US surveillance foiled 50 plots, says spy chief Alexander

And the Patriot Act gave the NSA the authority to snoop on us. Republican waffling has gotten downright bizarre.

 

And there was a time I might have been gullible enough to believe Federal Employees were well trained enough to pull off that feat.

Not just the FBI of course. I think LE nationwide has upped its propensity to shoot first ask questions later. Just since the Dorner case things seem to be getting crazy in my unlearned opinion.
Happened just the other day in a quite town near me. The Police say the man was acting irrational so they shot him dead. So far "armed or unarmed" has not been disclosed. We all know what that means, he was unarmed. Act rational citizens, your life may depend on it.

 

That isn't exactly correct, and it is the abuse of FISA, not the Patriot Act at work here.

 

We have to remember their wording. 50 plots were foiled not because if this but it was used to help foil 50 plots so they say. They could have had all the intel already from sources and also spied on them. They may have not received any info from the spying but it was still used so they count it as being used to help with these cases. They have never said they ever found and foiled an attack using this spying crap.

 

Plus couldn't have getting warrants first to obtain the information achieved the same results without collecting information on everyone?

 

Again, I'm not a fan of ill-faded logic. Now I can see why some folks love big government, let others do the work for you. Please, allow me to break it down for you.

This entire discussion started off with your initial statement:

So, in reply, I wrote:

Thus discrediting your claim of it being illegal to search folks information without a warrant. You then proceeded to claim:

Of which, has nothing to do with the context of my initial statement. Further to the point, I continued with this:

Which brings us back full circle. It has nothing to do with them determining a citizen or not, it has to do with it being illegal to look at those records without a warrant. You stated they couldn't, I gave you proof stating otherwise.

Even in the context of where you were trying to take this discussion, even if you listened to every phone conversation in the world, how would you truly be able to tell that someone is a US citizen or not? It's a back door that allows them to listen in our conversations. Keep believing in your 'good government', I'm sure it'll work out well for you in the end.

 

You are forgetting the keyword there. If they can't reasonably determine if a target is a US citizen they can search that citizen. The keyword is target. So if someone comes across their programs as going to a jihadist website or communicating with a terrorist overseas but they can't determine if that person is a US citizen or not they can monitor them.

 

Let's face it, the Patriot Act, the FISA courts and NSA snooping were all around when Bush was in office. The only difference between then and now is that Republican tastes have changed.

 

So have the Democrat tastes. Why is it when both parties flip flop, only one party's flip flop is worth mentioning?

 

This wasn't what was going on. Not in this scope, nor was it used domestically. We didn't even have the capability to do what we are doing now.

Responsible use of the technology depends entirely on the administration in power. It is clear that they cannot be trusted with it. I would say melt it and go back to ThinThread... but they won't.

 

He didn't, but he was "an alien lawfully admitted for permanent residence" and therefore a US PERSON.

 

If you're going to make up a number, may as well go big. I think they should have gone with 500. 5,000 would be even better.

 

No one in the US Govt can be trusted. Mullah Omar is more trustworthy than President Obama or his poodle Cameron.

 

Choosing to sign up for a website and choosing to not leave a giant region that you currently live in are two entirely different things.

 

I haven't, but I am more concerned about police unjustly shooting people than I am about NSA analysts unjustly reading our emails since (a) there is so far no evidence it's happening and (b) the consequences are not life-threatening. If it were happening, though, it would make a good argument for killing the program.

 

So are you conceding, to my original point, that folks can look up US citizens information without a warrant?

 

"[The ability to collect foreign intelligence information from electronic service providers] cannot be used to intentionally target any U.S. citizen, or any other U.S. person, or to intentionally target any person known to be in the United States. Likewise, [FISA] Section 702 cannot be used to target a person outside the United States if the purpose is to acquire information from a person inside the United States."

 

Let's just be kind and call this disingenuous. Who is directing these computers to make a search? Scientologists? Free Masons? Roving bands of Neanderthals?

To pretend the government isn't scavenging through your data, but computers are, is just plain B.S.!

 

Real story should be USA FBI created 50 terrorist entrapment plots and then foiled 50 terrorist crimes. Why not call a spade a spade?

 

So it seems that the majority of Americans prefer liberty to security, which is fair enough and something I respect.

The question of course is, upon the advent of another major terrorist attack on you home soil, how will you react? Will you be able to be objective and say that this sort of thing is a consequence of you foreign policy coupled with a refusal to have your FB posts looked at?

 

So, what you are saying is that Bush's "War on Terror" has and is working and you like it.

 

"The YouTube account associated with this video has been terminated due to multiple third party claims of copyright infringement".

Yeah really?

 

Neo-Cons are bipartisan.

So is the CFR.

There are interventionists everywhere, and the paranoid national security types run our clandestine services. Putting the two together (in power) is a bad combination.

 

I wish we could read all the secret messages Obama and his flunkies send to each other.

They use fake names and private email accounts to hide their skullduggery from the public record.

But whatever they say is in the database somewhere I suppose.

 

Kinda makes you wish there was this huge system that could filter through the internet and pluck out messages between targets...


Of course, Obama is a US Citizen. I am sure that would be a violation of his rights if there were such a thing...

Unless of course he is out of town...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/20/fisa-court-nsa-without-warrant