Secret room monitoring internet and telephone traffic @ AT&T??!

[*DAMN Hazard]

http://news.com.com/AT38T+leaks+sensitive+info+in+NSA+suit/2100-1028_3-6077353.html?tag=nefd.top

I don't know whether I'm more upset that my personal privacy that is guaranteed to me as a U.S. citizen is at stake or that the people in charge of protecting those rights are dumb enough to leave that information lying within a document about to be made public for anyone to find.

Oh yes and then the part that really enrages me...

Also this week, the Bush administration submitted a 29-page brief that elaborates on its argument that the case should be tossed out of court because of the "state secrets" privilege.

is the loophole.

[Ein]

Your right... It is a loophole named the patriot act. Doesn't it make you feel safer and more protected that you have to watch what you say on your own phone or computer. Makes me feel untouchable by the terrorists. Its just my government that I'm worried about.

Has anyone read the book 1984? If you have don't say anything because Big Brother is deffinately watching.

Some common themes between the book and life:

1. Government allowed to watch what you do. Thought police monitoring everything you do or say.

2. A war off in another country that no one really knows why its happening. Was it WMDs? A dictator who we helped to rise to power? Oil?

3. Media covering up actual events with one sided propaganda. A comic makes fun of bush for legitimate points. The media denounces the comic and flames him.

Hmmm... Careful all... They seem to have gotten the title of that book wrong. Should have been named "2006"

[NiKLoT]

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

Who shall guard the guardians?

[Cell]

3. Media covering up actual events with one sided propaganda. A comic makes fun of bush for legitimate points. The media denounces the comic and flames him.

Is this for real?  My following statements I write are intended with the deepest degree of sarcasm and wise-assedness.

The media in America is seriously right winged and totally pro american.  THey do not favor the minority and totally give accurate unbiased news that never puts fear mongering over the true facts and degree of importance of thier story.  THey do not try to sway the general population with opinions of what political agenda happens to be thier own. The New York Times is an accurate unbiased paper that reports the news from a objective nopartisan point of view. Hillary Clinton would make a wonderful president.  THe media is not trying to push her into candidacy. Our country is run by sober men of mixed race that really are concerned with the common citizen.  THey don't care about saying anything that might be taken the wrong way by the upper class and the minority even thought it may be true,it has to be said.  Our government has no partisan agenda, and both political parties put aside thier differences for the common good of the country as a whole.  The middle class doesn't get completely fucked over by the class above him and the class below him.  Social Security will be available for the younger generation paying for it now.  Hippy liberals usually present all facts and never generalized statements. THe loyal american working class citizen will do something about the problems in his/her country on off days and week nights after work. The price of gas is totally acceptable especially after we go to war just for oil. I don't smoke enough weed and someday all the time I have put into fps games will pay off with a multi million dollar endorsement deal from Nike. The common citizen is completely informed about political issues and world happenings and really doesn't need to read/research unbiased publications to form his/her own personal opinion before making lame statements. PO never nade spams, cO showed great sportsmanship, weak is not an illegal alien.

Now ..out of the sarcastic tone - Ein  nothing I said is directly pointed at anything you wrote...just a sarcastic rant I felt I had to go on.

[Ein]

W00t... I have days like that as well Cell but the thing about it is that everything you said about the government in a sarcastic way, they expect us to actually think that way.

[DarK.]

Cell you forgot Weak isn't gay, and Ein doesn't look or sound like a librarian.

[*DAMN Hazard]

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/02/washington/02records.html?ex=1306900800&en=c33171e9bd16725b&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

"U.S. Wants Companies to Keep Web Usage Records"

God I hope someone from the ACLU pwns them.

[Cell]

It looks like it is stil in proposal stage, and information would not be about the actual user, but the traffic.  PLus all information would have to be obtained through a court ordered subpoena.

"At the meeting with privacy experts yesterday, Justice Department officials focused on wanting to retain the records for use in child pornography and terrorism investigations. But they also talked of their value in investigating other crimes like intellectual property theft and fraud, said Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center in Washington, who attended the session.

"It was clear that they would go beyond kiddie porn and terrorism and use it for general law enforcement," Mr. Rotenberg said."

Is this really a bad thing if you are not doing anything illegal?  Maybe.  If certain records of people's identity are obtained and retained.  Yeah it may be an IP address that is kept, but it is easily linked to a person.  Ahh! the slippery slope of the government and technology. 21st century crimes may need some 21st century crime fighting methods. How can we go about it without violating innocent people's civil rights?  Good question.

Oh and Dark.... Weak said its not gay if you don't push back.

[Po~ReverendMoss]

I'm glad we made it into Cell's rant.
I was afraid he was going to leave out the hippy liberals...

[Macuber]

Normally I don't get into politics with people, because each has their own opinion. But Rev Moss said the magic words (Hippy-Liberal). As the "Elder" on DBl, let me give you alittle insight back when I was growning up back in the 50's. I want you to observe  how then is now and now was then.. Rev Moss..hit the lights please..

I read a nice phrase the other day:
"People shouldn't be afraid of their Governments, Governments should be afraid of their People"

Remember COINTELPRO, the 1956-1971 program of the FBI aimed at investigating and disrupting dissident political organizations in the US. The founding document of COINTELPRO directed FBI agents to "increase factionalism, cause disruption and win defections" and to "expose, disrupt, misdirect, discredit, or otherwise neutralize" the activities of their targeted movements and their leaders. And, well, as we all know now Martin Luther King Jr. was once one such a target.

Anyay, here is the relevance of this: The program remained secret until 1971, when an FBI field office was burglarized by a group of left-wing radicals calling themselves the CITIZEN'S COMMISSION TO INVESTIGATE THE FBI. Several dossiers of files were taken and the information passed to news agencies. Within the year, Director Hoover declared that the centralized COINTELPRO was over.

In the Final Report of the Select Committee COINTELPRO was castigated in no uncertain terms:

"Many of the techniques used would be intolerable in a democratic society even if all of the targets had been involved in violent activity, but COINTELPRO went far beyond that...the Bureau conducted a sophisticated vigilante operation aimed squarely at preventing the exercise of First Amendment rights of speech and association, on the theory that preventing the growth of dangerous groups and the propagation of dangerous ideas would protect the national security and deter violence."

A lesson which apparently has not been learned today by this President and his administration. Or does, maybe, the President think that the Select Committee's conclusion was wrong (or unpatriotic or unamerican, even) then, and that his present situation (and the control of the three branches of government by the party which has been shoring his presidency) has insulated him from being accountable to the people now---as maybe he has indeed become.

Anyway, I always found it of interest how the argument for the need for "surveillance" in the name of our security always is one-directional. Why is it that it is always the private citizens that have to be spied on. What about the watcher? After all wouldn’t it make as much sense, if it were the citizens who got to monitor what our elected and appointed "public servants" (and---I know it has become hard to believe in the actual political climate---but the President is actually one of them) are up to?
Here is an idea: Why not make it mandatory of our elected, and appointed representatives and officials that their life be monitored 24/7. Like reality TV or like one of these 24/7 web cam girls, only without the infrared cameras at night (we’ll spare the citizens and allow our politicians some privacy in the bedroom---and in the bathroom.) After all, they all are PUBLIC SERVANTS, aren’t they? Shouldn’t their lives be PUBLIC? So be careful about that "Wide Net" you throw out in the name of "Security and Law".
Ok class...any questions?

[*DAMN Hazard]

It looks like it is stil in proposal stage, and information would not be about the actual user, but the traffic. 

Ya, but this is just the first step. When the Government gets involved in the internet whats to stop them from taking a glance into the personal lives of everyone with a computer? Sure now they only want to monitor traffic but whats to stop them from using the old "state secrets" excuse once again and again and again

[Ein]

    well said macuber   

I agree completely. Why are our servants spying on us and trying to get us locked up. If I had a maid and noticed she had gone through all my stuff, or even just went through my computer, while I was not there... She would be out the door faster than coke in a pepsi challenge.

Have I personally done anything wrong to warrant my paranoia? No but I still don't want people going through my stuff especially if I haven't given them reason to.

Think of the adults who are going to be fined for their children downloading music illegally from the internet on their mommy or daddy's computer once the government has the right to go through the computers.

Want to write a book? Mention the government being overthrown in this fiction novel. Now you're carted off by police as a terrorist for writing a book and saving the work in progress on your computer.

I know this might be taking it to extremes but how can we be sure that the government won't do this if they have access. Personally, I won't even sign up for ezpass for tolls because I don't like the government being able to track where I drive in the country. Why would I want them to be able to track what websites I visit?

[pointillist]

hahaha....all very  nice in a vacuum, but........
what if you happen to be related to all the Dudes
with the Satellites?  Uday shows up at a Critique
where i'm showing Cartoons......attacks me for
using Images (pictures) and gets led out by the
Police....(if you're going to get a grad degree
go to a school that offers you protection......)

and Intelligence.

My boss at the Art Institute introduced me to Lynne Cheney
and Nancy Pelosi.  Balance.  Multiprong.  I signed all the
documents turning over my Rights to the U.S.Senate.
Met everybody......and I mean Everybody.  From Delay to Jagger.
And Keith.....giggles. Now I'm stashed in a hotel....Boxer bet me
I couldn't survive living with the guards at San Quentin, but I did.
Diane said that when the War was Over (smushin accomplished?)
I'd be of Vital Importance to revealing the Process.  Coooool.
I did it.

And I wrote to the White House and told George (actually I
write a newsletter from the political hinterlands......to the
whole White House easpecially Laura who did dozens of
meetings with me and the Twins who are a Hoot and a Half......
but mainly Whiiiiining that the CIA had run amuck and that
they had fired all the Able Danger people.

The Able Danger people are the agents working in counter-terrorism.....
my Dad was an Admiral at NSA, and my Father was head of the CIA.......
so anyway when Bill was President (met him and Hillary in College)
(met George when I was six years old)(and Hi Al........nice movie....)
I wrote a book about everybody who had visited me......stressing the
Dole visit when they took my Mom away at gunpoint....when I was 16........
for being Uppity...........the guns were to keep Me quiet.........green car.

So anyway George Up and fired Goss, who was the only CIA head who had Ever
been threatening when I met him.  You might hate the Programs, but the
Guys are great......you know.....Sincere nice guys hard working, trying to
help, long-suffering......and Goss wasn't THAT bad (how would I know?)
(but he got fired) and they rehired my Able Danger guy and made the NSA
head the CIA chief.  Hayden....now HE's spooky..........BUT

the one thing ya gotta say about spies and we're talkin bout have another
piece of yellow cake there dude....i worked on the mcveigh case, and nichols, and
atta, and the husseins.....they were all class acts.  Not as much as the people
they murdered though........is.........YOU WANT TO HAVE IT ON TAPE.

You Don't want Scooter and Karl.....hey the Scoot's cool, but nuts, and my
interview with Karl will be a book unto itself..............(i'm working on the
Rhino Party....republicans in name only....there's dinos too.....democrats in
nomenclature only and so the GOP has formed the Rhino Hunters to Weed Out
the fake nobility..........i'm only a bastard son, after all...........and don't
have full card carryin privileges.......)(but Was offered a free office in the WTC
building by the Dems......)........so You Want to have it ALL on tape.

You don't want them making it up as they go along.  The reason i
signed away all my rights and had agents sitting there all the time....
was.....it's All On Tape.   The whole Able Danger thing.
Look for it at the hearings.  And wait till our dude Fitzgerald
bitchslaps Karl Rove...........and tape his reply.

Gonzalez did two hours with me and that was after Ashcroft did
an hour and a half.......Ashcroft sang to me the song he wrote......
a weird religious thing.....Jagger's better.......and Gonzalez Seized
the CIA files of Goss and went into the House of Representatives
at Midnight and spent 18 HOURS downloading everything on their network.

THEN that fatb+++++++ Hastert demanded the tapes back   (i calls'em
All tapes.....since watergate.........my dad searched through the wreckage
of a commercial airliner to recover 100,000 dollars cah that was on board
to pay off one of the wives of the guys)(there's a tape).......and Gonzalez, head of the
DOJ says he'll quit if George gives'em up....and the fBI head too.......
and my brother impounds them for 45 days!  Ain't that a kick in the head?

Hold on....more from the front presently.  I hope Someone's keeping Track.

Hey rev....revenge of the hippies, what?

yours in absolute truth........Point.

[Ein]

...ummm...ok.

From what I got out of the last post by Point... Make tapes. What we should make tapes of, I'm nott too sure. I'm also not clear on the reason why besides being locked up or whatever he mentioned.

Should we make tapes of their trying to create a new law allowing them to filter theough our computers and their internet usage?

Help me understand.