NSA Surveillance is Unethical and Unconstitutional

Anyways, I have heard from multiple sources that despite not being legally allowed to surveill US citizens, the nsa spies on everyone with a computer essentially as they have had packet analyzers installed on the servers of ISPs. Internet service providers are legally forced to comply. Not necessarily to read anything manually but with a computer program of some kind. Essentially, they are not even performing surveillance to catch people breaking any laws, as the nsa is not even authorized to surveill those within the USA. The program is unconstitutional, but it continues to this day.

In addition, I personally feel that this is a serious invasion of privacy, and I feel that people should be much more outraged about it than they are. Sure, 99 percent of the time it's a computer program looking at it. Though, even law abiding citizens could theoretically find themselves being examined and watched in secret. Simply because they say something that is a bit "different than the norm", according to the judgment of people behind closed doors.

My guess would be that some people who fall outside of the norm in some way get looked at by our newfound "secret police" with increased scrutiny, even if they did nothing wrong and simply triggered some NSA keyword checker online. And they may not even know it. Hell, I would not be the least bit surprised if the server may have seen this post as "something to read over", just because I said the words NSA and surveillance a few times in it and wasn't happy with the idea of unconstitutional surveillance on law abiding citizens. I don't care as I'm simply exercising my first amendment right to be outraged at the mass surveillance program. I feel that this program goes against what the founding fathers envisioned, and I think people just "forgot about this" far too easily.

The founding fathers did not address this type of issue, as they did not anticipate computers or the Internet.

People do tend to forget about government surveillance that they cannot directly observe. If the price of liberty is eternal vigilance, it's not unreasonable to suggest that our country may be sleeping on the job.

NSA, Attack on school, anthrax.


That ought to be enough to whip them into a frenzy. I'll let you know if I hear from anyone.

While I agree that the Federal Government has over reached. I don't think it is as bad as you think.

Back in the days of USENET when there was actually enough computing power out there to read every single word posted in the internet there were many of us that put stuff like I wrote at the top of this post just to mess with rumored NSA programs. And at the time I worked for a company that had it been read I would have expected an FBI agent to show up.

What would not surprise me at all is if every single piece of data that leaves the US was inspected in some way or another. And that, in my opinion would be legal because it is crossing our national border.

If a person is doing nothing wrong. They have nothing to fear.

I will gladly give up my privacy to keep my adult children, grandchildren and others safe. It is the time we live in.

I'm curious who these "multiple sources" are and how creditable they are.

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Quoting Mercy&Grace

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If a person is doing nothing wrong. They have nothing to fear.

I will gladly give up my privacy to keep my adult children, grandchildren and others safe. It is the time we live in.

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"They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - Benjamin Franklin

Neither I nor Mr. Franklin agree with that.

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Quoting Mercy&Grace

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If a person is doing nothing wrong. They have nothing to fear.

I will gladly give up my privacy to keep my adult children, grandchildren and others safe. It is the time we live in.

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Interesting given that your privacy, as far as the Man is concerned, is to be protected under the 4th Amendment. And then there's that great B. Franklin quote to go with that.

All that said, online, people give up their privacy. Not to the gov't per se, but to private entities. They give them plenty so that these entities may profit. As to your quote, Mercy, I disagree entirely, I shouldn't be subject to scrutiny unless there is good reason. Surveillance shouldn't be the norm.

I don't know if anyone here has seen Brazil (it's a Terry Gilliam movie, not the country) but I love the posters in the Ministry of Information, where your responsible for the cost of your own torture, that say "Suspicion Breeds Confidence!" Then, of course, there are the McCarthy era poster that encourage ratting on your neighbor if you see anything even remotely 'un-American'.

WE will be the first nation for sacrifice, entirely, their privacy for 'security'...but security from whom, exactly? Is that why we need so many guns? Hell, we's spent trillion of dollars, lives and 15 years fighting "wars" against people that threaten us how exactly? People whose 'military might' consists of pick up trucks and with a .50 cal on it? Please our threat is strictly internal.

OP's p/h is amusing!

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Quoting PayrolGuy

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What would not surprise me at all is if every single piece of data that leaves the US was inspected in some way or another. And that, in my opinion would be legal because it is crossing our national border.

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U.S. citizens have the right to privacy with respect to all their communications, not just entirely domestic communications. And the fact of the matter is that more crime and terror attacks have been carried out entirely domestically than have been coordinated with persons outside the U.S., so the argument that international communications are more suspect is not convincing to me.

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Quoting Mercy&Grace

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If a person is doing nothing wrong. They have nothing to fear.

I will gladly give up my privacy to keep my adult children, grandchildren and others safe. It is the time we live in.

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The argument that if a person is doing nothing wrong they have nothing to fear is the line used by nations like Russia and China, states that have no regard for privacy, as justification for what they do. So if you truly believe that, you might well be comfortable living in those countries with their vast surveillance networks. China in particular is constructing a network of cameras, listening devices, and other technology that is fast gaining the ability to constantly track many of their citizens: where they go, what they do, whom they meet, and whom they communicate with. If you read George Orwell’s 1984, the Chinese technology is beginning to look frighteningly like that portrayed there. And the U.S. could do that even easier with the more advanced tech and much larger federal budget but for one thing: our law does not allow it. And we should be very wary of opening the door to allowing the government to head down that path with argument that will make us safer.

I do not commit any crimes, but there are a lot of communications I have that I would not want others, including the government to see, including but not limited to communications with clients. I will not sacrifice my privacy to gain a little more security for two reasons. First, my risk of being injured or killed in some kind of terror attack, mass shooting event, etc is very, very low. I'm not gaining a great deal of extra security for the breach of my privacy, nor are most other Americans at much risk for such attacks either. And second, the government has a lot of tools to get at suspect activity legally without the need to sweep up and analyze every communication that we make. The requirement for a warrant is in the Constitution for a very good reason: the founders of the country were well aware of the tendency of governments to trample over their citizens in pursuit of the government's goals. And the ability of government to invade privacy is vastly greater today than it was nearly a quarter of a millennia ago when our country was founded.

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Quoting Mercy&Grace

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If a person is doing nothing wrong. They have nothing to fear.

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Tell that to the parents who have had their children removed because they - having done nothing wrong - had "nothing to fear" by letting CPS through the doors.

Tell that to the wrongly convicted who, because they were "doing nothing wrong", had "nothing to fear" by allowing law enforcement into their homes without a warrant. I mean that's if they're still alive. Some were executed before they were exonerated.

What I do within these four walls is my business and ONLY my business. (and sometimes cbg's business)

If someone else wants access to my browsing history, or my reading material, they can go through the courts and obtain a warrant first. I just find the entire mindset of "if you've done nothing wrong, you have nothing to fear" disturbing on many levels.

I did not mean the government should not go through proper legal channels to obtain private information. I also did not mean things like attorney client privilege should not be protected.

Benjamin Franklin did not live in 2001 or 2018. You have no way of knowing what he would say if he were living now.

The government is going out of their way not to step on the rights of mass shooters. Before they go on a rampage. This is costing innocent children and adults their lives. It is easy for some to say I want my privacy. No matter how many innocent citizens have to pay the price for it.

Yes -- the government routinely spies on all citizens without a court order. It's a surveillance state. The right to privacy, is, however, covered under the 4th and 14th amendment which protect us from excessive or unreasonable intrusions upon our private matters.

If they abuse their ability to surveil (if it reaches and unreasonable level) you have cause for a claim for tort invasion of privacy, and violation of your fourth and fourteenth amendment rights.

Keep in mind it's not the NSA that may be spying on you. It could also be the FBI. The US government is the US government, and when you file a claim for relief under the federal tort claims act, it is always the United State as the defendant, regardless of whichever agency violated your rights.

The NSA, the CIA, the FBI, and local law enforcement, including the community oriented police snitching system, form a single surveillance apparatus, and all together, these bodies form a unified surveillance apparatus that grants the government full information about everything that happens in society. Virtually no criminal goes undetected, and if a criminal gets away with a crime it's because the government lets them.

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Quoting Mercy&Grace

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If a person is doing nothing wrong. They have nothing to fear.

I will gladly give up my privacy to keep my adult children, grandchildren and others safe. It is the time we live in.

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This is erroneous. The police engage in misconduct all the time. What the government does is practice mass extortion. They take that information, then hand it to womens' bosses (usually corrupt people the government has in their back pocket) and let the boss blackmail them for blowjobs with it.

The police falsify evidence to neutralize crime victims, and stretch information further than it can go and use it to claim reasonable suspicion to engage in entrapment based on ulterior motives. The idea that nothing to hide keeps you safe is a myth. Nothing to hide does not protect one from willful misconduct. The government is fundamentally corrupt.

I have heard of women getting blackmail raped because someone, acting on web surveillance intel, told them watching the Justin Bieber video (which has billions of views) a whole bunch of times made them a suspected pedophile.

Unfortunately, what William Wallace was fighting in the movie Braveheart (sharing one's wife with an English lord) is common place in american society, and the police, acting from a primitive mindset, think women putting out is part of the job description and retaliate against women who refuse to do so.