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AT&T Spying on Americans, New Documents Reveal...

Well, don't we still have the Patriot Act? In which case it's legal? Nothing surprises me anymore!
 
Rosie1 said:
Well, don't we still have the Patriot Act? In which case it's legal? Nothing surprises me anymore!
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Yes. A law I fought against for months.....it's a double edged sword...a good crime fighting tool but also a loss of liberties for American citizens.

DaveFagan said:
Score one for Trump. Definitely time to break up AT & T again. Too much power misused power in their hands already.
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Agreed.
 
They are all doing it. They are all scanning our key words so they can sell advertising as "more accurate", "targeted", etc. They actually know I shopped for timer switches. A case of 20 Mule Team, etc. It really bugs me. I would drink acid before I'd click on their link.

Screw them. They'd freak if they knew how many people actually click on ads. Talk about denial.
 
Well now they know I read policy papers on a small phone.
 
This really shouldn't surprise anyone. Anything that you do online, you should assume can be watched, recorded, and accessed anytime anywhere.
 
AT&T has been doing this for decades. NSA whistleblowers have been telling us this since way before Snowden. They're watching and recording every email, phone call, and forum post (Wave to them. Hi, traitorous dickheads!).

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/16/u...spy-on-an-array-of-internet-traffic.html?_r=0
AT&T Helped U.S. Spy on Internet on a Vast Scale

AT&T began turning over emails and phone calls “within days” after the warrantless surveillance began in October 2001.

https://www.eff.org/nsa-spying
"News reports in December 2005 first revealed that the National Security Agency (NSA) has been intercepting Americans’ phone calls and Internet communications."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russ_Tice
On December 23, 2005, the Austin American-Statesman reported Tice's allegations that spying on Americans may involve a massive computer system known as ECHELON, which is able to search and filter hundreds of thousands of phone calls and e-mails in seconds.

Tice alleged that during his employment with the NSA, the agency had a program that targeted the phone and computer conversations, word for word, members of Congress, the Supreme Court, Admirals and Generals, and that the NSA had wiretapped Barack Obama while he was a Senate candidate, saying he had seen and held papers ordering such actions.[20] Tice claimed the surveillance extended to lawyers and law firms, judges (one of whom, Samuel Alito[21] "is now sitting on the Supreme Court ... two are former FISA court judges"), State Department officials, people "in the executive service that were part of the White House", antiwar groups, US companies and banking and financial firms that do international business, NGOs and humanitarian groups such as the Red Cross, and antiwar civil rights groups.[22] In his opinion, this 'wide-ranging' surveillance could offer intelligence agencies 'unthinkable power to blackmail their opponents'
 
Rosie1 said:
Well, don't we still have the Patriot Act? In which case it's legal? Nothing surprises me anymore!
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The Patriot Act was the act opened the path for such actions. The act that made it our patriotic duty to give up individual right and freedoms/liberty.

The name of the act was changed under Obama to the equally Orwellian doublespeak "Freedom Act".
 
MickeyW said:
AT&T Is Spying on Americans for Profit, New Documents Reveal
The telecom giant is doing NSA-style work for law enforcement—without a warrant—and earning millions of dollars a year from taxpayers.

AT&T Is Spying on Americans for Profit - The Daily Beast
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Yeah. I'm not surprise. Instead of shoring up our weakened foreign policy or even securing our infrastructure our government is putting most of it's resources in spying on it's citizens and perpetuating war.
 
thinkagain said:
The Patriot Act was the act opened the path for such actions. The act that made it our patriotic duty to give up individual right and freedoms/liberty.

The name of the act was changed under Obama to the equally Orwellian doublespeak "Freedom Act".
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Back in 2007 Obama voted for a law that would grant Telco's retro-active immunity for spying on American citizens. Obama made his stance very clear when it comes to hating the American people.
 
reinoe said:
Back in 2007 Obama voted for a law that would grant Telco's retro-active immunity for spying on American citizens. Obama made his stance very clear when it comes to hating the American people.
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Interesting ... so the hypocritical writing on the wall was there even before he hit the oval orifice.

That said, it should not be a surprise that Obama had sold out his principles to establishment before getting into office. If he had not done so his Presidential run would likely had not gone so well.
 
reinoe said:
A correction: it was 2008 not 2007. Obama promised to oppose the law but then flip-flopped because of course he did.
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Either way Obama did a complete 180 when he made it into office.

The civil rights fighter, Harvard Constitutional Lawyer, hope and change blah blah blah all of a sudden became a puppet of the establishment.

Bush gave us the "Patriot Act". The at which made it our Patriotic duty to give up our rights/freedoms/liberty.

Obama (Mr. Hope and Change) comes along and changes the name to the equally Orwellian doublespeak - Freedom Act.

The head of the NSA lies to congress about illegal spying activities. Not only does this guy not get punished but, he keeps his job.

Obama then in defense of the NSA states "If we want increased security - we have to give a little" .

Apparently Obama forgot his constitutional studies. Compare this statement to Ben Franklin "those who would give up essential liberty to purchase temporary security deserve neither liberty nor security".

Now I get that "Ave. Joe" is not going to realize the serious violations of the principles on which this nation was founded inherent in Obama's "we have to give a little".

I will tell you one person however that realized exactly what he was saying. Obama. This is perhaps what is most disturbing. That he is knowingly standing up and violating his most core beliefs.

The founders (and Obama) knew/know well the technique of using fear to take away essential liberty. That is why the founders put individual rights and freedoms "ABOVE" the legitimate authority of Gov't. The whole point was to limit the power of Gov't .. to put a circuit breaker in place to stop Gov'ts from getting too much power and abusing that power by taking away individual liberty.

Stalin wrote a chapter in the textbook (fear to take away rights/liberty -trade them for security) under the guise of "Security for the Motherland"
Hitler did the same trick under the guise of "Fatherland Security"

Bush - lacking the creative ability to come up with a new name - gave us "Homeland Security".

Obama has followed suit telling us if we want more "Security - we have to give up a little more liberty".

So what is this boogie man ? Where is this army massing at the gates of our city that is so terrifying that we need to give up the rights for which our forefathers shed so much blood.

Ohh right ... That's it. A few towel headed terrorists flew some planes into a few buildings some 15 years ago.

The risk of harm from terrorism to a US citizen is 400 times less than the risk of harm from Walking. You heard correctly "WALKING" God forbid one drives a car to work. Many thousands of times greater risk of harm.

Yet ... because of this massive risk ... (one is actually twice as likely to be hit by a meteor) we are supposed to cower in a corner and beg to give up our rights and freedoms.

So on the one hand .. Obama tells us that we need to fear "terrorists" while at the same time - in conjunction with Saud Turkey and others, he arms and supports extremist Jihadist Islamists (including Al Qaeda/Al Nusra, Islamic Front, ISIS and others of the same ilk) to fight a proxy war in Syria.

Talk about an Orwellian doublespeak nightmare.
 
thinkagain said:
The Patriot Act was the act opened the path for such actions. The act that made it our patriotic duty to give up individual right and freedoms/liberty.

The name of the act was changed under Obama to the equally Orwellian doublespeak "Freedom Act".
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AT & Treason, as Colbert called them.

Sadly, I do business with them, very reluctantly.
 
If they are collecting data for advertisement that is legal.
if they are collecting data for the government then that is
highly illegal without a warrant.
 
ludin said:
If they are collecting data for advertisement that is legal.
if they are collecting data for the government then that is
highly illegal without a warrant.
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You are so "pre 911" ;)
 
ludin said:
I think I told you before I am a constitutionalist.
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I'm glad to hear that, but one of Bush's AGs, I think Anthony Gonzalez, referred to the document as quaint and successfully thwarted it in several ways.

Barack Obama claims to be a Constitutional Law Professor, and as a Senator, voted in favor of FISA II which provided immunity to telecoms for the crimes they committed on the government's behalf. Further, Professor Obama has brought us the nullification of Habeas Corpus.

So I'm glad you too are a constitutionalist, but my earlier point that the Fourth Amendment is effectively dead, thanks to 911 and the GWOT. The need for warrants is no more, after 911. The document has rather become a modern version of the Dead Sea Scrolls. National Security Letters are what today's government uses, not warrants. George Bush bragged to Congress that he did not honor the demands of FISA, and all Congress did was pass FISA II.
 
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