NSA Says It Doesn't Spy On Americans As Obama Administration Defends Letting NSA Spy On Americans
from the how-about-that dept
Following the news that broke last night that the federal government was getting full records of all Verizon phone calls, the Obama administration is now trying to defend this move, by claiming they can break the law because terrorism is scary:
But the Obama administration, while declining to comment on the specific order, said the practice was “a critical tool in protecting the nation from terrorist threats to the United States”.
Uh, that’s really not the point. Under that standard, there is no Constitution. There are lots of things that could be very useful tools in stopping crime and attacks, but we don’t allow them because they violate the public’s rights. We don’t allow the FBI to walk up and down the street, enter every house and search it for weapons, for example. While that might be a “critical tool” in stopping the use of those weapons, it’s also incredibly unconstitutional on a whole variety of levels. Saying that it’s okay to ignore the 4th Amendment entirely because there are terrorists out there is no excuse at all.
And, of course, as we noted last night, there’s nothing new about this. Already it’s been confirmed that the order to Verizon was not a special case, but rather a “renewal of an ongoing practice.” Senator Feinstein has admitted that this has been going on consistently for the past seven years, and this latest leak is just the “renewal” for another three months. And if anyone thinks that only Verizon got this order and has been doing this for the past seven years, you’re not paying attention. As we’ve noted, we’ve had multiple whistleblowers who have flat out said that this was happening for years. Mark Klein, who worked at AT&T, revealed in 2006 that he’d helped hook up NSA machines to record all data flowing over the AT&T network. Meanwhile former NSA employee William Binney also blew the whistle on this activity from the NSA side. We’ve known all of this for years… and no one seemed to care until now.
Even more incredible, is that the NSA has no problem directly lying about all of this. Because last week, before all of this came out, and before the Obama administration ‘fessed up to using this “critical tool,” General Keith Alexander, the head of the NSA, ridiculously claimed the following:
“The great irony is we’re the only ones not spying on the American people,” he quipped.
Just days after that was said, we have written proof that this claim is 100% false. So, now, what do we do about it?
Filed Under: 4th amendment, keith alexander, nsa, obama, spying
Comments on “NSA Says It Doesn't Spy On Americans As Obama Administration Defends Letting NSA Spy On Americans”
The American public still won't care
Because…
Look!!
The Bachelor Dancing with the Stars on a Desert Survivor is on the TV!!!
/s
We get the gov’t we deserve.
Re: The American public still won't care
Yeah, I’ve about had it with these comments. I’m sure that when you bring these topics up to your friends, they just ignore it. Oh, what was that? You don’t bring these things up to your friends? Well, I guess YOU get the government YOU deserve.
I’m the annoying guy who talks to anyone who will listen… and a lot of people do. Then when it finally makes its way to the mainstream media, it really has a chance to sink in. Maybe if more people who knew what was going on would talk about it, we wouldn’t have the government we do.
Thanks alot, Jeff.
Re: Re: The American public still won't care
The sad thing is that you are labelled a tin-foil hatter only to be proven correct in a few years. This AM I had a few co-workers come to my office to get my reaction to this recent news. I’m surprised it took them this long to figure it out.
Re: The American public still won't care
Oh…the American public will care, squawk a bit…then come election time vote for the same (D) or (R) that has been screwing them over for decades.
Re: The American public still won't care
Exactly. I have friends that say the just don’t care anymore what the gov’t does and know people that have no clue how the gov’t (should)operates. Can’t tell you the three branches of gov’t but can tell you every name and thing about the latest pop artist and whats going on in every reality show.
Re: Re: The American public still won't care
Exactly. I have friends that say the just don’t care anymore what the gov’t does and know people that have no clue how the gov’t (should)operates. Can’t tell you the three branches of gov’t but can tell you every name and thing about the latest pop artist and whats going on in every reality show.
This is why the current generation is so easy to ignore.
Re: The American public still won't care
while i am alternately cynical and hopeful, i can not -today- let the statement “we get the gov’t we deserve” go by unremarked…
we don’t ‘deserve’ the steaming pile of shit that we have for gummint, because the system which selects said gummint has been corrupted and perverted over time, such that our influence over it has become negligible…
as i’ve stated on numerous occasions, it is NOT one person one vote, it is one dollar one vote… guess who has all the dollars ? it ain’t the 99%…
our power has been frittered away, and we are distracted by hot-button issues, bullshit shadows of terrorism, and impending global disasters, such that the reins of power are in the gnarled, greedy claws of the 1%…
power NEVER devolves voluntarily…
art guerrilla
aka ann archy
eof
So, now, what do we do about it?
Rope.
Lots of rope.
Re: So, now, what do we do about it?
…too much rope.
Just storing the data
Technically, the FBI are the ones who were spying on the Americans. … Then the FBI gave that data to the NSA.
There really needs to be consequences for giving misleading information, even if that info is not technically false.
It doesn’t spy on Americans?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stellar_Wind_%28code_name%29
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A
So both of those things never happened?
It’s a good thing we can safely rely on the FBI. Not only do they not need FISA, they can actually stop terrorist attacks!
Of course, after setting them up, it sure helps, but want to best this surveillance not only failed to prevent any terrorist attack but will have netted other parties in crimes unrelated to the order?
Yeah, I wouldn’t take this sucker’s bet either.
Well, if our government actually worked like it was supposed to, Congress could hold that member of the Executive Branch in “Contempt of Congress” for lying to them… But Congress is totally cool with the NSA doing this, so that would be silly on their part.
I wouldn’t be surprised if the NSA thinks it’s actually telling the truth with its BS semantics. See, it all depends on what the definition of ‘spying’ is. They’ve been playing this semantic game with the facts for years. If anyone remembers the last NSA scandal, it was over their so-called “Echelon” system in the 90’s. They were peeking at all our shit and lying about it years before 9/11. And as Masnick pointed out, it’s only recently that anyone seems to care.
Finally!
Now when someone says “It’s a free country, isn’t it?” I can point to this and say ‘Nope, this right here is the beginning of the end.’
I’m going to have to make a note of all the incumbents and tick the other box when it comes time to try to vote these people out of power.
Re: Finally!
That means voting independent, because the Republicans and the Democrats are mostly the same in this regard. They both oppress the public for the sake of the corporations and rich.
Re: Re: Finally!
I really, really want to vote for people who aren’t D or R. The problem is that only a miniscule number of them rise to even the low standards of the two main parties.
Re: Finally!
“Nope, this right here is the beginning of the end.”
I’m pretty sure it’s somewhere in the middle actually.
HEY, remember Google? It too is part of NSA spying.
“And, of course, as we noted last night, there’s nothing new about this.” … Right, just a new version of Techdirt’s motto.
Where do you stand on Google’s spying, Mike? — You ask rhetorically, but here’s an actual start on what to do: Noscript, removing Google from its whitelist, and hosts files to stop Google’s parasites. — And then, protest every new invasion by Google: Streetview, Glass, and then on to it being TAXED, just take away all the money its hiding offshore. There’s nothing inevitable about stopping spying. Just remove your own tacit permission and force our servants to remove the special privileges in tax “law”.
Re: HEY, remember Google? It too is part of NSA spying.
Are you even capable of staying on topic?
Re: HEY, remember Google? It too is part of NSA spying.
Come on they aren’t stealing phone records, they aren’t taking anything YOU didn’t give them, and they can’t kill or send you to prison. Google is like the fly on my wall watching me eat dinner, unless I kill the fly it has every right to watch me eat.
Re: HEY, remember Google? It too is part of NSA spying.
I re-read your comment a dozen or so times and still couldn’t make sense of it. Either I’m not on enough drugs or you’re on too many. One way or another, drugs are involved.
Re: Re: HEY, remember Google? It too is part of NSA spying.
Really? You can’t make the connection between what many perceive of Google spying on its users and the NSA spying on the public?
The only issue that I have with OOTB’s comment was “Just remove your own tacit permission…” (my emphasis) because the use of tacit here implies that the general population using Google’s products are fully aware and fully comprehend the actual extent to the data that Google collects. Many of the people I know couldn’t even tell you how a browser works or what the difference is between HTML and HTTP much less understand what data Google collects and how it could affect them. Therefore it isn’t tacit for them, which makes them think that Google is spying on them.
Re: Re: Re: HEY, remember Google? It too is part of NSA spying.
I do think that what Google does can be properly termed as “spying.” The big difference, of course, is that I can opt out of Google’s spying. I can’t opt out of the government’s spying. The two situations are not comparable.
Re: HEY, remember Google? It too is part of NSA spying.
Stop taking bath salts. It’s bad for your health.
Re: Re: HEY, remember Google? It too is part of NSA spying.
Nah, he needs to take MORE bath salts. Maybe he’ll overdose.
What can we do about it?
If you’re an American voter …
You can email your senators and congressman from their officially provided web sites. You can get there via:
http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm
and
http://www.house.gov/representatives/find/
It only takes a couple of minutes to let your voice be heard.
Speak up.
Better yet, call your elected representatives’ offices on your cell phone, and inform the person who answers that the call is being logged by the NSA.
Re: Re:
Thanks for posting these!
Every freedom given up hands our enemies a massive victory because that is exactly what they want. There is no justification for this kind of spying and the expense involved in carrying it out (I would love to see figures on that, by the way). It is amazing the flagrant disregard the US government have for their own citizens’ rights and the Constitution.
If this is scooping all records of everybody, doesn’t this mean that NSA is also spying on our government(Congress, POTUS,Supreme Court Justices, etc)
Re: Re:
You answered why no one in power ever tries to stop this shit from happening.
They are all too scared of being outed for some shit they did…
Re: Re: Re:
Please. Who do you think created these agencies, funds them and directs their actions if not the government?
Person of Interest is a more realistic show than people think.
Sorry Zakida, those figures are classified.
Re: Re:
So are my emails and phone calls
We don’t allow the FBI to walk up and down the street, enter every house and search it for weapons, for example.
Hey, NSA is just recording a bunch of digits, right? It’s not your property, right? You can’t prove they are doing anything improper with all of those digital files, can you? After, in a worst case scenario, those files are only being “shared”, right?
Suck it, losers.
Re: Re:
“It’s not your property, right?”
Technically it may be Verizon’s property (although I would argue that I still have some privacy interest in it.) That wouldn’t change the fact that the government is getting court orders even though they have no individualized suspicion.
This court order is ILLEGAL. I don’t care what bills Congress has passed or what the FISA court has approved or even what the Supreme Court might have to say. It IS unconstitutional.
“You can’t prove they are doing anything improper with all of those digital files, can you?”
Getting them in the first place was improper. But beyond that, we don’t NEED to prove what they’re doing with the information. We can repeal FISA because we want to.
Re: Re: Re:
Odd. You Techdirtbags make the same sort of arguments surrounding digital theft. Doesn’t seem you like them as much when the shoe is on the other foot.
Re: Re: Re: Re:
Ad-hom, how classy.
Re: Re: Re: Re:
…digital theft…
Tell us all again the story of how ones and zeroes are “stolen.” That’s a classic.
Re: Re: Re:2 Re:
People are unjustly enriched by converting the property of others to their own use that is offered for sale. You get something of value without compensating the rightful owner. That he is not deprived of the property doesn’t mitigate the unjust enrichment.
How many times do you need to hear this? You can’t be that stupid, can you?
Re: Re: Re:3 Re:
But that still doesn’t make it “theft”.
Re: Re: Re:4 Re:
But that still doesn’t make it “theft”.
Not to those unable to come to terms with their own dishonest, criminal behavior. Way to rationalize John. I hope you feel better now.
Re: Re: Re:5 Re:
It’s always funny when personal attacks like that are so hilariously mis-aimed. Not only do I not pirate (and therefore I’m not rationalizing anything), but I make my living creating software that tends to get pirated.
(Hint: saying it’s not theft is not saying that it’s OK)
Re: Re: Re:3 Re:
Have you ever thought of volunteering for the one-way Mars expedition?
Re: Re: Re:
This court order is ILLEGAL. I don’t care what bills Congress has passed or what the FISA court has approved or even what the Supreme Court might have to say. It IS unconstitutional.
Sorry numb nuts. You don’t get to decide what is or isn’t illegal. The courts do. Thanks for playing, though.
Re: Re: Re: Re:
Actually, the moment the courts stop being honest and start breaking the law of the land (you know, the funny little Constitution thing?) people are allowed to use the Constitution as a justification to change the government through force of arms.
Re: Re: Re:2 Re:
Great. We’ll hook you up with the Nazi who posted his screed. on another topic.
Re: Re: Re:2 Re:
Wouldn’t hurt to add the Declaration of Independence.
http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/declaration_transcript.html
Re: Re: Re:3 Re:
Amen.
Re: Re: Re: Re:
This rubbish is just getting beyond a joke.
Re: Re:
This is the best you can come up with, really? It’s just sad.
Skills To Get The Job Differ From Skills To Successfully Perform
One of the fundamental problems with our government, of which there are many, is that the kind of people who won’t abuse power generally aren’t drawn to it.
Another is that it takes a certain kind of person to win an election, and a different kind of person to effectively run that position.
Of course there are exceptions to these such as, one could argue, Rand Paul and Ron Wyden. But the overall contrasts have guaranteed the ineffective type to remain as the decision makers.
Re: Skills To Get The Job Differ From Skills To Successfully Perform
This is very true. You can take a look at children’s shows to see the change over time. The Lone Ranger, Superman, Green Lantern, etc were all very modest. Now, the swaggering braggart is the norm. Iron Man, Spider Man, even Sonic the Hedgehog are all full of themselves. When these are your childhood heros, what do you think you will respect when you grow up?
Re: Re: Skills To Get The Job Differ From Skills To Successfully Perform
Eh, Spider-Man isn’t full of himself. In fact, he got titles like “loser” “nerd” etc.
Re: Skills To Get The Job Differ From Skills To Successfully Perform
Well had I been President the US Administration would soon get butchered under abuse the law and lose your job. Maybe even violate the US Constitution or Bill of Rights in a serious way and get exiled.
Like in this case I would be so “I don’t care shit about your technicalities when you DON’T SPY ON ALL PEOPLE”.
Still the FBI/CIA could just deal with me like they did with JFK.
Only
Look at that, it only took 225 years to completely and utterly fucking destroy the freedom experiment.
We are now governed by a rogue government in its entirety. Welcome to tomorrow.
Breaking: Obama, the leader of the free world, defends the indefensible. Fantastic.
Re: Only
Wasn’t Nixon impeached for wiretapping a few conversations? What do they call it when you wiretap the entire world?
Re: Re: Only
Umm, it may have had more to do with the burglary at the Watergate. You may have heard of that before.
Re: Re: Only
He’s right. The illegal part about Watergate was the burglery not the recordings. Nixon recorded his own phone calls for his own records. There is no crime in that. Where they were important were once their existence was known, they were sought because they likely contained evidence that proved that Nixon was involved in the plan.
However one of the purposes of the burglery was to install listening and wiretapping devices that would have been used to illegally spy on the Democratic Party but they failed and were caught which is what ultimately kicked off the whole scandal.
“The great irony is we’re the only ones not spying on the American people,” he quipped.
Maybe, like Google- he doesn’t consider aggregating data to be spying?
Just days after that was said, we have written proof that this claim is 100% false. So, now, what do we do about it?
Why don’t you black out Techdirt for a month or two? That should get their attention.
Re: Re:
Wow, you’re a fucking tool.
Why don’t you get a real job and, I don’t know, fill in some pot holes?
Re: (Anonymous Coward, Jun 6th, 2013 @ 10:34am)
“Why don’t you black out Techdirt for a month or two? That should get their attention.“
Pay up, or shut up!
Re: Re: (Anonymous Coward, Jun 6th, 2013 @ 10:34am)
He’s a freetard; that’s why he won’t pay.
At this point I think it’s safe to say Bin Laden won. As a result of 9/11 we’re killing our democracy.
Re: Re:
Bin Laden accomplished everything he said he wanted to accomplish, so yeah, he won.
…but we were killing our democracy well before 9/11.
With all these spying, phone tapping going on how come they can’t prevent all these bombs from going off in American soil ( I know we suck at espionage internationally, so I’m leaving it alone)?? Or are they just interested in people who downloaded and/or uploaded movies and/or music stuff??
What the NSA really stands for
NSA – The National Surveillance Agency. They changed the name, and never bothered to mention it to anyone… :rolleyes:
Obama 2016! 4 more years!
The Great Irony
“The great irony is we’re the only ones not spying on the American people…it’s everyone else spying on the information we collected”
Custom dictionaries
Like the quote from Bill Clinton, “It depends on what your definition of ‘is’ is.”
They’ve borrowed the idea of pluggable dictionaries from the computer world.
In the custom dictionary used by this administration, ‘spying’ translates to ‘spying, unless we’re doing it in which case we mean not spying’.
With custom dictionaries, you can make your constitution and laws mean whatever you want them to. Just look at their definitions of
Whistleblower: ‘Traitor’
Banker: ‘Unimpeachably upstanding citizen’
Torture: ‘not the stuff we do’
Oh, and by the way, you are not allowed access to their dictionary.
Re: Custom dictionaries
to be clear, it’s not just this administration, the last one just had a different custom dictionary.
Re: Custom dictionaries
I read a book by the director of a German intelligence agency and they talked about how the Soviets had redefined common words to suit their propaganda purposes. This sounds familiar.
This rock, that I am holding in my hand is keeping away all of the lions, and tigers, and bears, oh my!
/sigh
Do about it?
Repeal the Patriot Act and disband the NSA of course.
The Government only then needs to do two things. Keep a close eye on known terrorist groups then have a hotline where people can report anything suspicious that can be investigated.
Very targeted you will find.
According to Politico, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), the chair of the Senate intelligence committee, and Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.), the ranking Republican on the committee, acknowledged Thursday morning that this surveillance program has been going on for years and that Congress has been regularly briefed on it. “As far as I know, this is the exact three-month renewal of what has been in place for the past seven years,” Feinstein noted. “This renewal is carried out by the [Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court] under the business records section of the Patriot Act. Therefore it is lawful. It has been briefed to Congress.” Chambliss said, “This is nothing new. This has been going on for seven years?Every member of the United States Senate has been advised of this. To my knowledge there has not been any citizen who has registered a complaint. It has proved meritorious because we have collected significant information on bad guys, but only on bad guys, over the years.” Yet several senators?Democratic and Republican?did say they were troubled by the program.
Now re-read this: “To my knowledge there has not been any citizen who has registered a complaint” Of course there hasn’t been a complaint registered, it is a secret program with a secret interpretation of the law.
Our elected officials are idiots.
Re: Re:
Then Feinstein and Chambliss ought to resign.
Not just We The People
Apparently Eric Holder’s “justice” department may be spying on Congress…and possibly the SCOTUS too.
http://m.washingtonexaminer.com/kirk-to-eric-holder-is-doj-spying-on-congress/article/2531286/?page=1&referrer=http://t.co/TbRIhUztmc
nice government you have there
I guess the USA can stop calling other countries in the world “undemocratic” now since it is the biggest farce of a democracy ever.
What to do, or not
Get rid of the Patriot Act by any means possible.
Get rid of the FISA court.
Get rid of the NSA and all their enablers on the Senate Intelligence committee. That goes for the FBI and the CIA.
Matter of fact, get rid of every single person who voted for the Patriot Act without reading it first. That means all of them are gone tomorrow.
Open up all the past records of the phone companies and let them be sued the living shit by each and every ‘victim’ of this massive invasion of privacy by a government.
Oh, yeah-almost forgot these:
Sue the government for everything. Nobody spared. Even the President and the SC.
Impeach any and all officials who conspired to allow this to happen-past and present. Prosecute those who broke the law. Imprison those who are convicted.
Oh, and reinstate the Constitution while we’re at it. Seems to be lying around here somewhere, isn’t it?
But never mind, it’ll all blow away in 48 hours by a captive and toothless media instructed by their corporate masters to ‘shut this story down, now.”
Then we’re back on the right track.
This is why I use my tin hat defense, I know it does not really protect me but I feel better having it around.
Stop NSA Spying on Americans...
…and similar government abuses and violations of the Constitution by supporting the Libertarian Party.
Clearly this is not a new Obama administration practice. Both Democrats and Republicans have enabled it. The ruling two-party cartel is morally bankrupt.
You can do something about it by withdrawing your support. Don’t register as a Republican or Democrat. Stop voting for Republicans and Democrats. Join the leading alternative party that stands for civil liberties, economic freedom, peace, and upholding the Constitution — http://www.LP.org
I’m glad Alaska has an Independence Party. I’m going to be giving them a lot more attention from now on. The US is screwed up beyond belief.