Lawmakers say Obama surveillance idea won't work

[herding cats]

Source: Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — A chief element of President Barack Obama's attempt to overhaul U.S. surveillance will not work, leaders of Congress' intelligence committees said Sunday, pushing back against the idea that the government should cede control of how Americans' phone records are stored.

Obama, under pressure to calm the controversy over government spying, said Friday he wants bulk phone data stored outside the government to reduce the risk that the records will be abused. The president said he will require a special judge's advance approval before intelligence agencies can examine someone's data and will force analysts to keep their searches closer to suspected terrorists or organizations.

"And I think that's a very difficult thing," Sen. Dianne Feinstein, who chairs the Senate Intelligence Committee, said Sunday. "Because the whole purpose of this program is to provide instantaneous information to be able to disrupt any plot that may be taking place."

Under the surveillance program, the NSA gathers phone numbers called and the length of conversations, but not the content of the calls. Obama said the NSA sometimes needs to tap those records to find people linked to suspected terrorists. But he said eventually the bulk data should be stored somewhere out of the government's hands. That could mean finding a way for phone companies to store the records, though some companies have balked at the idea, or it could mean creating a third-party entity to hold the records.

Read more: http://bigstory.ap.org/

[cantbeserious]

1. The War Mongers And Corporatist Profiteers Are Balking At Any Restrictions

eom

[L0oniX]

2. be able to disrupt """any""" plot that may be taking place

prep for the totalitarian state

[rickyhall]

3. Stupid terrorists

are all they'll catch because the smart ones will find a way around it

[JDPriestly]

4. Dianne Feinstein needs to read the Fourth Amendment CAREFULLY.

If she wants to amend it, she should propose an amendment. But the Fourth Amendment is clear about our privacy rights. We have the right to privacy in our papers, effects and things until the law enforcement agency obtains a warrant based on probably cause.

If it were just a matter of a record of telephone calls, if the government was not collecting all of our correspondence with virtually anyone in the world, maybe the decision in the 1970s would actually give the NSA the authority and right to collect that data. But today we do all of our banking, many of our meetings, nearly all of our personal business electronically. If the NSA is collecting that data, it might as well just put a camera on us in our bedrooms, boardroom, heck even in our bathrooms. There isn't much about our lives that can't be read just from our metadata, to say nothing of the records they are keeping of the content of our calls.

(Yes, they are keeping the content. According to the knowledgeable whistleblowers who spoke in the press conference after Obama's speech, they would not need such a huge complex in Utah if they were not also collecting the content of our communications. And Obama spoke the program in the singular. There are multiple programs run by the NSA at this time.
Which one was Obama talking about?)

With friends like Feinstein, who needs enemies? She will damage us at least as much as any terrorist could. She needs to take a good course in Constitutional law. I don't think she understands how the rights guaranteed in the Bill of Rights make up the fabric of our freedom. She seems to think that we can cut a little chunk out of this one or that one and the fabric will those very excesses cages Americans in and makes them feel that they are trapped and justified in desperate conduct and rebellion. That is not Feinstein's goal, but that is where she is going with her disregard for the Bill of Rights. The Bill of Rights is the fence that makes us good neighbors. Feinstein wants to tear down that fence and pit us against each other in a fight over whose is what. That is foolish.

My e-mails, phone calls and other electronic records belong to me. The government should not read them and only subpoena information on them or them if I am suspected of a crime. Sorry, but that is the basis for our free society. If that basis is destroyed, our society is living on a sandy beach waiting for the tide to come in and sweep us away.

[RobertEarl]

7. You nailed that, JD

They need to read and be able to recite the Fourth. Bet they can't do that today.

Friend of mine told me tonight that the Nazis were able to track down their Jews because they kept close tabs on them. Why am I suddenly feeling on par with 1930 German Jewish folks?

[JDPriestly]

8. We all should. That's what we are with this NSA program.

Did you watch the whistleblowers' press conference following Obama's speech on the 17th?

Here is the link:


http://new.livestream.com/accuracy/nsa-rebuttal/videos/39824993

[Octafish]

11. IBM and the Holocaust

Edwin Black documented the history:

http://www.ibmandtheholocaust.com/

[Thinkingabout]

5. The problem I have with the data being collected and stored out of the NSA facility is

The likelihood of another contract employee who thinks the information is theirs to use as they please.
I do not know how storing the data elsewhere is going to change any of the anti NSA crowd.

[Scuba]

10. "I do not know how storing the data elsewhere is going to change any of the anti NSA crowd."

Seems like letting private businesses store the data is even worse than the NSA storing it. Fact is, it should not be collected, let alone stored.

[JoePhilly]

13. Private businesses, aka, the communications companies, own the data already.

That data is part of their business records. They "collect" it as part of doing business. They use it to determine network capacity and to plan new infrastructure needs. They can't just not collect it.

So even if you get rid of the NSA copies, the communications companies still have that data.

You might as well be arguing that FedX can't keep a record of a package that they ship for you.

[bemildred]

6. Correct. Better scrap the whole program. nt

[Ash_F]

9. Like what plot?

So far this is the kind of stuff we know NSA has actually used their power to do

5 Americans who used NSA facilities to spy on lovers
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2013/09/27/5-americans-who-used-nsa-facilities-to-spy-on-lovers/

[DeSwiss]

12. If we don't throw these greedy, traitorous mofos out......

...then we are in no position to complain about what they do to us.

- K&R