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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsAmerica's Surveillance State: Anger Swells After Data Revelations
Dan Roberts and Spencer Ackerman in Washington
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 6 June 2013 16.01 EDT
The scale of America's surveillance state was laid bare on Wednesday as senior politicians revealed that the US counter-terrorism effort had swept up swaths of personal data from the phone calls of millions of citizens for years.
After the revelation by the Guardian of a sweeping secret court order that authorised the FBI to seize all call records from a subsidiary of Verizon, the Obama administration sought to defuse mounting anger over what critics described as the broadest surveillance ruling ever issued.
A White House spokesman said that laws governing such orders "are something that have been in place for a number of years now" and were vital for protecting national security. Dianne Feinstein, the Democratic chairwoman of the Senate intelligence committee, said the Verizon court order had been in place for seven years. "People want the homeland kept safe," Feinstein said.
But as the implications of the blanket approval for obtaining phone data reverberated around Washington and beyond, anger grew among other politicians.
Intelligence committee member Mark Udall, who has previously warned in broad terms about the scale of government snooping, said: "This sort of widescale surveillance should concern all of us and is the kind of government overreach I've said Americans would find shocking." Former vice-president Al Gore described the "secret blanket surveillance" as "obscenely outrageous".
MORE...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/06/obama-administration-nsa-verizon-records
Arctic Dave
(13,812 posts)Maybe the USSR wasn't the evil empire we fought against. They just needed a better PR campaign and a young, likable person to tell them how good they have it.
cantbeserious
(13,039 posts)eom
Buzz Clik
(38,437 posts)Drones, anyone?
blkmusclmachine
(16,149 posts)DisgustipatedinCA
(12,530 posts)Further questions?
GeorgeGist
(25,322 posts)Frau Feinstein.
WillyT
(72,631 posts)blkmusclmachine
(16,149 posts)They lied when they said it was only for international contacts.
Now we know that was bullsh!t.
What else is bullsh!t?
Let's go back to before 9/11 on the bullsh!t, shall we?
woo me with science
(32,139 posts)Let us hope we finally have a watershed.
The propagandists are working overtime to try to get you to yawn. On the contrary, now is the time to scream bloody murder, and demand to know more...
and demand a fucking stop to it.
Iliyah
(25,111 posts)that congress is being spied on tooooooooooooooooooo.
southernyankeebelle
(11,304 posts)reports of rooms phone companies were collecting information. NSA is involved then we should have known then. I was pretty upset in the very beginning when we let Bush get by with collecting personal information. Now they still are doing it with Obama. Nothing changed we gave them the power and now everyone is crying about it. Let's hope that we can get congress to repeal this action.
TheKentuckian
(25,029 posts)on 100% publicly financed elections.
southernyankeebelle
(11,304 posts)woo me with science
(32,139 posts)Why is everyone so mad about it now?
southernyankeebelle
(11,304 posts)you let that jennie out of the bottle just a little and it will be abused. You don't have to have an attitude. I'm just asking why. I am amazed that the american people could be that stupid if they honestly didn't think giving up their freedom was going to be so easy for the sake of safety. Mention NSA and for me that is enough said. Of course I lived on Ft Meade, Md and NSA was down the road from my house and everyone knows about NSA. I remember a book written called the Puzzle Palace and its all about the NSA. I don't know if you can still get it. I read it years ago. It was very interesting.
woo me with science
(32,139 posts)about the shredding of our Constitutional protections. We all knew this was going on, SO WHY CARE ABOUT IT NOW?
Damn, by that logic, why should anyone have cared about slavery in the 1860's? That had gone on even longer, and *everyone* knew about it! Why care about harrassment of gays and lesbians now? Why care about war crimes?
This is the "argument." This is the asinine logic of the Third Way, and this is their moral bankruptcy in bootlicking their corporate Masters.
southernyankeebelle
(11,304 posts)attitude with you. Please leave me alone and I will leave you alone. Sorry.
premium
(3,731 posts)I don't think the Congress or Pres. Obama realize just how pissed off the American people really are.
Pres. Obama and certain members of Congress trying to defend this onerous program has really fired up the American people and this is going to damage the fed. govt even more.
Tierra_y_Libertad
(50,414 posts)"Power tends to corrupt; absolute power, corrupts absolutely."