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Greenwald says 'low-level' NSA workers can tap into phone, Internet records

OldWorldOrder said:
lol?

This was the exchange:

So why did you feel the need to respond to my attitude but not his? Is he small and insecure, too? lol Nice try, buddy. He attempted to tell me that SIGINT was part of IT. It's not even close. Even you should know that. Now why did only one person's attitude pique your interest? Hmmmm.
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This is a reasonable question. I took his question to mean that you did not understand IT to mean information technology.

There is no such possible misunderstanding about sigint. It is not an it.

"I don't think you understand what it is." or "I don't think you understand what IT is. (He could have only been emphasizing the word it.)

He meant information technology.

Of course my thoughts on your side of the equation come from reading more of your messages and seeing the attitude you post in many of them. I assume you are a smart guy in your 30s with way more maturing to do.
 
Capster78 said:
.....I really don't understand people who believe all politicians are bent on destroying or undermining the very society that voted them into office. I think such beliefs are simply unfounded and make no sense at all. And I scratch my head at why they continue to live in such a society instead of moving to a more favorable one. And I would be curious where in the world they would move that would be more favorable?
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I never said that about all politicians. I do think most are willing to bend a few rules or act against the public interest in a covert way to get elected, to get another bill they consider more important passed, or to get an endorsement or campaign contribution. The quality of our particular government is not the primary problem, human nature is the problem. I don't like giving too much power to anyone.


Capster78 said:
I don't know anyone who believes that civil rights does not extend to technology and media.
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Several people I have debated in this forum claim that privacy protection laws should no apply to cell phones and e-mail.

Capster78 said:
I think when you say that, you are being purposely dishonest. There is a debate as to what constitutes a civil right and what does not, but I don't know anyone that believes civil rights does not extend to technology and media.
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Films were censored by the government for decades, television and radio is censored by the government except late at night, and there have been numerous attempts to to impose censorship on audio recordings and the internet.


Capster78 said:
Now you have labeled me. Interestingly, even after I have made the statement that I am against the use of technology to needlessly spy on ordinary, law abiding people just going about their business. At least, without due cause or reason which would have to be filtered thru a process that has to answer to the judiciary system.
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I don't think we agree on the parameters of inappropriate spying. I consider government collection of data that citizens reasonably think is kept confidential by the vendors they use (i.e cellphone and internet metadata and content) an invasion of privacy.

Capster78 said:
I do believe people have the right to privacy as far as they are willing to protect their own information. I don't think it should be solely up to the government to protect your information. It's your information! And if you leave it solely up to the government, or anyone else other than yourself, then you yourself are partially complicit in your own demise.
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I believe that government regulations should require genuine informed consent when businesses collect confidential information from customers. The other issue is government collection, retention and analyses of confidential personal information, which beyond certain information necessary for tax collection etc., should require a specific warrant or genuine informed consent.

Capster78 said:
However, we see today that people are willing to give up privacy for technology and convinience. People are voting with their participation in social networking. Which is booming in our society and it is something I don't think you will ever be able to get rid of. Since it is something we will never get rid of, we will also never get rid of the potential our information is at risk of being used by others to harm us. Social media will only continue to grow and become more intrusive. It is a trend that once it has started, it will only grow. You can either embrace that as most have, or you can disconnect yourself from it. No one forces you to be a part of it.
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You may be right about the enduring popularity of social media. I don't think people have given genuinely informed consent to the collection of confidential personal information and the sharing of that information with the governement for retention and analyses.

Capster78 said:
Here we go with the fearmongering again. I don't even know if I want to even tackle the above comment other than to say that if you actually believe the government is going to go thru the trouble to spy on any one individual just because, then nothing I can say will convince you otherwise. I would be wasting my time and would rather allow you to waste your time building that soundproof bunker 100 feet below ground then waste my time explaining to you how ridiculous doing something like that would be.
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I don't think the government is going to spy on just anybody. I think they are mostly going to spy on legitimate criminal suspects and enemies of the governement. But, if individual government employees, contractors and elected officials are not carefully monitored and effectively prevented from misusing these tools and information, it will be used for personal or political gain or revenge.

Since they will not always be carefully monitored and effectively prevented from misusing these tools and information, abuses will happen. That is human nature.
 
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OldWorldOrder said:
Ah. Of course. If you disagree with something, that means it's broken. Perfect logic. I thought you weren't going to deal with me?
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It is a sickness. I have deluded myself into believing there is still some hope for you.
 
OldWorldOrder said:
Ah. Of course. If you disagree with something, that means it's broken. Perfect logic. I thought you weren't going to deal with me?
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If everyone is willing to support unconstitutional acts because they can get away with them then the system is broken. We will need a reset.

Let's start with Mark Levin's idea and his leadership. If that fails the next generation can have an armed insurrection. We really do look like France in the period before their revolution, don't we?
 
greyhat said:
Not only do you not have a clue on the DOJ or banking regulation for that matter, but you clearly lack a clue on the IC and its function...any other tangents you would like to go on? Big Foot, Area 51..?

Google and Facebook know more about you than the NSA, clearly they don't need help LOL
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I've suspected you of being a know nothing blowhard throughout this thread, now I have confirmation. You give the banks a complete pass... you can't be trusted, at all. If you're so naive that you don't think there are wealthy, powerful people who salivate over abusing all that juicy data for their own purposes, you're a fool. They've manipulated and played the financial markets since the dawn of civilization. They're entrenched in the military industrial complex. Yet you think they wouldn't work to get their hands all over this as well? You're a sucker if you don't see the risk.
 
greyhat said:
Well if you're not happy with them, vote for the other guy. Although you may find that they won't be too different in practice; that's because it's all ideologically great until your face with the reality of the world.
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Which, if true, means the system is broken and needs either repair or to be hauled to the curb to be taken away with the rest of the trash.
 
greyhat said:
Don't be an enemy combatant and you won't get turned into pink dust by a drone!

I'd personally press the "fire button" and blow up any Joe Schmo that takes arms against the USA.
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I will predict to you that if you and yours keep it up you and your children will probably get that chance.
 
Misterveritis said:
Which, if true, means the system is broken and needs either repair or to be hauled to the curb to be taken away with the rest of the trash.
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The system isn't broken; what's broken are the archaic ideas you based your analysis on. Failure to evolve works against you in nature, and so does it in war.

The reality is that The AUMF (and The PATRIOT Act) which serves as the legal basis for many of these activities is legal- you may not like it [now], but don't forget OUR government created and approved these laws by an overwhelming majority. Although I need not remind you that SIGINT is an intel discipline as old as communications.
 
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Verax said:
I've suspected you of being a know nothing blowhard throughout this thread, now I have confirmation. You give the banks a complete pass... you can't be trusted, at all. If you're so naive that you don't think there are wealthy, powerful people who salivate over abusing all that juicy data for their own purposes, you're a fool. They've manipulated and played the financial markets since the dawn of civilization. They're entrenched in the military industrial complex. Yet you think they wouldn't work to get their hands all over this as well? You're a sucker if you don't see the risk.
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The conspiracy theories thread is elsewhere LOL
 
Misterveritis said:
I will predict to you that if you and yours keep it up you and your children will probably get that chance.
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Sounds like your volunteering for testing- nice.. What's with you guys and all this talk of armed insurrection? Have you never had an admin or two that you didn't like? Com'on you guys sound like real nut jobs.
 
greyhat said:
The conspiracy theories thread is elsewhere LOL
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:roll:

History is absolutely chalk full of exactly what I'm talking about yet you blow it off as conspiracy. I have to really question that hat of yours. Are you the wolf or the sheep?
 
Misterveritis said:
Do you think it matters that we have tyranny by collusion? Am I any less free because there are 535 tyrants at the top instead of just one? I do not agree with Big Brother watching. I do not care that Big Brother thinks it is the thing to do.
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:shrug: then fortunately for you, you live in a representative republic with periodic elections of our representatives. I would urge you to ensure that your representative, and Senator Shelby understand your position, and if they disagree with you, to attend their campaign events to ask them about it. Or, you could support primary opposition to either.


You cannot have government without giving it power.
 
Jango said:
So you're saying Americans want to be spied on?
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:shrug: That's what it seems like. After all, we've enshrined doemestic counter-terror and counter-criminal collection in our law for decades now. What do you want to bet that having voted for these programs does not harm the reelection chances of a single Senator or Representative?

And you didn't answer one of my questions: Do you want our government spying on you?
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The question is poorly crafted and thus incapable of being accurately answered. There is a level of observation of my activities that I would support (for example, camera's that watch traffic) and some that I would not (for example, cameras in my bedroom).
 
Verax said:
In the information technology world it doesn't quite work this way. If you're not authorized to use a system or use a system in a certain manner you are also denied the ability. This is a fundamental tenet of security in which users are granted the minimum privileges necessary to complete their task.
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That is not necessarily correct. For example, as part of my training as a CI Analyst, I learned some interesting open-source ways to track and find out all kinds of things about people. I would be engaged in criminal collection on U.S. persons, however, were I to turn those methods to trying to track down people whom I don't like on DP.

In a properly secured environment users of this system should only be able to access authorized resources. The idea that anyone logged on can access anything without question is absolutely absurd.
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:shrug: I'm aware of need-to-know. I'm also aware that Admin has access to a lot that they don't have need to know. If Snowden was an admin tech handing out passwords, troubleshooting the network, and the like, then it is possible he had access to databanks that he had no need or right to access. I don't know enough about the program architecture to say more, only that in my (very limited) experience, it would seem plausible that someone in the admin world could gain access to caveats that they were not read into. Snowden clearly demonstrates poor understanding of the programs he has tried to out, and so the idea that he just copied some presentations and later tried to make sense of them without the background knowledge would fit the available evidence.
 
COSTELLO: Let's turn our attention to the phone call between Katherine Russell and her husband, Tamerlan Tsarnaev. You said something very interesting on Erin Burnett show last night. You said that if Katherine Russell does not divulge the contents of this phone call that the FBI had other methods of finding out what was said. What did you mean by that?

CLEMENTE: Well, on the national security side of the house, in the federal government, you know, we have assets. There are lots of assets at our disposal throughout the intelligence community and also not just domestically but overseas. Those assets allow us to gain information intelligence on things that we can't use ordinarily in a criminal investigation, but are used for major terrorism investigations or counter intelligence investigations.

COSTELLO: You're not talking about voicemail, right? What are you talking about exactly?

CLEMENTE: I'm talking about all digital communications are -- there's a way to look at digital communications in the past. I can't go into detail of how that's done or what's done. But I can tell you that no digital communication is secure. So these communications will be found out. The conversation will be known.

It is just a question of whether or not Katherine Russell decides to own up to what was said prior to that information being known or after the fact. It will be unfortunate for her if she doesn't own up to it completely and fully because the facts of this case, the fact of her involvement in communication with her husband will be known.
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CNN.com - Transcripts

This was after the Boston Marathon bombing.
 
Misterveritis said:
This is a reasonable question. I took his question to mean that you did not understand IT to mean information technology.

There is no such possible misunderstanding about sigint. It is not an it.

"I don't think you understand what it is." or "I don't think you understand what IT is. (He could have only been emphasizing the word it.)

He meant information technology.
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So he says I don't understand information technology and that was fine, but I say he doesn't know SIGINT and that was bad? You're a very strange person.
 
Misterveritis said:
It is a sickness.
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It is a sickness, you're right. When you are totally incapable of conceptualizing that someone can have a different viewpoint than your own but might not be wrong, that's very much a psychological sickness.

You disagree with something. That's fine. That doesn't mean the system is broken or that it's time for armed insurrection. All that means is that you disagree with something. Learn to manage your emotions.
 
greyhat said:
The system isn't broken; what's broken are the archaic ideas you based your analysis on. Failure to evolve works against you in nature, and so does it in war.
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Eventually you had to out yourself. Thanks for that. The archaic idea is the Constitution. It was brilliant when hammered out and, had we continued to live with a government constrained by it, we would be in far better shape today.

Nearly all of evolution ends in failure.

In war we look back to Thuycidies, to Sun Tzu, to Machiavelli, to Jomini, to Clauswitz, to Mahan, and to many others. We study Alexander's campaigns, we look into the accounts of many battles, some very old and some still fresh with the smell of blood, broken flesh, urine and feces. We look back because human nature has not changed. We look back to better help us identify the challenges we may face in the future.

The reality is that The AUMF (and The PATRIOT Act) which serves as the legal basis for many of these activities is legal- you may not like it [now], but don't forget OUR government created and approved these laws by an overwhelming majority. Although I need not remind you that SIGINT is an intel discipline as old as communications.
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A law created for one purpose is expanded to fulfill an illegal purpose. Is that law still the same law? Do you believe that tyranny by our government is to be preferred over a tyranny perpetrated upon us by a more foreign government?

If you swore an oath to support and defend the Constitution why have you broken your oath?
 
OldWorldOrder said:
So he says I don't understand information technology and that was fine, but I say he doesn't know SIGINT and that was bad? You're a very strange person.
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You have a history of aggressive, overbearing posts. I responded to one of them.
 
OldWorldOrder said:
It is a sickness, you're right. When you are totally incapable of conceptualizing that someone can have a different viewpoint than your own but might not be wrong, that's very much a psychological sickness.

You disagree with something. That's fine. That doesn't mean the system is broken or that it's time for armed insurrection. All that means is that you disagree with something. Learn to manage your emotions.
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I understand different points of view. I do not understand the evil that men do in the name of security.

The system is broken if a vote means nothing. If our choices are Tweedledee or Tweedledum then it is time to go back to basics and actually follow the Constitution. If we fail how is it possible to not have a revolution? History shows that people will suffer for a long time but not forever.

So we fix it or we end it. Revolutions are horrible, destructive, rending things. So we have to pull on our big boy pants and fix it.
 
cpwill said:
:shrug: then fortunately for you, you live in a representative republic with periodic elections of our representatives. I would urge you to ensure that your representative, and Senator Shelby understand your position, and if they disagree with you, to attend their campaign events to ask them about it. Or, you could support primary opposition to either.


You cannot have government without giving it power.
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I do know you took or swore an oath to support and defend the Constitution. Why do you so easily give it up?

Sessions gets it. Shelby perhaps not. Brooks gets it. I have already asked his Huntsville office for an explanation of his failure to vote to defund this program. I believe he will hold a Town Hall meeting.
 
greyhat said:
Sounds like your volunteering for testing- nice.. What's with you guys and all this talk of armed insurrection? Have you never had an admin or two that you didn't like? Com'on you guys sound like real nut jobs.
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I speak from history. Tyranny can be endured for a time. We have slipped the constraints of the Constitution. It is time to return to them. My generation won't rebel. Nor the one behind mine. But two or three from now...
 
Misterveritis said:
I do know you took or swore an oath to support and defend the Constitution. Why do you so easily give it up?
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...I am not convinced that the NSA program violates the Constitution?

Sessions gets it. Shelby perhaps not. Brooks gets it. I have already asked his Huntsville office for an explanation of his failure to vote to defund this program. I believe he will hold a Town Hall meeting.
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Interesting - can you show Sessions' statements on this program? Shelby I trust... well, that's not true, I can throw some people quite far, depending on leverage, and how I'm feeling at the moment.
 
Hard Truth said:
I never said that about all politicians. I do think most are willing to bend a few rules or act against the public interest in a covert way to get elected, to get another bill they consider more important passed, or to get an endorsement or campaign contribution. The quality of our particular government is not the primary problem, human nature is the problem. I don't like giving too much power to anyone.
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Would you agree that NOT using the technology available to catch criminals that WILL use technology to harm us is giving to much power to criminals? This technology is not going to dissapear because you ban the government from using it. By banning it outright, you just give another tool the criminals can use that our government can't use to apprehend them. In essence, you are passing that power from our government to criminals and rougue states that don't have a problem using it. I would rather allow our government to have that tool in their toolbox and know about them having it. All the while, forcing them to be transparent when it is used in order to ensure it is being used responsibly.

Several people I have debated in this forum claim that privacy protection laws should no apply to cell phones and e-mail.
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I have yet to see anyone say that the government should have free reign on monitoring personal conversations.

Films were censored by the government for decades, television and radio is censored by the government except late at night, and there have been numerous attempts to to impose censorship on audio recordings and the internet.
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I have not seen this censorship here in the U.S. other than to protect sensitive information that pertains to national security. You may make the argument as to what constitutes sensative information. However, I suspect, you are the type that probably believes all information should be available regaurdless of how sensitive our government thinks it is. Which has always left me scratching my head because it flies in the face of privacy. Much of the information the government holds as sensitive or secret is held precisely to protect the citizens it is responsible for protecting. Then again, you may also be one of those types that believes that the government should be small an ineffective and that you have the ability to protect yourself. Which is probably what you do believe. Many people who hold this belief can hold it because there has not been an invasion on american soil in hundreds of years. The reason is because they have been protected for so long by the government and it's military so they have no sense in what it would actually be like to protect oneself from an outside threat. All you have to do is take a trip to a country where the government is ineffective in protecting it's people and you will find people that would be arguing the complete opposite and would be begging the government or some outside government such as the U.S. to come and protect them as many countries have done.

I don't think we agree on the parameters of inappropriate spying. I consider government collection of data that citizens reasonably think is kept confidential by the vendors they use (i.e cellphone and internet metadata and content) an invasion of privacy.
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Well, that is the problem. There is not one vendor that could possibly garuntee 100% protection of your information. So already, your setting the system up for failure. The internet is to large and has to many holes in it to garuntee 100% protection. I don't think you will ever be able to attain that.

I believe that government regulations should require genuine informed consent when businesses collect confidential information from customers. The other issue is government collection, retention and analyses of confidential personal information, which beyond certain information necessary for tax collection etc., should require a specific warrant or genuine informed consent.
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I believe there already is a process any government agency has to go thru to attain personal information that is equivalent to attaining a warrent. Will this ever satisfy you, probably not. No matter the process, I don't think they could create one that would satisfy you. And if they could, the process would be so full of bureaucracy that it would be completely ineffective.

You may be right about the enduring popularity of social media. I don't think people have given genuinely informed consent to the collection of confidential personal information and the sharing of that information with the governement for retention and analyses.
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The internet can only be considered public domain. There is no way any government or agency could possibly police it. Any government or agency that could possibly police it would be a very large and expensive government. And if my sense is correct, you are probably one who wants a smaller government. You can't have your cake and eat it to. You are eventually going to have to make some concessions.

I don't think the government is going to spy on just anybody. I think they are mostly going to spy on legitimate criminal suspects and enemies of the governement. But, if individual government employees, contractors and elected officials are not carefully monitored and effectively prevented from misusing these tools and information, it will be used for personal or political gain or revenge.
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Entirely possibly and it has already happened. The best we can do is come together as an international community and all agree that we will not protect these individuals from the laws that should be preventing them from misusing their positions.
 
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