"Transcript

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: We begin with news that the National Security Agency has obtained access to the central servers of nine major Internet companies, including Google, Microsoft, Apple, Yahoo! and Facebook. The Guardian and The Washington Post revealed the top secret program on Thursday, codenamed PRISM, after they obtained several slides from a 41-page training presentation for senior intelligence analysts. It explains how PRISM allows them to access emails, documents, audio and video chats, photographs, documents and connection logs that allow them to track a person or trace their connections to others. One slide lists the companies by name and the date when each provider began participating over the past six years. But an Apple spokesperson said it had "never heard" of PRISM and added, quote, "We do not provide any government agency with direct access to our servers and any agency requesting customer data must get a court order," they said. Other companies had similar responses.

Well, for more, we’re joined by Glenn Greenwald, columnist, attorney, and blogger for The Guardian, where he broke his story in—that was headlined "NSA Taps in to Internet Giants’ Systems to Mine User Data, Secret Files Reveal." This comes after he revealed Wednesday in another exclusive story that the "NSA has been collecting the phone records of millions of Verizon customers." According to a new report in The Wall Street Journal, the scope of the NSA phone monitoring includes customers of all three major phone networks—Verizon, AT&T and Sprint—as well as records from Internet service providers and purchase information from credit card providers. Glenn Greenwald is also author of With Liberty and Justice for Some: How the Law Is Used to Destroy Equality and Protect the Powerful. He’s joining us now via Democracy—video stream.

Glenn, welcome back to Democracy Now! Lay out this latest exclusive that you have just reported in The Guardian.

GLENN GREENWALD: There are top-secret NSA documents that very excitingly describe—excitedly describe, boast about even, how they have created this new program called the PRISM program that actually has been in existence since 2007, that enables them direct access into the servers of all of the major Internet companies which people around the world, hundreds of millions, use to communicate with one another. You mentioned all of those—all those names. And what makes it so extraordinary is that in 2008 the Congress enacted a new law that essentially said that except for conversations involving American citizens talking to one another on U.S. soil, the NSA no longer needs a warrant to grab, eavesdrop on, intercept whatever communications they want. And at the time, when those of us who said that the NSA would be able to obtain whatever they want and abuse that power, the argument was made, "Oh, no, don’t worry. There’s a great check on this. They have to go to the phone companies and go to the Internet companies and ask for whatever it is they want. And that will be a check." And what this program allows is for them, either because the companies have given over access to their servers, as the NSA claims, or apparently the NSA has simply seized it, as the companies now claim—the NSA is able to go in—anyone at a monitor in an NSA facility can go in at any time and either read messages that are stored in Facebook or in real time surveil conversations and chats that take place on Skype and Gmail and all other forms of communication. It’s an incredibly invasive system of surveillance worldwide that has zero checks of any kind.

AMY GOODMAN: Glenn Greenwald, there is a chart prepared by the NSA in the top-secret document you obtained that shows the breadth of the data it’s able to obtain—email, video and voice chat, videos, photos, Skype chats, file transfers, social networking details. Talk about what this chart reveals.

GLENN GREENWALD: I think the crucial thing to realize is that hundreds of millions of Americans and hundreds of millions—in fact, billions of people around the world essentially rely on the Internet exclusively to communicate with one another. Very few people use landline phones for much of anything. So when you talk about things like online chats and social media messages and emails, what you’re really talking about is the full extent of human communication. And what the objective of the National Security Agency is, as the stories that we’ve revealed thus far demonstrate and as the stories we’re about to reveal into the future will continue to demonstrate—the objective of the NSA and the U.S. government is nothing less than destroying all remnants of privacy. They want to make sure that every single time human beings interact with one another, things that we say to one another, things we do with one another, places we go, the behavior in which we engage, that they know about it, that they can watch it, and they can store it, and they can access it at any time. And that’s what this program is about. And they’re very explicit about the fact that since most communications are now coming through these Internet companies, it is vital, in their eyes, for them to have full and unfettered access to it. And they do.

AMY GOODMAN: Glenn Greenwald, as you reported, the PRISM program—not to be confused with prison, the PRISM program—is run with the assistance of the companies that participate, including Facebook and Apple, but all of those who responded to a Guardian request for comment denied knowledge of any of the program. This is what Google said, quote: "We disclose user data to government in accordance with the law, and we review all such requests carefully. From time to time, people allege [that] we have created a government 'back door' into our systems, but Google does not have a back door for the government to access private user data."

GLENN GREENWALD: Right. Well, first of all, after our story was published, and The Washington Post published more or less simultaneously a similar story, several news outlets, including NBC News, confirmed with government officials that they in fact have exactly the access to the data that we describe. The director of national intelligence confirmed to The New York Times, by name, that the program we identify and the capabilities that we described actually exist. So, you have a situation where somebody seems to be lying. The NSA claims that these companies voluntarily allow them the access; the companies say that they never did.

This is exactly the kind of debate that we ought to have out in the open. What exactly is the government doing in how it spies on us and how it reads our emails and how it intercepts our chats? Let’s have that discussion out in the open. To the extent that these companies and the NSA have a conflict and can’t get their story straight, let them have that conflict resolved in front of us. And then we, as citizens, instead of having this massive surveillance apparatus built completely secretly and in the dark without us knowing anything that’s going on, we can then be informed about what kinds of surveillance the government is engaged in and have a reasoned debate about whether that’s the kind of world in which we want to live.

AMY GOODMAN: Glenn Greenwald, on Thursday, Senate Intelligence Committee Chair Dianne Feinstein told reporters in the Senate gallery that the government’s top-secret court order to obtain phone records on millions of Americans is, quote, "lawful."

SEN. DIANNE FEINSTEIN: As far as I know, this is the exact three-month renewal of what has been the case for the past seven years. This renewal is carried out by the FISA court under the business record section of the PATRIOT Act, therefore it is lawful.

AMY GOODMAN: That was Senator Dianne Feinstein. Glenn Greenwald?

GLENN GREENWALD: Well, first of all, the fact that something is lawful doesn’t mean that it isn’t dangerous or tyrannical or wrong. You can enact laws that endorse tyrannical behavior. And there’s no question, if you look at what the government has done, from the PATRIOT Act, the Protect America Act, the Military Commissions Act and the FISA Amendments Act, that’s exactly what the war on terror has been about.

But I would just defer to two senators who are her colleagues, who are named Ron Wyden and Mark Udall. They have—are good Democrats. They have spent two years now running around trying to get people to listen to them as they’ve been saying, "Look, what the Obama administration is doing in interpreting the PATRIOT Act is so radical and so distorted and warped that Americans will be stunned to learn" — that’s their words — "what is being done in the name of these legal theories, these secret legal theories, in terms of the powers the Obama administration has claimed for itself in how it can spy on Americans."

When the PATRIOT Act was enacted—and you can go back and look at the debates, as I’ve done this week—nobody thought, even opponents of the PATRIOT Act, that it would ever be used to enable the government to gather up everybody’s telephone records and communication records without regard to whether they’ve done anything wrong. The idea of the PATRIOT Act was that when the government suspects somebody of being involved in terrorism or serious crimes, the standard of proof is lowered for them to be able to get these documents. But the idea that the PATRIOT Act enables bulk collection, mass collection of the records of hundreds of millions of Americans, so that the government can store that and know what it is that we’re doing at all times, even when there’s no reason to believe that we’ve done anything wrong, that is ludicrous, and Democratic senators are the ones saying that it has nothing to do with that law.

AMY GOODMAN: On Thursday, Glenn, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said he stood by what he told Democratic Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon in March, when he said that the National Security Agency does "not wittingly" collect data on millions of Americans. Let’s go to that exchange.

SEN. RON WYDEN: Does the NSA collect any type of data at all on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans?

JAMES CLAPPER: No, sir.

SEN. RON WYDEN: It does not?

JAMES CLAPPER: Not wittingly. There are cases where they could inadvertently, perhaps, collect, but not wittingly.

AMY GOODMAN: That’s the questioning of the head of the national intelligence, James Clapper, by Democratic Senator Ron Wyden. Glenn Greenwald?

GLENN GREENWALD: OK. So, we know that to be a lie, not a misleading statement, not something that was sort of parsed in a way that really was a little bit deceitful, but an outright lie. They collect—they collect data and records about the communications activities and other behavioral activities of millions of Americans all the time. That’s what that program is that we exposed on Wednesday. They go to the FISA court every three months, and they get an order compelling telephone companies to turn over the records, that he just denied they collect, with regard to the conversations of every single American who uses these companies to communicate with one another. The same is true for what they’re doing on the Internet with the PRISM program. The same is true for what the NSA does in all sorts of ways.

We are going to do a story, coming up very shortly, about the scope of the NSA’s spying activities domestically, and I think it’s going to shock a lot of people, because the NSA likes to portray itself as interested only in foreign intelligence gathering and only in targeting people who they believe are guilty of terrorism, and yet the opposite is true. It is a massive surveillance state of exactly the kind that the Church Committee warned was being constructed 35 years ago. And we intend to make all those facts available so people can see just how vast it is and how false those kind of statements are.

AMY GOODMAN: Let’s go back to Senate Intelligence Committee Chair Dianne Feinstein. Speaking on MSNBC, she said the leak should be investigated and that the U.S. has a, quote, "culture of leaks."

SEN. DIANNE FEINSTEIN: There is nothing new in this program. The fact of the matter is that this was a routine three-month approval, under seal, that was leaked.

ANDREA MITCHELL: Should it be—should the leak be investigated?

SEN. DIANNE FEINSTEIN: I think so. I mean, I think we have become a culture of leaks now.

AMY GOODMAN: That was the Senate Intelligence Committee chair, Dianne Feinstein, being questioned by MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell. Glenn Greenwald, your final response to this? And sum up your findings. They’re talking about you, Glenn.

GLENN GREENWALD: I think Dianne Feinstein may be the most Orwellian political official in Washington. It is hard to imagine having a government more secretive than the United States. Virtually everything that government does, of any significance, is conducted behind an extreme wall of secrecy. The very few leaks that we’ve had over the last decade are basically the only ways that we’ve had to learn what our government is doing.

But look, what she’s doing is simply channeling the way that Washington likes to threaten the people over whom they exercise power, which is, if you expose what it is that we’re doing, if you inform your fellow citizens about all the things that we’re doing in the dark, we will destroy you. This is what their spate of prosecutions of whistleblowers have been about. It’s what trying to threaten journalists, to criminalize what they do, is about. It’s to create a climate of fear so that nobody will bring accountability to them.

It’s not going to work. I think it’s starting to backfire, because it shows their true character and exactly why they can’t be trusted to operate with power in secret. And we’re certainly not going to be deterred by it in any way. The people who are going to be investigated are not the people reporting on this, but are people like Dianne Feinstein and her friends in the National Security Agency, who need investigation and transparency for all the things that they’ve been doing.

AMY GOODMAN: Glenn Greenwald, we want to thank you for being with us. Is this threat of you being investigated going to deter you in any way, as you continue to do these exclusives, these exposés?

GLENN GREENWALD: No, it’s actually going to embolden me to pursue these stories even more aggressively.

AMY GOODMAN: Glenn Greenwald, I want to thank you for being with us, columnist and blogger for The Guardian newspaper. We’ll link to your exposés on our website, "NSA Taps in to Internet Giants’ Systems to Mine User Data, Secret Files Reveal", as well as "NSA Collecting Phone Records of Millions of Verizon Customers Daily"." - Democracy Now!

NSA PRISM program taps in to user data of Apple, Google and others
www.democracynow.org/2013/6/7/a_massive_surveillance_state_glenn_greenwald

*quality stuff

Can't wait to see what Glenn still has in the pipeline.

Boosting this quality contribution up in the Hot Listing - declared quality by radx.

The thumbnail image for this video has been updated - thumbnail added by eric3579.

*length=0:24:59

The duration of this video has been updated from unknown to 24:59 - length declared by Barseps.

http://googleblog.blogspot.ca/2013/06/what.html

"Dear Google users—

You may be aware of press reports alleging that Internet companies have joined a secret U.S. government program called PRISM to give the National Security Agency direct access to our servers. As Google’s CEO and Chief Legal Officer, we wanted you to have the facts.

First, we have not joined any program that would give the U.S. government—or any other government—direct access to our servers. Indeed, the U.S. government does not have direct access or a “back door” to the information stored in our data centers. We had not heard of a program called PRISM until yesterday.

Second, we provide user data to governments only in accordance with the law. Our legal team reviews each and every request, and frequently pushes back when requests are overly broad or don’t follow the correct process. Press reports that suggest that Google is providing open-ended access to our users’ data are false, period. Until this week’s reports, we had never heard of the broad type of order that Verizon received—an order that appears to have required them to hand over millions of users’ call records. We were very surprised to learn that such broad orders exist. Any suggestion that Google is disclosing information about our users’ Internet activity on such a scale is completely false.

Finally, this episode confirms what we have long believed—there needs to be a more transparent approach. Google has worked hard, within the confines of the current laws, to be open about the data requests we receive. We post this information on our Transparency Report whenever possible. We were the first company to do this. And, of course, we understand that the U.S. and other governments need to take action to protect their citizens’ safety—including sometimes by using surveillance. But the level of secrecy around the current legal procedures undermines the freedoms we all cherish.

Posted by Larry Page, CEO and David Drummond, Chief Legal Officer"

I read some interesting commentary from Divid Simon. (creator of the show The Wire and a fairly knowledgable guy on the subject of wiretaps.)

"Is it just me or does the entire news media — as well as all the agitators and self-righteous bloviators on both sides of the aisle — not understand even the rudiments of electronic intercepts and the manner in which law enforcement actually uses such intercepts? It would seem so.
–
Because the national eruption over the rather inevitable and understandable collection of all raw data involving telephonic and internet traffic by Americans would suggest that much of our political commentariat, many of our news gatherers and a lot of average folk are entirely without a clue.

You would think that the government was listening in to the secrets of 200 million Americans from the reaction and the hyperbole being tossed about. And you would think that rather than a legal court order which is an inevitable consequence of legislation that we drafted and passed, something illegal had been discovered to the government’s shame.

Nope. Nothing of the kind. Though apparently, the U.K.’s Guardian, which broke this faux-scandal, is unrelenting in its desire to scale the heights of self-congratulatory hyperbole. Consider this from Glenn Greenwald, the author of the piece: “What this court order does that makes it so striking is that it’s not directed at any individual…it’s collecting the phone records of every single customer of Verizon business and finding out every single call they’ve made…it’s indiscriminate and it’s sweeping.”

Having labored as a police reporter in the days before the Patriot Act, I can assure all there has always been a stage before the wiretap, a preliminary process involving the capture, retention and analysis of raw data. It has been so for decades now in this country. The only thing new here, from a legal standpoint, is the scale on which the FBI and NSA are apparently attempting to cull anti-terrorism leads from that data. But the legal and moral principles? Same old stuff."

The rest is here: http://davidsimon.com/we-are-shocked-shocked/

Sorry Mr. Fisk, I can't upvote this. This scandal is starting to feel just as bogus as the rest of them.

I don't understand how you think that this is bogus at all. This is the latest abuse from the Patriot act which still exists. The president has reserved the right not only to spy on us but to prosecute those who give small windows in to the inner workings of what is supposed to be OUR government. Diane Feinstein basically threatens Greenwald, who will basically lose everything if he can't keep his sources. His sources will dry up as soon as he is targeted again illegally by the government. It's a serious threat, it's Orwellian as was already pointed out.

Furthermore watch a bit more of that episode and it goes on to talk about the Drone killings of two American citizens. One a radical cleric who was never accused of a crime, murdered by his country. The other his 16 year old son who wasn't even CLOSE to what they say he was. He was just a kid who wanted to go to college in the US after having been born here, and he was murdered.

So I don't see what you don't see about how the Obama administration is fucking awful, and is starting to look even worse than Bush.

Decided to read the David Simon thing. He's a very intelligent person, who's looking at things from his point of view as a law enforcement journalist. He sees nothing of the history of people who were murdered because they disagreed with their government.

I doubt he has studied anything about COINTELPRO. He just isn't well versed in this subject, or if he is he didn't cite anything.

And now reading his response to the comment section brings about the real thing. He thinks because 9/11 happened and now Boston that we are under horrible attack and need to do these things. He talks nothing about the wars we've waged all over the world, nothing about the dictators we've supported. Nothing about how we're the largest terrorist state on Earth.

Again he's ignorant about history, that is all that is.

"same ol stuff" just on a larger scale don't make it right or any less appalling.

and the reason it's appalling is that our government basically fucks up everything. more information, more power, more control, on a larger scale....just means more fuck ups.

Also it's very important that we mobilize and get angry about this sort of thing when it hits the fan or we won't organize. Nothing will progress, and we'll stay a fragmented society that's completely controlled by it's government and propaganda.

Ignore the apologists and the jaded cynics. Move the Country Forward.

Nice, we are finally going to get that shitstorm i always knew we would get.. We all knew that USA collects all of our data, they don't even hide the fact but now that it's been fully revealed... Well, i for one will try to stay away from US based websites. Not that it matters. One thing is for sure, i'll be sending a LOT of keyword searches, might even do a bot. If they collect my data, i wan't it glow red and waste their time as much as possible.

Obama says it's bogus. And we can trust him to tell the truth, right?

This is just the beginning. Check out Project Mind's Eye and Project Gorgon Stare. These are the people I have to decline jobs from. They usually don't go out of their way to tell me (or anyone) what it is that they do (e.g. Co57 ).

@dystopianfuturetoday
i could not disagree more with your mr simon.

his article smacks of a "lets be reasonable" flavor but it lacks the meat of understanding.

they suspend habeas corpus and we do nothing.
they make it legal to target american citizens and we do nothing.
they create a giant dragnet to collect data from american citizens...all under the auspices of "national security".but dont worry.we dont READ your data..and we do nothing.
they flip the fourth amendment on its head and change "innocent until proven guilty: into "we have suspicions"

and we do nothing.

i guess this all comes down to perspective.
if one still believes in the ideology of a government "by the people for the people" then i guess i can understand a more..optimistic view.

but i cannot hold that such an ideology is still in practice.

i have watched this administration target whistleblowers,protesters and journalists.
anybody who sought to undermine the authority of this government.

i have watched as our government stacked lie upon lie in defense of their actions and when caught it is always the same excuse/reason:national security.

but here is a truth that has held over the centuries:governments lie

the american experiment will not end with a loud clash of ideals and a fight for freedom but rather a whimper and a sigh.

all because we did nothing.

a good article that addresses this very subject:
http://www.alternet.org/civil-liberties/surveillance-nsa?page=0%2C0

Are you having hot flashes, as well? Cravings for pickles and ice cream? Feel like crying sometimes for no reason at all, or hearing voices in your Wheaties?

Just trying to figure you out. Lots of good and bad info flying around, accordingly spun by the provider's worldview. There exists a fundamental truth here, however, and although it's possible to miss it amongst the din of spin, your position seems to be as ephemeral as your cut&paste cache. The enemy of your enemy doesn't have to be your friend. This isn't just another bogus scandal. I wouldn't even classify it as a scandal. It's much bigger than that. Dystopian future, today. Pick a fucking side already.

All fence-riding does is offer your ass more splinters-I'm all for grass-roots disobedience-Imagine the power people would realize they wield with the simple experiment of an entire town, city, or state spending an entire day sitting in their lawn chairs using no gas, electricity, or monopoly money?
The real power lies with the individual's ability to short-circuit their robotic impulses to bend over and take it up the ass

America could be transformed overnight if ineffectual peeps put the slightest amount of foot-to-ass -Otherwise, we get the brown-shirts again and unfortunately, that scenario appears inevitable. Media and her pundits are a poisonous elixir of henbane and dogshit and to continue to derive your world view from the available sources is simply retarded.

The empire has no clothes and holds very few cards, simply stop listening to their bullshit and watch them scatter like cockroaches....

I've been reading his responses as I've been sent all of the ones he's given to the people questioning his article. I'm starting to see how he thinks about the world and this situation and I can kind of tell where the disconnect comes from.

He's correct that we have no real evidence of misuse of powers, yet. I think the problem is how he sees the world, as the government and the people as equal. I don't agree, I believe that the standard of proof is completely on the government.

All power is illegitimate, unless you can prove its legitimacy. They have to prove why they can take such liberties with their internal spying of the citizenry. They haven't, 9/11 and the Boston attack aren't such a great threat to our society. Furthermore the US hasn't done anything to minimize those threats but has instead done everything to increase them. If they followed even just a few of the suggestions from the 9/11 committees recommendations maybe they'd have a leg to stand on but they don't.

I'm not ok with giving them the power to spy on us. I don't trust Obama when he says no one is listening to our phone calls or reading our emails. Do what we put you in office to do, close Guantanamo, open government, stop waging illegal wars (covert ones now too). You get credit and trust by doing basic things, but the government doesn't listen to us, so why should we give them any power at all?

It's funny.
When Obama allegedly does something, then anti-obama people are outraged - OUTRAGED.
But when Bush allegedly did something, you better believe the anti-bush people were outraged - OUTRAGED.

You haven't been listening if you think only anti-Obama people are outraged (OUTRAGED). We're both outraged, but as far as the Obama-haters... well, even a broken clock is right twice a day.

@enoch @Fletch @Yogi

I've done a complete turn around on this issue for sure. After doing some reading, I believe this to be much ado about nothing. I know I'm taking an extremely unpopular position here, siding against the left, the right, the media and videosift, essentially siding up with Obama and David Simon. Taking an unpopular position has never stopped me before. /vanity

I believe wiretaps are an important tool for law enforcement/counter terrorism, but only if there are proper checks and balances in place to make sure that these searches are constitutionally 'reasonable' and not a means of abuse.

Contrary to media hysteria, Obama can't listen in on your phone calls or read your sexts without a court order. That warrant has been the go to check and balance for decades, I don't see why it shouldn't be sufficient today.

BUT IT'S ALL DONE IN SECRECY. Yeah, that's kind of the point of a wiretap.

BUT WHAT IF THIS POWER IS ABUSED? Then we need to reassess checks, balances, oversight, etc...

My questiosn to you:

Do you all think that surveillance should be a legal tool in criminal investigations?

If yes, what changes do we make to current policy without rendering surveillance toothless?

I'm open to any arguments you want to pose or any reading material you want to share. Am I missing something here? Change my mind.

"I believe wiretaps are an important tool for law enforcement/counter terrorism..."

This is not Counter Terrorism, this is simply terrorism. Do I have to remind you of how COINTELPRO was used over 4 administrations to intimidate and assassinate those who fought for social justice?

"Contrary to media hysteria, Obama can't listen in on your phone calls or read your sexts without a court order."

A court order doesn't stop them, they don't listen to the courts. They use them to cover their ass but if they think my friends are organizing to protest they can read all about it in our emails and take steps to have the FBI Focus a crackdown on us. http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/dec/29/fbi-coordinated-crackdown-occupy

Now on to your direct questions.
"Do you all think that surveillance should be a legal tool in criminal investigations?"

Yes, but the government has never been interested in counter terrorism being called or assessed as a criminal act. When we started the War in Afghanistan it was to get Osama Bin Laden and we ordered them to give him up. They asked rightly for the evidence against him. We decided that it didn't matter, let's fucking kill as many people as possible and destabilize the region to get this guy, risking the deaths of up to 4 million people and increasing the threat of terror. The worst part is WE KNEW we were increasing the threat of terror, we did it anyway.

This is just one example there are countless others, even a worse one by Obama himself, it's a travesty. So no this isn't about Criminal Investigation, we have NEVER been interested in that.

"If yes, what changes do we make to current policy without rendering surveillance toothless?"

We address legitimate grievances with the nations and peoples we are wronging, and fall in line with international law. We increase terrorism on ourselves by our actions.

I've got tons more but this is getting long. The point is I'm not going to give this government anything. I'm not willing to, they've proven that they cannot have any sort of power whatsoever.

You specifically need to read up on some things because apparently you woke up today and believed you were dealing with rational people who are just trying to protect us. You're not, these guys don't work for us, they hate us.

I voted for him, and I'm sorry I did. Frankly we should've had an incompetent person like Romney running the place rather than and focused murdering psychopath.

@Yogi
well said my friend.

ya know.
i was talking with @VoodooV on another thread concerning this topic.
he was of the opinion that this is all about perspective and to look at the bigger picture.

now i actually agree with that, but i think the perspective is on how we approach this subject.

@Yogi and i are not coming from some alex jones 'new world order" premise but rather a historical one.
we do not trust our government because our government has proven over and over they do not deserve our trust.

and as @Yogi alluded to,the list of abuses of power by the US government is massive and extensive.

remember in 2006 when it become public that the telecoms had call system rerouters in data collection?those small rooms?
and remember how the bush administration push forward to give the telecoms retroactive immunity to avoid any civil suits?

my main point is that whenever a government gains a new power or authority they WILL use it.since 9/11 and the "war on terror" (which is just a war on ideology) our government has broadened its power and authority ten fold and it HAS USED that power.

this is not opinion.this is fact.

guess it all comes down to trust.
do you trust this government to obey the law?
i dont because they go out of their way to be creative little monkeys to circumvent the law,or redefine it to suit their purposes.

i know i am going off on a rant here,so let me end with this:
historically empires in their last stages have always become concentrated centers of power and certain criteria have always become evident.
1.the over-reach of empires always culminate with an extreme disparity between rich and poor.
2.they become incredibly militarized.
3.infrastructure and commerce begin to break down.
4.nationalism reaches fever pitch.(see:tea party)
5.those in power (the governing class) tend to become more corrupt and less idealistic and begin to pick the remnants of empire for their own enrichment.hastening the demise of empire.
6.the ruling class becomes extremely paranoid and begins to focus its attention on its own citizens.seeing enemies everywhere.
7.power seeks only to further its own power and it becomes a cycle of cannibalism.

by my statements here i am in no way disregarding or dismissing some of the great achievements that have been won by this country.but those milestones were ALWAYS because of the people and not ONE was ever implemented by a benevolent government.

so while i trust the people i,in no way,trust my government.
because they have proven they do not deserve my trust.

In a nutshell, my main gripe with this is the large disconnect between the media hysteria and the actual specifics of the case.

OMG, PRISM IS LOOKING AT MY WEB INFO!

Nope, PRISM was designed to collect foreign data. It legally can't be used on Americans. http://thehill.com/blogs/hillicon-valley/technology/304349-administration-declassifies-prism-information

OMG, THEY ARE RECORDING ALL MY PHONE CALLS!

No they aren't, the only data they can collect is phone number, call time and length.. If they want to record you, they'll need a warrant. http://news.yahoo.com/nsa-collection-verizon-call-records-draws-instant-backlash-135550018.html

(I picked the first sources I could find. If they aren't sufficient, let me know and I'll find better, though I've not heard anyone say that either of these points are untrue.)

Another thing that makes me suspicious is that this leak seems to have been coordinated with the republican scandal offensive of a couple weeks back. This feels like a campaign strategy.

I'm not hearing any specific arguments about NSA protocol from either of you in this discussion. I'm getting the impression that you see the NSA as a group of assholes, unconcerned with National Security that instead focusses on harassing citizens. - which means we are having two different arguments "what are reasonable measures to be used to investigate attacks on American soil?" vs. "The NSA is evil".

These arguments exist in different universes. Can you think of a way to reconcile them?

@enoch - Specifically, what new power has the government gained here?

http://www.aclu.org/reform-patriot-act

http://jonathanturley.org/2012/01/15/10-reasons-the-u-s-is-no-longer-the-land-of-the-free/

http://www.npr.org/news/specials/patriotact/patriotactprovisions.html

and for the person who mentioned that congress holds the most power in our legislature:
http://www.bu.edu/law/central/jd/organizations/journals/bulr/documents/MARSHALL.pdf

http://www.theatlanticwire.com/politics/2013/06/congress-government-spying-votes-charts/65969/

http://www.civilfreedoms.org/?p=7260

i could literally do this all day.
please understand my friend i am NOT buying into any media hysteria.
i just do not trust power and the past two administrations have proven they do not deserve it.

another point i would like to make is my suspicion is not the mere fact of a metadata dragnet perpetrated by the NSA.
hell..if you have a facebook you know your info is being jacked.
no..thats not where my skepticism lies.
for while i am not wholly comfortable with a government organization scooping up massive amounts of data,what bothers me far worse is our government expressly barring (verizon in this case) from letting their customers know the very existence of the program.

i also cannot nor will i ever accept the tacit and,in my opinion,bullshit reasoning that this is all about counter-terrorism.

there is far too broad a brush that can be painted with abuse.
and it is the abuse of power that i am concerned with.

see:
patriot act 1
patriot act 2
victory act 1
victory act 2
military commissions act of 2006
NDAA of 2012

which brought us the great hits of the past decade:
torture
warrantless wiretaps
illegal wars
assasinations
persecution of whistleblowers
persecution of journalists

im sorry man but we are in fundamental disagreement on this.
you see this as a necessary tool for law enforcement and counter-terrorism
and i see a horrific landscape of possible abuses by a government i feel no longer represents the citizenry but is,in fact,an arm of wall street and multi-national corporations.

and the possibilities of abuse are massive.

I'll just briefly touch on what I've already talked about in the other thread. Basically....

1. They have the data, but where's the evidence that they're doing harm with that data. Those are two separate questions. I think this is consistent with my views on the 4th AND 2nd amendment. 1. It's one thing to have a gun/the data,and 2, its another to use it wisely and there should be safeguards in place to incentivize safe and constructive use.

2. Privacy is overrated. At the very least as technology gets more and more sophisticated. we're going to have to re-evaluate what is and isn't privacy. I think privacy boils down to two things. Things we are doing that are illegal or unethical that we want to hide, in such a case, tough shit. And then there are the things we are simply embarrassed about that we want to hide. In such case, that falls into the realm of "humans being human" and we ultimately shouldn't be embarrassed about it. Think about all the things people during revolutionary times thought were private, but we consider silly to withold now. Now extend that thought another couple hundred years into the future.

3. Our outrage over privacy is hypocritical when we consider credit cards, internet, gps tracking and all other forms of technology that already are tracking our movements. It's ok that corporations have this info? but as soon as the gov't does it? It's bad? I can vote out a president, I can't vote out a CEO. One group is trying to get me to buy shit I don't need, the other group is using it as part of defense. I'll take the latter thanks. If you're going to have this mock outrage over privacy, at least be consistent about it.

If you don't like it, demand better of your politicians. They do this shit because even now, with it being in the limelight, there is simply not any real outrage over this. Quite frankly, there is probably good reason Most likely because they know it isn't that big of a deal and it's what the data is being used for is the larger issue. I'm tired of this hyperbole. People calling oppression and they can't name one thing they could do pre-Bush/Obama that they can't do now.

@VoodooV
god i love you.

i did post some articles which reflect the expansion of power in regards to civil liberties and constitutional law.

but im with @Yogi
just because they 'say" they dont use that power does not mean they wont use it.historically it is quite the contrary.
once power is given it is ALWAYS used in some capacity.

but i agree with your contention about hyperbole and sensationalist media.
i also agree that for things to change it is going to happen from the people,

but for that to happen we must be informed and the government has done everything in its power to make this dragnet secret.
and thats really my main beef with all this.

secrecy.

which even by your own argument is not necessary.
we use facebook,google etc etc.

maybe all this attention might give us some much needed checks,balances and most importantly...transparency.

@dystopianfuture
i respect your position. especially against the flow.

But I fail to find any semblances of checks and balances in our government, or respect for things like probable cause, or the requirement to obtain a warrant. There are just too many easy work-arounds. (see "exigent circumstances").

Recent history is pretty clear that after 9-11 the "security" industry in this country blew the fuck up. Giant, powerful, and rich.

So, thousands of independent contractors in the security industry, being paid billions and now putting contractual money back into the coffers of the bought and paid for. Which side does that new industry and those billions of dollars support? And are these independents and shadow entities following the rule of law? Perhaps, but I think not.

Instead they have little to do but snoop, preserve and justify their positions, collect their money and maintain the iron-fisted approach of this country when it comes to dissent.

and, very rarely does the government grant itself sweeping new powers. It prefers to do so incrementally....little by little. the frog is in the water.

*related=http://videosift.com/video/NSA-Whistleblower-Everyone-in-US-under-digital-surveillance

NSA Whistleblower: Everyone in US under digital surveillance has been added as a related post - related requested by enoch.

@enoch - Specifically, what new power has the government gained here?

I'm with you on torture, warrantless wiretaps, illegal wars, assassinations (in general, thought I think Al Alakwi was justified considering the body count he had racked up), persecution of whistleblowers, persecution of journalists

The current NSA scandal encompasses none of these things. If they want to record your phone calls, they need a warrant. They didn't under Bush - but they do now - and PRISM can't go after your internet data at all.

Even if they did want to grab everyones' information, can you see how difficult it would be to pull off? How many phone calls are made in a day? (millions?) How many warrants would it take to get access to all those calls? How many man hours would it take to record and listen to all those calls? Even if the NSA were full of villainous mustache twirlers, doesn't that seem like a futile task? 99.9999% of the information would be useless.

I believe that the NSA genuinely works to stop terror attacks. I know there has been much bullshit done in the name of the "war on terror", but I believe there is a genuine need for an Agency that deals with National Security. I would imagine most countries have some kind of similar body.

I don't have a problem with information gained with search warrants. My major complaint is that this stuff is not better explained to the public. I know that there is plenty of specific information that needs to be kept secret in order to not blow the cover of agents who are wiretapping suspects, but I think the broad strokes should be put out there. Here's what we are doing. Here's why. Here are the problems we've had. Here are the successes we've had. How are we doing? How can we improve this?

I also think there would be far less need to monitor if drugs were legalized and the war on terror ended.

Anyway, I think this kind of surveillance is going to become status quo and will be completely uncontroversial in a few decades. As far as abuse goes, you don't need any of these high tech contraptions to listen to peoples phone calls and track internet usage. These things can be done fairly easily with comparatively primitive tech that can be bought legally at spy stores.

@criticalthud I don't disagree with what you say. My point is that judge approved wiretaps and internet surveillance should be a legal part of law enforcement/National Security arsenal. How to do it best is beyond me. I think warrants and constitutional protections are decent checks and balances, but I know they are not infallible. As I mentioned to enoch, if someone wants to listen to your calls, be that person a high ranking government agent or your grumpy neighbor, it can be done easily with low tech. Killing these guidelines would do nothing to protect you from a rogue agent or personal vendetta.

If all this leads to a real discussion on the war on terror or on the war on drugs, I'd be thrilled. My prediction is that it will just be used as a politicians electoral weapon until everyone gets sick of hearing about it and it slides off the radar screen.

also, should we continue this convo in a more current thread? http://videosift.com/video/Latest-NSA-whistleblower-Edward-Snowden-w-Glenn-Greenwald

been watching the news lately and they are hell bent on asking the whole "is he a hero or is he a traitor"

This is why I hate the media. Gee, is it possible he's NEITHER?!?!"

The presidency isn't divisive. It's the media that is divisive.