I'm attempting to find the perfect way to word the NSA story to win over the deniers...

[Gravitycollapse]

But, for the life of me, I cannot think of a better argument than the fact that our government is gathering astronomical amounts of data on us, without our permission or notification, to store for future use.

Do you understand the depravity of such an operation? The potential for abuse?

The fact is that our government deals closely with the likes of HBGary Federal who was publicly known to offensively exploit user data.

People say "I trust our President." I trusted him too. I didn't trust him or his administration to ethically handle data mining of American citizens.

I trusted him to not initiate or continue such a practice. The difference between these two types of trust is that mine is qualified with the understanding that a vote to elect is not a vote to release a public official of accountability. In fact, it's really just the opposite. I not only would like transparency and ethical practice in our government, I demand it.

My vote is to allow an official to officiate within the bounds of his or her authority; legally and, even more importantly, ethically. The two must be distinguished again because there seems to be an argument made that what the NSA is doing may in fact not be illegal or may even be mandated by law. I will not dive into the history of unethical laws in the United States or abroad. If such a topic is foreign to anyone here, you are not remotely ready for this discussion. Needless to say, our track record is in many ways terribly grim.

My hope here is that by not attempting to color the debate, by simply addressing the issue of covert surveillance of US citizens, we can overcome the illogical debasers from both sides. If we can't do this, then we have absolutely no hope of achieving any sort of mutual understanding.

[kelliekat44]

1. You need to get Congress to change the law. Obama has little to do with what the shadow

government authorized by the GOP and supported by Democrats legislates. He may support it but he will follow the law and once it is changed he will abide.

[Gravitycollapse]

2. President Obama has one of the most powerful tools at his disposal; political capital.

Once he was made aware of these operations, he should have IMMEDIATELY addressed the public and immediately condemned the operations. I understand that he is not the sole controller. But he has tens of millions of votes of confidence from the electorate. He needs to harness that power.

[msongs]

3. look..over there....snowden hiding in the land of the gay bashers nt

[BumRushDaShow]

25. "Condemning" does NOT change the law

"Political capital" does not change the law. The PEOPLE MUST tell their Congress to change the law.

You have some 25% of the population who have no internet (and thus no email), many of whom don't want it, and they have no idea what "metadata" is nor do they really care. It doesn't affect the day to day person living in a trailer park in the woods or in a hi-rise project in a city.

Does this justify the existence of the egregious invasion of privacy? Absolutely not, but for the masses to be engaged, they must be shown how it impacts them - particularly those who due to economic hardship, use throwaway phones or buy prepaid phone cards. Otherwise this issue is nowhere near the top of their priority - where a steady job, food on the table, and a roof over their heads takes precedence.

[Waiting For Everyman]

47. The NSA is in the Executive Branch, and the top of that is Obama.

Not Congress. The NSA is directly his responsibility, and takes its orders from him. He might not control everything (like funding for example), but he controls a whole hell of a lot.

He can cop out on legislative programs, but he can't cop out on his own agencies.

[geckosfeet]

4. First off, the president didn't collect the data. My bet is that the spooks collecting the data

are not disclosing a fraction of what the they have collected and are capable of collecting.

Second off - you are not going to win over any deniers. Wait, you may win over a few, and you may make a few think, and you may get some information in front of a few more. Then there will be a few that harden their position against any factual analysis.

Point is write what you need to write, your audience is going to do what it is going to do. There is no magic formula of words that is going to win over the world. There will always be a distribution of people who will accept, are neutral to or react against what you have to say. Don't sweat it.

"Mutual understanding" is always a one sided affair, your side.

[Fire Walk With Me]

5. When the president does it, that means that it is not illegal

[Zen Democrat]

30. So sayeth the "Unindicted Co-Conspirator" who was pardoned for crimes before and after.

Every time I hear kudos for the "great Jerry Ford" my mind goes immediately to the lifetime pardon he gave Nixon and realize that he was as dirty as Nixon for making the deal.

Nixon was a crook. And .... the President did it, it was illegal, and he was thrown out on his ass and would have gone to jail had it not been for Ford.

[Fumesucker]

6. At this juncture the "deniers" are so emotionally locked in you'll never change them

You could give them a printed transcript of every phone call they've made in their entire lives and they'd deny it was their words.

[Thinkingabout]

12. We have already received the data, look at your bill, same information.

[JoePhilly]

16. LOL!!

[Fumesucker]

23. What part of "printed transcript" did you fail to understand?

[Thinkingabout]

29. What part of phone call records in your bill do you not understand? Why should you get the

right to tell the communication companies to print your bill in the form in which you want? You don't have the right to dictate how your bill is printed.

[snooper2]

31. you have no clue how telecomunications work

[jtuck004]

7. Put yourself in Harriet Tubman's shoes. In trying to win over slaves who worked in the house,

her own writings tell us her batting average in getting them to turn their back on their Masters for mere freedom was only about 50%.

Malcom X had an even tougher time trying to get his audience to stand up, even though there was some real brutality he could point to.

Your task is much more difficult because your audience already thinks it is free, has no conception of who or what they are owned by, who controls their lives.

Good luck.

[struggle4progress]

8. OK. Here's my advice. Discussions of this sort typically polarize in predictable ways,

after which the battle-lines are drawn and no one is willing to shift position

So don't argue along the lines of standard dichotomies provided by the corporate media, because that's almost always a recipe for stale-mate discussion and a default win by the status quo

It's important, when thinking about this, to understand where the public actually is -- and they're actually in a state of confusion, needing clarity. Large numbers of people have no idea who Snowden is, few think he's a traitor, many think he's a whistle-blower, but large numbers believe he should be prosecuted. Similarly, most people think the NSA has inadequate oversight and has gone too far -- and yet most people support the program anyway!

To win, one needs to provide that clarity with an accurate fact-based analysis, that simultaneously informs people and forces them to think about the issues in new ways. By "accurate fact-based," I mean that the analysis is built on solid facts that can be proved and that it avoids comments that can easily be dismissed as pure opinion. Abandoning fact for opinion merely invites shouting -- and making claims, that one cannot prove, courts PR disaster and loss of credibility

So get your facts right: know the history, know what can be proved, and know what you can't prove. You can effectively use your concerns about possibilities that worry you, provided you raise such issues as precise unanswered QUESTIONS that you convince people MUST be answered

And it's necessary to keep your PoV short and clean and targeted: discussions can be derailed in a thousand ways; if you gaffe in front of the press, it won't matter if you otherwise gave a brilliant fifteen minute speech -- you should expect that your gaffe will be the evening news

But to win, there is another important component: you MUST know WHAT you want to happen -- and it needs to be SPECIFIC, it needs to be DOABLE, and it needs to be RELATED to your analysis. It's irresponsible just to get people angry, or just to make people feel uncomfortable and insecure, without giving them somewhere to go and something to do, because in the end that merely produces the despair and helplessness and burn-out and inaction -- in which case, nothing really happens and the status quo wins again

Here's a tiny example: "Did you know that under current law the government doesn't need a warrant to read your emails, if they're over six months old? Why should the government be able to do that? And what are they doing with it? We should change that law. Call Senator X! Call Congressman Y!"

Another important point is that you don't actually know what people on the street are thinking, unless you converse with them. You won't know what arguments convince them unless you pay attention to what they say and to how they react to what you say

There are actually multiple issues here, and it's difficult to put them all together in a single package. I see real potential in discussing the risks associated with privatization of "national security" but I wouldn't feel bad pointing to Snowden as part of the problem. YMMV. If (say) you want to go after the FISA warrants, and the possibility that NSA is mass-collecting phone data, then learn everything you can about the associated history, the current state of the law, and the real potential for abuse -- and come up with a very specific CHANGE you want

Here's another tiny example: "Did you know that under current law the government doesn't need a warrant to collect your phone records? Or that the secret FISA court seems to be authorizing the mass-collection of Americans' phone records? What will prevent future Presidents from abusing this such information to harass political opponents? Surely the Supreme Court in the 1960s didn't intend to allow mass-collection of phone records! The FISA Courts were originally intended to avoid the Executive over-reach of the Nixon era! How did we get here? Congress needs to limit the scope of FISA warrants! &c&c"

To win: know your stuff; break the issue into bite-size pieces; avoid philosophy and keep the discussion concrete and factual; and know what you're asking people to do

[JoePhilly]

17. Great post.

The details matter.

[GiaGiovanni]

44. Good advice.

Well said.

[DCBob]

45. Well said... this should be required reading on DU.

[flamingdem]

51. Well stated

We should put in in a FAQ somewhere on DU

[vaberella]

9. Obviously you didn't work hard enough since you called them "deniers". How ironic. n/t

[marions ghost]

14. The word "denier" is accurate, is it not?

Obviously the word was used to encapsulate. And get people talking about this.

The fact that we are allowed to know so little puts us all in the category of either believers or deniers. We can only argue with what few facts we have--but thanks to Snowden & Greenwald, we now at least have the spotlight on it.

[BumRushDaShow]

26. How does name-calling and faux labels help a discussion?

[marions ghost]

46. name-calling?

"denier" is not a case of name-calling. It is a characterization which you might not agree with, but fits, from the opposite perspective. The opposite of "denier" (NSA is OK) is "believer" (NSA is not OK) and--hey, no problem being called believer or whatever is the neutral and logical opposite of denier. There are many who deny the Snowden-Greenwald story around here. They deny. An accurate description. Not the same as calling them an idiot. You can call me a Snowden believer or an NSA denier all day long, and I can call you a Snowden denier or an NSA believer.

I think we have taken opposite sides in this issue, and given the amazing array of stuff reeling out from the government, we have no real idea of exactly where the truth lies. We can only react to what we know. Some will deny, some will believe. Or promote those opposites. There's not much middle ground here.

We do know that the government, filled with right wingers and leaners are telling us some lies, where ever they "legally" can. That much is obvious.

Let's not argue semantics. We all know there are two very different perspectives on this.

[cantbeserious]

10. Thank You For Sharing - Well Said

eom

[on point]

11. B. Franklin: They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety,

deserve neither

I think sums it up best

[JoePhilly]

19. So let's disband the police force.

[treestar]

21. Essential is a term that could be debated all day

That's the trouble with black and white thinking. You really think that statement puts a stamp on your particular opinion, where you draw the line in particular?

[ronnie624]

50. It's likely Ben Franklin was referring to the 'essential liberties' described here:

http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/constitution_transcript.html

There's nothing arbitrary about it, in fact.

[nashville_brook]

13. we don't know if POTUS is capable of reeling this in

The work that Michael Hastings did on Gen. McCrystal seems to indicate that there's a disconnect between the military and the Commander in Chief. since this sort of spying is now "baked into the cake," he might not even be able to surgically remove it himself. he might actually need the help of Congress and popular opinion to make it happen.

[marions ghost]

15. I think you're right about that

---Obama has been sold this NSA invasion of privacy as necessary for ensuring 'security." And as you say, his powers to change it are limited without congress and the people strongly behind that effort.

[Capt. Obvious]

18. Have you tried ROFL smilies?

That supposedly works for the "nothing to see here" crowd.

[treestar]

20. Call them authoritarians

and marvel at how anyone can disagree with you on anything.

To you, your opinions are so obviously "right" - you know what might be more useful? How to win over average voters on a social safety net, smaller military, stimulating the economy, accepting gay people's rights, accepting that people are equal in value regardless of skin color.

[Vanje]

22. One day. Sad , but inevitable, the GOP will have the White House again

Many DUers may trust OUR guy , not to abuse access to citizen communication records.

But when the next Republican president, and his Karl Rove, and and his FISA court ,have access to communication logs of every Democrat in office, or running for office, and the logs of all their aides and advisors, and the logs of every critical reporter or editorialist.........Does anyone really imagine they wont abuse this information?

Doesn't anyone remember Nixon?
There won't be any need to send burglars to the Watergate.

How do you think our Democratic system will work then?

[sigmasix]

38. republicans will do it no matter how well we fix it.

America could fix the NSA so that we are all comfortable with it's operations, but as soon as the republicans get the whitehouse they will destroy those fixes over night and use the NSA for illegal, antiAmerican spying activities. This notion that we can somehow protect America from the future Evils of a republican president is absurd. The right wing extremists that control the libertarians and the republicans hate America and will stop at nothing to destroy her. Smearing president Obama with the evil-doings of Bush will not protect America from future right wing presidential attacks on our liberties; but helping president Obama by ridding America of the republican control over congress and insisting that his administration head-up more fixes to the spying system to bring it in line with American values. If we are being honest here in an effort to further our mutual understanding there ought to be recognition of the dirty tricks and slander of the president on the part of the libertarians that have disguised themselves as concerned liberals. Anyone that claims to be interested in a reasonable exchange of ideas on this subject but refuses to acknowledge the unfairness and hyperbole of disguised right wing libertarians attempting to steal progressive votes, is lying about their true aims.
It is possible to have an intellectual discussion about the NSA and America's liberties, but it does no one any good if the participants are still using half-truths and hyperbole to maintain outlandish accusations about the president of the united states' attempt to "spy on every American all the time".
I will wait and see if the hair on fire crowd can refrain from attacking those that disagree with them. Ten bucks says I get accused of being a sock puppet for not agreeing with thae burning hair folks that Obama is out to get us all with spying and renditions and secret kill lists.

when the hyperbole and lies about the president stop perhaps we can have an adult conversation about this.

[Vanje]

43. ....and I thought I was the most cynical person

on this board.

If what you say is true, we have no democracy.
If what you say is true,the constitution really IS just a piece of paper.

[RC]

39. Sadly, many can not think past the "Here and Now".

"It will always be like this."

[KharmaTrain]

24. Some Of Us Do Multitask...

...capable of coming to our own conclusions that don't fall into the neat lines that those on either side here try to push. It's become a pissing match of two groups that seem to delight in piling it higher and deeper to "prove a point" that only goes to lead to more name calling and enough strawmen to scare crows into extinction. There are some here who can see many sides to this issue with feelings that don't don't pass purity tests.

The prime question: has the government over-reached in spying on its citizens. I don't know...but I'd like some investigations to find out. I've felt that way long before Edward Snowden came along and am glad that this fiasco has brought the issue back into discussion but his hiding in Moscow or Caracas isn't going to help pry open real, solid evidence to the claims he and other make. It's not being a "denier", it's wanting to separate the wheat from the chaff...to see which charges are legitimate and then demand accountability. If what's being done is legal and it's still considered evasive, then amend the laws to put in stronger protections...huffing and puffing about a "police state" only happens if you let it. Public pressure on congresscritters can bring some results. I firmly believe that there are the votes to amend or even revoke large portions of the Patriot act, but cursing out the system isn't going to get it done.

There are some of us who don't think everything is a conspiracy...or that the U.S. is the evil empire. Unfortunately the vitriol with some here is beyond being able to debate. I'm always open to a constructive discussion...if there's a problem, to find realistic solutions...

[Life Long Dem]

27. First we need to get past the fact that

The "phone number" they store is not our property. It's the phone companies property. Maybe if we owned the phone number there could be a violation of the 4th amendment, and a violation of our privacy. Otherwise it will be an uphill battle for change.

[snappyturtle]

34. That may be true but why then when I sign up with a

land line phone company I am given the choice of having it
published in the phone book, or not?

[Life Long Dem]

42. Because the law says your phone number is private but that

You have no expectation of privacy in your number.

Federal law calls this telephone metadata “Consumer Proprietary Network Information” or CPNI. 47 U.S.C. 222 (c)(1) provides that:

Except as required by law or with the approval of the customer, a telecommunications carrier that receives or obtains customer proprietary network information by virtue of its provision of a telecommunications service shall only use, disclose, or permit access to individually identifiable customer proprietary network information in its provision of (A) the telecommunications service from which such information is derived, or (B) services necessary to, or used in, the provision of such telecommunications service, including the publishing of directories.

Surprisingly, the exceptions to this prohibition do not include a specific “law enforcement” or “authorized intelligence activity” exception. Thus, if the disclosure of consumer CPNI to the NSA under the telephony program is “required by law” then the phone company can do it. If not, it can’t.

But wait, there’s more. At the same time that the law says that consumer’s telephone metadata is private, it also says that consumers have no expectation of privacy in that data. In a landmark 1979 decision, the United States Supreme Court held that the government could use a simple subpoena (rather than a search warrant) to obtain the telephone billing records of a consumer. See, these aren’t the consumer’s records. They are the phone company’s records.

https://www.cerias.purdue.edu/site/blog/post/_schrodingers_catnip_a_review_of_the_nsa_phone_surveillance_program_guest_b/

[snappyturtle]

48. Then let the phone company store the data and if I become

under suspicion let the authorities go to the phone company like
they've done for decades with their subpoena in hand.

I guess my biggest objection is that they gov't is using their pre-emptive
mind set for everything these days from war to now this and heaven
knows what else. My second objection is the taxpayer money spent
building these enormous facilties and hiring independent contractors
to service all of it with so much secrecy. And,for what? End of rant.

Thanks for all the info and the link....much appreciated.

[Ms. Toad]

37. Metadata includes much more than a phone number.

And beyond my own phone number, the metadata is information collected and used by the phone company pursuant to a contract between the phone company and me. That does not make it the phone company's property. That does inherently make it public data, nor does it give the phone company the right to use the information for purposes other than those covered by the contract.

[backscatter712]

49. The records the hospital keeps of our medical procedures may not be "our property" either...

But that doesn't mean there's no reason to keep it private. Do you want the feds snooping through your medical records whenever they want? What if they just looked at the billing codes? That's just metadata.

FACT: When organizations do business with individuals, as part of the business, they collect information, and some of that information is sensitive.

FACT: Even metadata is sensitive - it allows people to reconstruct our social networks and large amounts of what's happening in our lives, including details we don't want revealed.

which leads to FACT: Phone metadata needs to be protected. From hackers, from random snoops, from warrantless searches.

[jeff47]

28. I'm attempting to find the perfect way to get people to stop conflating different programs

So far, Snowden and company have leaked exactly one program gathering information on US persons: the phone metadata program.


All the rest of the stuff Snowden leaked are gathering information on non-US persons.

However, the people screaming about the horrific intrusion and massive scale of the spying keep conflating the programs into a single one sucking up everyone's data. Neither Snowden, nor anyone else, has presented evidence of such a program.

[n2doc]

32. The only way would be for President Obama to agree that the current situation is bad

Then they all will automatically move over. He leads, they follow.

[Zen Democrat]

33. My problem is that the data is being gathered by Generals, retired Generals, Admirals, etc.

It's not one president or another having control, it's the military that is collecting the data and running the show, as they have since WWII. Presidents come and go. The Military/Intelligence/Industrial complex has our emails and phone calls and everything else. Ending this will be quite a struggle.

[MotherPetrie]

35. K&R Bottom line: There'd be little/no defense of the president's NSA support if the prez were still

Bush.

The double standard is staggering. The tactics are obvious: Snowden/Greenwald must be constantly demonized so that by contrast Obama's support of the 24/7 NSA spying on us they've exposed may not look so bad.

Epic fail AFAIC.

[RC]

41. +10,000

Nailed it.

[alc]

36. it's not the wording, it's the timing

Wait until there's a republican president.

It may help to point out that the data can enable the NSA to influence elections for president and congress and selection of FISA judges as well as oversight votes and FISA warrants. They are collecting data on candidates, wives/family, campaign chairs, election supervisors, donors, debate moderators, and EVERYONE.

[Safetykitten]

40. Good luck with that.

[grasswire]

52. 2 points

1. It's very likely that the "deniers" are operatives and strategic disruptors, and no words will disabuse them of their task.

2. The intelligence elites are in control, not Obama. He's merely along for the ride. This means he doesn't get the blame for the abuse, nor can he affect it. It's out of his control.

[railsback]

53. Yes, 'deniers' require proof from those doing the accusing

So what do you call people who base their entire existence on 'assumptions'?

[spin]

54. I may trust Obama but that doesn't mean that future Presidents will not abuse ...

the data gathered by the NSA.

Imagine what would have happened if Richard Nixon would have had all that data available when he was in office.

How much damage could J. Edgar Hoover done to MLK and the civil rights movement if the FBI had access to every phone call made in the United States?

J. Edgar Hoover

John Edgar Hoover (January 1, 1895 – May 2, 1972) was the first Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) of the United States. Appointed director of the Bureau of Investigation—predecessor to the FBI—in 1924, he was instrumental in founding the FBI in 1935, where he remained director until his death in 1972 at age 77. Hoover is credited with building the FBI into a larger crime-fighting agency, and with instituting a number of modernizations to police technology, such as a centralized fingerprint file and forensic laboratories.

Late in life and after his death Hoover became a controversial figure, as evidence of his secretive actions became known. His critics have accused him of exceeding the jurisdiction of the FBI.[1] He used the FBI to harass political dissenters and activists, to amass secret files on political leaders,[2] and to collect evidence using illegal methods.[3] Hoover consequently amassed a great deal of power and was in a position to intimidate and threaten sitting Presidents.[4] According to President Harry S Truman, Hoover transformed the FBI into his private secret police force; Truman stated that "we want no Gestapo or secret police. FBI is tending in that direction. They are dabbling in sex-life scandals and plain blackmail. J. Edgar Hoover would give his right eye to take over, and all congressmen and senators are afraid of him".[5]

***snip***

Hoover's moves against people who maintained contacts with subversive elements, some of whom were members of the civil rights movement, also led to accusations of trying to undermine their reputations. The treatment of Martin Luther King, Jr. and actress Jean Seberg are two examples. Jacqueline Kennedy recalled that Hoover told President John F. Kennedy that King tried to arrange a sex party while in the capital for the March on Washington and told Robert Kennedy that King made derogatory comments during the President's funeral.[37] After trying for a while to trump up evidence that would smear King as being influenced by communists, he discovered that King had a weakness for extramarital sex, and switched to this topic for further smears....emphasis added
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Edgar_Hoover

The problem in our nation today is that few people are interested in history as they consider it boring.

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it"
George Santayana

[AnotherMcIntosh]

55. "If this was not harmful to the American public, this guy would not have lied to Congress about it."

Of course,

(1) "Congress" refers to both the Senate and the House while he actually lied to the Senate, and
(2) "this guy" refers to the one on the right.