The same Big TelCos that want to take away the internet as we know it (You know, the ones I’ve been blogging about and emailing everyone about like a giant nag nag nag machine for weeks now? No? You missed my blognags? Scroll down, there’s a few) are working hand in hand with the NSA to spy on our own people.
In regards to the NSA wiretapping scandal, which developed the new wrinkle to recorded phone calls this week, I have put together the following information. I will put up more as I find it. Please feel free to add to the list of links in comments.
Seen and heard around the ‘net:
• Quote: But a Newsweek poll conducted after a day or so of the news sinking in now shows a flip in opinion and 53% say that the program “goes too far in invading people’s privacy” and that 57% disapproved of the Bush/Cheney surveillance measures, in general. While this is somewhat heartening, it is still shameful that disapproval of this latest revealed affront to the American public is not significantly higher.
• Has the massive NSA wiretapping (a scandal which the NSA phone call tracking being discussed here is a part of) led to the promised Al Queda information? Nope. But it has led the FBI to what that agency began referring to as “more calls to Pizza Hut”.
• Quote: Americans are now so bludgeoned with news of Bush administration lawlessness, they have simply gone numb with scandal fatigue.
Government access to call records is related to the previously disclosed eavesdropping program, sources said, because it helps the NSA choose its targets for listening.
• This piece in Daily Kos, while peppered with liberal-friendly language that may stop some from reading further automatically, is one even the conservatives among us should read. It is packed with facts, timelines and comprehensive links to documents, web sites and other information outlets around the nation about every aspect of the NSA scandal. One of the links I enjoyed reading the most was a link to a Washington Post piece offering quotes about the NSA scandal. One of the quotes that struck me was:
“It’s fair to say that what was in the newspaper this morning is not content collection. … Nonetheless, I happen to believe we’re on our way to a major constitutional confrontation on Fourth Amendment guarantees of unreasonable search and seizure.” _ Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., a member of the Judiciary Committee.
• In point of fact it is a combination of the already unconstitutional Patriot Act and the private company behind the NSA wiretapping scandal that worries me most. No, the government isn’t supposed to really listen to your calls, but ChoicePoint, Inc., the company that created the technology behind the scandal, can. Then, thanks to the Patriot Act, they can sell the records they keep as citizens to the government, and those records, not being restricted by the same laws, are much more detailed. (Yes, I know it is from BuzzFlash, a liberal bastion. Read it anyway, even if you are conservative in your heart of hearts. This is something everyone should know.) Excerpt:
The leader in the field of what is called “data mining,” is a company formed called, “ChoicePoint, Inc,” which has sucked up over a billion dollars in national security contracts.
Worried about Dick Cheney listening in Sunday on your call to Mom? That ain’t nothing. You should be more concerned that they are linking this info to your medical records, your bill purchases and your entire personal profile including, not incidentally, your voting registration. Five years ago, I discovered that ChoicePoint had already gathered 16 billion data files on Americans — and I know they’ve expanded their ops at an explosive rate.
They are paid to keep an eye on you — because the FBI can’t. For the government to collect this stuff is against the law unless you’re suspected of a crime. (The law in question is the Constitution.) But ChoicePoint can collect if for “commercial” purchases — and under the Bush Administration’s suspect reading of the Patriot Act — our domestic spying apparatchiks can then BUY the info from ChoicePoint.
• From TidBits, in a report on this years big CFP conference that happens every year, come some interesting takes on upcoming issues of technology, privacy and freedom. Some sound bites:
A spirited discussion centered on whether computer activity without humans involved had any bearing on the term “unreasonable,” based on the beginning text of the Fourth Amendment: “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated.” Depending on your point of view, this is either a meaningless philosophical debate or crucial to the concept of freedom and Constitutional rights.
In short, the overwhelming feeling at the conference was that the worst threat to privacy is apathy in the general public.
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Here is my advice as we begin the century that will lead to 2081. First, guard the freedom of ideas at all costs. Be alert that dictators have always played on the natural human tendency to blame others and to oversimplify. And don’t regard yourself as a guardian of freedom unless you respect and preserve the rights of people you disagree with to free, public, unhampered expression. ~Gerard K. O’Neill, “2081″
Men fight for freedom, then they begin to accumulate laws to take it away from themselves. ~Author Unknown
Liberty has never come from the government. Liberty has always come from the subjects of it. The history of liberty is a history of resistance. ~Woodrow Wilson
We must be free not because we claim freedom, but because we practice it. ~William Faulkner
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. ~Benjamin Franklin, “Historical Review of Pennsylvania”, 1759
We have enjoyed so much freedom for so long that we are perhaps in danger of forgetting how much blood it cost to establish the Bill of Rights. ~Felix Frankfurter
Let freedom never perish in your hands. ~Joseph Addison
I believe there are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations. ~James Madison, speech, Virginia Convention, 1788
We cannot defend freedom abroad by deserting it at home. ~Edward R. Murrow
Men fight for liberty and win it with hard knocks. Their children, brought up easy, let it slip away again, poor fools. And their grandchildren are once more slaves. ~D.H. Lawrence, “Classical American Literature”, 1922
I prefer liberty with danger to peace with slavery. ~Author Unknown
The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding. ~Louis D. Brandeis
I’m surprised and dismayed that people, smart people, don’t find this disturbing. The White House gang can do this all very legally, but they choose not to.
Also, I hope the phone companies get their asses sued for violated the law by giving out private information to the government, which they are strictly prohibited from doing.