g5000
Diamond Member
- Nov 26, 2011
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Prior to 9/11, law enforcement had a long wish list of police powers they wanted which were not available to them at the time. They wanted these powers for domestic law enforcement.
When America lost its collective mind in the wake of 9/11, the PATRIOT Act gave law enforcement many of those powers they had longed for, all under the guise of the "War on Terror". Some voices tried to warn these powers would not be restricted to fighting terrorits for long. These powers would one day be used against us.
When evidence of the government spying on us began flooding into the mainstream consciousness in 2006, most people were still in full throated fear of terrorism. Upon learning of this massive domestic spying effort, they cheered the Administration for these things and, as justification for their support of these police powers and the trampling of the Constitution, they pointed out no attacks had occurred on American soil since 9/11.
Some of these maniacs did not discover the Constitution and liberty until the police baton was passed to a Democrat in 2009. Reports of domestic spying are now treated as a revelation by such people.
I have often half-joked that somewhere in a storage room in the US Capitol is a shrink-wrapped copy of PATRIOT Act II. It is sitting there collecting dust, waiting for another 9/11 style attack.
PATRIOT Act II will give meter maids the power to shoot double parkers.
So now I am reading about the NSA tracking cellphone locations:
This program is called, so fittingly it is chilling, "CO-TRAVELER".
Wherever you go, the NSA is travelling with you.
So here's the thing I am getting to. The NSA says the tracking of innocent Americans is "incidental". They can't filter out good guys from suspects in all that data. They need all that data so they can see what other people the bad guys' travelling intersect with.
That's their official line.
But under questioning, the NSA admitted something which should spook every one of us:
No operational value? Sure. For now. But why would they do such a pilot program unless they had a wish list item which wanted to be able to track American criminal suspects?
And here it is:
PATRIOT Act II. It's out there. Waiting.
Maybe under a different name, but it's out there.
When America lost its collective mind in the wake of 9/11, the PATRIOT Act gave law enforcement many of those powers they had longed for, all under the guise of the "War on Terror". Some voices tried to warn these powers would not be restricted to fighting terrorits for long. These powers would one day be used against us.
When evidence of the government spying on us began flooding into the mainstream consciousness in 2006, most people were still in full throated fear of terrorism. Upon learning of this massive domestic spying effort, they cheered the Administration for these things and, as justification for their support of these police powers and the trampling of the Constitution, they pointed out no attacks had occurred on American soil since 9/11.
Some of these maniacs did not discover the Constitution and liberty until the police baton was passed to a Democrat in 2009. Reports of domestic spying are now treated as a revelation by such people.
I have often half-joked that somewhere in a storage room in the US Capitol is a shrink-wrapped copy of PATRIOT Act II. It is sitting there collecting dust, waiting for another 9/11 style attack.
PATRIOT Act II will give meter maids the power to shoot double parkers.
So now I am reading about the NSA tracking cellphone locations:
The National Security Agency is gathering nearly 5 billion records a day on the whereabouts of cellphones around the world, according to top-secret documents and interviews with U.S. intelligence officials, enabling the agency to track the movements of individuals and map their relationships in ways that would have been previously unimaginable.
The NSA does not target Americans location data by design, but the agency acquires a substantial amount of information on the whereabouts of domestic cellphones incidentally, a legal term that connotes a foreseeable but not deliberate result.
The government is tracking people from afar into confidential business meetings or personal visits to medical facilities, hotel rooms, private homes and other traditionally protected spaces.
This program is called, so fittingly it is chilling, "CO-TRAVELER".
Wherever you go, the NSA is travelling with you.
So here's the thing I am getting to. The NSA says the tracking of innocent Americans is "incidental". They can't filter out good guys from suspects in all that data. They need all that data so they can see what other people the bad guys' travelling intersect with.
That's their official line.
But under questioning, the NSA admitted something which should spook every one of us:
NSA Director Keith Alexander disclosed in Senate testimony in October that the NSA had run a pilot project in 2010 and 2011 to collect samples of U.S. cellphone location data. The data collected were never available for intelligence analysis purposes, and the project was discontinued because it had no operational value, he said.
No operational value? Sure. For now. But why would they do such a pilot program unless they had a wish list item which wanted to be able to track American criminal suspects?
And here it is:
Alexander allowed that a broader collection of such data may be something that is a future requirement for the country, but it is not right now.
PATRIOT Act II. It's out there. Waiting.
Maybe under a different name, but it's out there.