Bushists claim Americans agree to be data-mined by signing telco contracts

[BurtWorm]

According to the Anonymous Liberal:

http://www.anonymousliberal.com/2006/05/who-authorized-nsa-to-acquire-your.html

Who Authorized the NSA to Acquire Your Phone Records? You Did.
...

Believe it or not, that seems to be the legal theory the government is using to justify its wholesale acquisition of ALL phone records it can get its hands on. Any number of different statutes appear to forbid the telecom companies from handing over their customer call information to the government, at least absent a court order or valid "national security letter" (neither of which appear to have been secured by the NSA).

But, of course, this being a free country, people are free to consent to just about anything. If you want the government to have your private information, you can give your telephone company permission to provide that information. No court order is required. And, amazingly enough, the NSA is apparently claiming that most Americans did exactly that.

Buried toward the end of an article in Friday's Washington Post is this remarkable claim:

One government lawyer who has participated in
negotiations with telecommunications providers said the
Bush administration has argued that a company can turn
over its entire database of customer records -- and even
the stored content of calls and e-mails -- because
customers "have consented to that" when they establish
accounts. The fine print of many telephone and Internet
service contracts includes catchall provisions, the lawyer
said, authorizing the company to disclose such records to
protect public safety or national security, or in compliance
with a lawful government request.

"It is within their terms of service because you have
consented to that," the lawyer said. If the company also
consents, "and they do it voluntarily, the U.S. government
can accept it."


There you have it folks. We all agreed to this. It's in the fine print....

<The operative words in whether their argument stands or falls, of course, is "lawful government request.">

[electropop]

1. Good lord, they must be joking.

No way will this fly. I can hardly wait for the next round of polls.

[sweetheart]

8. The US people lost the data privacy wars of the late 90's

Respect for privacy has been jettesoned, partly when people were
smoking davin brin's mantra about the transparent society, and
ain't that fun... not.

The thing about data mining is that it is essentially a search
technology, a very fancy searching technology that lets you
sift all the grains of sand on a beach to see if one is gold.

You don't need a data mining tool to find all the nodes and
relationships of all the telephone calls you make... that's been
done already in databases like oracle, or Sybase IQ.

You don't need a data mining tool to look up a specific data item
and explore all its remote and obscure associations either, SQL
will serve you fine in that regard (language of relational databases)

You don't need a data mining tool to find out your personal calling
patterns, when you're most likely to be at a certain location, or when
you're most likely to call your mother. This is simply done in
SQL as well.

DAta mining tools work like brain cell networks, like an optic nerve,
you can train the eye to "see" something, and then to search for
similar things.

If you imagine the electricity behind your thoughts right now, its like
a lightning storm in your brain, firing here and there as you read
something. There is likely a "lightning" storm of patterned usages of
communicatios technoloogies before a terrorist attack... when they
all call their mothers to say goodbye... like.

A data mining tool could potentially be trained to register and see
these fuzzy-comms-bursts in a population, as a data-even probable
cause for invoking national defenses.

[kenny blankenship]

17. The essential danger of data mining isn't mining the past

It's using the past of X predict the future of Y.
And the Kafkian obscenity of using generalized patterns to shape individual outcomes. Farewell land of individual freedom and limitless opportunity! Not your history determines your future chances, but instead a computer generated idea of who, or what statistical group, you probably are most similar to from the past. It's also the danger of sharing of databases across previously distinct areas of life, from one kind of institution to another, public to private or vice versa, in which the receiving institution has little idea of the means used to generate the data OR the model profiles that they will rely on to predict your behavior.

We can't give you the job, your credit profile indicates you are a security risk.

We aren't giving you the loan, your government air-travel security profile indicates you may be a credit risk.

You fit the profile with a 65% confidence of conformance rating. We're sorry, maybe you can try the Patella Bank, they lend to people like yourself who profile as sub-prime politically, of course it's true that their interest rates are exorbitant, but that's the price you pay for coming to the government's attention as a potential subversive.

The motto of Total Information Awareness was (or perhaps we should say the motto IS since we're now learning that TIA never went away) the old Baconian formula: Knowledge is Power. The desire to have knowledge about future behavior is therefore the desire to have power over that behavior, the quest for TOTAL knowledge would equate to the desire for TOTAL POWER over the future of the thing known; in the case of the public-private partnership for pan-optic surveillance, recordkeeping and datamining, that is the desire for total power over the behavior of individuals. And when the desire for prediction is so total there is no step left but to make sure that those predictions ALWAYS COME TRUE.

In a perfect policestate there would be no interrogations, no questions. The government would believe it aleady knew all the answers.
Democracy, voting, trials, confessions--all would be obsolete and unnecessary.

[rzemanfl]

2. This is desparate attempt to shelter the telecoms from suits

under the Stored Communications Act.

[W_HAMILTON]

3. Can you sign away your constitutional rights?

I'd be interested in hearing why or why not.

If I agree that you can kill me, and you kill me, you're still gonna get prosecuted.

I thought there was some sort of precedent in this regard? Maybe not, shrug.

[Blutodog]

4. Constitutional Rights?

Hey dude this is Bu$hworld ur livin in now and you have NO constitutional rights. You have the right to be with the King or with the terrorists.

[kenny blankenship]

5. No one forced you to breathe the air

but once you did, you entered into a binding contract not to use your American air to disparage the government in speech or writing (or otherwise signifying by semaphore, obscene gestures or American Sign Language), nor to disparage, or to defame the corporations that have provided you with the American Air^tm product, nor to make public disclosure of any possible wrongdoing by the government or its affiliated and subsidiary corporations.

Welcome to the binding private-public partnership, citizens, where you voluntarily surrendered all rights just by living, without ever being aware of it, or of what you signed away. (It was right after the obstetrician smacked you on the ass--your cry and intake of breath signified your consent to the perpetually binding contract in all its terms and in all its perpetually evolving particulars).

It's all strictly voluntary of course, in accord with our great nation's historical respect for the free market of individual choices. While voluntarily entered into by each individual citizen, this contract is strictly binding and irrevocable on them and enforced by law, against abrogations and encroachment, upon pain of death.

[Drum]

9. Excellent analogy! nt

[kenny blankenship]

12. Our corporate slogan:"Tyranny has never been this convenient!"

You've thought about despotism, but worried you couldn't afford it, WELL NOW YOU CAN!
We do all the paperwork, there's nothing to sign!

[havocmom]

6. Nope, Americans agreed to let their phone companies KEEP records

for billing purposes. There are laws on the books giving specifics as to when/how/to whom that info can be given.

Once again, the junta is saying something is OK just because they wanted to do it.

Indicite the crooks & liars! They have used the whole nation as a blue dress to absorb their stain. We have had ENOUGH!

[flyarm]

7. yes but this government gave the telecoms something in return..

secret contracts...thats more like a quid pro quo..like bribery or something like that...the telecoms got something in return for giving over your info!!

giant contracts..government contracts!

fly

[dragonlady]

10. This would be a contract of adhesion

That's lawyer talk for a contract where one side has all the power and forces the other side to agree to something awful because it really needs what the powerful side is offering. Judges take a dim view of adhesion contracts (at least the ones who aren't in the Federalist Society).

[CrispyQ]

11. Yesterday on CNN

they had a poll about what viewers thought of this issue. Over 60% voted that if it keeps them safe from another terrorist attack this spying is ok!!! Shock!! Gasp!!

What the fuck is wrong with people?!!

[Rainscents]

15. That poll had been debunked!!!

They lied and the fuckers know it!

[CrispyQ]

22. Link?

...

[Vinnie From Indy]

13. Don;t let them fool you about the POLLING DATA

The WaPo/ABC poll WAS DESIGNED TO SKEW RESULTS! The reports you hear on CNN and all other media outlets are referring the SAME bogus poll. It's the Rovian two-step. Get Morin at the Post to release a bogus poll, send it to the BushCo media beehive and let the drones do the work of hammering the created reality home ad nauseum.

[stevietheman]

14. Libertarian argument: You can "choose" to not use a phone! :) n/t

n/t

[BurtWorm]

16. Love those Libertarian arguments.

:eyes:

[0007]

18. Is that why the phone representative alway sez this phone

call may be monitored?

[Raksha]

19. It looks like according to them ANY government request

is a "lawful government request." Why? Because the government says so, that's why! See how easy it is?

[BurtWorm]

20. Le loi, c'est Bush.

That's their attitude. A drooling idiot is the law.

[SammyWinstonJack]

21. Oh Hell!

:banghead: