About 500 people met in Union Square to listen to a number of privacy advocates and civil liberties groups discuss Fourth Amendment rights as they stand today, in light of recent revelations about the U.S. government's spying capability.
According to the organizers, Independence Day is a poignant day to protest in support of citizens' constitutional rights for protection against unreasonable searches and seizures, which they claim have been eroded under both the Bush and Obama administrations.
You know I have been against this whole program since the Bush administration first pushed through the Patriot Act after 9/11.
However I have to say that as much as it bothers me to know that my e-mails and phone records are being cataloged by the government for use against me should I do something that for some reason makes me a "person of interest," the fact that the same types of programs are being used around the world puts things in a somewhat different perspective for me.
Recently we learned that France has its own massive data gathering program as well, just like many of its European neighbors.
So living with that reality I am not sure how America could NOT be carefully monitoring communications coming in and out of the country.
And in fact that appears to be the attitude of most Americans:
One month after the Guardian’s first story, which revealed an order from the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court authorizing the NSA to collect the phone records of every Verizon customer, there has been no public movement in Washington to stop the court from issuing another such order. Congress has no intelligence reform bill that would rein in the phone-tracking, or Internet monitoring, or cyberattack-planning, or any of the other secret government workings that Snowden’s disclosures have revealed.
And as for the protests which inspired this post? Well I am not so sure how serious they are about this issue either.
As of right now I have to admit that I am less concerned about what information the government is gathering, and MORE concerned about the information contained on those laptops (or hard drives if you prefer) that Snowden spirited out of the country with him.
I would like to see him back here in America, along with that stolen information, so that the government can start doing some damage assessments (Since we KNOW that both China and Russia have every bit of data that Snowden brought to their countries) and putting in safeguards to make sure another security leak like this does not happen in the future.
(Photos courtesy of Buzzfeed.)
Update: By the way, if you re concerned with what information the government has gathered about you specifically, there is a way for you to find out.
I agee. We should be focusing on gthe reality of what Snowden did, not on what we speculate in paranoia that the NSA might be doing.
ReplyDeleteI disagree.
DeleteLook at what the militarized police did to the peaceful Occupy Oakland protesters:
https://ozmud.wordpress.com/2013/07/05/yes-2/
Note she got the news from a British paper because our US media writes rediculous garbage which garners comments like this:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/expd/9215367194/
http://www.lobelog.com/the-nsa-and-the-one-percent/
Don't fall for the propaganda, people.
The U.S. government may have left National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden stateless when it revoked his American passport. Now he wants to replace it with an Icelandic one, and a few supporters in that country’s government want to help him.
ReplyDeleteOn Thursday, Icelandic member of parliament Birgitta Jonsdottir revealed that 30-year-old Snowden has formally requested Icelandic citizenship, and that she and five legislators in the small Nordic country have introduced a proposal to grant his request, despite the long odds that such a measure may face from the country’s current majority party.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2013/07/04/edward-snowden-seeks-citizenship-in-iceland-and-six-of-its-legislators-want-to-help/
Wonder if he's also traveling with an original copy of his birth certificate? If not, doubt he'll have any luck trying to get a passport from elsewhere.
Delete"MORE concerned about the information contained on those laptops (or hard drives if you prefer) that Snowden spirited out of the country with him."
ReplyDeleteYes...THIS!!! ^^^
Same here, 7:23 AM.
DeleteI know they would be bored as double hockeys spying on ME!
Ex-Russian spy Anna Chapman proposes marriage to Edward Snowden
ReplyDeletehttp://news.yahoo.com/blogs/news/ex-russian-spy-anna-chapman-proposes-marriage-edward-171009157.html
God endorsed traditional marriage between 1 male and 1 female must be protected -- the world can't survive having two people of the same sex marry due to love, but if a male and a female can hookup for financial reasons, or to make headlines -- well, this would be God's plan.
DeleteI've had to provide police and FBI records to the Canadian government for times I needed to work out of one of their ports. They always came up negative. I know they were asking for criminal records, but I always laughed at the nothingness of it all considering (among other things) I was at one time a member of the Peace and Freedom Party and voted for Huey Newton and Eldridge Cleaver for President and Vice President. I think it would be very entertaining to see what the FBI really has.
ReplyDeleteThat goes for me as well.
DeleteMany of my jobs have required extensive background checks, and I don't think thee is very much the FBI does NOT know about me.
That is why back when the Palin-bots were trying to make accusations and smear my name I did not sweat it too much as I knew that I was essentially squeaky clean.
I had to go through an extensive FBI check when I worked two different Paralympic Games and needed top level security clearance to access the dorms where the athletes were staying.
DeleteFor the first event, I was part of the administrative staff and had a red ID tag, which was the highest clearance. The athletes from China all wanted their pictures taken with me because they thought I was important. Boy were they wrong!
In short, Snowden may be forced to make a deal with a South American dictator and, if he does, he will truly experience what it is like when a government takes away your liberty and basic human rights.
ReplyDeleteNot only would it be poetic justice for Snowden to lose his own freedoms for betraying his nation, it would also reveal his motives and self-proclaimed ideals of government to be false. If he is willing to sacrifice his ideals to live under a dictatorship with little respect for rights and liberties, then clearly his motives in releasing information about the U.S. have been opportunistic, rather than idealistic.
Read more: http://www.calgaryherald.com/news/Martinuk+Snowden+about+harsh+lesson+liberty/8617626/story.html#ixzz2YBarrRmH
I also question whether he will ever see his parents again. They sound like they are still cheering for him. I am guessing they will try to head to Bolivia for a visit, and the airlines, via State Department instructions, will not allow them to make the visit. Think his soap opera will continue, and that Obama will continue to let him hang by his own petard.
DeleteThe only thing you need to know about Edward Snowden is that he is associated with Glen Greenwald.
DeleteHe is not a hero. He is a traitor.
Thanks for the link Gryph. It makes it very easy to request info. Done.
ReplyDeleteSnowdon's a traitor. Commercial entities have more info on us than the nsa most likely.
ReplyDeleteEvery time I go online and see ads pop up for something I ran a search for ten minutes ago, I cringe.
DeleteWelcome to the 21st Century where nothing is a secret!
Gryphen, have you seen this video from Kokesh?
ReplyDeletehttp://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/07/05/police-investigating-ex-marine-gun-rights-activist-over-armed-park-video/
Check this out and look at the diagrams:
ReplyDeletehttp://kieranhealy.org/blog/archives/2013/06/09/using-metadata-to-find-paul-revere/
And
http://thelastbastille.wordpress.com/2012/08/30/paul-reveres-ride/
Yesterday was Independence Day, not Spy On Everyone Day. JUST BECAUSE coprprations mine our data, doesn't mean the government needs to suspend the 4th Amendment.
Here's the problem.
ReplyDeleteObama promised transparency.
Instead, he is not only delivering even more skullduggery than Bush. His administration is much more aggressive and much more punitive in going after whistleblowers.
If you can honestly say you'd be OK with this unprecedented secret personal information gathering if BUSH was still president (and if you think you are really going to get EVERYTHING the government has on you by filing a FOIA, I think you are naive), then you owe Bush an apology.
I'm ok with it.
DeleteWonder how much you would be flagellating yourself making Snowden a hero if another 9/11 occurred because contacts between your neighbor and bff were missed because phone numbers were not tracked?
It doesn't really matter what other countries are doing. It only matters what we are doing. Domestic spying is not okay. What would Sarah Palin do with this data is the real question. What will the next Mitt Romney criminalize, what would Paul Ryan do with the data tomorrow, and what are we doing with it today? It is wrong and cowardly to simply say we have to know what our neighbor is doing to feel safe. It is just another loaded gun and I am disgusted that Obama has taken this sink hoe degrading path.
ReplyDeleteWarchild
I am not concerned and have never been concerned concerned about what information the government has been mining.
ReplyDeleteNo actual phone calls have been listened to nor have anyone's e-mail been read. People need to take a few minutes to think before going off the rails.
Security assets in this country and around the world could lose their lives because of Snowden, who is not a hero. Let's see how many of his supporters cheer when/if we find that people had died because of Snowden and Greenwald.
Snowden and Glen Greenwald, who has demonstrated that he hates President Obama so much that he would put this country at risk, planned this whole exercise.
Lets see how many of the people flagellating themselves making Snowden a hero will be marching with their signs after another 9/11.