Do you find yourself looking over your shoulder as you post?

[Th1onein]

I do. Now that I know that the NSA is spying on our emails and our phone calls, I wonder if they're reading our posts. Isn't that awful? Here we are in the supposedly most free country in the world, and we have to worry about something like that.

If the Iraqis "hate us for our freedoms," then I guess they can stop hating us now.

[terrya]

1. I don't.

It's good to be informed, but there's a thin line to out and out paranoia.

[William769]

10. Got that right.

[CJCRANE]

2. As long as you don't mention

{redacted} I think you'll be ok.

[Taxloss]

3. It's disgraceful, but I wouldn't worry too much about it.

Can you imagine the volume of material on DU alone? and the millions, billions of email sent every day - there can't be enough manpower to read all of it. It would be impossible.

[Oceansaway]

5. i agree..n/t

[EST]

20. "Manpower" doesn't read it...

They have computers, too, you know. Way bigger and way more powerful than anything you'll ever see. Consider, for a moment, the price of a 200 gig hard drive, to the government, is trivial. How 'bout a million such drives? Still trivial. They could be housed in a relatively small building, yet they represent 200,000,000,000,000,000 keystrokes. If these keystrokes, letters, numbers, were seconds, this would be more than the age of the universe!
And this represents a trivial effort on the part of one government agency on the face of the earth. How much info do they need, really?

[Taxloss]

23. Computers can't judge like people.

I could be a schoolkid and write a stupid message like "Osama is da bomb!" or "Bush is a moron and I'd like to kill him!" and keyword tracking would pick it up. Terrorists, because they're ordinary people, are easily able to evade keyword tracking.

It needs people to determine if there's a threat or not.

[EST]

25. Are you speaking from experience or conjecture?

I don't mean to be flip or unnecessarily argumentative, but, having been involved with computers for more than forty years, now, I am fairly clear about what can and cannot be done. It is the work of but a very few minutes to tell it "if you find this****, then look for this++++."
Keyword tracking is only one, easy to point to, testing condition.
How bout this: (simplistic, I know, but a beginning)
Keyword testing
membership in DU
Posting on DU
name
age
skin color
address
phone#
driver's license
membership in other organizations
party affiliation
voting record
marital status
school records (birth to grave)
all prescriptions you've ever purchased
all credit records
# of miles you drive
cars owned
all doctors' records
all relatives (and all their records, too)
all legal experiences you've had, no matter how minor
what your neighbors say or ever have said about you
religious affiliations (all)
every payment you've ever made on anything
how many alarm clocks you have
everything your kids have said
your parent's records (all)
This is but a beginning of what is available for the computers to sort through and if the person who glances at the report just happens not to like the way you spell your name, or tells the computer that it's suspicious, your ass is grass.
Bear in mind that it's republican liars and criminals who are writing the specs and determining the outcome and it is so easy to make a case against anyone at all.

[niyad]

4. I have assumed all along that they have been doing this. nothing new

there, the "boys" have always been WAYYY too interested in what we are doing.

[vanboggie]

6. I'm used to it

Several ISP techs reported a few years ago that agemts were tapping into the web, so it's nothing new. At this point I don't worry about it anymore. By now I'm on "the list" anyway, but I refuse to be silenced. Besides, some strange looking old hippies have snapped a few pix of me at protests, too.

Here I am! Here I am! :bounce:

[Beelzebud]

7. 9/11 + Katrina. All the proof you need of their incompetence.

They don't have it together good enough to spy on every little thing we do.

They aren't that competent.

They might want to, but they don't have the capability.

[rosesaylavee]

8. As long as we have

Project X, we have nothing to fear.

Hi Agent Mikey! :hi:

[shenmue]

9. Yeah

I'm very worried about the...hang on, there's a knock at the door...now why do you want to see my phone records? Ouch! Ouch! Stop that!

:grr:

[rosesaylavee]

12. Was that your mom again?

:rofl:

[shenmue]

14. You missed it...

No. Not cool.

Won't waste time with you, then...

[rosesaylavee]

17. Ah. Come on.

They want us to be afraid. Humor is our best weapon. Bullies hate to be disregarded...

I take back the joke. Sheesh.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

11. Only to see what the cats are doing

They are playing in the greenhouse and I want to make sure they don't get hurt.

I haven't even tried to take a flight since 911, as I figured I was "on the list". If Agent Mike or whoever think that I'm worthy of spying on, they are probably sadly disappointed. The only "conspiracy" I've been part of is helping create a friendship quilt for Sam Waterston made by his fans around the world.

[Somawas]

13. The first step to becoming free is to live life as though you were free

and then scream like a banshee when they try to take away the freedom you choose to live.

[Al-CIAda]

19. 'The first step to becoming free ...' -yes sir, this is truth.

[progressivebydesign]

15. Naw.

I won't let them make me paranoid. yes, it bothered me when some of us realized our computers were being scanned by the Dept. of Defense, but.. they won't make me change what I say and who I am. I know I'm a law-abiding, good person, who loves our country... WE are the patriots. Not the creepy fucks that are trying to take away the very liberties that make our country great.

[WI_DEM]

16. Only if I'm posting at work

[HysteryDiagnosis]

18. I have to look over my little

dog's head.... she's so affectionate..... ya might say, clingy.

[dkofos]

21. It doesn't bother me if they know what I say about * here.

If they want to they can ask me face to face.
My opinions will not change.

[spanone]

22. No. If they are watching, I raise my middle finger to salute them.

[revree]

24. Yes, but only because I think there's a ghost in my house...

When I am alone working on computer, I think it wants me to stop and go play catch...