Confiscating the Phone Records of US Citizens

[heironymouspasparagus]

Now as for how did I know I shouldn't kill someone?  It is just one of those things you know, but I understand what you mean.  Had I grown up differently, I wouldn't have understood that.  Honestly, the only thing that I think should be needed is the golden rule.  Regardless of race, creed, religion, sex or sexual preference; you should treat others as you wish to be treated.   

Murder...not kill.  There is a time to every purpose - including killing someone if they are trying to do severe bodily harm to you or yours.  Huge difference!

I put the Golden Rule as the top criteria for evaluating how I should act.  Reaction is a slightly different case due to the initiation of the interaction by the other party...generally try to approach it from GR direction anyway....

[heironymouspasparagus]

I notice you've been taking your smart pills lately.  Or more likely, I have failed to recognize your intelligence, and for that I am sorry.  

I haven't changed...you are maturing and becoming a more well rounded individual and personality....

Keep it up!!  I'll try to help any way I can.

[patric]

I haven't changed...you are maturing and becoming a more well rounded individual and personality....

It must signal the end times... also finding myself being in agreement with Gaspar of late.
I feel a disturbance in the Force.

[JCnOwasso]

Murder...not kill.  There is a time to every purpose - including killing someone if they are trying to do severe bodily harm to you or yours.  Huge difference!

I put the Golden Rule as the top criteria for evaluating how I should act.  Reaction is a slightly different case due to the initiation of the interaction by the other party...generally try to approach it from GR direction anyway....

Can't argue with that in the slightest.    I must have been angsty last week.  I just felt like arguing to argue.   

[heironymouspasparagus]

Can't argue with that in the slightest.    I must have been angsty last week.  I just felt like arguing to argue.   

That's fantastic!!  I am always up for that....so let 'er rip anytime!!

I have a very old, long time friend who has extensive discussions with me from time to time...we usually start by picking a topic, if it hasn't naturally arisen, then will say, "Pick a side...I'll take the other"...

[heironymouspasparagus]

It must signal the end times... also finding myself being in agreement with Gaspar of late.
I feel a disturbance in the Force.

We will turn him to the light side!  Endeavor to persevere!

[Vashta Nerada]

Where your drivers license photo and fingerprint actually goes:

The faces of more than 120 million people are in searchable photo databases that state officials assembled to prevent driver’s-license fraud but that increasingly are used by police to identify suspects, accomplices and even innocent bystanders in a wide range of criminal investigations.

The facial databases have grown rapidly in recent years and generally operate with few legal safeguards beyond the requirement that searches are conducted for “law enforcement purposes.” Amid rising concern about the National Security Agency’s high-tech surveillance aimed at foreigners, it is these state-level facial-recognition programs that more typically involve American citizens.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/technology/state-photo-id-databases-become-troves-for-police/2013/06/16/6f014bd4-ced5-11e2-8845-d970ccb04497_story.html

[heironymouspasparagus]

Where your drivers license photo and fingerprint actually goes:



http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/technology/state-photo-id-databases-become-troves-for-police/2013/06/16/6f014bd4-ced5-11e2-8845-d970ccb04497_story.html

I want to know where all this so-called data consolidation is that was supposed to occur.  I have various background investigations (repeating) from organizations ranging from the Salvation Army to HazMat license to TSA flight risk evaluations and more.  When are they gonna get their act together so all of these groups can see one set of fingerprints, one drug test results set, and one passport picture so I don't have to wait sometimes several days a year on all this carp!!  Just let me on the dam plane already without all the scanner crap!!  Why should I have to give fingerprints yet AGAIN just to get a machine gun...??  What kind of nonsense is this!!?

[patric]

The Senate hearings into the wholesale surveillance are going well.   

Q:  Does the NSA have the ability to listen to Americans phone calls or read their emails?
A:  No. We do not have that authority.

[heironymouspasparagus]

The Senate hearings into the wholesale surveillance are going well.   

Q:  Does the NSA have the ability to listen to Americans phone calls or read their emails?
A:  No. We do not have that authority.

Are you sensing a little misdirection and evasion there?  (I am....)

[Vashta Nerada]

[patric]

National Intelligence Director James Clapper apologised on Tuesday for telling Congress in March that the NSA did not have a policy of gathering data on millions of Americans.
He said in a letter to the Senate intelligence committee that his answer had been "clearly erroneous".


http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-23158242

...this, after the Bolivian Presidents plane was forced to land in Vienna to be searched for Snowden.


http://rt.com/usa/kiriakou-snowden-letter-leak-618

[patric]

...but in this age of electronic mail, good old snail mail isnt being left behind:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/04/us/monitoring-of-snail-mail.html?_r=0

Mr. Pickering was targeted by a longtime surveillance system called mail covers, a forerunner of a vastly more expansive effort, the Mail Isolation Control and Tracking program, in which Postal Service computers photograph the exterior of every piece of paper mail that is processed in the United States — about 160 billion pieces last year.
“In the past, mail covers were used when you had a reason to suspect someone of a crime,” said Mark D. Rasch, who started a computer crimes unit in the fraud section of the criminal division of the Justice Department and worked on several fraud cases using mail covers. “Now it seems to be, ‘Let’s record everyone’s mail so in the future we might go back and see who you were communicating with.’ Essentially you’ve added mail covers on millions of Americans.” 

[Vashta Nerada]

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-57595529-38/feds-tell-web-firms-to-turn-over-user-account-passwords/

The U.S. government has demanded that major Internet companies divulge users' stored passwords, according to two industry sources familiar with these orders, which represent an escalation in surveillance techniques that has not previously been disclosed.

If the government is able to determine a person's password, which is typically stored in encrypted form, the credential could be used to log in to an account to peruse confidential correspondence or even impersonate the user. Obtaining it also would aid in deciphering encrypted devices in situations where passwords are reused.

"I've certainly seen them ask for passwords," said one Internet industry source who spoke on condition of anonymity. "We push back."

Other orders demand the secret question codes often associated with user accounts.

Some details remain unclear, including when the requests began and whether the government demands are always targeted at individuals or seek entire password database dumps. The Patriot Act has been used to demand entire database dumps of phone call logs, and critics have suggested its use is broader. "The authority of the government is essentially limitless" under that law, Sen. Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat who serves on the Senate Intelligence committee, said at a Washington event this week.

Large Internet companies have resisted the government's requests by arguing that "you don't have the right to operate the account as a person," according to a person familiar with the issue. "I don't know what happens when the government goes to smaller providers and demands user passwords," the person said.

[heironymouspasparagus]

And the tea-baggers just keep on spewing stupid.....it's like they don't understand that their "champions" - the RWRE....aren't.