Just out of curiosity, where would you place yourself regarding Snowden's revelations?

[hedgehog]

I'll add more choices if people want. Let's talk about the revelations as opposed to Snowden himself.

9 votes, 2 passes | Time left: Unlimited
	I wasn\'t surprised, I assumed this started with the Patriot Act and is legal under the Patriot Act.
	5 (56%)
	I wasn\'t surprised, I assumed this started with Bush and is not legal under the Patriot Act.
	1 (11%)
	I was surprised, but this is legal under the Patriot Act.
	0 (0%)
	I was surprised, and this is not legal under the Patriot Act.
	0 (0%)
	I wasn\'t surprised, this started way before the Patriot Act.
	3 (33%)
	2 DU members did not wish to select any of the options provided.
Show usernames Disclaimer: This is an Internet poll

[onehandle]

1. Before, I knew that we did it and it was legal.

Now, I still know that, and that some guy stole confirmation and has become the story.

Snowden is a self-serving putz.

[bowens43]

3. it is clearly a violation of the constitutio. it is illegal

[onehandle]

7. We'll see. nt

[Politicalboi]

15. How has that stopped them

Will we the people EVER know if it's stopped? It's here to stay. The Supreme Court idiots picked a President for us, that was illegal too. And we all knew it happened, and there was NOTHING we could do about it. And they even told us it really wasn't a good idea, and not to reference it later.

Wouldn't going to war without it being declared by congress illegal too? We're still there. We're just mad because it hits us personally.

[bowens43]

2. The patriot act is irrelevant, it is a CLEAR violation of the 4th amendment of the constitution.

[polichick]

4. Wasn't surprised about the collection of info, but was disappointed to know...

how much sensitive material is in the hands of private companies which have one actual mission: to make money. How long before they sell the info? Already done, I'd guess, since U.S. corporations are not even patriotic enough to pay their share of taxes.

[David__77]

5. What about "I wasn't surprised. This started well before the Patriot Act."

...

[dkf]

6. The extent of the capture is stunning to me. I didn't know we had the capability of STORING it all.

And the patriot act can't override the constitution. So no, it is not legal.

I suspected they had certain capabilities and were doing certain things, but the totality of what they are doing..No way.

[RC]

8. What I am surprised about is the number of people right here on DU, comfortable with the wholesale

hoovering of our electronic communications.

They just blow it off as somehow being legal, so it must be OK. Or deny it is happening in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

Democratic Underground is not a Right-wing site folks. Or at least it didn't use to be.

[Proud Liberal Dem]

16. One can be *uncomfortable* about it

without wanting to light one's hair on fire and run around madly talking about Obama potentially ordering Snowden to be droned and/or tortured and/or how evil Obama is or how totalitarian the US government has apparently become.

I say, lets have some hearings, decide what we want to keep and get rid of in terms of intelligence programs, pass some new laws to curb any excesses, and let's move on. Too much to ask for?

[NoOneMan]

9. I was suprised, I assumed liberals would be against such domestic spying

[WovenGems]

10. Moon shot

This whole things stinks like the "we never landed on the moon" shit. We have been having the phone company send data to NSA back when we all had copper lines. Technology changed and NSA kept up. A lot of fear about what they may do but no mention of the fact that they haven't gotten into trouble for fifty years.
When I asked one why the sudden outrage he replied it was due to the new revelations. Right. Boggles the mind.

Welcome to the Libertarian Underground.

[Xyzse]

11. Many of the revelations were unsurprising.

If one paid enough attention to congressional hearings, C-Span and so forth, they discussed the merits of such surveillance there.

So, I haven't seen anything that he have revealed to be surprising or anything.

However, the exaggerations such as the ability to just pick any one he wants and he "had the authorities to wiretap anyone, from you or your accountant, to a federal judge or even the president, if I(he) had a personal e-mail.” I thought was too much of a stretch.

So other than the exaggerations, I thought they were legal under the Patriot Act Bush signed in to law, and kept by Obama.

I also figured that the US takes tabs and gathers information about their allies as well. That shouldn't have been a surprise, but only serves to hurt the US in regards to influence and international deal making. I mean, I'd think every single country tries to gather as much intelligence about others as well.

I am actually against the Patriot Act and the broad powers that it has. However, a surprise it is not. I have other more pressing priorities at the moment that this I think should be relegated to the back burner.

I'd worry more about job creation, infrastructure and education which is needed. Yes, this can be also taken care of in tandem, but it is getting far more attention than the other 3 I mentioned that should take precedence.

The revelations merely sparked controversy since it is a hot topic issue and people somehow feel strongly about it, as a complex values issue. It is one of those issues that people throw about to gum up any progress in anything else.

[JoePhilly]

13. +1

For all of your post, and particularly for your last paragraph.

[hedgehog]

14. +1

[JoePhilly]

12. I selected the first choice, but I knew more earlier than the Patriot Act.

I mean, I knew about the FISA court going back to at least the early 90s. So I understood immediately that Bush was breaking the law when we learned he was by-passing the FISA court entirely.

Similarly, I knew about the power of mining meta data going back to around 1995. I worked on early POT and prototypes of GPS enabled mobile devices and cell phones all during the late 90s. During that period, I became aware of the difference between data that is about a specific individual versus meta data that is made up of data about individuals, but which does not identify those individuals. Automobile traffic pattern data is a good analogy. You can monitor the flow, speed, and even types of vehicles and not pay any attention to who the individual drivers are. But if you learn that some one driving a red honda accord committed a crime, you could go back and try to find that vehicle or vehicles like it in the larger data set.

A telephone number is not you, and it is not yours. Its is assigned to you by the telephone company. It actually belongs to them. Similarly, the data about where phone number A is routed, which number is at the other end, and the duration of the call, also belongs to the telco. I think this is a surprise to most people.