HELLO WORLD! George W. Bush illegally spied on American citizens. Read all about it.

[Coyotl]

Last edited Fri Jun 7, 2013, 10:29 AM - Edit history (1)

I cannot believe what short memories people express, or is it just blatant ignorance, about government spying on American citizens.

Facts are, you can read all about it in the DU archives, albeit a great number of the videos on YouTube has since disappeared. Frankly, Bush should have been impeached for his treasonous treatment of the U.S. Constitution. And you can read the calls for impeachment here on DU too along with the details of the crimes. Then Congress intervened and gave everyone retroactive blanket immunity. To what extent did immunity passing in Congress happen because Congress had been illegally spied upon too?

Meanwhile, today we still have Democratic senators leading the charge for change. Russ Feingold, who led the charge before, was targeted for defeat. Both my Oregon Senators are working on this as best they can under the constraints of secrecy laws imposed upon them by Congress. They too will be targeted for their actions.

Here follows parts of the best DU thread to replug your memory into those dark days of the Bush Junta's criminal and treasonous conduct:

=====================

Deja DU: Are ALL COMMUNICATIONS routed overseas to circumvent US law and the Constitution?
Nov-09-07 http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x2245762

I was told years ago that ALL fiber optic communication traffic was routed overseas so that "everything" was moved outside the protections of the law and Constitution and ANYTHING could be monitored. I thought the idea quite fantastic even though it came from a very reliable source that would know exactly such things. Then, the story of the fiber optic splitters hit my radar. I now see now how easily exactly that, routing ALL COMMUNICATIONS overseas, was accomplished.

Is that Bush's and the Telecom's HUGE crime hidden and covered-up behind this story?

If the telecoms get immunity, will it aid in covering up Bush's crime.
ABSOLUTELY! That is why it is so important to the Rs! Support = obstruction of justice.

Have we arrived at the point in the history of the Bushco junta where
laws passed and people nominated are part of crimes of obstructing justice?

===================
AT&T Whistleblower: Telecom Immunity Is A Cover-Up
By Spencer Ackerman - Nov 7, 2007
http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/004662.php

Earlier today we flagged that Mark Klein, who uncovered a secret surveillance room run by the NSA while employed as a San Francisco-based technician for AT&T, is in Washington to lobby against granting retroactive legal immunity to telecommunications companies. In an interview this afternoon, Klein explained why he traveled all the way from San Francisco to lobby Senators about the issue: if the immunity provision passes, Americans may never know how extensive the surveillance program was -- or how deeply their privacy may have been invaded.

"The president has not presented this truthfully," said Klein, a 62-year old retiree. "He said it was about a few people making calls to the Mideast. But I know this physical equipment. It copies everything. There's no selection of anything, at all -- the splitter copies entire data streams from the internet, phone conversations, e-mail, web-browsing. Everything."

What Klein unearthed -- you can read it here -- points to a nearly unbounded surveillance program. Its very location in San Francisco suggests that the program was "massively domestic" in its focus, he said. "If they really meant what they say about only wanting international stuff, you wouldn't want it in San Francisco or Atlanta. You'd want to be closer to the border where the lines come in from the ocean so you pick up international calls. You only do it in San Francisco if you want domestic stuff. The location of this stuff contradicts their story .....

=======================
NSA Monitors All Web Traffic, Says Ex-AT&T Employee

THIS VIDEO IS NOW REMOVED FROM YOUTUBE!

Does anyone have a copy of this video?

=======================
NSA Monitors All Web Traffic, Says Ex-AT&T Employee
Tom Corelis (Blog) - Nov 10, 2007
http://www.dailytech.com/NSA+Monitors+All+Web+Traffic+Says+ExATT+Employee/article9620.htm

Felt "forced to the connect the Big Brother Machine" if he wanted to keep his job

Mark Klein, the former AT&T technician and whistleblower who helped kick off the AT&T/NSA eavesdropping scandal, clarified further details regarding what he witnessed while connecting a secret NSA eavesdropping facility: secure room 641A in AT&’s San Francisco switching center, presumably commissioned by the NSA, received copies of all the traffic its splitters were connected to, including both international and domestic e-mails, web traffic, and phone calls, both from AT&T’s customers as well as other providers.

Previous statements by the government, AT&T and President Bush indicated that the only affected communications are communications relevant to national security, like those of suspected terrorists and suspicious foreign nationals. According to Klein, however, the technology used to connect the secure room was far more democratic, consisting of simple, dumb splitters incapable of any kind of contextual filtering: essentially, room 641A received “a duplicate of every fiber-optic signal routed through facilities.”

Klein, appearing on MSNBC’s Countdown with Keith Olbermann show, told viewers about his personal association with secure room 641A. “When I was a technician, I had the engineering/wiring documents, which told me how the splitter was wired to the secret room … I had to know in order to do my job,” he said, “so I know that whatever went across those cables was copied; the entire datastream was copied into the secret room.”

Referring to the equipment itself, Klein states, “the splitter device has no selective capability, it just copies everything. .............

=======================
Interview: AT&T Whistleblower Mark Klein on Bush's Illegal Surveillance and Retroactive Immunity
THIS VIDEO IS NOW REMOVED FROM YOUTUBE!

=======================
NSA Pressured LA Times To Kill Domestic Spying Story

=======================
How Many Illegal Wiretapping Programs Does Bush Have?

=======================
November 5th, 2007
AT&T Whistleblower to Urge Senate to Reject Blanket Immunity for Telecoms
Press Conference on Capitol Hill on Wednesday, November 7
http://www.eff.org/press/archives/2007/11/05

Washington, D.C. - On Wednesday, November 7, at 10:30am, telecommunications technician and AT&T whistleblower Mark Klein will speak out at a press conference on Capitol Hill, explaining why he is asking lawmakers to reject immunity for telecoms who assisted the Bush administration's spying on millions of Americans.

Klein witnessed first-hand the technology AT&T built to assist the government's domestic warrantless wiretapping program at AT&T's main switching facility in San Francisco. As part of his job at AT&T, Klein connected high-speed fiber optic cables to sophisticated equipment that intercepted communications from AT&T customers and then copied and routed every single one to a room controlled by the National Security Agency (NSA). Klein has provided evidence for the Electronic Frontier Foundation's (EFF's) class-action lawsuit against AT&T for its role in the illegal spying.

"My job required me to enable the physical connections between AT&T customers' Internet communications and the NSA's illegal, wholesale copying machine for domestic emails, Internet phone conversations, web surfing and all other Internet traffic. I have first-hand knowledge of the clandestine collaboration between one giant telecommunications company, AT&T, and the National Security Agency to facilitate the most comprehensive illegal domestic spying program in history," said Klein.

Also speaking at the event Wednesday ...........

=======================
Judge Orders Telecommunications Companies to Preserve Evidence in Government Surveillance Cases
Ruling Advances EFF's Class-action Lawsuit Against AT&T
http://www.eff.org/press/archives/2007/11/06

San Francisco - A federal judge today ruled on a preservation motion filed by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), ordering that telecommunications companies must preserve any evidence of collaborating with the government in illegal spying on ordinary Americans.

In his ruling, U.S. District Court Judge Vaughn Walker ordered the telecommunications companies to halt any routine destruction of documents or to arrange for the preservation of accurate copies. On December 14, each party must provide the court with confirmation that the court's order has been carried out. The court order did not require the government or the carriers to reveal whether or not they had any relevant evidence.

The government and the carriers had opposed the preservation motion, claiming that the government's invocation of the state secrets privilege made it impossible to proceed with a preservation order. In litigation, parties are typically required to preserve all relevant evidence. ...

For the judge's order:
http://www.eff.org/files/filenode/att/393%20order.pdf

For more on the class-action lawsuit against AT&T:
http://www.eff.org/cases/att

=======================
(AT&T) Mark Klein On Olbermann

=======================
Mark Klein on Washington Journal

=======================
ABC News: AT&T Whistle-blower - NSA Internet spying

THIS VIDEO IS NOW REMOVED FROM YOUTUBE!

Copy of same here:
NSA Pressured LA Times To Kill Domestic Spying Story

=======================
PBS FRONTLINE: Spying on the Homefront
Get the story on Frontline: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/homefront

=======================
Democracy Now:
AT&T whistleblower against immunity for Bush spy program-1/2

[Aerows]

1. I'll absolutely take that bet

"To what extent did immunity passing in Congress happen because Congress had been illegally spied upon too? "

And any of the apologists for this are welcome to explain why they think this would not, could not happen, and how glorious it is to be spied upon and have public officials blackmailed.

[kentuck]

2. What is the difference between illegally spying and legally spying??

It is still spying. The end result is the same.

[kysrsoze]

10. I don't think there is a difference. Without a FISA warrant, it's unconstitutional. However...

just about all of Congress is apparently still A-OK with it and now the FISA court just rubber-stamps everything for a certain amount of time. I seriously doubt the Supreme Court will take up the issue of tracking all communications, including those originating and terminating in the U.S. Apparently no one cares unless a black man is elected president - and Obama will take ALL the heat despite many of those still serving in Congress having voted for this shit.

Not that I'm not furious that Obama and Holder could care less about personal liberties, but for everyone to be so outraged NOW, 12 years after the horse left the barn, just blows my mind. We're a country filled with complete idiots, all crying about our freedom to have huge amounts of firepower, but things like this and Guantanamo go on for more than a decade with nary a yawn from the public.

[Coyotl]

16. HUGE difference: You can impeach a President for illegal actions.

Obama is acting under the laws of the land as he inherited them.

Obama is also acting to change the laws of the land in the face of an obstructionist Republican party that has prevented updating the pertinent laws.

[siligut]

26. You said it!

The laws as he inherited them

We all know the GOP has a plan. We know it, the PNAC told us so and Obama is the wrench thrown into that machine.

Jesus, these people should try being a wrench for one fucking day, just one day. I am betting very few could even keep a coherent thought after that.

[kysrsoze]

31. I've got a dumb question. How is he acting to change the laws? I've heard nothing on that

I remember how important it was to him before he became President, but I honestly haven't seen anything recent which he has done to change things.

[Dustlawyer]

39. He is EXPANDING upon them! Don't you get it, Obama is bought and paid for just like most

Democrats and almost all Republicans! The true power lies with the corporations and the 1%! We need to push for campaign finance reform and make the bribery of our elected officials with campaign cash, illegal! You do not get the job of POTUS without fundraisers where you are told what you have to do or support for he money! Democrats are not immune to massive amounts of $$$, same as Republicans. Carrying all that cash is what gives Democrats those famously weak spines!!!

[blm]

3. It surprises me that some here didn't know Bush was doing it in 2002.

And that it was being done illegally for 4 years.

And that Congress gave Bush legal cover for it in 2006.

And that the program was institutionalized 3 years before Obama took office.

And that people are saying they are surprised and outraged NOW.

[Puzzledtraveller]

5. I don't think that's what the objections are about.

[NYC_SKP]

6. I know, right?

I've been following this crap since the discovery of the special room at the SF ATT building that allowed data to be funneled off.

I'm in a rush or would dig up a link.

[Le Taz Hot]

7. And it surprises me at the

outrage people were expressing back then but now, because it's a "Democratic" (wink wink) president, it's justified. There is a difference between surprise and outrage. You guys, because your argument is untenable, like to make that change in order to have a basis for any type of argument, false though it may be.

[Mojorabbit]

17. This nt

[blm]

20. Who said we're saying it's OK now? We're saying that we're not surprised and won't play the game

that we are just now outraged that the power institutionalized in 2006 has continued into 2013. I am hoping that released documents will show that Obama curbed the use of that power to show far more discernment than Bush ever did.

You want to play the outrage 'game' - some of us do NOT and take the political fight more seriously.

[Coyotl]

24. Of course it is not O.K. now and wasn't before. Bush was a criminal and got away with it.

I agree, the current "outrage" game is pure B.S. given how much we have known all along.
Where were these outraged people when Bush was doing warrantless spying?

The three month renew is carried out by the FISA court, not by Obama. The tyrannical laws doing this were authorized by Congress.

[Generic Other]

49. I was yelling then too

Years of yelling has gotten me laryngitis, but I am still trying to yell. I am getting exhausted by the effort especially when so few others are willing to yell too.

[LovingA2andMI]

38. THIS ^^^^^

Thank you!!

[Hell Hath No Fury]

4. Of course he did.

And Obama continues that nasty trend. I thought Democrats were supposed to be better than GOP garbage.

[Daniel537]

8. Pfftt, you thought wrong.

The Democratic Party is loaded with the same criminals who run the GOP. Its all just one big fucking charade.

[tridim]

29. Uhm no, the Democratic Party is NOT "Loaded with the same criminals who run the GOP"

But this is the new DU, where lying about our party is apparently the new norm.

[SunSeeker]

34. Hyperbole and histrionics is all the rage, dontcha know? nt

[zeemike]

40. Yes because no one in our party voted for the Patriot act

Or to make it permanent...or for the DAA.
And DI FI did not say that this surveillance is to keep us safe.
Perhaps the new DU is just now tired of the lies and tired of being manipulated to do the right wing agenda....I know I am.

The thing about dealing with good cop bad cop is to remember that they both work for the same people.

[Coyotl]

12. Actually, Congress continued the Bush spy program by legalizing it. You can't hang this on Obama,

but the new leaks are intended to do just that, IMO.

[Hell Hath No Fury]

18. Did he or did he not sign a --

reauthorization of the Patriot Act in 2011 under which such spying had been authorized?

Bush & Congress started it and Obama & Congress continued it.

[kysrsoze]

32. Yup. He did sign the bill.

[DisgustipatedinCA]

35. The fuck you can't hang this on Obama

He did it. There was no one making him go up to the edge of this horrible law, and likely beyond. Examine your motivations for protecting a Soviet-style program of internal spying.

[Generic Other]

50. a Soviet-style program

A Cold War against your own citizens.

[Coyotl]

55. Not Soviet style, and not a cold war, and not directed against US citizens

Last edited Fri Jun 7, 2013, 05:21 PM - Edit history (1)

Wow, talk about piling on the falsehoods!

[Chisox08]

9. I was pissed off about it when Bush did it

and I'm pissed off about it now. Nothing has changed but the guy who is in the White House. Our government shouldn't be spying on us period end of story.

[WestStar]

11. Well, that's a long way of saying

We should reserve the cell next to Bush for Obama I guess.

[Coyotl]

13. Bush did the spying for years illegally, without a warrant. Congress gave immunity and legalized it.

So, Obama is acting under the law and Bush was not. Only one jail cell needed, the one for Bush.

[boilerbabe]

14. what in fuck are you all going on about!?!? we complained about THEN

and we are complaining about it NOW. we are constistent and some of you are being purposefully OBTUSE.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

33. Better watch out with that kind of talk...

People will suspect you of being up to something.

[Arkansas Granny]

15. We knew about it when Bush was doing it and we talked about it on this board for months.

I didn't like it then, especially when it was being done without FISA warrants and supervision, and I still don't like it even with a Democrat in the White House. Has it been demonstrated that this spying has made us any safer from terrorist attacks? How will we feel about it if a Republican President is elected?

Our privacy is being taken from us little by little and each time we lose a little bit, it makes it that much easier for a little more to be taken from us next time. Personal privacy is becoming a rare commodity.

[Coyotl]

19. What is going to happen next is Republican posturing, posing as the opponents of spying

when in fact they were the criminals, then enablers of the obstruction of justice by passing retroactive immunity.

Just watch, the Republicans are now trying to generate another Obama scandal and will try to position themselves as the defenders of privacy. Their base will love it and drink deeply of the elixir of preventing Obama from spying on them and taking their guns.

[siligut]

43. This will be interesting to see

The GOP wanted to keep this secret. Now it is all over the M$M. They hope to put it all on Obama, but still, now everybody knows. Spying isn't very effective when everybody knows.

[Generic Other]

51. Another McCarthyite attempt to silence

legitimate LIBERAL concerns.

[Coyotl]

21. Whistleblower: The NSA Is Lying–U.S. Government Has Copies of Most of Your Emails

Exactly what my informant said back in 2006, everything is swept up and stored.

http://www.democracynow.org/2012/4/20/whistleblower_the_nsa_is_lying_us

[SunSeeker]

36. They don't even need your emails, they've got facebook.

It amazes me that folks who post every intimate detail of their life on facebook complain about invasion of privacy.

[bunnies]

41. incredible, isnt it?

Makes my brain hurt. Especially when they complain on facebook!

[ohheckyeah]

52. Not everyone who uses Facebook posts all of their details.

I have an account for a job that uses Facebook to communicate with employees. No personal information, just work stuff, so the whole Facebook defense does not apply to everyone who uses it.

Not to mention, it's my CHOICE what to share.....if I share it, it's not an invasion of privacy. When somebody mines for information it is.

[DesMoinesDem]

22. Newsflash: Bush isn't president anymore.

People were outraged about what Bush was doing when Bush was president. He's not president anymore, and hasn't been for nearly 5 years. I think the DU motto should be 'The buck stops with Bush and Congress, never with Obama. He's only the President."

[Coyotl]

23. The FISA court isn't elected and operates under existing law. Change the law if you can

get around or overcome the Republican obstructionism. One more good reason to elect Congress people like Democrats Jeff Merkeley and Ron Wyden is so finally Obama will be able to restore the state of law before Bush.

[DesMoinesDem]

25. Obama could stop it immediately with an executive order.

Just because they have the power to do something doesn't mean they have to use that power. Obama continues to use these powers because HE AGREES with them. That's why he always voted to renew the patriot and signed the patiot act. He likes it. Blaming it on congress makes no sense whatsoever when Obama could stop it at any time.

[Coyotl]

27. Ron Wyden on NSA Spying & Secret Law = Clipped from:Senate Session Dec 27, 2012

Ron Wyden argues that the public must understand the law governing NSA surveillance of their communications.

http://www.c-spanvideo.org/clip/4279272

[liberal N proud]

28. And who will take the blame?

Not bu$h.
Not cheney.

Not anyone from the bu$h regime.

[Coyotl]

30. Democracy Now: "A Massive Surveillance State": Glenn Greenwald Exposes Covert NSA Program

VIDEO: "A Massive Surveillance State": Glenn Greenwald Exposes Covert NSA Program Collecting Calls, Emails

http://www.democracynow.org/2013/6/7/a_massive_surveillance_state_glenn_greenwald?autostart=true

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, code-named 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. "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," Greenwald says. "Very few people use landline phones for much of anything. So when you talk about things like online chat, and social media messages, and emails, what you’re really talking about is the full extent of human communication." This comes after Greenwald revealed Wednesday in another story that the NSA has been collecting the phone records of millions of Verizon customers. "They want to make sure that every single time human beings interact with one another … that they can watch it, and they can store it, and they can access it at any time."

Please check back later for full transcript.

Links:

“NSA taps in to user data of Facebook, Apple, Google and others, secret files reveal.” By Glenn Greenwald (The Guardian)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/06/us-tech-giants-nsa-data

"NSA collecting phone records of millions of Verizon customers daily." By Glenn Greenwald (The Guardian)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/06/nsa-phone-records-verizon-court-order

Hear more about NSA spying from William Binney on Democracy Now!
http://www.democracynow.org/appearances/william_binney

[blackspade]

37. No memory hole here.

Bush is a criminal in so many respects this included.

The huge problem is that it is still going on under a Democratic president that I helped elect on the basis that he was going to change the way the country operated.
In this instance there has been change but not for the better.

[LWolf]

42. Are you trying to say that,

because GWB did it, it's okay for Obama, too?

Or that it was okay to be outraged at GWB, but we ought to give Obama a pass on the same thing?

Outrage over the current mess doesn't mean people don't remember, or care, about the previous administration's travesties.

[Coyotl]

46. Of course not.

But there are distinctions of great importance. What the FISA Court is doing was in place before Obama was elected and was done illegally by Bush before that.

One thing to ask is "What does Obama know and when did he know it?" Don't be too certain that Obama has been informed of what happens in secret!

This IS NOT a current mess. It is an old mess with details coming up in the M$M that were being ignored all along even if the facts were known to some of us and we tried to inform others.

Yes, there should be outrage about spying on American citizens or anyone else without good and justifiable cause and sound legal practices. Where to direct one's outrage is another matter entirely. We don't even know what the secret laws are. Perhaps someone will leak that next, albeit I think that scenario is doubtful. The current leaks are directed politically, not intended to alter the situation, just the politics.

[LWolf]

48. If Obama did not confront

the "old mess," and he didn't, then it becomes HIS mess; old or new.

If "the facts were known to some of us," and I agree with you that they were, Obama has no excuse for not knowing.

Outrage? Mine is directed in a wide swath that includes, but is not exclusive to, Barack Obama.

[Scurrilous]

44. K & R

[Ter]

45. Yeah, he was terrible for liberty too

n/t

[Coyotl]

47. Domestic Surveillance TIMELINE, From Bush to Obama Timeline: PRISM, Total Information Awareness ...

The Domestic Surveillance Boom, From Bush to Obama
Timeline: PRISM, Total Information Awareness, and other moments in electronic eavesdropping after 9/11.
—By Dave Gilson, Alex Park, and AJ Vicens
| Fri Jun. 7, 2013 - http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/06/timeline-nsa-domestic-surveillance-bush-obama

2001
October 4: President George W. Bush secretly authorizes the NSA to track suspected terrorists by monitoring domestic communications without a warrant. ...

2005
December 16: The New York Times unmasks the NSA's warrantless wiretapping program. Bush says the program was regularly reviewed and that he had reauthorized it more than 30 times. ...

2006
May 11: USA Today reports that the NSA has been tracking tens of millions of Americans' phone calls using data provided by AT&T, Verizon, and BellSouth.
May 25: Former AT&T technician Mark Klein says that in 2002 the company let the NSA install a device in one of its San Francisco facilities ...

2007
September 11: The NSA's PRISM program begins getting data from Microsoft ...

2009
June 3: A federal judge affirms the constitutionality of retroactive immunity for the companies that participated in the NSA's warrantless eavesdropping program. ...

2012
December 30: Obama signs a five-year extension of Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Amendments to provide more oversight of untargeted mass wiretapping are defeated in the Senate. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) says the surveillance of foreigners' communications in the United States "produced and continues to produce significant information that is vital to defend the nation against international terrorism and other threats." ....

[Coyotl]

53. Internet giants deny granting government 'direct access' to servers

We've know how this is accomplished all along, no need to ask the companies.

Internet giants deny granting government 'direct access' to servers
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/06/07/us-apple-nsa-idUSBRE9551EU20130607
By Poornima Gupta and Gerry Shih - SAN FRANCISCO | Thu Jun 6, 2013 9:06pm EDT

(Reuters) - Major tech companies including Apple Inc, Google and Facebook Inc on Thursday said they do not provide any government agency with "direct access" to their servers, contradicting a Washington Post report that they have granted such access under a classified data collection program.

The newspaper reported that the U.S. National Security Agency and the FBI are "tapping directly into the central servers of nine leading U.S. Internet companies" through a secret program known as PRISM, and extracting massive amounts of data including audio, video, photographs, emails, documents and connection logs.

It named nine companies, including Apple, Facebook, Microsoft Corp and Google Inc, as having joined the secret program.

Google, the Internet's largest search provider, said that, despite previous reports that it had forged a "back door" for the government, it had never provided any such access to user data......

[Coyotl]

54. Guardian Cover Page = WOW

https://twitter.com/DawnHFoster/status/342790588845916160/photo/1

:large

[Coyotl]

56. Stop Freaking Out About the NSA

SLATE: Stop Freaking Out About the NSA

The government’s phone surveillance isn’t Orwellian. It’s limited and supervised.

By William Saletan|Posted Thursday, June 6, 2013, at 3:52 PM

You don’t need a wiretap to hear what people are saying about the National Security Agency’s phone surveillance program. The program’s details, disclosed in a secret court order leaked to the Guardian, show that at least one major company, Verizon, has been legally required to give the government information about its subscribers’ communications. “An astounding assault on the Constitution,” says Rand Paul. “Obscenely outrageous,” says Al Gore. “Beyond Orwellian,” says the ACLU.

Chill. You can quarrel with this program, but it isn’t Orwellian. It’s limited, and it’s controlled by checks and balances.

The program’s purpose, according to administration officials and knowledgeable members of Congress, is to find out who’s been calling or receiving calls from phone numbers linked to known or suspected terrorists. If Tamerlan Tsarnaev had been in contact with somebody flagged as a possible jihadist operative, this is the kind of surveillance that would have brought him to the attention of counterterrorism investigators, even without Russian assistance.
Advertisement

The leaked order is certainly worth discussing. It confirms that previous lines have been crossed. It’s now clear that the surveillance program, which was known to have been conducted under President Bush, has continued ...

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/frame_game/2013/06/stop_the_nsa_surveillance_hysteria_the_government_s_scrutiny_of_verizon.html

[Logical]

57. You are gullible if you really think the is nothing to worry about! n-t

[Coyotl]

59. Putting some of the freaking out into perspective is not gullibility, freakingh out is

I'm aware of the issues and the problems. Take, for example, what my Senators have to say:

[WinkyDink]

58. What's your point? That now it's OKAY? That we should remain forever silent?

[Coyotl]

60. Does a lenghty post seem like remaining silent to you?

My point should be obvious enough to anyone reading the thread.

[WinkyDink]

62. Maybe you should try a different thread title, then.

[Coyotl]

63. The threads title reflects the topic of the thread, of course.

[Zavulon]

61. Nothing we didn't know, but Obama should have STOPPED the practice instead of

expanding it. Are you really expecting us to excuse this just because the guy who did it before is an asshole? And if that's not what you're expecting, what's the point of this thread? You even point out that we knew it and were posting about it long ago.