Flutterby™! : The cognitive dissonance, it burns!

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The cognitive dissonance, it burns!

2013-06-06 17:45:25.826142+00 by Dan Lyke 13 comments

Saxby Chambless (R-GA) justifies the secret NSA program that gathered information on all Verizon Wireless calls:

"...To my knowledge there has not been any citizen who has registered a complaint. It has proved meritorious because we have collected significant information on bad guys, but only on bad guys, over the years."

Uh, yeah, so no citizen has registered a complaint because this program has been top secret. No citizen confirmed that it was occurring (until the anonymous hero who leaked the order did so).

And the program has, by all accounts, collected information on every single cell phone call made through the Verizon Wireless network (and there's no reason to believe that they were the only carrier targeted) since 1996. So I'm guessing we're all "bad guys" in Mr. Chambless's eyes now?

To be fair, this was a joint impromptu press conference with the enemy of freedom and Senator from Hollywood Diane Feinstein, so this isn't a Republican/Democrat issue, this is an evil evil legislators issue.

See also this Flutterby entry from yesterday.

[ related topics: Drugs Wireless Privacy broadband Software Engineering Civil Liberties Conferences Archival Government NSA Wiretaps ]

comments in ascending chronological order (reverse):

#Comment Re: made: 2013-06-06 18:45:05.818065+00 by: Dan Lyke

https://threatpost.com/always-outmanned-always-outgunned/

#Comment Re: made: 2013-06-06 19:16:49.884794+00 by: Larry Burton

I just fired off an email to Sen. Chambliss (through his horrid webform filter) with the subject line reading, "I want to register a complaint" and the body stating how much I didn't like living in a country where I could be spied on by my government with no probable cause and specifically how I thought it wasn't right for the government to collect the metadata generated by my cell phone calls.

Now he can't say that anymore.

#Comment Re: made: 2013-06-06 20:03:47.190776+00 by: Dan Lyke

http://www.volokh.com/2013/06/...ll-to-the-nsa/?utm_source=feedly

#Comment Re: made: 2013-06-06 21:39:27.839556+00 by: Dan Lyke

Also Revealed by Verizon Leak: How the NSA and FBI Lie With Numbers:

... So a single order issued to Verizon Business Solutions in April covered metadata for every phone call made by every customer. That’s from one order out of what will probably be about 200 reported in next year’s numbers.

#Comment Re: made: 2013-06-06 21:41:52.917199+00 by: Dan Lyke

“Now we are all persons of interest”: NSA whistle-blower Thomas Drake tells Salon why the Verizon surveillance is the new normal, and may never be undone.

Via Rude Pundit: NSA Phone Record Collecting and the Melancholy of Living in the Future (Updated).

#Comment Re: made: 2013-06-07 12:32:21.183553+00 by: DaveP

I agree with the rude pundit. This has probably been legal since 1979 and Smith v. Maryland. In any case, the horse is out of the barn, and while it's nice that people are finally noticing and making a stink about it, does anyone think Rand Paul's Fourth Amendment Restoration Act will pass?

Like the cops collecting DNA evidence from anyone who's arrested, as far as I can tell, the only defense is keeping your head down so you don't cause anyone to look at you more closely. Not all that different from living behind the iron curtain, really.

#Comment Re: made: 2013-06-07 17:57:55.659394+00 by: Dan Lyke

Michael Arrington tears apart the denials of the various tech companies implicated in the PRISM presentation:

How else could these companies be supplying the data? Easy, by simply sending a copy of all data to the NSA. Verizon’s court order, for example, required that they send call data daily.

The companies sending the data have both immunity from prosecution and are also prohibited from disclosing that the NSA has requested or received the data.

#Comment Re: made: 2013-06-07 19:50:30.26119+00 by: Dan Lyke

Pointing out the obvious: Simon Jenkins in the Guardian: Osama bin Laden has won.

#Comment Re: made: 2013-06-07 20:07:06.943236+00 by: Dan Lyke

The Nation: The NSA Doppelganger. On the 1975 time the NSA got caught snooping on phone records.

#Comment Re: made: 2013-06-07 20:40:54.235351+00 by: Dan Lyke

http://www.calgaryherald.com/o...ctor+shocking/8377821/story.html

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2013/06/what.html

#Comment Re: made: 2013-06-07 22:06:46.536379+00 by: Dan Lyke

Following up on that Google statement, Zuckerberg has said roughly the same thing about Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/zuck/posts/10100828955847631

Which leaves as a plausible explanation that the NSA is blowing smoke at our legislators while kickin' back and watching porn.

#Comment Re: made: 2013-06-07 23:11:52.010122+00 by: Dan Lyke

NBC chimes in on the actual listening in of phone calls: http://openchannel.nbcnews.com...calls-of-innocent-americans?lite

Some interesting parallels between the Zuckerberg and Google statements: https://docs.google.com/docume...7cS-I-d6E/preview?pli=1&sle=true

#Comment Re: made: 2013-06-07 23:13:05.281619+00 by: Dan Lyke

Reason Magazine has also noted the striking similarity in interesting wording between the denials.