It has all the elements of a Hollywood summer blockbuster hit -- lone protagonist makes a stand, horrified government agencies on the defense, and the beltway media missing the mark.
Unfortunately, this isn't a movie (yet). The most egregious aspect of this story, in my biased opinion, is the way journalists have so casually been lumped in and brushed under the rug by the Obama administration. For instance, before the Snowden story broke, the Department of Justice was taking heat for wiretapping and collecting information about journalists (the Fourth branch of democracy) doing their jobs. This dangerous precedent -- all in the name of national security -- leads to a less informed public, which undermines the integrity of the nation to hold itself accountable.
That said, I just hope Ashton Kutcher doesn't land the role of Snowden.

You know... I'll tell you what. I use my tech knowhow to avoid this, anything I don't want someone else to know, I encrypt the shit out of it. If I NEEDED to make a secure phone call, VoIP over android on an encrypted link. Have I ever needed or done it? nope, I could care less if they evesdrop on the 5 minutes of voice talk I do a month.

That however wouldn't stop me from joining any action to shut the nsa down and prevent these warrantless wiretaps. Just show me the train to hop on and I'll be there.

When these suddenly controversial wiretap/monitoring measures were put into place a decade ago, the controversy was based around the fact that they didn't requie a warrant. The Obama admin has added oversight to the process by requiring a warrant.

I hate to go against my fellow lefties on this one, but this is a bogus scandal.

(continued conversation from http://videosift.com/video/Democracy-Now-A-Massive-Surveillance-State-Exposed. Feel free to join in.)

@enoch - Specifically, what new power has the government gained here? (this is not a rhetorical question)

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 through 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, will not be overly problematic 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 people's 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.

http://www.spy.th.com/audiocat.html

@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 the 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 the war on drugs, I'd be thrilled. My prediction is that it will just be used as a politicians electoral bludgeoning device until everyone gets sick of hearing about it and it slides off the radar screen.

@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.

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 do, but only because "nobody" = "no person". So that statement is technically true, even though computers (not people) are recording ALL phone calls, and doing speech-to-text, and looking for keywords, and those keywords being flagged as present in the metadata, and used by the algorithms. So yes, a court order might be needed for a human to actually listen to a full conversation, but it already goes way beyond the intentions of the old wiretapping laws.

Email, which is plaintext (unencrypted), should never be considered secure. The FBI used Carnivore before it was legal (Patriot Act) and continue to use electronic surveillance in every form possible. (within the secret "legal" framework and oversight)

I guess the only real controversy is exactly how many classified programs that congress knows about and approves of, and votes to renew regularly? How can the people know how their representative is voting if the ballots are done in secret?

Jesse Ventura 2016!

"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.

@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.

From the blog of David Simon (creator of the Wire)

07
JUN
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.

http://davidsimon.com/we-are-shocked-shocked/

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/

@lantern53
navy here.

and i agree.actions have consequences.
manning knew that as did daniel ellisberg and a litany of other people who revealed classified information but they did it anyways because they felt the truth should be known.
that the truth was more important than their own safety and security.

this is why i use the term "courage".
to act on ones own sense of morality and conscience KNOWING the full weight of an entire government will be pressing down on you when it all comes out.

the days of woodward and bernstein are gone i think.i could be wrong but i read the governments reaction as a strong signal to those who would seek to undermine its absolute authority.
see:the godfather principle

reporters being wiretapped and emails and phone records confiscated.
whistleblower status has been denied more than any other time in americas history.
its an old tactic.
create a climate of fear to intimidate anyone who challenges the narrative.

we shall see where this goes because i feel it will be a strong indicator of things to come.
interesting times my friend.

as for social programs.
i guess i would rather see my taxes go to infrastructure and the old lady down the street rather than bail out corrupt bankers and bomb brown people in a distant country.

but empire is expensive and we need those bombs.
or so they say.
i tend to disagree.

anyways.thanks for replying my friend.

HA! miss you ya goober.

i dont subscribe to everything this video pontificates on.i thought it was an interesting point of view from a christian perspective.

ya know what i find even MORE interesting?
that during the bush years all my liberal/progressive friends needed medication for the rage and offense they took to the :illegal wars,wiretapping,torture etc etc.

even here on the sift the politics channel was busting with video after video of the malfeasance and outright destruction of civil liberties perpetrated by the bush administration.

and rightly so i might add.

go look at the politics channel now.
notice anything?
its dead jim.
empty and devoid of any real substantive discussion concerning obama.(or anything for that matter,its a ghost town)
who..lets be honest..is on his way to surpassing bush jr on:destruction of civil liberties,assasinations,expansion of more illegal wars.

now why is that?
when bush did it everybodies panties got knotted up but when obama not only expands executive powers but starts killing amreican citizens abroad.no trial.no jury..executes them.
and not a peep.
not even a slight foot note.(i may have just made that up but i havent seen much,and thats the truth)

so here we have a former constitutional lawyer.smart and photogenic pushing through some of the most heinous legislation and my liberal friends are silent.

so lets be clear here.obama is a product.
just like the pilsbury dough boy or the MGM lion.
and he has OWNERS.
they tell him what to do and what is in THEIR best interest.

our government has been purchased and is now a owned subsidiary of the multi-nationals and the financial industry.
and obama is the face of that subsidiary.

do i think a "new world order" is the goal?
well..naw....i think it is a select few who wish to perpetuate their own dominance and the rest of the world be damned.
they are only interested in governments in order to get what they want and what they want is to commodify everything.
they want to own it and sell it as they see fit.
water,air,food,energy...the whole kaboodle.

so if they have to purchase a government to make stealing legal or pay off a commitee in order to be able to sell poison as medicine or make GMO foods secret and non-litigious.
thats what they will do.

some right wing folks call it oligarchy.
i find that to be inaccurate.

the correct term is plutocracy.

so if you think the government under obama has become some benevolent uncle who just wishes to pass out smiles and hugs.
well....i dont think you have been paying attention.

obama is smarter and his administration far more clever but this government has EXPANDED on what bush did years ago.

so where the FUCK are my liberal friends????
has our society become so polemic that we root for "our" team like slacked jawed zombies?
look at how those teams are voting!
they are practically indistinguishable from each other!
republican..democrat..pffft..same fucking cookie.

are we so enamored with the IDEA of american politics that we cant see the reality?
its broken kids.
busted and banged up and rotten to its core.

i just dont get the silence..i really dont...
because i think thats what bothers me the most.
the silence.

/rant off

The stops are shown on various websites (local authority, news, etc). So people who are in those areas shouldn't be surprised by them. And if you're so "upset" with the checkpoints, or sobriety points, or anything that is similar to this (or just checking into a flight, where they check your ID as well, do you *not* fly?) you can easily check online where they're holding the stops. It's required that they announce/post where the stops are being held. They expect and hope that not everyone has the presence of mind to check where the stops are at, that's the *point* of the stops, to find people who are not of legal status in this country.

And I bring up Illegal Immigrants, because that's the reason as to *why* these checkpoints exist. (hence why in the video they ask what the persons citizenship is)

As for the probable cause debate;
As several law journals suggest (e.g. http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/probable+cause ), probable cause is subjective, there can be many instances of probable cause, but there can also be a lesser form called "Reasonable suspicion", which could essentially be used in this instance.

You simplify things way too much, the law isn't just a clear cut black and white instance. The law isn't simple, you can't quantify it in a simple explanation, and lawyers, law enforcement, judges (etc) know all this. Laws aren't water tight either, many contradict each other, or can be interpreted differently (which is why there's a supreme court, they dictate the wording and meaning of the laws).

Edit: I don't know how I got into defending the DHS or the checkpoints, as I said, I think the stops are ridiculous, and probably won't do anything worthwhile. But at this point, we're just going in circles. in the end, this video is just over-sensationalism at it's best.

Are the stops irritating to civilians in those areas (which are *very* limited, and not some wide spread epidemic as many seem to think it is)? Of course they are. Are they some form of "police state"? No, they're not (see examples above), they're localized stops, where the states have enacted laws allowing DHS / Law Enforcement to literally stop *anyone* they want and question them regarding citizenship.

last edit them I'm done, I swear
Where were all these kids and "freedom fighters" when the Patriot act was enacted, the illegal wiretaps, bugging and tracking of students and civilians happened? Oh.. that's right it was to "protect" us from the Terrorists. Everyone was OK with that....

No one said you can't criticize Islam. But you might want to get your facts straight before you do: female genital mutilation is a tribal custom that predates Islam but has been integrated into the religion in some regions of the world (predominately Africa) and is practiced by both Muslims and non-Muslims alike (look it up on wiki page, it's extremely well documented).

Also, you asked for evidence of Islamophobia? You need look no further than the hysteria in the U.S. over building new mosques or the NYPD's unwarranted surveillance (including wiretapping and undercover agents) for years of the entire Muslim community across the NY/NJ area. They caught zero terrorists during their investigation, BTW, while wasting untold millions in taxpaper dollars in the process.