I think the real question is whether the government should be collecting all of that data at all.

The question “if” they should, suggests that they are. The fourth amendment provides that they shouldn’t, without due process of a warrant. Shall we live in a nation where all citizens are suspects of crimes not yet committed? Not how this show is supposed to run.

I have very bad feeling about this. As to Snowden Members of Congress from the Left and Right have lined up, armed with the self-assurance that comes from access to classified information, and declared themselves firmly in the traitor camp.

Yet from same article, noteworthy commentators hail him hero: Left and Right-wing members of the commentariat – ranging from Michael Moore to Glenn Beck – have rushed to the young man’s defence, proclaiming him the most heroic defender of civil liberties since Daniel Ellsberg leaked the Pentagon Papers.

We should be asking the same about the NSA itself. Not only are they in violation of the fourth amendment, but Rand Paul just accused James Clapper of lying to congress… That’s against the law… perjury.

So they lie, and break the fourth amendment. Why is Snowden being pursued, rather than the NSA?

It’s like if a child told the cops he was being abused by his parents… but the cops arrest the child for blowing the whistle on them. Seems kind of sick twisted to me.

Is it really one or the other? In these increasingly dangerous times when the next foreign or home-grown terrorist attack is inevitable—someone is working on plans for one as I write this— can the debate really be reduced to such a black and white choice? It’s nice to be able to defend the sancity of the Fourth Amendment in the abstract, but was that kind of violence considered when it was written? What if a terrorist blows up a building you or someone you know is working in? How do we feel then?

It should be, of course.

Unfortunately I think the really important questions (at least, according to their recent popularity on Google) are: What is Jodie Arias up to now? and What did Kim decide to name her baby?

I don’t mind spying @Pachyderm_In_The_Room. But to cast such a wide net as to intrude upon the liberties of every citizen is just as unacceptable as the TSA shaking down grandma and stripping children at the airport.

Probable cause is for our protection. It protects us from tyranny worse than any terrorism. Avoiding it is not the NSA’s right.

@RealEyesRealizeRealLies You cite Fourth Amendment and due process and warrants, but what the NSA has done and does is all within that structure. Congress has authorized this, your representative and Senators have most likely supported it. And the secret courts have also authorized it.

As to Snowden, my opinion is still being settled. But to say that it should be focused on “law breaking” by the NSA is merely distraction.

Secret courts and congress authorization is no excuse to abandon the constitution without changing the constitution first. It doesn’t matter how or who authorized it. The NSA is to be commended for breaking the constitution… Yet Snowden is demonized for exposing truth? What kind of world are we making here?

Warrants are only to be awarded against persons suspected of committing a crime. That does not include the entire American population. Woe to those who allow warrantless searches. It’s unwarranted.

The NSA is full of people who think they are doing a great job defending the country. Most of them are. The real question is are they acting legally?

It’s questions like that, @RealEyesRealizeRealLies , that get people thrown in jail. In Saudi Arabia or Russia we would have already been arrested.

If I were you, I would watch my back.> Remember, the NSA is listening to you.

@elbanditoroso And if we never asked questions like this we would soon lose our freedom.

What do you mean by “would soon lose”?

One could argue that it’s already half way gone

That’s what I mean.

You know @elbanditoroso, I’m glad you brought that up. I’m ashamed to admit that I thought twice about even asking this question. The slightest concern for targeting myself actually crossed my mind. I have a happy life. Why should I mess with that?

Then I came to my senses and realized that if these questions are not asked now, we can’t expect to ask them later.

My best shield is to be as public about it as possible. Public servants are becoming public serpents.

NSA is heroic. Ask me why not.

Personally, I agree with @elbanditoroso….. far too many of the “freedoms” that we have had in the past, have now disappeared. We can be put in prison for simply protesting & agents of Law Enforcement have become highly militarized & are frequently willing to be Judge, Jury, & Executioner.

I don’t understand your comments @_Whitetigress

“NSA is heroic.” That’s a positive statement.

“Ask me why not.” That’s a negative statement.

I cannot make those two comments work together so that I understand your point.

But I can ask you to clarify. Please clarify.

Hi Linda. You know, the freedoms are still there. They haven’t gone anywhere. I get your point. But the problem is not that the freedom is lost. The problem is that official law breaking has risen. The system is sound, and has mechanisms to remove the law breakers, and to ensure the freedoms.

I’m usually the reliable liberal here, but I am willing to bet that the moment those bemoaning government surveillance are personally touched by terrorism, their tune will change and they will be demanding to know why the authorities let something so terrible happen.

We do need real judicial and congressional oversight. It’s clear that the FISA court is not providing that. It’s a de-facto rubber stamp. 26,000 requests for wiretaps and ZERO requests denied. But the NSA program, if properly controlled, is needed. I hate to sound like Dick Cheney, but the warning he issued of a mushroom cloud over one of our major cities will happen if we do not prevent it. The nuclear genie is out of the bottle and there are state sponsors of terror now holding nuclear technology. In that climate, insisting on the same rules we played by in 1776 seems rather to be asking for disaster to visit us.

In response to the statement put out that Google and Amazon do the same thing as the NSA re: the collection and use of metadata someone pointed out that ya, but the difference is that Google can’t arrest you and throw you in jail.

@rojo Corporations can buy the government that will.

I’m just wondering why there are more replies on the previous Hostess Twinkie comeback thread than there are on this thread.

This issue seems much mo..r…e…..o.h…creamy filling mmmmmm.

I’m sitting on the fence. There’s no doubt that scanning triggering (rare) alerts saves lives. We don’t want another 911, Madrid, London, Bali and so forth. I would have expected NSA and British GCHQ to be frank about it. We deserve not to learn this from whistleblowers. I would expect to learn about the percentage of data actually read by a human being

http://www.fluther.com/160818/what-percentage-of-the-data-scanned-by-the-nsa-and-british

Is it 0.1% or 0.001%? How often does the computer software trigger alerts?

Another uneasy feeling is using the data for economic espionage. Do American and British agency steal secret ideas from German carmakers? Or do they listen when Angela Merkel talks to the French president? Tapping into glass fiber must give them full access. Does this mean the German secret service should do the same and listen to Obama talking to Cameron? Or Google discussing secret ideas about a new planned service?

Can we then blame the Chinese for doing this?

@mattbrowne Come on. You’re smarter than that. Tell the terrorist up front, “Hey fellows, if ever try to send a message about a terror plot by any of this list of monitored communications, we’ll arrest you or take you out with a drone.” What could possibly go wrong with a protective network like that?

@ETpro – In my opinion, the terrorists have known for very long that agencies use all kinds of approaches for surveillance. Of course, there are also dumb “beginners” who put Jihad calls in their Facebook accounts. But sometimes, even the “professionals” need to use cell phones or the Internet. They need to take the risk, see for example the Madrid bombing. I think it would be much better to tell the world community about the scanning approach.

@mattbrowne Let’s not forget the 50 plots the surveillance did detect and prevent just because it failed to stop them all. That’s tantamount to saying because laws against murder don’t prevent all murders, we might as well legalize premeditated murder.