Big Brother IS Watching

[mrjarrell]

And they're keeping files on American citizens, even the innocent. All in the name of their so-called war on terror. The police state truly is growing and, soon enough, we'll all have a file and they'll be adding to it without any oversight or anything.

Attorney General Secretly Granted Gov. Ability to Develop and Store Dossiers on Innocent Americans | Threat Level | Wired.com

 

[BEANC0UNTER]

I do not have anything to hide from them so it does not matter. Now if they do something other than just have the information then it could be an issue. I would hope they have better things to do than worry about me.

 

[IndyDave1776]

Not surprising but interesting. We have heard plenty that counter concerns of Obama 'governing' by executive order with 'he can't do that'. Legality and constitutionality of such acts notwithstanding, in practice he can, and apparently so can those under him, as apparently is the case with Holder generating this authority out of thin air.

 

[Panama]

What else are they gonna do with all that 1 MILLION square feet of new data storage space in Utah?

Just how much "data" can you store in 1 MILLION square feet? (all of it/everything)

 

[IndyDave1776]

I do not have anything to hide from them so it does not matter. Now if they do something other than just have the information then it could be an issue. I would hope they have better things to do than worry about me.

This is like saying that you don't mind people breaking into your house because you don't have anything of value to steal. The absence of anything in particular worth finding does not make it any less wrong and if you choose to accept it, you will find that as the cumulative body of law grows, you will have something to hide without having changed anything about your life. If fact, I would be willing to bet that most of us break laws most every day without realizing it. Honestly, how can you feel secure in making that claim when there is no single professional lawyer who can competently deal with the entire body of law?

Now, for the number one reason. In the words of Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis, the Fourth Amendment amounts to the right to be left alone. This is before we consider that the Fourth Amendment explicitly prohibits searches of our persons, property, or effects without a proper warrant. Given that most of the information collected comes from intercepted personal communication, I fail to see how any reasonable argument could be made for the spying done by the .gov. Had our founding fathers felt that one need not be concerned so long as they have nothing to hide, there would have been no Fourth Amendment. I recommending deferring to the judgment of these extremely wise men.

 

[Bunnykid68]

I do not have anything to hide from them so it does not matter. Now if they do something other than just have the information then it could be an issue. I would hope they have better things to do than worry about me.

You may not have anything to hide now, but when they make something illegal you own they will know it.

 

[GLOCKMAN23C]

It's ok to violate our Constitution and our rights. Just ask BHO.

 

[Principal Skinr]

I do not have anything to hide from them so it does not matter. Now if they do something other than just have the information then it could be an issue. I would hope they have better things to do than worry about me.

And if you have nothing to hide, then why do they need to keep info on you? They shouldn't keep anything on you without good reason.

I have nothing to hide, either. I also have nothing that should be any of their business.

 

[IndyDave1776]

And if you have nothing to hide, then why do they need to keep info on you? They shouldn't keep anything on you without good reason.

I have nothing to hide, either. I also have nothing that should be any of their business.

Why do I so often find myself out of rep when I really need it?

 

[Tinner666]

They even follow this forum and all the other bulletins online and in print. Now think for a moment............ How many misconstrued comments have you seen here and elsewhere that caused arguements, misunderstandings, etc. because of elided words, misspelled words, just the wrong way of phrasing things, or lack of, or wrong emoticon? We all say stuff 'tongue in cheek' sometimes. Where do you think humor arises from?

Now, still thinking? From Glockman

It's ok to violate our Constitution and our rights.

It will be up to some bureaucrat somewhere to read it and decide if it's actionable. I doubt he'll see the purple and I doubt he'll bother to read the thread to get the context. Maybe he will, maybe he won't.

Thing is, YOUR life will depend on his decision when BB gets big enough.

Think about it. Long and hard.

 

[No2rdame]

Why do I so often find myself out of rep when I really need it?

I had a little to spare and that post definitely deserved it.

 

[IndyDave1776]

I had a little to spare and that post definitely deserved it.

Thank you sir!

 

[Principal Skinr]

Thank you sir!

Thanks, guys! Every now and then, even a blind squirrel finds a nut!

 

[Hickory]

Another Article

Got this from a respected source.

SOMETHING NEW YOU SHOULD KNOW
December 17, 2012
You are probably completely unaware of the following excerpts unless you read the full-page article in The Wall Street Journal’s December 13 issue. As a former Chief Privacy Officer of the Department of Homeland Security was quoted as saying, however, "This is a sea change in the way that the government interacts with the general public." The article itself is entitled, "U.S. Terror Agency to Tap Citizen Files."
The article’s first paragraph states, "Top U.S. intelligence officials gathered in the White House Situation Room in March to debate a controversial proposal. Counterterrorism officials wanted to create a government dragnet, sweeping up millions of records about U.S. citizens…even people suspected of no crime. A week later, the attorney general signed the changes into law." [Bold type and underlines are mine.]
Continuing, "The rules now allow the little-known National Counterterrorism Center to examine the government files of U.S. citizens for possible criminal behavior, even if there is no reason to suspect them. Now, NCTC can copy entire government databases…flight records, casino-employee lists, the names of Americans hosting foreign-exchange students, and many others. The agency has new authority to keep data about innocent U.S. citizens for up to five years, and to analyze it for suspicious patterns of behavior. Previously both were prohibited. ‘It’s breathtaking in its scope,’ said a former senior administration official familiar with the White House debate." [Italics, underlines and bold type are mine.]
Continuing, "Congress specifically sought to prevent government agents from rifling through government files indiscriminately when it passed the Federal Privacy Act in 1974. The Act prohibits government agencies from sharing data with each other for purposes that aren’t ‘compatible’ with the reason the data were originally collected." But, "Under the new rules issued in March, the NCTC can obtain almost any database the government collects that it says is ‘reasonably believed’ to contain ‘terrorism information.’ The list could potentially include almost any government database, from financial forms submitted by people seeking federally backed mortgages to the health records of
people who sought treatment at Veterans Administration hospitals." [Italics, underlines, and bold type are mine.]
Continuing, "The National Counterterrorism Center’s ideas faced no similar public resistance. For one thing, the debate happened behind closed doors. The agency’s best-known product is a database called TIDE, which stands for the Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment. TIDE contains more than 500,000 identities suspected of terror links." [Italics, underlines, and bold type are mine.]
"As early as February 2011, NCTC’s proposal was raising concerns at the privacy offices of both Homeland Security and the Department of Justice, according to emails reviewed by the Journal. At the Department of Justice, Chief Privacy Officer Nancy Libin raised concerns about whether the guidelines could unfairly target innocent people. Some research suggests that, statistically speaking, there are too few terror attacks for predictive patterns to emerge. The risk, then, is that innocent behavior gets misunderstood." [Bold type, italics, and underlines are mine.]
Continuing, "By this point, Ms. Libin’s concern that innocent people could inadvertently be targeted had been largely overruled at the Department of Justice. Colleagues there were more concerned about missing the next terrorist threat." [Underlines and italics are mine.]
Departing from the New York Times article for a personal note…Some 2-3 months ago, an acquaintance who had retired from the military about a year or so earlier told me with evident concern that he had just learned via some undisclosed channel that he had been classified as a potential terrorist along with several former service men in Virginia that he knows. The apparent justification as they supposedly learned was [1] they were all retirees from the military, [2] they all owned guns, and, [3] they were all devout, evangelical Christians. Frankly, I didn’t think too much about his comments until reading the entire Wall Street Journal article.

Don't know if it is a dupe but thought I would post.
Hickory

 

[hacksawfg]

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/23/opinion/the-national-security-agencys-domestic-spying-program.html?_r=0

Probably someone else has posted this, but if you haven't seen it it's worth watching.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/23/o...ity-agencys-domestic-spying-program.html?_r=0