metadata, Alpha Beta, gamma zeta... I don't give a FFFFuck WHAT you call it.

[cherokeeprogressive]

I call it billions upon billions of misspent dollars. Billions upon billions of dollars spent in an effort to find an enemy whose presence is as substantial as food coloring in water. I liken it to nets tens of thousands of miles long, dragged through the air trying to catch smoke.

The government is attempting to find a connection between every single grain of sand on every beach, and it's storing the results for later use. When the government finds connections 2x-30x-100x removed between good people and bad, that information is stored for later use.

The scariest thing? The government farms this work out to hundreds of different privately owned companies, even though the resulting information/connections are established by companies that have a direct expectation on how the information might be used.

It comes to a point where elected representatives are driven by phone calls in the night... "hey mrs. congresscritter, we have a phone conversation between you and your husband's business partner implying the two of you might be sleeping together... you WOULDN'T want that to get out, would you?" "Hey mr. senator, we have a record of your search for local prostitutes. Imagine how that might seem if the information might get out".

The US Government should NOT be in the business of collecting every bit of a person's daily life... ESPECIALLY if they're farming the fishing expedition out to non-government entities.

"Hey, Mr. President... we found out that ten years ago you searched for boys upon boys porn. We need you to invade X country... how would it seem if The Most Important Person in the World was a pedophile?"

Fifty years ago, going to the Moon was science fiction. A hundred and twenty-five years ago, FLIGHT was deemed impossible. The Titanic was "unsinkable".

Today, my phone calls might be recorded if they're to a number that is related to a number that is related to a number that is related to a number that was once used to call Afghanistan. Recorded and saved for years. Recorded and used against me if I'm pictured in an anti-surveillance march in Washington DC.

Defend that.

[scarletwoman]

1. Bravo! Thank you!

The size and scope of the Surveillance Corporate/State Complex should by rights appall all of us. I can't understand why anyone would defend it.

[TDale313]

7. From what I've seen...

Those here who are defending it are mostly doing it from a "quit picking on my guy" stance. Very little to do with the actual practice. Very much "my team, right or wrong. Rah Rah"

Then there's the old "It keeps us safe. If you're not doing anything wrong, ya got nothing to worry about' justification. But I've seen less of that and more "I trust Obama, so it's all good" here on DU.

[JDPriestly]

13. Right. It is just defending their own party. But that is not the American

thing to do. The surveillance is over the top. Both parties are in on it. It started under Bush. A lot of money, a huge lot of money went into developing this capacity and is going into the surveillance every day. Meanwhile, our bridges are collapsing, we lack low-income housing, we are told that the government wants to cut back on Social Security benefits and food stamps, and our children have to indenture themselves, sometimes for life, just to get a decent education so they can get a job.

Where are our values? Is a political team so important that you forget what is really important? Let's stop wasting money on tracking everybody's phone calls. Let's stop wasting money on a far too extreme and expensive surveillance program at airports. The whole thing is just way out of control. 850,000 well paid private contractors to track the metadata on our phone calls, internet activity and texts? And then add in the cost for running the equipment. It's mind bogglingly wasteful.

[Summer Hathaway]

2. That is some serious paranoia you got going there

"Today, my phone calls might be recorded if they're to a number that is related to a number that is related to a number that is related to a number that was once used to call Afghanistan. Recorded and saved for years. Recorded and used against me if I'm pictured in an anti-surveillance march in Washington DC."

If you believe this is a probability, or even a remote possibility, you really need to chill.

[cherokeeprogressive]

3. So the NSA isn't looking for calls to numbers that called numbers related to bad guys?

Seriously? What the fuck are they looking for then? Why make a record of numbers calling numbers that called numbers?

It's not a probability, you're right. It's happening 24/7/365.

[Summer Hathaway]

9. What they're looking for

is definitely NOT you.

How long have you been posting here? How many times have you expressed your disagreement, vehemently, with this administration?

Has anyone from the gov't interrogated you?

Has anyone from the government followed you around, monitoring your every move?

Do you think there's an NSA employee somewhere out there who's saying to his colleagues, "Let's check the phone records of this cherokeeprogressive guy - he looks suspicious?"

Really?

[cherokeeprogressive]

11. Wow.

Seriously?

[Summer Hathaway]

12. Very seriously. n/t

[neverforget]

14. You have nothing to worry about until you do

Then, you will accept your NSA military spy masters just like Thomas Jefferson would

[siligut]

35. Our government is not just one idealistic person

And yes, there may be an NSA employee somewhere out there who's saying to his colleagues, "Let's check the phone records of this cherokeeprogressive guy - he looks suspicious?"

Have you really no idea of how these agencies are structured? I am sorry to use you as an example, but damn this is frustrating. Snowden even proved to you that this technology is in the hands of people who managed to get even minimalist security clearance.

[randome]

47. He proved nothing of the sort. What are you thinking about?

All Snowden proved was that he had access to internal office documents.

[hr]
[font color="blue"][center]You should never stop having childhood dreams.[/center][/font]
[hr]

[siligut]

51. His security clearance is the concern

[randome]

58. Dead to rights on that.

If he has four laptops of intelligence documents and Greenwald spoke with him before he started, it sounds like the only thing they planned during Snowden's training was o copy as many documents as possible.

[hr]
[font color="blue"][center]You should never stop having childhood dreams.[/center][/font]
[hr]

[treestar]

55. Really! I know right

There are enough death threats against the President to keep them busy.

If they were going against anybody for politics, I would imagine it would take a level like say Glenn Greenwald. And he can't have been tapped, or he'd have complained about it.

Or since Obama's the one with all this capability, wouldn't it be Boner being spied on? I'd hate to be the agent who has to go through that stuff.

[Summer Hathaway]

59. Exactly.

The level of paranoia on this site is now so over the top, I don't know whether to laugh at these people or feel sorry for them.

[JDPriestly]

15. It isn't a possibility. It is the reality.

I think a lot of DUers just don't understand what this surveillance program means. Those who aren't horrified by it just don't understand it. First you get surveillance and paranoid government, and then you get repression. It has happened throughout history. And the victims of the repression are often quite innocent -- like the witches in the Middle Ages. Eventually, the government starts making up crises and problems just to be able to justify keeping the surveillance going, fed and fat. This will lead to horrible things if we are to take history as a guide.

[Summer Hathaway]

17. If it is a "reality" ...

... you should have no problem proving that reality.

Proof - not one of your hypothetical fairy-tales.

[scarletwoman]

19. How about the REALITY of the biliions of dollars of our tax money paying for this shit?

To PRIVATE CONTRACTORS.

You're good with that? You're good with an ever-expanding military/intelligence complex sucking up our tax money, keeping our country on a permanent war footing, and enriching private "defense" contractors, while funding for the social safety net and our infrastructure continues to get cut?

You're good with having all these surveillance capabilities in the hands of a future Republican administration?

Try thinking about it a bit before you dismiss those who are raising alarms about the Surveillance State.

[Summer Hathaway]

20. Completely off topic.

I was talking to cherokeeprogressive about paranoia, and how one should avoid being a victim of it.

Are we now living in a 'surveillance state'? I thought it was a 'police state' - but I guess that was two or three talking points ago. Hard to keep up with the perpetually paranoid.

[scarletwoman]

21. It is precisely on topic. It is the topic of the OP.

Your concern over cherokeeprogressive's "paranoia" is noted, but it's off-topic.

[Summer Hathaway]

23. Paranoia

IS the OP.

[scarletwoman]

24. "I call it billions upon billions of misspent dollars." That is the first line of the OP.

Defend that. Defend those billions of dollars spent on surveillance of the American people.

[Summer Hathaway]

27. And the OP goes on to say ...

"Today, my phone calls might be recorded if they're to a number that is related to a number that is related to a number that is related to a number that was once used to call Afghanistan. Recorded and saved for years. Recorded and used against me if I'm pictured in an anti-surveillance march in Washington DC."

... which sounds pretty paranoid to me.

Your mileage, of course, may vary.

[scarletwoman]

29. No, it's an extrapolation of how this data might be used, based on exactly what we're being TOLD

this data is being used for.

Why don't you just get a signature line that says "I *heart* the NSA"? Since you seem so keen to defend it.

[Melinda]

49. I think Ms Hathaway must be quite young and ignorant of how the US govt has operated...

against its citizens in the past. It's mind blowing to think that anyone of any age automatically falls into line like a good soldier and refuses to consider the history of agencies under the authority of the executive branch in the US. And its not limited to just agencies. As we know, Presidents throughout history have spied on opposition and perceived enemies in secret. However in the instant case...

Operation CHAOS and the Huston plan come to mind (I was a student and so called "radical: when these two were ongoing)

Project MKUltra comes to mind.

COINTELPRO comes to mind.

Operation Mockingbird comes to mind.

Oh, and Iran-Contra.

There are countless others as well, perhaps other DUers might add to the list.

And when I see good soldiers on DU, I often wonder if MKULTRA didn't produce desired results after all! (okay, I don't really think this, but d'oh!)

I think DU shows a cross-section of people, albeit small, who are not necessarily given to question authority, who have a basic High School education particularly re history, and who, as long as their economic needs are met, are not in the least bit interested or curious as to what their govt is doing with their information. Sometimes it takes chickens coming home - know what I mean?

And I worry for the future of this country.

[scarletwoman]

50. I concur, although she certainly exhibited some mad deflection skilz.

Young and ignorant I can understand, but WILLFULLY shutting out the information that would cure that ignorance is something else again.

What I see on DU is a cohort of people who simply REFUSE to look behind the curtain, and will use any and every tactic in an attempt to deny that there's even a curtain there. It's quite confounding to witness. History? They don't need no stinkin' history!

And I worry for the future of this country.

I do, too.

Thanks for your excellent post!

[treestar]

56. I read about all those

but don't see any reason to think that 1950s to 1980s style CIA bad acts will always continue. And you still have to be doing quite a bit to get spied on. The CIA has been exposed for its MKUltra type actions.

[Melinda]

61. We are talking about atrocious out-of-control acts comitted upon its citizens by our Govt.

in very recent history.

But you "don't see any reason" to be concerned.



*On edit. It's interesting, after posting my initial answer to you, treestar, to further reflect on what you said, and my experiences.

You said "you read some of those"

The difference between you and I is this: I actually lived during many of them, and have had a personal visit to my door step from the FBI (yes, a radical subversive I was at age 16!) wanting to know about my ties to the SDS. Gads, I was on their mailing list, LOL!!

Here's hoping you read some more, maybe even talk with others who actually experienced what an out of control govt can do.

[treestar]

62. Your labels, your opinions

[Melinda]

63. Nope, my experiences, my truth. You "read some of those" - I lived them.

Head, sand, you know the drill.

[JDPriestly]

22. Police states are surveillance states very often.

The surveillance program violates the Constitution because it chills speech and enslaves the press. It prevents the press from being able to talk to sources without the knowledge of the government.

It is illegal -- the eavesdropping even on just the metatdata is illegal. It is just a matter of time until a Supreme Court agrees on that point.

[randome]

48. Good God. The courts have ruled time and time again that these records are not yours.

[hr]
[font color="blue"][center]You should never stop having childhood dreams.[/center][/font]
[hr]

[newthinking]

34. Once it does get to that point it will be too late to stop it

Why is it that leaders in new democracies are always bringing up "vigilence" as being essential to liberty? Maybe because they understand history and how repressive governments form?

[treestar]

54. Agree 100%

The standard may not be so broad.

Immigrants from Afghanistan who call home are more likely to be innocent victims here.

[Anymouse]

4. I made a short case against gathering such data . . .

. . . at this post on Democratic Underground.

Such data, in the hands of folk who are truly doing the job of intelligence-gathering or security would be safe. The issue is what happens if someone with a nefarious purpose gets his hands on it, as noted in the short post above.

[patrice]

6. I have been thinking about that too. nt

[JDPriestly]

16. And someone with a nefarious purpose or someone who is in a desperate

situation and wanting a scapegoat always gets ahold of it. That is the lesson of history.

[JDPriestly]

25. The issue is not whether the data would be secure in safe hands.

The very fact that they collect the metadata on press calls is an invasion of freedom of the press -- the freedom to talk to sources without the government knowing. And that fact that they collect the metadata on our calls and perhaps more on some of them including our overseas calls means that they are chilling our freedom of speech and freedom of association.

It is absolutely appalling that the government or one of its agent such as a private contractor COULD through this program obtain a transcript or a recording of a confidential conversation between an attorney and his/her client especially if the conversation concerns a pending charge in a federal criminal court. That deprives the defendant of the adequate assistance of counsel because a lawyer will not be able to speak frankly with the client knowing that the government is listening in.

The only reason that people on DU are not upset about this program is that they are ignorant, totally ignorant about their rights, the laws protecting their rights, and the restraints that our Constitution places on our government. Those restraints are not reduced simply because we have enemies, not even terrorists. Those restraints were placed on our government at a time in which our government was far, far, far less secure and powerful than it is today.

I am so dismayed at the ignorance of so many DUers about how our constitutional rights work. And I am shocked that Obama who supposedly taught or at least took a law school course and at Harvard no less in constitutional law and does not understand why this program is completely illegal. Same for a number of members of Congress. It makes me wonder whether they are afraid of having some of their personal secrets revealed. What does the NSA, what do the private contractors have over Obama or Pelosi or some of the others that support this program? That is my question. Why are they afraid to speak the truth about it. It violates the Constitution.

[patrice]

5. Those direct expectations you mention could also include which corporate persons are double/triple

-crossing which other corporate persons, a VERY DICEY security information set that, especially within the context of Derivative Crash of '08 in with several hundreds of trillions of dollars disappeared and off-shore/foreign banking. NOT the putative purpose of PRISM all that, I'm sure, but definitely cause for all such corporate persons to HOWL, with every kind of "Constitutional" window dressing, even if their so doing does, eventually, add up to any number of persons who (would not otherwise) have suffered and died.

[cherokeeprogressive]

8. What a tangled web... n/t

[patrice]

10. That movie Margin Call with Kevin Spacey & Jeremy Irons, gives you kind of an idea, in a

story, of what these corporate persons are all afraid of.

[JDPriestly]

28. Many, many Americans died in wars beginning with our Revolution

through recent wars to PREVENT our government from obtaining the capacity to interfere and snoop on our private lives in the way this surveillance program does. People willingly suffered and died for the very freedoms that this program takes away from us.

Sorry, but the reasoning in your post is completely absurd. More people will suffer and die because of this program and the totalitarian state that it will, if history is any guide at all, lead to than will be saved by it even under the most optimistic view.

Government surveillance is extremely dangerous and is characteristic of dictatorships. Government surveillance is incompatible with free societies.

The surveillance programs have to end. Because if they don't, our Constitution is a joke and our country no longer exists.

[patrice]

64. Sometimes I think "Fuck History!" People NEED to be asked if they want to die for ANY principle ...

especially when that principle is embodied in a Constitution that basically created and INSTITUTIONALIZED in our Congress an oligarchy out of robbery and slavery and then gave propertied white males a 200+ year economic head-start and now wants to pretend that the economic handicaps that genocide and slavery and cultural oppression imposed on so many others just don't really matter at all.

[JDPriestly]

65. All true.

But don't forget. A lot of white people including some who enjoyed a lot of privileges fought to abolish slavery.

And it took much longer for women to just get the right legally to vote than it did for the former slaves (at least officially). And there still is no equivalent of the 14th and 15th Amendments for women.

The history of slavery is a terrible thing. It does not make surveillance by our government OK today. To the contrary, that history should remind us that our rights have to be earned and protected. So many people died to end slavery. Never forget that. And many people paid dearly to end segregation and more are working very hard to end discrimination. It is a constant struggle with the forces of hatred -- even for us within our personal lives. We must be ever vigilant of our own hatred. We always think it is justified. It never is.

[treestar]

57. they have the money to fight it too

It would be ironic if we are saved from this unconstitutional data gathering by some corporation.

[patrice]

60. So the snooping and its possibly consequent killing are okay as long as they are "freelance".

The holy "free" "market", which is neither free, nor a real market, will magically solve all problems.

Pardon my skepticism, especially when it seems that a government owned by corporate personhood is a basic premise, except when it is convenient and useful to separate the two and say that it isn't the same thing. I suppose that is to some extent necessary, I just think it's also necessary to know precisely who is doing the separating, what exactly they are separating, and why.

[Coccydynia]

18. Does anyone know the following:

Is corporate phone and email meta data being collected. If not, why not? If so, how do these companies feel about that?

My guess is that the 4th Amendment applies to corporate persons only, now.

[Warren DeMontague]

26. We spend $60B a year so we can arrest cancer grannies for getting high.

Look what the Patriot Act has actually been used for:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2011/09/12/911-chart-of-the-day/




The people who honestly think that this crap is being done to "catch terrorists" are even higher than the grannies they're wiretapping so the SWAT team will know whose door to kick down to find the dime bag.

[JDPriestly]

31. Thanks. Excellent post.

The apologists for these surveillance programs are ignorant of the effects the programs will have.

These kinds of surveillance efforts have been the hallmark of almost every dictatorship in recent history if not much further back.

[SammyWinstonJack]

39. Rotten bloated government 'policies' solely for profit.

[ljm2002]

46. Now that is an eye-opening chart...

...it will be interesting to see people try to discredit the source. I suppose they'll say that Forbes is just an Obama-hatin' Libertarian rag or some such.

Oh well. Thank you very much for posting it, it should be included in every thread where we discuss this surveillance state that our government has built for us.

[ReRe]

30. Sit down. I have something to tell you.

K&R

.... 70% of all intel jobs are farmed out to THOUSANDS of Private Contractors. Billions misspent for sure, because none of the intel agencies are supposed to be spying on the American People in the first place, according to the 4th Amendment. If anyone thinks that the USG couldn't find you if it wanted to before 9/11, then they are deluding themselves. I seen a clip of Hayden himself referring to this intel sweep as "digital Blackwater." Chilling words from that creep. I'll go him one better on a name though: I call it a DIGITAL BLACKBALL (blackmailing) MACHINE. That's exactly what it is. It's looking more and more like we have an intel system that is out of hand, out of control, not following the laws of the land themselves. So who's the terrorist here? Law abiding Citizens? NOT!

[JDPriestly]

32. Thank you. This program suggests that we no longer have constitutional government.

[ReRe]

33. I think I remember GW calling the Constitution...

... "just an old crumpled up piece of paper." (or something very close to that effect.) He more or less said "Fuck You" to International Law. And he would not allow the USA to be a signator(y) to the International Criminal Court, the ICC. The GWB administration is exactly where this disdain for the law of late started, make no mistake about it.

The Preamble to the Contitution tells The People what to do if this situation should arise. I just wonder when something can be done, when the 2nd Revolution will begin. Slow creeping fascism seems to have turned us all into a land of hypnotized lemmings.

[JDPriestly]

40. The Preamble to the Constitution?

We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

http://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/preamble

What preamble are you referring to?

[ReRe]

52. My bad.

My brain, is more like it. The Constitution. It's what happens when I stay on the computer too long. When I get like that, remind me to go to bed.

[JDPriestly]

53. It is very common to confuse the Preamble to the Constitution with

the Declaration of Independence. It's really not a big deal.

[MotherPetrie]

36. K&R

[kentuck]

37. Back to the basics...

Right on!

[SammyWinstonJack]

38. rec.

[suffragette]

41. K&R

[jannyk]

42. K&R!

[backscatter712]

43. The American Stasi. Simplest way to put it. n/t

[forestpath]

44. K&R Excellent anolgies.

[ljm2002]

45. As others have pointed out...

...this massive collection of data is like looking for a needle in a haystack by making the haystack bigger.

Anyway, agree with your post. I have no doubt whatsoever that the scenarios you describe, or ones very like them, have already played out. Anyone who believes that this will not be misused is nuts.

We know where that facility in Utah is located. Instead of marches in DC, which no longer seem to have any effect, I wonder what would happen if thousands of people showed up in Utah and surrounded that facility. Yes, yes, I know it's not active yet. Not the point. The point would be to target a well known symbol of the Security State.

K&R