.

[VABills]

You're wrong on this.  The public phone is property of the phone company, not the public.  The government cannot get that communication without a warrant.  Your communication over a cell network is also property of the cell company, it doesn't go over "public" airspace.  That airspace is leased by the cell company.

536798[/snapback]

PUBLIC phone booth. It isn't yours. Therefore I have no problems with anything said on it to be captured.

[Ghost of BiB]

Somewhere, a disposable cell phone maker just ordered a new car.

[Crap Throwing Monkey]

PUBLIC phone booth.  It isn't yours.  Therefore I have no problems with anything said on it to be captured.

536820[/snapback]

 

It ain't the government's either. "Public phone booth" does not mean "public" in the governmental sense.

[GG]

PUBLIC phone booth.  It isn't yours.  Therefore I have no problems with anything said on it to be captured.

536820[/snapback]

 

Sheesh. First we have VABills Math, now we need to learn VABills definitions?

 

PUBLIC is just a name that AT&T used to get the public to use ITS pay phones. There's nothing PUBLIC about them, other than the opportunity to spend a nickel to take in other PUBLIC's germs. The government did not have, nor continues to have a right to anything related to that PUBLIC phone booth without a warrant.

[X. Benedict]

It ain't the government's either.  "Public phone booth" does not mean "public" in the governmental sense.

536824[/snapback]

Although Verizon does have a tendency to act like a para-govermental agency, what you say is true.

[Crap Throwing Monkey]

Sheesh.  First we have VABills Math, now we need to learn VABills definitions?

 

PUBLIC is just a name that AT&T used to get the public to use ITS pay phones.  There's nothing PUBLIC about them, other than the opportunity to spend a nickel to take in other PUBLIC's germs.  The government did not have, nor continues to have a right to anything related to that PUBLIC phone booth without a warrant.

536826[/snapback]

 

Somewhere out there, TracyLee and BF are reading this thread and thinking "See...this PROVES copying a CD is legal!"

 

Well...TracyLee is. BF is reading it and thinking "But somebody threw a cup at Ron Artest!!!"

[VABills]

Sheesh.  First we have VABills Math, now we need to learn VABills definitions?

 

PUBLIC is just a name that AT&T used to get the public to use ITS pay phones.  There's nothing PUBLIC about them, other than the opportunity to spend a nickel to take in other PUBLIC's germs.  The government did not have, nor continues to have a right to anything related to that PUBLIC phone booth without a warrant.

536826[/snapback]

Where did I say anything other than I have no problems with it. If the courts say differently based on "constitutional" reasons then so be it. But I do not believe that a public pay phone should be considered private. Show me some legal briefings that state that they are in fact not public?

 

But again, you are off the main tract of this thread.

[Mickey]

It ain't the government's either.  "Public phone booth" does not mean "public" in the governmental sense.

536824[/snapback]

Even further, you pay money to use that phone line, there is a contractual relationship between you and the owner of the booth, the phone company. Now, the phone company could put up a sign in the booth stating that it reserves the right to permit the government to listen in on your calls but very quickly, people would use booths owned by phone companies that don't permit the tap.

 

That is one reason why they usually have to get a warrant to get into AOL files because the AOL user has a contract with AOL that includes privacy. It is much easier for the government to get access to an e-mail that is sent outside of some contractual service.

 

The contract gives you a "reasonable expectation of privacy". Then again, I am just an activist wannabe judge who is willy nilly throwing around universally accepted precedents who lives to enhance big government intrusions even when I am arguing against them.

[GG]

Where did I say anything other than I have no problems with it.  If the courts say differently based on "constitutional" reasons then so be it. 

 

 

But I do not believe that a public pay phone should be considered private.    Show me some legal briefings that state that they are in fact not public? 

536836[/snapback]

 

You want legal briefings that support legal findings that private property is, in fact, private property?

 

It doesn't really matter what you believe. A phone company's property is its own.

[Mickey]

 

You want legal briefings that support legal findings that private property is, in fact, private property? 

 

It doesn't really matter what you believe.  A phone company's property is its own.

536842[/snapback]

I also can't find legal precedent to state that your left nut is not a public testicle. It is certainly a pubic testicle and perhaps even a public spectacle but there is nothing to state that it is a private testicle nor even a private spectacle. It is so obvious that the question has never...., ahem..., come up.

[Crap Throwing Monkey]

Even further, you pay money to use that phone line, there is a contractual relationship between you and the owner of the booth, the phone company.  Now, the phone company could put up a sign in the booth stating that it reserves the right to permit the government to listen in on your calls but very quickly, people would use booths owned by phone companies that don't permit the tap.

 

That is one reason why they usually have to get a warrant to get into AOL files because the AOL user has a contract with AOL that includes privacy.  It is much easier for the government to get access to an e-mail that is sent outside of some contractual service.

 

The contract gives you a "reasonable expectation of privacy".  Then again, I am just an activist wannabe judge who is willy nilly throwing around universally accepted precedents who lives to enhance big government intrusions even when I am arguing against them. 

536840[/snapback]

 

I know (see my responses in the First Amendment thread on the football side of the board)...but I didn't want to mention it just yet. Let's clear up the whole public vs. private property issue first, before we get into more complex concepts like fee-based services...

[Crap Throwing Monkey]

I also can't find legal precedent to state that your left nut is not a public testicle.  It is certainly a pubic testicle and perhaps even a public spectacle but there is nothing to state that it is a private testicle nor even a private spectacle.  It is so obvious that the question has never...., ahem..., come up.

536851[/snapback]

 

Actually, given the existing precedents that don't allow one to patent or copyright one's DNA, I would not be surprised if my left nut was in fact legally a public testicle..