Curious: do people think phone calls and emails route themselves...

[Recursion]

... with no entity but the sender and receiver involved?

The politics aside, I'm getting a sense that the public at large doesn't understand just how exposed this kind of information is to begin with.

[Xipe Totec]

1. Do you think locked doors keep burglars out?

Or is it the laws and the penalties for breaking them that are the greater deterrent?

[Enrique]

3. exactly the point I was going to make

except I was going to say "keep the cops out". It's not the technical barriers that keeps them out, it is the laws, and the 4th Amendment.

[Puzzledtraveller]

4. Stay vigilant on this

Our own friends, fellow democrats and DU kin will all have us believing it was no big deal by Monday morning. They count on this, they are the party now.

[Ash_F]

6. They better shape up if they want to stay 'the party'

Do they think they will win over any voters on either side with this? The Obama administration keeps taking a ball-peen hammer to its own parties kneecaps. All to appease the right. But the righties aren't going to start voting for them. When will they get it?

[Recursion]

7. Oh get over yourself. I opposed it then and now

And Obama's FISA vote in 2008 remains Mt biggest disappointment in him. What I won't do is pretend this is anything other than exactly what FISA called for.

[Puzzledtraveller]

8. Thanks for the offer

but no thanks.

[DCBob]

5. I think the point is that its like someone making a statement on the radio..

and expecting it not to be heard by the government.

[woo me with science]

13. Do we expect it to collected, catalogued, and stored in databases for later retrieval?

No, stored databases on the daily private communications of American citizens are not benign. They create an entire infrastructure that invites abuse, including combing through the private information of any citizen some government in the future may find inconvenient or threatening to them, in order to find an excuse to arrest, detain, or silence them.

[DCBob]

19. There are legitimate reasons for collecting and cataloging the information.

I suspect if you were in the oval office you would most likely have done the same thing. When presented with all the facts and evidence and issues and concerns and risks.. the most wise and prudent thing to do is to use surveillance.. in a legal manner.

[woo me with science]

21. No.

Again the "legal" canard.

Authoritarians specialize in making whatever they want to do legal.

[Ed Suspicious]

31. There are certainly arguable justifications, but I'm not sure a database full of "just in case" info

lives comfortably with the American expectation of limited government intrusion in our daily lives.

[DCBob]

46. For sure many Americans are uncomfortable with this.

The point is there is justification from the Adminstrations position even if many dont like it.

[graham4anything]

26. Reminds me, why don't gun owners want anyone to know? Whereas when one has alarms, they have neon

signs all over the place

Yet gun owners hide the facts

I don't understand the fact that people used to have party lines, and anyone in town overheard everyone else

and that cell phone cameras are recording 24/7/365.

[REP]

30. Guns are valuable and can be stolen. Alarm systems deter break ins.

Party lines didn't mean the government was is tending in, and you could tell when someone else was on the line - and tell them to hang up.

If your cellphone camera is recording 24/7, you might want to learn how to disable it.

[graham4anything]

36. so do alarms. No, there must be some reason gun holders want to hide the fact because

isn't the goal to stop a perp from entering a house?
Once they are in, they are in.

[REP]

39. So do alarms what? Reread my post without your agenda.

And no, that's not why most people own guns. That's part of your fantasy.

[graham4anything]

42. Alarms says something is in house people would protect. Same with guns.

of course, it appears that to the tea party, guns are to overthrow the government.

but the tea party wouldn't be here, so what else is a gun for? Except for hoping the boogie man don't break in,
which is why I don't understand why someone wouldn't advertise it, so the perp would go next door.

same with an international data base.
Why wouldn't a law abiding person not want to make sure if their gun is stolen they could instantly recover it?
I know I would.

[veganlush]

2. exactly.

The call "scandal" amounts to little more than people looking at your phone bill, minus the charges.

[Ed Suspicious]

34. And what type of bigger picture info could an ambitious law enforcement officer infer from a phone

bill? No danger in that?

[Thinkingabout]

9. Does anyone here think this is a Democrat created issue? The Patriot Act was passed in 2006 by

guess who, a Republican Congress and signed by a Republican president. The Patriot Act was in response to illegal wire tapping and surveillance by the Bush administration. We also had 9 11 which has changed this nation forever. Would you rather loose your freedom to move freely about this nation for lack of protections afforded by these changes in technology and application by government agencies. I doubt you would be happy going shopping and to work daily with the fear I just might be killed before I return to my family. We have choices, to continue to used phones, etc or cease all use of telecommunications including text, email and the internet. I choose to continue using these services. I am not concerned with the surveillance legally being used. Yes, it can be abused and has been for political gains, such as Tom Delay using Homeland Security to chase down Texas legislators in order to push his gerrymandering. Will it be used again, probably because we are also a nation with crooks.

[disidoro01]

10. 89

Senators voted for the 2006 reauthorization. It isn't a democratic created issue, it's a congressional created issue.

[Bluenorthwest]

17. The 10 Senators who voted No on reauthorization were all Democrats, along with about 130 in

the House...
NAYs ---10
Akaka (D-HI)
Bingaman (D-NM)
Byrd (D-WV)
Feingold (D-WI)
Harkin (D-IA)
Jeffords (I-VT)
Leahy (D-VT)
Levin (D-MI)
Murray (D-WA)
Wyden (D-OR)

Edited to add that when they stood up to Bushco and voted NO, people saw them as wise and courageous, now the same Senators are castigated for continuing to oppose this law and the furtive application of the law.

[backscatter712]

11. We expect the phone companies, whose service we pay for, to protect our privacy.

Of course, that's a bad expectation from a money-grubbing corporation, but yes, we should be able to expect that our phone conversations are private.

[Bonobo]

12. No but that is quite irrelevant to my feelings on the issue.

Alternative question:

Do some people think that metadata jumps out of the fiber optic cables and into the hands of the NSA and then gets juggled, jiggled, cross-referenced and picked through by powerful computers?


And do people think it ends there? Do they not think the meta data is analyzed and then, if one thing is "off" or possibly "off" then the next step is made based on algorithms that somebody wrote?

[Bluenorthwest]

14. Does knowing that UPS boxes do not deliver themselves mean the driver is expected to have opened

you box?
If not, then what point are you making? That you can type?

[DCBob]

18. There is a detailed record of a every package that is sent via UPS and by other shippers.

they know to whom, from whom, to where, how many etc. Much like what is being done now with phone records.

[Bluenorthwest]

20. Yes. But you did not answer my question, and you are not the OP either. Tag team non sequiters?

Are you under the assumption that I don't know about UPS delivery systems and package tracking? The OP is using a weak analogy, informing me of things I already know will not make the analogy sound.

[DCBob]

22. Are there some new restrictions posting comments now?

Last edited Sun Jun 9, 2013, 04:57 PM - Edit history (1)

Also, it is my understanding the government is not "opening the package" unless there is some legitimate reason.

[Bluenorthwest]

38. No, feel free to take the part the OP can not take. But you have to comprhend that I was speaking to

the OP, about the post at top of the thread. The analogy stinks. Of course, UPS's job is to take my packages to the right address, all of them. So to state that they know the sender, recipient and number of packages is redundant, those are the basic bits of information needed to accomplish what I am hiring them to do. UPS knows where I asked it to send a package? This is something worth stating? They also breath air and take a lunch break.

[Ed Suspicious]

37. UPS does not hold the power to imprison me or to legally commit violence against me. nt

[graham4anything]

27. I know that the USPS asks what is inside a package, and lying is a federal offense

though some use a private company to think they can hide it from the government

always making me wondering just what they are shipping in the first place, if the USPS can't ship it

[Bluenorthwest]

40. Can you support that assertion?

Even USPS does not ask what's in a package. No one is required to state they are shipping sex toys or Korans or anything. You say it is not dangerous and that it is legal last time I looked. You do not say what is in the box. For international shipping there are customs laws that must be met, the delivery service does not make those laws, they follow them.
I await your information, but I do not accept an unsupported claim.

[graham4anything]

41. Yes, they ask is there anything dangerous or liquid in the package and you have to tell them.

They don't care if you have those items you refer to in it, but if there is something dangerous and one lied, it is a federal offense.

And they don't ship guns.

There are signs right on the window.

And international you have to fill out customs forms, and it is aknown fact any and all packages can be opened.

[Bluenorthwest]

44. So you admit they do not ask 'what's in the box', they if it's dangerous. To protect their workers.

You asserted that they ask you what is in the box and you have to tell them under Federal law. That is simply not the case. It is not 'lying to UPS' that is a crime, it is endangering others by shipping dangerous goods improperly both by the shipping and the lying. Logic tells you this is the case.
Customs statements are all about the money, of course. Anyone shipping illegal things would not list them.

[FarCenter]

15. Ethernet frame routing? IP Packet routing? or email message relay?

The latter is obvious from the RFC 822 headers on the email that you receive.

[Recursion]

24. Nobody's got the storage to log the first and second generally

But, yeah, the third lists a whole sequence of servers who have your message headers in /var/log/mqueue, and that data belongs to them, not you.

[Bluenorthwest]

16. Do people think their dinner gets to the table by itself, without a waiter?

If not, why would the be mad at the waiter for touching their food? Did they think he was a robot?! Did they think the plates grew legs and walked to the table?! Of course half your dinner is already eaten, what did you think, it spouted wings and flewwwww to your table?

[Recursion]

25. On that, I do think it's funny that people who are paranoid about their credit cards online...

... will hand them to a waiter who walks out of the room to run it. At least in Europe they bring the machine to your table.

[DisgustipatedinCA]

23. Politics aside, no

It's my job to understand how the Internet works. Keeping the Internet working requires no government spying whatsoever.

[graham4anything]

28. the word spying is a word used to inflame. It is a mcguffin.

[DisgustipatedinCA]

29. The act of spying on everyone is used to control a populace. It's a McFucking.

[graham4anything]

32. They are not doing that. It is a wide speculation to reach for that answer.

The thingy is
9-11 actually did happen

and it hasn't happened again

therefore, it works.

and nobody's rights are violated whatsoever especially here, being that we are all on a worldwide board speaking freely with no restrictions except in the TOS and SOPs and being civil.

[DisgustipatedinCA]

35. I've seen a warrant that makes clear that you're incorrect.

[REP]

33. That's not what a MacGuffin is

A MacGuffin is a plot device of an object that drives a plot forward, but the actual object (or finding it) is unimportant.

[graham4anything]

43. as is this whole issue. IT's like Seinfeld, a show about nothing. So is this issue. It's nothing but

a means to drive an agenda(plot) to lower the public's view of the president

(and it's failed big time.

I can honestly say I haven't heard one word this morning about this, except here.

(though I can also honestly say I am watching Burns and Allen on antennatv.
Where even though it was the 1950s, they had a plot device where George Burns watchings what is going on through a tv set
showing the show within the show.

[Bluenorthwest]

45. REP is right, that's not what a McGuffin is.

nt