The surveillance experts at the National Security Agency won't tell two powerful United States Senators how many Americans have had their communications picked up by the agency as part of its sweeping new counterterrorism powers

I think it's safe to assume the answer is "all of them".

"NSA leadership agreed that an IG review of the sort suggested would further violate the privacy of U.S. persons"

So he admits they've already violated our privacy. How nice.

Is it a bad thing that my first impulse is to side with the intelligence community simply because I find them more trustworthy than congress?

Majick Thise: Is it a bad thing that my first impulse is to side with the intelligence community simply because I find them more trustworthy than congress?

That's like trying to choose between the lesser of two Cthulhus

Every bit of communication from everyone in the world is monitored. Your tinfoil hats are useless.

Majick Thise: Is it a bad thing that my first impulse is to side with the intelligence community simply because I find them more trustworthy than congress?

that's like choosing a professional wrestler to believe in. LOL it's still real to you!

Hey, NSA, are you monitoring the gesture I'm making at you right now? Heh heh--

What? Oh, you are? Really? Oh man, sorry, no, I was just scratching. Yeah, just had an itch is all, sorry for any confusion. My bad, sorry to bother you.

This will be the norm, if you allow a "smart" meter digital electric meter on the side of your home (they are NOT requred by law, and you can and should refuse to have one installed), and buy "chipped" appliances (btw, the "smart" meter also emits carcinogenic radiation hundreds to thousands of times a day). Here's more, also from "Wired":

More and more personal and household devices are connecting to the internet, from your television to your car navigation systems to your light switches. CIA Director David Petraeus cannot wait to spy on you through them.

Earlier this month, Petraeus mused about the emergence of an "Internet of Things" - that is, wired devices - at a summit for In-Q-Tel, the CIA's venture capital firm. "'Transformational' is an overused word, but I do believe it properly applies to these technologies," Petraeus enthused, "particularly to their effect on clandestine tradecraft."

All those new online devices are a treasure trove of data if you're a "person of interest" to the spy community. Once upon a time, spies had to place a bug in your chandelier to hear your conversation. With the rise of the "smart home," you'd be sending tagged, geolocated data that a spy agency can intercept in real time when you use the lighting app on your phone to adjust your living room's ambiance.

"Items of interest will be located, identified, monitored, and remotely controlled through technologies such as radio-frequency identification, sensor networks, tiny embedded servers, and energy harvesters - all connected to the next-generation internet using abundant, low-cost, and high-power computing," Petraeus said, "the latter now going to cloud computing, in many areas greater and greater supercomputing, and, ultimately, heading to quantum computing."
[snip]

Link

They should have just plead the fifth.

I'm just glad we're all so safe....

no point in asking or caring about it, there's not much anyone can really do about it.

I really wish I had the audacity and cleverness to come up with this sort of response. This is impressive.

You shouldn't be worried if you're doing nothing wrong. Right?

PsiChi: This will be the norm, if you allow a "smart" meter digital electric meter on the side of your home (they are NOT requred by law, and you can and should refuse to have one installed), and buy "chipped" appliances (btw, the "smart" meter also emits carcinogenic radiation hundreds to thousands of times a day). Here's more, also from "Wired":

More and more personal and household devices are connecting to the internet, from your television to your car navigation systems to your light switches. CIA Director David Petraeus cannot wait to spy on you through them.

Earlier this month, Petraeus mused about the emergence of an "Internet of Things" - that is, wired devices - at a summit for In-Q-Tel, the CIA's venture capital firm. "'Transformational' is an overused word, but I do believe it properly applies to these technologies," Petraeus enthused, "particularly to their effect on clandestine tradecraft."

All those new online devices are a treasure trove of data if you're a "person of interest" to the spy community. Once upon a time, spies had to place a bug in your chandelier to hear your conversation. With the rise of the "smart home," you'd be sending tagged, geolocated data that a spy agency can intercept in real time when you use the lighting app on your phone to adjust your living room's ambiance.

"Items of interest will be located, identified, monitored, and remotely controlled through technologies such as radio-frequency identification, sensor networks, tiny embedded servers, and energy harvesters - all connected to the next-generation internet using abundant, low-cost, and high-power computing," Petraeus said, "the latter now going to cloud computing, in many areas greater and greater supercomputing, and, ultimately, heading to quantum computing."
[snip]

Link

Ignorance about how technology works fuels paranoia among morans. Film at 11.

Guess what? You're not that special. They don't care about you.

PreMortem: Every bit of communication from everyone in the world is monitored. Your tinfoil hats are useless.

Sort of.

If it goes over wires/fiber at some point, you can assume it is being monitored, or more likely that least a record of the communication, if not it's actual contents, are being stored. Make a phone call or send an e-mail to arrange some nefarious activity? A record of that communication (who called who, when, and for how long) will stay out there for months, if not years.

If it's a radio signal that doesn't originate in or terminate in some sort of computerized device, there is a decent chance that it won't be monitored by the government. No government has the resources to monitor every single GMRS, FRS, CB, MURS, Aviation, Marine, Business, or Amateur radio frequency 24/7 in all geographic locations.

/Ex-SIGINT weenie

I just wanted the NSA, in case they're monitoring this thread, to know how awesome I think they are. I wrote them a poem that totally doesn't have any hidden messages in it.

Nobody knows how hard your job is.
Security is not a trivial thing.
America is threatened on all sides.
Before we lay our heads down at night,
Let us give thanks for the job you do.
Oh you brave and patriotic men!
Women, too, of course!
So steadfast in your duty.
Great are your challenges.
One day all Americans shall truly
Appreciate the job you do,
Tirelessly defending us as you watchfully
Surveil all we do.

ourbigdumbmouth: no point in asking or caring about it, there's not much anyone can really do about it.

Sure there is, but it does mean some inconvenience.

PsiChi: (btw, the "smart" meter also emits carcinogenic radiation hundreds to thousands of times a day). Here's more, also from "Wired":

uh huh. Alpha, Beta, or Gamma, or X-Ray, cause that's your choices on carcinogenic radiation.

hope and change, etc

They hate us for our "freedoms" ?

So I guess they must hate us all less now then say 2001 right ?

davidphogan: You shouldn't be worried if you're doing nothing wrong. Right?

I still have a relative that uses that line. Every time there is another step down the path I mention it to him, and he says it's a slippery slope fallacy; nothing to see here. When I point out the long slope we've already slipped down he reverts back to "if you're doing nothing wrong, you've got nothing to hide." Of course, this is the same guy that praises the education cuts Gov. Walker made, but rails against Obama because a program his kid uses got cut from his high school, so he's not exactly a smart man.

MIT proved one Saturday that the tin foilhat works as a high gain antenna for 10 and 21ghz so it help not hurts them reading your brain . The more you know!

Bontesla

I really wish I had the audacity and cleverness to come up with this sort of response.

The changes to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act in 2008 - which President Obama, then in the Senate, voted for

You know who should jump on this and run with it? Those people that wear the Guy Fawkes masks. So many unwanted pizzas would get delivered

Marcus Aurelius: The surveillance experts at the National Security Agency won't tell two powerful United States Senators how many Americans have had their communications picked up by the agency as part of its sweeping new counterterrorism powers

I think it's safe to assume the answer is "all of them".

Came here for this, leaving satisfied.

/And also adding one more record to the database
//Hi NSA guys!

PsiChi: btw, the "smart" meter also emits carcinogenic radiation hundreds to thousands of times a day

Only if you have it set to "evil." If you look on the side of the device, you should see a little toggle switch with one end marked "g" and one end "e." If you have it set to "e," or evil, then the device communicates with the server using very powerful bursts of X-rays, kind of like Morse code. Because they don't know the relative orientation between the meter and the the server location, the X-rays are emitted isotropically, which guarantees you'll get a pretty good dose each time it communicates. (The "dots" are like one-third of a chest X-ray, and the "dashes" are a full chest X-ray worth of radioactivity.)

However, if it's set to "g," or good, then the device just uses 2.4 GHz WiFi to communicate, which is an energy that we all learned back in grade school is many orders of magnitude less than what would be needed to break DNA bonds, and therefore isn't carcinogenic.

So just make sure the device is set to "g" and you're all good. I honestly don't know why they still have the "e" mode. It's a holdover from the days before WiFi, I guess, but it uses a crazy amount of power, and also makes you kids have flippers, so I don't get it.

Big Brother IS watching

Don't Troll Me Bro!: Every time there is another step down the path I mention it to him, and he says it's a slippery slope fallacy; nothing to see here.

Google "Mechanisms of the Slippery Slope". WHile they are a logical fallacy, they do in fact exist.

Define "spying" and "privacy".

/giggles like the idiot I am!

dittybopper: ourbigdumbmouth: no point in asking or caring about it, there's not much anyone can really do about it.

Sure there is, but it does mean some inconvenience.

I can't be bothered with inconveniences.

Sarcasm aside, I kind of wonder what's the tipping point for most people. Seems like most people just assume this is going on anyways so there's no outrage.

Random questioning on the street? Pre-crime police tactics? Journalism licenses? Windows 8?

Sometimes all you can do is sit and play your sax...


R.I.P. USA.

In a way, it does kinda make sense.

Richard Jewell was the security guard who spotted the bomb that went off during the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta. Initially he was credited with saving coutless lives

That was, until some knucklehead in the FBI leaked that the FBI was investigating the possibility that he was the one who actually planted the bomb. He was never formally accused, charged or anything like that, they were simply looking into the possibility. But based on that investigation, the press hounded him mercilessly, branding him as a "person of interest" (whatever that means).

Even if the NSA is looking into someone, simply publicizing it like that may do as much harm as good. You know some arabic names will start showing up, they will be immediately labelled "Terrorists" regardless of what any NSA surveillance turns up.

I wish I was a senator so farking bad

KaiserRoll: They should have just plead the fifth.

Fifth of what, Jack Daniels? You couldn't possibly mean the constitution. NSA never heard of it.

maliklockett: In a way, it does kinda make sense.

Richard Jewell was the security guard who spotted the bomb that went off during the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta. Initially he was credited with saving coutless lives

That was, until some knucklehead in the FBI leaked that the FBI was investigating the possibility that he was the one who actually planted the bomb. He was never formally accused, charged or anything like that, they were simply looking into the possibility. But based on that investigation, the press hounded him mercilessly, branding him as a "person of interest" (whatever that means).

Even if the NSA is looking into someone, simply publicizing it like that may do as much harm as good. You know some arabic names will start showing up, they will be immediately labelled "Terrorists" regardless of what any NSA surveillance turns up.

THIS

Prank Call of Cthulhu: I just wanted the NSA, in case they're monitoring this thread, to know how awesome I think they are. I wrote them a poem that totally doesn't have any hidden messages in it.

Nobody knows how hard your job is.
Security is not a trivial thing.
America is threatened on all sides.
Before we lay our heads down at night,
Let us give thanks for the job you do.
Oh you brave and patriotic men!
Women, too, of course!
So steadfast in your duty.
Great are your challenges.
One day all Americans shall truly
Appreciate the job you do,
Tirelessly defending us as you watchfully
Surveil all we do.

I lol'd.

Prank Call of Cthulhu: PsiChi: btw, the "smart" meter also emits carcinogenic radiation hundreds to thousands of times a day

Only if you have it set to "evil." If you look on the side of the device, you should see a little toggle switch with one end marked "g" and one end "e." If you have it set to "e," or evil, then the device communicates with the server using very powerful bursts of X-rays, kind of like Morse code. Because they don't know the relative orientation between the meter and the the server location, the X-rays are emitted isotropically, which guarantees you'll get a pretty good dose each time it communicates. (The "dots" are like one-third of a chest X-ray, and the "dashes" are a full chest X-ray worth of radioactivity.)

However, if it's set to "g," or good, then the device just uses 2.4 GHz WiFi to communicate, which is an energy that we all learned back in grade school is many orders of magnitude less than what would be needed to break DNA bonds, and therefore isn't carcinogenic.

So just make sure the device is set to "g" and you're all good. I honestly don't know why they still have the "e" mode. It's a holdover from the days before WiFi, I guess, but it uses a crazy amount of power, and also makes you kids have flippers, so I don't get it.

The more you know..

/going to "g" mode in 5, 4, 3, 2
//who turned out the lights?

lack of warmth: KaiserRoll: They should have just plead the fifth.

Fifth of what, Jack Daniels? You couldn't possibly mean the constitution. NSA never heard of it.

Just because they're smarter than you doesn't make them evil.

And unless you're suggesting the NSA has gone rogue, then blaming them for unconstitutional behavior is ridiculous. They do what the Executive branch tells them to do. That's their charter.

/to be fair I'm still shocked about SELinux.

George Orwell was right.

MusicMakeMyHeadPound: They do what the Executive branch tells them to do.

The Executive branch cares about the constitution all of a sudden?

""I defer to [the NSA inspector general's] conclusion that obtaining such an estimate was beyond the capacity of his office and dedicating sufficient additional resources would likely impede the NSA's mission," McCullough wrote."

So in other words, if something would be too much work you can simply opt out of doing it? NICE!

baronvonzipper: Prank Call of Cthulhu: PsiChi: btw, the "smart" meter also emits carcinogenic radiation hundreds to thousands of times a day

Only if you have it set to "evil." If you look on the side of the device, you should see a little toggle switch with one end marked "g" and one end "e." If you have it set to "e," or evil, then the device communicates with the server using very powerful bursts of X-rays, kind of like Morse code. Because they don't know the relative orientation between the meter and the the server location, the X-rays are emitted isotropically, which guarantees you'll get a pretty good dose each time it communicates. (The "dots" are like one-third of a chest X-ray, and the "dashes" are a full chest X-ray worth of radioactivity.)

However, if it's set to "g," or good, then the device just uses 2.4 GHz WiFi to communicate, which is an energy that we all learned back in grade school is many orders of magnitude less than what would be needed to break DNA bonds, and therefore isn't carcinogenic.

So just make sure the device is set to "g" and you're all good. I honestly don't know why they still have the "e" mode. It's a holdover from the days before WiFi, I guess, but it uses a crazy amount of power, and also makes you kids have flippers, so I don't get it.

The more you know..

/going to "g" mode in 5, 4, 3, 2
//who turned out the lights?

I have mine set to "plaid". You should upgrade.

The5thElement: George Orwell was right.

Yes, he was. All animals are equal, except cows. Because they are delicious and make fine belts.

How long does it take (we're almost 11 years into the "War on Terror") for the watchers to realize how useful this info is, possibly on a personal level? "Turn up the volume on my ex-husband, who is he talking to, my next court date is next week?" "I don't like that heathen, let's share her personal views/finances with her fundy family, ESPECIALLY how she detests preachy Cousin Sam." "Senator BrownNose is usually accommodating, what can we dig up to make him comply?"

The question is not whether or not Orwellian knowledge is abused, it's how many minutes (after they gained this obscene power) was it abused?
Absolute Power corrupts Absolutely.

Sorry, I don't blindly trust the "experts", America is not safer, we've never been less safe.

lohphat: PsiChi: This will be the norm, if you allow a "smart" meter digital electric meter on the side of your home (they are NOT requred by law, and you can and should refuse to have one installed), and buy "chipped" appliances (btw, the "smart" meter also emits carcinogenic radiation hundreds to thousands of times a day). Here's more, also from "Wired":

More and more personal and household devices are connecting to the internet, from your television to your car navigation systems to your light switches. CIA Director David Petraeus cannot wait to spy on you through them.

Earlier this month, Petraeus mused about the emergence of an "Internet of Things" - that is, wired devices - at a summit for In-Q-Tel, the CIA's venture capital firm. "'Transformational' is an overused word, but I do believe it properly applies to these technologies," Petraeus enthused, "particularly to their effect on clandestine tradecraft."

All those new online devices are a treasure trove of data if you're a "person of interest" to the spy community. Once upon a time, spies had to place a bug in your chandelier to hear your conversation. With the rise of the "smart home," you'd be sending tagged, geolocated data that a spy agency can intercept in real time when you use the lighting app on your phone to adjust your living room's ambiance.

"Items of interest will be located, identified, monitored, and remotely controlled through technologies such as radio-frequency identification, sensor networks, tiny embedded servers, and energy harvesters - all connected to the next-generation internet using abundant, low-cost, and high-power computing," Petraeus said, "the latter now going to cloud computing, in many areas greater and greater supercomputing, and, ultimately, heading to quantum computing."
[snip]

Link

Ignorance about how technology works fuels paranoia among morans. Film at 11.

Guess what? You're not that special. They don't care about you.

What a stupid farking comment. You know who did consider everyone special and worth monitoring? The goddamn Gestapo. Hate to Godwin, but that's exactly what we're talking about here. If they Can spy on everyone, they will spy on everyone. You're a drooling moron if you think otherwise.

Oldiron_79: maliklockett: In a way, it does kinda make sense.

Richard Jewell was the security guard who spotted the bomb that went off during the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta. Initially he was credited with saving coutless lives

That was, until some knucklehead in the FBI leaked that the FBI was investigating the possibility that he was the one who actually planted the bomb. He was never formally accused, charged or anything like that, they were simply looking into the possibility. But based on that investigation, the press hounded him mercilessly, branding him as a "person of interest" (whatever that means).

Even if the NSA is looking into someone, simply publicizing it like that may do as much harm as good. You know some arabic names will start showing up, they will be immediately labelled "Terrorists" regardless of what any NSA surveillance turns up.

THIS

But that isn't what was asked for. What the congressmen asked for wasn't detailed information, but an approximate number of "US Persons" being monitored.

TheJoe03: MusicMakeMyHeadPound: They do what the Executive branch tells them to do.

The Executive branch cares about the constitution all of a sudden?

I get the strange sense that we're arguing along parallel ideas.

It just makes me sad to watch us slowly become East Germany.

SnakeLee: I wish I was a senator so farking bad

I AM the senator... OF MY PANTS!

_{Take that NSA}

SnakeLee: I wish I was a senator so farking bad

Why?

If you were, you'd just be another asshole in the machine that no one trusts.