Gov't collecting millions of phone records under top secret order

[kpm9]

All the info they gathered sure did a fine job in Boston.

Then there is Ft Hood. All the data gathered, officials knowing the radical views of the Maj Hasan and nothing was done! Nothing!

And then to spit in the families of the slain/wounded soldiers and announce it as "work place violence", denying those soldiers and their families the benefits/assistance if it was designated an act of war.

Tell me who doesn't have a ******* clue?

[deadeye]

Right on kpm9. If anyone is watching, Ovomit has one goal in mind right now - getting the House Democrat. If he can accomplish that we are dead. I spent my whole working life in management in a large manufacturing company. The upper management insisted we get everything we could on our employees. Then if we wanted to get rid of them it would be easy. Deja vu. Cold chill time.

[chrish]

ltxi and muggsy,

by your arguments and logic in the last few posts you've both made, you guys should both definitely be backing a national gun registry. i mean, if you aren't doing anything wrong w/ your firearm, then you have no reason to enter them and yourself into a national searchable database. heck, put it on the internet for anyone to look it up via foia. afterall, none of us are doing anything wrong w/ our firearms.

and if Obama is just doing what his predecessor was doing, well there you go, makes it ok then doesn't it. I guess we'll just get some girls in blue dresses, grab some cigars, raid the Watergate hotel. maybe we can dig J Edgar up, put him in a blue dress and spy on people while we do it. after all, that was ALL done by Obama's predecessors and his predecessors peeps. cool. good plan guys!

oh, forgot, maybe we can sell some illegal arms to a foreign freedom fighting group in central America...oh wait...the middle east is the new central America...Obama can scratch that one off then, he's already doing that too.

[kpm9]

chrish...classic.

I suppose they really believe, they are "only tracking numbers and length of call/time" and not who those numbers belong too or the content of the conversation??

What good are the phone numbers/length of time/location, with out the content?? Let me answer that They are meaningless. Especially to determine where a terrorist act may occur or how it is being planned.

Big data, hadoop and the resultant data analytics requires as much of the data as can be obtained including the content to get the big picture. Without the content the rest is meaningless.

But go ahead and believe "the most transparent administration ever" what do they have to hide?

How about...
Selling guns to straw purchasers for illegal entry into Mexico to pin blame on __________ (fill in the blank). Ooops our bad....so sorry we killed a US Border Patrol agent.

Go tell the family of that border patrol agent, they're paranoid and have nothing to worry about after their husband/father was cut down due to the illegal and careless activities of of this administration.


EDITED: Oops that was all a honest mistake now too.
http://openchannel.nbcnews.com/_news...cent-americans

[tv_racin_fan]

I can't stand Obama and his socialism anymore than the rest of you, but he isn't doing anything more than what his predecessor did. He has as president the right to do it under the War Powers Act and the Patriot Act, like it or not. He doesn't care who you called or how many times you called them unless your calls are to a number linked to Al Qaeda or to another known terrorist organization. You can still call the phone sex line as often as you want. I have infinite patience with children, but no patience what-so-ever for adults who act like children and that is exactly what some of you are doing. Grow up.

Grow up?

Ok so please tell me how this data gathering prevented the Sept 11th attack? Tell me how this data gathering prevented the Boston bombing?

YOU seem to think that the data gathering is fine and dandy because it prevents these sorts of attacks and yet these attacks happened even with the date gathering that has been going on for decades.

I would prefer to keep my liberty at the risk of an attack that govt can not prevent by taking liberty away.

Gun free zones prevent gun violence in those areas?

Liberty or death?? I choose liberty for 1000!

[chrish]

kpm9,

I agree that they aren't telling everything here. If anyone believes that they aren't recording everything in addition to tracking all the metadata...well, can't do anything for those folks. People will continue to believe what they want, including me.

But, I disagree that the 'metadata' is meaningless w/o the content. That's in part the whole point of big data. The ability to connect the dots and develop a pattern. From there, you could know which pieces of detail to dig into (assuming you have the detail) or from there you can begin to target detail data (assuming you DO NOT have the detail at that point). Data Warehousing started decades ago, the principles behind it and the techniques to analyze the data started mostly in the private sector (insurance, pharma, etc) but no question that the government jumped on it as soon as they realized the benefit.

If they are telling you they are tracking X, they are really tracking X time 1000 plus some unknown Y.

Hell, we don't even know who killed Kennedy and why Lincoln's secretary was named Kennedy. You think we know what they are tracking today?!

[JohnR]

So if Bush did it, it's ok? Debate Fail.

Libs love privacy when it furthers their agenda (abortion) but not when it furthers anyone else's agenda. Even the communist-protecting ACLU is taking notice of this.

Personally, I don't think any "intelligence" is being gathered, it's just the threat of doing so that gives this program its value. If it shuts up the opposition it's a success.

[Longitude Zero]

Libs love privacy when it furthers their agenda (abortion) but not when it furthers anyone else's agenda. Even the communist-protecting ACLU is taking notice of this.

Agreed. What I believe they are doing is a process called "Traffic Analysis". By knowing what numbers are calling what numbers and what numbers are recieveing calls tells a lot about what the target number is. Basically it is similar to the linkage patterns you see in LinkedIn.

[ltxi]

............Give me liberty or give me death. There...decided.

So, your vote's for the Chicago ash pit.... Ok by me, for you, but it's not gonna be my choice...

ltxi and muggsy,

by your arguments and logic in the last few posts you've both made, you guys should both definitely be backing a national gun registry. .............

C'mon now chrish, that there logic extension is nowhere near right nor fair.

[chrish]

C'mon now chrish, that there logic extension is nowhere near right nor fair.

How not? I'm only saying that based on the 'if you are not doing anything wrong' position, if your argument to cede your 4th amendment rights (some, not all) are valid in the name of security, then it would be valid to cede some (not all) of your 2nd amendment rights by establishing a gun registry so they can keep track of what you are doing and what you own. Seems to be equivalent...to me.

I can think up a zillion examples of how 'I am not doing anything wrong', but having the data we are talking about on folks, could trigger a visit or unwanted and unwarranted interaction with any given government agency.

Let's just make a quick comparison to 200+ years ago. What if X leadership group or Y individual leader and his confidants decided we needed to procure copies of all letters and log entries of all personal visits between all Americans so as to identify patterns of behavior and pinpoint anyone that MIGHT be engaged in illegal activities. What do you think would have happened?

This is all just a silent fart away from minority report...and it ain't funny even a little bit.

[mr surveyor]

How not? I'm only saying that based on the 'if you are not doing anything wrong' position, if your argument to cede your 4th amendment rights (some, not all) are valid in the name of security, then it would be valid to cede some (not all) of your 2nd amendment rights by establishing a gun registry so they can keep track of what you are doing and what you own. Seems to be equivalent...to me.

I can think up a zillion examples of how 'I am not doing anything wrong', but having the data we are talking about on folks, could trigger a visit or unwanted and unwarranted interaction with any given government agency.

Let's just make a quick comparison to 200+ years ago. What if X leadership group or Y individual leader and his confidants decided we needed to procure copies of all letters and log entries of all personal visits between all Americans so as to identify patterns of behavior and pinpoint anyone that MIGHT be engaged in illegal activities. What do you think would have happened?

This is all just a silent fart away from minority report...and it ain't funny even a little bit.

I agree!

[ltxi]

Well ok then. After all, I am one of them.

[deadeye]

Come on guys. As long as we have our little pop guns, what could be wrong. I'm sure when they destroy the other 9 amendments the 2nd will still be there. If anyone is wearing their tinfoil hats don't stand outside in a thunderstorm.

[chrish]

Well ok then. After all, I am one of them.

One of who? Law enforcement? I didn't say everybody was evil. We the people put the government in place. We are all to blame. Its everybody's fault. Just some more than others

[downtownv]

Obama's Turned Us All into Enemies of the State
If you think all this data gathering, monitoring and domestic surveillance has anything at all to do with Islamic-terrorism you are greatly mistaken. If that had been the case, Ft. Hood (Hasan) and Boston would never have happened, they'd have been on top of it.
No, the gathering and surveillance is for you and me. This attack on american is a soft tyranny from multiple fronts: IRS EPA NSA DHS- Depts of Energy, agriculture and interior to name a few. but this is a full attack on our constitutional rights that affects EVERY American of all political, religious race and ethnic background. If not stopped soon, it will be irreversible.
"I want to fundamentally transform The United States" Barack Hussain Obama 2007
and he is true to his promise....