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What, someone has to take responsibility someday?

No, but he will "get to the bottom of it."

:confused::confused:

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"I will let the DOJ investigate the DOJ scandal claim, it's only fair."
 
Reading this thread is making me wonder.

Is it possible that we could see a slow realignment of political parties within the next twenty years? Support and objection to this surveillance doesn't seem to have much to do with political parties. Interesting...
 
As for your first statement – they are already locking people up in Guantanamo without any due process. Some of the prisoners there are likely innocent – maybe they expressed thoughts that made the government "suspicious" about them, but haven't committed any real crimes. Yet they will have no chance at accessing normal legal means of resistance. Because terrorism.

Prisoners at Guantanamo Bay are protected by the US Constitution at this point. And just like a normal prison, suspects can be held before actually proven guilty. I wouldn't want people with connections to terrorism organizations running loose if they pose a real threat.

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Reading this thread is making me wonder.

Is it possible that we could see a slow realignment of political parties within the next twenty years? Support and objection to this surveillance doesn't seem to have much to do with political parties. Interesting...

Both parties seem to support it. If they don't, it's temporary politics and meant to put the other party down.
 
Prisoners at Guantanamo Bay are protected by the US Constitution at this point. And just like a normal prison, suspects can be held before actually proven guilty.

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Indefinitely? No. A normal prison can hold suspects before trial. That isn't the case at Guantanamo.

For example, 48 of the prisoners have been deemed too dangerous to allow out, yet there's no case against them (this is an actual admission by the military – they don't have a case against these people that would stand up, yet they will not release them).
 
Either you're an Obamabot, or they figure out how they brain works to make you an Obamabot.

Please, could we have an open and respectful discussion without resorting to unnecessary rhetoric? It serves no purpose other than to inflame others.
 
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Please, could we have an open and respectful discussion without resorting to unnecessary rhetoric? It serves no purpose other than to inflame others.

Certainly.

But agreeing with the president all the time and having no reason or evidence to stand on defense specifically not just President of the US but Obama because it's Obama (and if it were Bush with same actions, there would be outrage) is, by its very nature, robotic. And it's part of the reason the situation has gotten as deep as it has, because of tolerance for silly outrageously negative and counterintuitive for citizens type policies.

But point taken, apologies.
 
How does this affect those of us outside the US?

You've heard of ECHELON?

In the U.K, USA, Canada, Australia and NZ there are similar laws about governments spying on their own citizens.

The way that the spy agencies get around this is that these friendly counties spy on each others citizens and hand the info back to their home country.
 
Can even the most (blind) and denying loyal Obama followers admit: Obama dun goofed.

Between this and Verizon, AP tapping, Benghazi coverups (don't bother overexaggerating it, it was a 9/11 off shore, even on 9/11, but anyways...) that has whistleblowers jobs threatened from coming forward, awesome sauce, NDAA to allow indefinite detention of prisoners WITHOUT due process signed on New Year's Eve when Obama promised to veto it, the politically discrimating IRS, whose head visited WH 157 times (of course Obama knew about it, you thought he learned about it when mainstream media reported it? He is president, come on, he was/is in on it), electing Rice as a national security adviser, THIS IS INSANE.

something needs to be done immediately. I don't think the American people can be afford to be passive anymore.

He is not a democrat. he is something straight out of 1984.

While not being a big supporter of Obama myself, you need to step back and look at when THIS program started. Hint: Before Obama took office.

Anyone who is naive enough to think this is all the fault of one political party is delusional. This is the government....both Retardicans and Dumbocrats that are complicit in this crap.
 
Can even the most (blind) and denying loyal Obama followers admit: Obama dun goofed.

Between this and Verizon, AP tapping, Benghazi coverups (don't bother overexaggerating it, it was a 9/11 off shore, even on 9/11, but anyways...) that has whistleblowers jobs threatened from coming forward, awesome sauce, NDAA to allow indefinite detention of prisoners WITHOUT due process signed on New Year's Eve when Obama promised to veto it, the politically discrimating IRS, whose head visited WH 157 times (of course Obama knew about it, you thought he learned about it when mainstream media reported it? He is president, come on, he was/is in on it), electing Rice as a national security adviser, THIS IS INSANE.

something needs to be done immediately. I don't think the American people can be afford to be passive anymore.

He is not a democrat. he is something straight out of 1984.

btw this Obamacare (which I assure you is no AppleCare even on its worst day) is going to be run by the IRS.

Our national health coverage. Run. by. IRS. The neutral and loving. I.R.S.

yeaaaah..... Good luck getting sick.

Its always good to find someone on the Internet who isn't a complete idiot. Totally agree with everything you said.
 
The "update" on FISA is totally ********.

The Patriot Act and NDAA, both renewed and passed, respectively, grant rights far in excess of a traditional FISA request. So while the factual accuracy of the FISA statement was somewhat correct, it doesn't mean they can't access all your data regardless.

Independent of party, THIS IS NOT GOOD.

I don't care if you're republican, democrat, or party XYZ. Excessive oversight with no checks and balances is a terrible idea. Who monitors the NSA for abuse of power? Originally you had to convince a judge to get a warrant to monitor (1) person. Now you can monitor everyone without cause.

To quote Lord Acton: "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely." I'd like to believe everyone is an angel, but regardless of political leanings it just isn't so.

Republicans are responsible for starting this mess; Democrats are responsible for continuing it.
 
The program began under Bush. Good luck with learning how to think critically.

I think you forgot the rest of the sentence.

"The program began under Bush, and continued unabated under Mr Obama."

I'm glad I don't have to confine myself to an ideological box named either Liberal/Democrat or Conservative/Republican. How superficial and just plain silly can people get.
 
Big brother has all your files on your hard drive copied. Hook your computer up to the internet, your drive gets copied.

Through the firewall. While my Mac is asleep. With no IP address.

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Please, could we have an open and respectful discussion without resorting to unnecessary rhetoric? It serves no purpose other than to inflame others.

Thank you. I'm not even really partisan anyway, but I like the Republican party more than the Democrat party. And then people have to call me an Obamabot because I agree with something he does.
 
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404 error. Don't assume that I'm an Obama supporter. I don't like his party or some of the things he is doing, and I'm open to a Republican president in general, but I just didn't like Romney.

You didn't like Romney? Why? Too rich? Too Mormon? Too financially smart? Too good looking? Too big a family? Too 47% ? What?
 
Through the firewall? :rolleyes:
Besides, Big Brother can't afford to do that.

While I'm certainly not in favor of tin-foiling, I think its naive to assume that your firewall wholly protects you if someone wants contents of your HDD.

Keep in mind what your firewall does -- block ports, IP addys, and maybe some MAC addresses. It doesn't stop all data leaving your computer through port 80 and 443, unless you're not using the Internet at all. All it takes is some basic social engineering (or more complicated programs) to compromise your system, let alone 0day exploits. Speaking of which, we know governments have many if the Stuxnet worm was any indication.

Now, that's not say that the government would do that for everyone, but they can still easily access any online information stored on third party servers, as discussed in this article.
 
You didn't like Romney? Why? Too rich? Too Mormon? Too financially smart? Too good looking? Too big a family? Too 47% ? What?

He didn't know what he was doing, especially when it came to foreign policy, and he seemed like too much of a puppet without any real agenda. I did, however, think he was more financially smart than Obama, and I was NOT impressed with the reasoning people gave for not liking him. "He's old and white." Racist.
 
Through the firewall? :rolleyes:
How come Big Brother didn't wake my Mac up for network access?

Have you ever been asked to update your Adobe Reader when you've already updated it 3 days ago? Have you ever been asked to update your flash player when you know for sure it's already up to date? Have you ever downloaded an application and have been asked to provide your admin password? Have you ever had any Apple software updates? I got news for you brother, everything on your computer has been uploaded to a government server.
 
While I'm certainly not in favor of tin-foiling, I think its naive to assume that your firewall wholly protects you if someone wants contents of your HDD.

Keep in mind what your firewall does -- block ports, IP addys, and maybe some MAC addresses. It doesn't stop all data leaving your computer through port 80 and 443, unless you're not using the Internet at all. All it takes is some basic social engineering (or more complicated programs) to compromise your system, let alone 0day exploits. Speaking of which, we know governments have many if the Stuxnet worm was any indication.

Now, that's not say that the government would do that for everyone, but they can still easily access any online information stored on third party servers, as discussed in this article.

They'd have to wake my computer up to take any data from it, and I'd see the connection in the log. Also, port 80 is forwarded to a different computer. How could port 80 possibly go to mine??? What could happen is I install a Trojan Horse that SENDS my data. It is physically impossible for my computer to take a port 80 connection with my router forwarding 80 to a different computer.

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Have you ever been asked to update your Adobe Reader when you've already updated it 3 days ago? Have you ever been asked to update your flash player when you know for sure it's already up to date? Have you ever downloaded an application and have been asked to provide your admin password? Have you ever had any Apple software updates? I got news for you brother, everything on your computer has been uploaded to a government server.

I've installed Apple updates, not Adobe. But what if I make my own program that asks for my password? I've done that. I don't see how that would send my data to the feds. And even if it did, I would see network traffic, CPU usage, RAM usage, and processes, and the feds would have to spend bandwidth and hard drives on my massive amount of data. Terabytes of archives, home videos, backups, and junk I've never bothered clearing out.

Also, my friend has a ton of data and a dialup connection. How is the government going to download all that stuff? It's 100kbps.
 
You didn't like Romney? Why? Too rich? Too Mormon? Too financially smart? Too good looking? Too big a family? Too 47% ? What?

The problem with the republican party (and the tea party for that matter) is their obsession with excessive defense spending and outdated religious ideals.

Come to terms with those two topics and you have a very viable party. People understand the democratic party is spending too much but they are scared of electing a hard core religious person to such a powerful position.

Romney tried to downplay it a lot but in the end he's still Mormon.
 
They'd have to wake my computer up to take any data from it, and I'd see the connection in the log.

You're also missing the point -- if your system is comprised through a third party gaining root access, you're SOL. Logs are just that -- logs. They can be edited. Also, ever hear of wake for network access...

Point is, though not broadly applicable to the whole populace as the foilers would believe, its certainly possible to do it on a person to person basis, thus the loss of confidential data from what would be considered "secure" computers.

How do you think secrets get stolen? A magical fairy with a wand?

Also, I'd like to add that any data going in or out eventually has to reach your base computer... otherwise you won't have a connection. Let's say you install a Trojan that passes your data on port 80 to your other computer, before it connects to your router. What's to say that data won't be forwarded to your router? Are you sniffing all your packets?
 
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