What level of surveillance would freak you out, if you're not upset over the recent revelations?

[originalpckelly]

This is a question I pose. I'd like to hear your answers.

[quinnox]

1. Anything up to government approved camera monitoring movements 24/7

because "I trust my President!" At least it seems to me, that is the extent some very devoted folks would go to.

[IveWornAHundredPants]

2. Why, if it's President Of The United States Obama

Last edited Thu Jun 13, 2013, 07:27 PM - Edit history (1)

we're talking about, he's welcome to install his cameras in my bathroom. I am confident the information he gleans will be used only to strike at evildoers, and that the cameras and associated equipment will be packed up in crates at the end of his term.

[sibelian]

4. ... just like the Ark of the Covenant.

... for all eternity...

He will stare out at us from the screens at the end of his term, smiling a wry smile, and say something pithy and subtly reassuring.

Isn't he just awesome?

[Andy823]

3. I am not freaked out

If in fact every single person in this country was being wiretapped, then I would be upset, very upset. I actually want to see congress make changes and investigate what is going on.

I really don't think every one is being wiretapped, it just doesn't make sense, yet I think some here actually believe there are people listening, and recording, their phone calls.

The problem I have is all the people trying to lay the entire blame on president Obama. This surveillance has been going on for a long time, long before president Obama took office. I will agree it has gotten more high tech, but I also know that congress has to take action, the president can not change the laws, only congress can do that. Those who are upset the most should be calling their congress people and giving the an ear full, not saying that president Obama is as bag as Bush or Nixon.

[CakeGrrl]

22. But, but

this is Bush's third and fourth term, don'tcha know??



People who have had axes to grind since the primaries must be down to shivs.

Meanwhile, you're correct. Congress voted for it, get people in Congress who will reverse it.

Maybe letting the Tea Party take over the House in 2010 wasn't the best thing to do...

[Andy823]

27. Tea party 2014 would be even worse

Just imagine the same thing happens in 2014, people stay home because they are mad at the president and the tea party manages to win republican primaries, then we get a bunch more tea party nuts not only on congress, but in state governments also. There should have been a lesson learned in 2010, but if not...!

[nadinbrzezinski]

39. Actually...it has, that's the problem

Oy

Don't worry congress won't hold hearings. It's not like it's 2000, let alone 1975.

[Bonhomme Richard]

5. Those that can rationalize will continue.....

to rationalize.

[Bonobo]

6. It depends on who does it.

Haven't you learned that in the past few days?

[Whisp]

7. Facebook freaks me out. Way the hell more than NSA stuff. n/t

[Abukhatar]

16. +10

And they do it without a warrant - and it appears they are getting a pass from many here

But what would freak me out is my pc warning me I am reading something subversive

[randome]

8. Any surveillance without a warrant.

[hr]
[font color="blue"][center]Stop looking for heroes. BE one.[/center][/font]
[hr]

[ZombieHorde]

9. After they assign a third NSA agent to personal follow me around.

I can understand two NSA agents following me everywhere I go, but three is just Over the Top, starring Sylvester Stallone.

[Bluenorthwest]

10. I would not be surprised if none who support this have the nerve to put metrics

and standards around their opinions. The question I most want to ask is what level of surveillance are they comfortable with not with themselves as the object, but their children. Random folks at Booz Allen kind of keeping track of them. Good stuff to ponder. How much would be too much?
I bet none will offer their parameters.

[Motown_Johnny]

11. In home surveillance of my person would be a problem.

There is an expected level of privacy which should not be violated when in your own domicile. Phone calls go out over someone else's lines and emails through someone else's severs. These are not mine and I don't see why I should expect the same level of privacy when I am using someone else's property to communicate through. I don't want them listened in on or read but tracking where they came from and where they went isn't a problem for me.

Just for the record, I am also in favor of surveillance cameras in public places. There is no reasonable expectation of privacy in public and if it can stop even one child abduction then it is more than worth it.

[Chan790]

26. ^This. n/t

[one_voice]

34. I never thought about it like that...

--about the servers/lines belonging to someone else.

[baldguy]

12. The recent revelations aren't anything new.

Anyone who was surprised by them has had their head in the sand.

[Bluenorthwest]

15. while it's always great to hear that line again, it does not answer the question.

nt

[frylock]

23. then what's the beef with snowden?

this is all common knowledge after all.

[Proud Liberal Dem]

13. Maybe China or other totalitarian-style surveillance States

Surely, nobody is suggesting that that's what were dealing with here in the US (probably not even under Bush/Cheney)? Is our internet access being monitored/censored by the government? ARE people listening into our calls without probable cause? If people want to get rid of the Patriot Act and the stuff that legalized what the NSA is doing, then we need to organize and get Congress to act. Anybody who is in Congress upset about all this ought to, at least in theory, be submitting a bill, right?

[alcibiades_mystery]

14. I don't even consider this to be surveillance

The collection of aggregate data that's run through algorithms to determine patterns of activity is not, in my view, surveillance of my person. That my personal data is included in the aggregate is fair enough. That, in theory this could result in "drilling down" to personal information is also clear, as it is part and parcel of database logics that they can examine the aggregate and the singular. But, in practice, these techniques don't make a whole lot of sense for singular surveillance. They are inefficient for that purpose; they merely point to places where individual surveillance needs to be conducted, but through other means. The patterns suggest cases for individual surveillance, usually through human intelligence or far more intrusive surveillance (wiretaps, for instance) that require additional warrants and controls. What would I have a problem with? 1) If these kinds of aggregate examinations were conducted without judicial and Congressional approval or oversight; that doesn't appear to be the case here - it was certainly the case under Bush; 2) if 'drilling down" from the aggregate and its patterns to other issues or more personal surveillance wasn't regarded as requiring additional oversight and further warrants; this also does not appear to be the case. What I see is not surveillance of me (or anyone else, really) at the level of the individual person, but examination of aggregate data for patterns that would warrant further investigations. To me, that's hardly surveillance at all. Our inability to think through the relation between the aggregate and the singular is really what causes the confusion (this is also why it's a warrant for the company holding the aggregate data, and not for the individuals who make up the aggregate, and also why it is not, in my view, a 4th Amendment issue for anyone making up that aggregate, as what is being examined is the aggregate data, not the individual person).

[Abukhatar]

17. surveillance is different

I've always thought of surveillance as something you do live. The NSA is NOT doing that as far as I know. What they are doing is getting records after the fact. Live gatherting of info is done by those google, facebook, verizone etc..companies who collect the info for their financial use.. So I am not that upset at the NSA as much as I am upset at those corporations.

[Fumesucker]

18. If your own urine or bloodstream is subject to surveillance then how much more intrusive can it get?

The length to which Americans will already go in order to prove their innocence doesn't leave much room for outrage over some pervert maybe listening in your little phone sex convo this morning.

[Fire Walk With Me]

19. As an Occupier, I have seen the FOIA documents proving the US government spied upon us,

engaged in cross-department sharing of information and action against us, and helped corporations and banks to spy upon us as well. From day one.

I am enraged at the blatant loss of the 1st Amendment, most especially under a president who spoke out to the Egyptian government and said "attacks upon journalists/peaceful protesters are unacceptable". 7400+ Occupiers jailed, many beaten, two very nearly killed. Activists in NYC targeted by name (NYPD put up flyers about a couple). The FBI taking political prisoners (Cleveland, Chicago's No NATO protest, grand jury resistors in the PNW jailed). Creating situations where there were none. Sending this message via militarized riot police and Federal agents (I saw "Homeland Security" vehicles and jackets at some events).

Now this:

TransCanada Caught Training Police to Treat Nonviolent Keystone XL Protesters as Terrorists
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023006743

The crack-down upon whistle-blowers and journalists. All of this reeks of an authoritiarian system determined to stifle dissent and protest, to instill paranoia, to send the message "don't even try". Which is domestic terrorism, and the flip side of "do what we say or else". Now "DHS" say they can steal your electronics within 100 miles of the border, anywhere along the border, on nothing more than a hunch. Obama signs the 2011 NDAA whose section 1021 allows for the indefinite detention of US citizens with neither trial nor representation. PFC Manning in jail for three years without a trial, much of it in solitary confinement. Julian Assange unable to leave the embassy building in which he hides. Draconian treatment and sentencing for hacktivists who have done more to provide transparency in government than the president who promised such would be a "touchstone of this administration". Then Obama signs HR347 which makes it a federal crime with up to ten years in prison to protest where secret service are working. Then Obama gives himself and the war criminal W Bush life-time secret service protection.

The trends are clear; how this effects surveillance should be most obviously implied. Only the details need be made known.

One purpose of terrorism is to get your target(s) to behave differently. The terrorists have most obviously won. And may I add how much power and money has been grabbed in the process? And that all of this comes from George W. Bush and the neocons?

[frylock]

24. the surveillance supporters here denied that was happening..

now their song is that EVERYONE knew it was happening.

[Michael James Cobb]

37. Lets be clear here

If GW is a war criminal so is Obama. He touched it, he held it, it's his.

[sagat]

20. Kinect 2.0

Also, actual wiretapping/surveillance would make me uneasy.

[Warren Stupidity]

21. Toilet cam.

[eissa]

25. It's not the monitoring that bothers me

it's what's done with it. I don't care who listens (and I don't believe they're even listening, but more traffic analysis.) If, however, any action is taken against a citizen for anything they've said/posted that is not illegal or a public threat, then I'd have an issue.

[DCBob]

28. randomly listening to phone calls and reading emails.

[SomethingFishy]

30. Man, I was just thinking about this very thing..

There is a thread about how Diane Feinstein is about to drop some bombshells about all the thwarted terrorist plots our civil liberties were getting in the way of stopping.

This was my reply:

Fine. You win. How about we just let Diane Feinstein shove a fucking camera up my ass. This way she can be safe in the knowledge that yes I am masturbating again and I'm not in the bathroom 10 times a day because I'm plotting something.

Deleted it before I posted it...

[thucythucy]

31. I highly doubt Diane Feinstein or anyone else

wants to shove a camera or anything up the ass of someone who calls him/herself "something fishy."

Yuck.

[SomethingFishy]

32. Right, she just wants to know what I'm doing outside the bathroom..

because no terrorist plots have ever been hatched inside a bathroom. How do you know I wasn't lying about all that personal service?

[thucythucy]

45. Get over yourself.

I doubt Senator Feinstein gives any thought whatsoever to what you do, inside or outside your bathroom, with or without your pants on.

Really, you must have a thing about this. You like to fantasize that Senator Feinstein watches you when you're being "indiscreet"--is that it? Have you shared this particular turn-on with your partner? I suppose as long as he/she is all right with it, well, far be it for me to judge anybody's fetish or sexual fantasy. It that's what turns you on, more power to you.

Then again, if you ARE hatching a terrorist plot, you might want to use a bit more discretion here as well. Don't you know the NSA can monitor your every keystroke, at least according to Snowden. Pretty soon they'll be able to read your brain waves as well--that's probably the "earth shattering revelation" Glenn Beck has in store for us.

My understanding is that a good supply of tinfoil will get you through it. Better hurry though, supplies are just flying off the shelves.

[pnwmom]

33. Warrantless wiretapping. n/t

[LeftInTX]

35. My dad was a military officer about 50 years ago

I had to dress decently whenever I left my house. When I was 12 I stole a bag of candy from the commissary. They contacted my dad's CO who was the base commander. That really sucked. There was no real privacy at all.

I've got an extremely nosy neighbor. She's horrible. I finally quit talking to her. And I keep all the curtains down in my house because of her. If the govt was as bad as my neighbor, and this means looking inside my windows, then it would make me nuts.

I guess if they were following me or something. I'm old and kinda crippled, so nothing really bothers me much.

[benld74]

36. Watching a 'live' local news/national news reporting, say on protests

ocurring against such and such a thing. And having the tv station go BLACK on my set.

THAT happened on our hotel tv while in China back in 2002. AT 1st we thought it was the tv. SO we shut it off, turned to another channel, which was fine. Something else came on. NOT a protest. BUT the channel went black again. We began to watch closer to what was being blacked out, and figured the government didn't want the peple for seeing whatever it was that was being showed.

IF that happens here, THAT would freak me out.

[Baitball Blogger]

38. I'm freaked out at the level of public and private corruption that has been going on despite

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the NSA snooping. Hell, what the hell has the NSA been doing with all the information? It's like they rolled it up and shoved it up their rectum for later reference.

[rustydog]

40. Why don't we (American people) find out FIRST what the level of surveillance

actually was!
Then get our undies in a bunch or not.

[nadinbrzezinski]

41. Ok tell me, when is Frank Church convening hearings?

[Baitball Blogger]

43. Well, I'll tell you what it wasn't.

It sure wasn't snooping into Wall Street's illegal activities.

[Recursion]

42. listening to my phone calls without a warrant

Our reading my emails without a warrant.

[AndyTiedye]

44. Perhaps It Was Meant to Freak Everyone Out

If Obama asked Congress to rescind the provisions of the Patriot Act that allow this sort of thing, they would refuse.
But let him appear to embrace those powers and they will fall all over themselves to take them away.