NSA collecting phone records of millions daily, court order reveals

Indeed. We're being "protected"....at great cost to our natural rights, civil liberties and prosperity.....by a central government that refuses to take any serious measures to secure our borders or enforce immigration laws....
a government that actually SUES states that do

because the powers that be are more interested in political correctness and harvesting votes.

sickening.

 

The left dont care about Hispanics. They are using them for votes. That's it. If Hispanics voted with their catholic religion the left would be fight for taller fences.

 

at the OP

So.....Patriotic duty when a Republican is doing it....progressive fascism when a Democrat is doing it. Got it.

The reality is I don't really support the Patriot Act but also don't really think it matters to me personally all that much. I live in a low target section of the Midwest that I don't see terrorists targeting, so I'm probably safe if they were to strike. And on the other end of the spectrum, even if the government were personally monitoring and watching me, there would simply be nothing to hide so I'd have absolutely nothing to worry about.

The inner fears of a "1984" style society only works if two elements are present. The act of insidious surveillance of citizens activity, AND the bypassing of stated and legislated law to revoke order and round up innocent citizens. Just because step one has been surpassed does not automatically mean that step two will, ever. This fear that the government is just seconds away from coming for you is nothing more than narcissistic ignorance or inner guilt about your child porn collection.

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We've done nothing less than elect and re-elect the government that has passed the laws of this land that are now being enforced. Our only rights are the democratic ability to elect different lawmakers to create different laws. When was the last time you checked any box that didn't have an "R" next to it? Hmm???? didn't think so.

 

Identical argument progressives deployed to mock and malign any "neocon" righties who supported the Patriot Act / warrantless wiretaps.

IDENTICAL.

yet, now that the progressive NEOCON Boy King is at the helm......

 

Once again, why do neocon's believe that THIS president is more likely to cross the same line that the last one stood at and didn't cross? They were fine trusting that Bush was only using his powers for good and so it was fine. But despite evidence that Obama has used those powers for only the same reasons, somehow he's more likely to cross over into evils we have feared he would all along. Is that about right?

 

Direct hit. Let me guess.....I can look back through the archives and find evidence of you sympathizing/defending open borders / loose immigration progressive dogma.

 

Great point. And I agree. But one thing we must keep in mind is......the leaders KNOW stuff aboup groups here that we don't. There is some scary stuff out there----chemical and biological weapons that could wipe a lot of us out. We need to weigh this stuff. I'm not wavering; I'm firm that I believe this latest is over reach. And after seeing the IRS target their political enemies, I do NOT want information like our phone records and e-mails in the hands of the federal gov't. I definitely see the dangers.

I think the gov't would be better serving the citizens by actually enforcing our borders. No telling how many bad guys have gotten here just by simply coming right on across that border.

 

Excellent points. Obama has expoentially increased this NSA program to new heights. This would be the program that as Candidate Barack Obama, he severely condemned Bush for. Obama gets the Hypocrite of the Year award!!

 

If what Bush did is awful...which I think we both can agree it was.....
what Obama is doing.....exploiting precedent, and doubling down on the sins of his predecessor....cannot be any less awful. Yet.... somehow....it is.

In true progressive fashion, Obama....just like with the other scandals.... aided and abetted by his slavish devotees...
is being extricated from the leadership/culpability equation.

 

But listen to yourself. You can't keep from this mindset that the same done by opponent is somehow "worse" than the same done by my guy. I can't wait for the next GOP president to take office (I really can actually) because immediately everything that Obama has been attacked for will by okay by the other guy. "Spending is justified when it's my guy, laws I wouldn't normally agree with are ok with my guy, horrible fiscal policy and a degradation of the middle and lower classes to the benefit of the rich are okay when it's my guy, but don't you dare nitpick what my guy does or consider each and every word they say, action they take and proposal they make to be anything even remotely evil, despite the fact that's pretty much all we did towards your guy". Do I have it right yet?

 

You're a terrorist and anti-American for saying this! What are you some sort of terrorist sympathizer!? Oh wait, there's a Democrat in the White House...

How dare they log the phone numbers that we've called! This is and OUTRAGE! They probably gathered info on non-brown people! HOW DARE THEY!!!!

 

Ha... and you ACTUALLY believe that? There's a reason why top long-term Republicans are providing cover. This, in one way or another, has been going on for quite some time now.

 

First, you're conversing with an anarchist....I don't have "a guy"...I'm not, nor do I really care to be "represented" by DC central planners of any stripe

Second, all I'm asking is for the civil liberties arguments the progressive left presented a few years ago.... arguments that finally gave me reason to agree with the progressive left on something....be applied to ObamaCo.
but what I see is more mealy mouthed duplicity.....more of the typically myopic political expedience and moving target morality and principles that are so prevalent in the left's "means to an end" politics.

and last.... just when I think some rancid, abusive, authoritarian (*)(*)(*)(*) rolling out of DC should inspire a free people to stand in unity against it, there always comes along a purely partisan narrative that justifies, prevaricates, or even defends it

which disappoints and sickens me, as do you.

 

You mean the same Congressional representatives that voted to authorize these powers?

 

It is an outrage, Toddw. It would have been one if Bush did it. No one decides to become an alcoholic overnight and no government decides to leap into tyranny. It is slow creeping steps that seem harmless at first.

The ACLU and Rutherford both (two libertarian groups from both sides of the spectrum) fought against the Patriot Act and NDAA for a reason and if you are willing to be educated--and I hope you are because I don't hate you like I hate most progressives for some reason--go read what they have to say on this, what constitutional principles were broken, and where this leads and what can be done with this info.

Don't be like those other partisan jerks, Todd. You're better than this.

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When Rand Paul was voting against them, at first, he was alone. Now his numbers are growing from both sides of the aisle.

Wouldn't you rather write your congressmen and women and help then fall into these partisan games? Don't you want America to be different?

 

About 1/3 of all the posters on here are libertarians/voluntaryists/anarchists understand this fact before you jump to conclusions that the reason we hate Obama is because we love Republicans as first.

Go back during the election time to any of my posts and you'll see that I hated the hell out of Romney.

This is about principles and freedom. Nothing else. Stand on the right side of history on this one.

 

I'm definitely not saying it's okay for the government to be doing this, but I think we all have to remember that if the means to transmit voice and data electronically exist, the means to record it does too. You shouldn't ever have the expectation that any type of info you send over electronic devices is going to remain private.

Someone will always be doing this. Whether it's the government today or the disgustingly huge multi-national corporations doing it tomorrow after we foolishly vote away the government, someone can and will be monitoring communications over electronic devices.

Your best bet if you have anything to hide or just don't fancy to people monitoring what you say? Good old pen, paper, and mouth.

 

I'm just pointing out the extreme hypocrisy. It was wrong then, and it's wrong now.


Plenty of people, and most of them were on the "left" were against the Patriot Act and its extensions, but to have these right-wingers now wailing and gnashing their teeth over something that has been going on for quite some time now? It deserves the contempt that they are receiving.

The Patriot Act, NDAA, FISA. All of these seem to be OK to people as long as they are using it on other people or targeting specific groups.

As a note, these tactics have been used against left-wing protestors for decades.

The Patriot Act was renewed twice under the Bush admin and while the Republicans were in control of Congress. Nobody on the right, with few exceptions, even blinked. In fact, anyone who railed against it was called a terrorist sympathizer or an Islamophile.

The thing is that this has been going on for almost a decade now. The infrastructure is very deeply intrenched and as we know, these legacy programs are ridiculously difficult to completely kill.

 

Accept the possibility that individual conservatives can redeem their souls and honor, just as I accept the possibility that individual leftists can be honorable. I point to Glenn Greenwald as the only person who has retained his honor since 2001.

These programs can be killed. But it will require something that will capture the imagination of the entire world. There was a guy in Tunisia a couple of years ago that single handedly changed the entire world by capturing its imagination.

 

Dont recall the guys name but one of the people that wrote the Patriot Act was just on fox saying he argued with Bush to get it through and the way its being used now is 'over reach' and beyond its intention, beyond any way Bush used it also. I dunno the truth to what he said, who trusts any govt/ media type these days? Just reporting what was said.

 

Yes, you should. That is the business contract that you sign with your provider. This isn't Facebook. This is a person to person call. Don't even pretend that if Verizon told you that they were going to listen to your phone conversations and TMobile said they wouldn't that you would still use Verizon.

People have always had the expectation of privacy and the desire for it.

So we should stop it now so it doesn't get any worse...or we could just throw out our civil liberties because the government will inevitably steal the rest of them anyway.

It is probably the best bet but it isn't right. Why don't you quit being a fraidy cat apologist and be angry enough to help people make a necessary change?

 

The fabric of the country is being ripped apart. This has moved on beyond the fate of Obama.

 

It was bipartisan in the Congress and while Democrats complained they still voted those guys back in.

And they also continued to vote for those guys.

Agreed...except with us libertarians who have always maintained it was wrong and didn't vote for the people who supplied us with it.

Yup. Still are. Obama's not just coming for Tea Partiers and Muslims. OWS is getting it, too.

No lie there. But again...Democrats like Hillary Clinton voted for it, too.

You see, my friend, it is not Left vs. Right anymore...it is the State vs You. Hillary Clinton and Obama have dinner with Republicans. They go to meetings with the Bilderbergs.

All of those people think first about the people who put them in office--not the voters who put them in, but the people who helped them buy the voters.

The only way to stop this is to team up (like they do, btw) with people across the aisle who agree per issue. This has to end.

There are programmatic shut downs all the time. It just takes the will. If not now...can you imagine what it will be like in 10 years?

[video=youtube;dz4HEEiJuGo]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dz4HEEiJuGo[/video]

 

Do you want to know why there is an uproar NOW? It's because the federal seizure of communications WAS NOT DISCLOSED UNTIL A WHISTLEBLOWER FROM THE INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITY LEAKED THIS INFORMATION TO THE BRITISH PRESS AND THEN ANOTHER LEAKER GAVE INFO TO THE WASHINGTON POST. Both events occurred in the last few days. This indicates that elements of the American intelligence community are in open rebellion to the Administration.

 

Surfer Joe,

of those 7 years how many years has Obama been in office?