Government Spying on Millions (Verizon)

[BobD]

I assumed we were taking about why you'd prohibit the government from accumulating this data in one place, and keeping it, and Bobd pointed out that private companies already do it anyway, so why should I care (I think):

So to me the underlying presumption in this discussion...at least from my chair, is the government would be prohibited from accumulating it, or ordering private companies to accumulate it for them.

In practical terms, to answer your question...nothing is stopping them...they do it now. But it is my desire to stop them from accumulating it, or ordering others to accumulate it for them.

Couple other points to make...

companies use the data to profile you for business purposes (not saying that's cool either), but normally dispose of the raw data because it costs money to keep it. Whats left is determinations they've made about you based on your digital footprint...but it changes and is fleeting...it is not an archive. The only reason some keep data more than 30 days right now is that the government dogged them into doing it.

Private companies are building a profile on you and they aren't deleting it. Hell if this government program surprised you, it would really shock people just how much credit and people search companies know about you, and not just financial stuff either. They are using everything possible to build a profile on you. Everything from Facebook to family tree sites. There are probably at least 3 or 4 companies that know with in about 50 feet, where you're sitting or standing this very minute and where you've been the last 6 months or more.

So this is why it cracks me up that people are all up in arms about the government program. It's actually small potatoes compared to what private companies are doing and the funny part is somewhere these companies have a little checked box by you that gave them permission to do it....Oh and it also gave them permission to share it with the government. Read one.

People need to wake the Fk up.

 

[Bogtrotter07]

If you don't read the whole thing, just read number 27.

I read the whole thing (he was talking about spying on enemies. Not even using that as cover for all kinds of nefarious purposes.

In other words, the justification for spying was to save his people the hardships of war, not to enslave them.

 

[Bogtrotter07]

Quote:
Originally Posted by BobD View Post
The thing is, with our population being so diverse and free, it's too easy for a terrorist to hide amongst us. I would love it if we lived in a world where we didn't have to monitor anything, but not doing so these days would be negligent IMHO.

This truly smacks of fascism.

Tell me Bobd, what is a terrorist? And more importantly, what is the specific definition the federal government uses to define a terrorist? And most importantly, then why was this being done years before 9/11, and why don't they delete this stuff after a period of time (25 years? 10 years?)?

You know this, the post about spies, and a TV show my kids are watching, that I recorded when they were gone, all have reminded me of something. It is about how hard it is to hide. And who is hiding. I will get back shortly.

 

[Bogtrotter07]

I don't understand your consistent and apparent malcontent. For being as smart as I think you are, you are truly misguided. What the hell do you think a terrorist is? Would you really rather sit here and nitpick a definition? Do you think 9/11 was the birth of terrorism? You don't understand that in order to find a needle in a haystack, you need the entire haystack?

Real quick Bob, don't use IMHO, (In my humble opinion) and talk to a person like this. I think Buster is particularly well grounded. Someone I would be proud to call "Son" or "Brother". Just because he doesn't agree with your thin and increasingly more fragile perspective on this situation, you don't have to take such an aggressive front.

I know I was late to this part of the conversation; but, I warrant this needs attention.

 

[kmoose]

. I think Buster is particularly well grounded.

Really? I would normally agree with you, but in this particular thread I was beginning to wonder if a tin foil hat might be an appropriate birthday present for him.

The real issue here is the assumption that government will abuse the system by using the information for other than what it was intended for. That's a legitimate debate to have. The problem is that no one is debating what controls we need to have, to prevent that from happening. Instead, it is easier for people to argue against having the database in the first place. That's the logical equivalent to outlawing guns because the government might use them against us.

 

[BobD]

Real quick Bob, don't use IMHO, (In my humble opinion) and talk to a person like this. I think Buster is particularly well grounded. Someone I would be proud to call "Son" or "Brother". Just because he doesn't agree with your thin and increasingly more fragile perspective on this situation, you don't have to take such an aggressive front.

I know I was late to this part of the conversation; but, I warrant this needs attention.

I like Buster.

My perspective isn't thin or fragile, I'm right

 

[phgreek]

Private companies are building a profile on you and they aren't deleting it. Hell if this government program surprised you, it would really shock people just how much credit and people search companies know about you, and not just financial stuff either. They are using everything possible to build a profile on you. Everything from Facebook to family tree sites. There are probably at least 3 or 4 companies that know with in about 50 feet, where you're sitting or standing this very minute and where you've been the last 6 months or more.

So this is why it cracks me up that people are all up in arms about the government program. It's actually small potatoes compared to what private companies are doing and the funny part is somewhere these companies have a little checked box by you that gave them permission to do it....Oh and it also gave them permission to share it with the government. Read one.

People need to wake the Fk up.

I'm awake Bobd...and I know more about this than you think.

do this...break it down into a risk matrix BodD...the type, volume, and indeterminant period of retention of data in combination with the government's ability to do harm with it AND the certainty with which the data will be abused in some way in the future places this in the "ALL RED" must mitigate immediately category.

Because the lack of ability for companies to "impose" anything on anyone, a MAJOR category of risk is gone for commercial companies. You know this.

Risk as relates to terror attacks compared to risk to Liberty ...yea I know that discussion is still there...I've made it clear where I am...we can disagree.

But if you want to compare risks based on who has "data" about you...not even close.

EDIT: as well I'm not ceding the point that the scope of data and its disposition is the same...HUGE difference between utilizing data for profiles and models vs. archiving it in its native form.

 

[BobD]

Here it goes, true colors coming through. He's requesting asylum in Russia.

Edit: Russia is denying this, so we'll have to wait and see.

 

[phgreek]

Here it goes, true colors coming through. He's requesting asylum in Russia.

Edit: Russia is denying this, so we'll have to wait and see.

...so I'm going to sound like Ralph Cramden for a minute...

but I wander what we (our government) know that he knows.

my total conjecture read on this...

either Russia got all the data from him, or he doesn't have anything important to give them...just thinking if he still had goodies to provide, they'd keep him. We are either in a world of hurt, or we never were at real risk from Snowden other than looking stupid?

 

[BobD]

We are just gonna have to let things play out for everyone to see that things will be fine.

Anyone know someone that's been affected by this program? Heard a rumor about someone that has?

 

[Bogtrotter07]

Monday, Jul 1, 2013 12:02 PM EDT
James Clapper is still lying to America
A smoking gun shows Director of National Intelligence James Clapper is a big liar -- and it's not the first time

By David Sirota


“James Clapper Is Still Lying”: That would be a more honest headline for yesterday’s big Washington Post article about the director of national intelligence’s letter to the U.S. Senate.

Clapper, you may recall, unequivocally said “no, sir” in response to Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., asking him: “Does the NSA collect any type of data at all on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans?” Clapper’s response was shown to be a lie by Snowden’s disclosures, as well as by reports from the Guardian, the Washington Post, the Associated Press and Bloomberg News (among others). This is particularly significant, considering lying before Congress prevents the legislative branch from performing oversight and is therefore a felony.

Upon Snowden’s disclosures, Clapper initially explained his lie by insisting that his answer was carefully and deliberately calculated to be the “least most untruthful” response to a question about classified information. Left unmentioned was the fact that he could have simply given the same truthful answer that Alberto Gonzales gave the committee in 2006.

Now, though, Clapper is wholly changing his story, insisting that his answer wasn’t a deliberate, carefully calibrated “least most untruthful” response; it was instead just a spur-of-the-moment accident based on an innocent misunderstanding. Indeed, as the Post reports, “Clapper sent a letter to the Senate Intelligence Committee on June 21 saying that he had misunderstood the question he had been asked” and adding that “he thought Wyden was referring to NSA surveillance of e-mail traffic involving overseas targets, not the separate program in which the agency is authorized to collect records of Americans’ phone calls.” In his letter, Clapper says, “My response was clearly erroneous — for which I apologize,” and added that “mistakes will happen, and when I make one, I correct it.”

So Clapper first says it was a calculated move, and now he’s saying it was just an innocuous misunderstanding and an inadvertent error. With that, the public — and the Obama administration prosecutors who aggressively pursue perjurers — are all supposed to now breathe a sigh of relief and chalk it all up to a forgivable screw-up. It’s all just an innocent mistake, right?

Wrong, because in this crime, as Clapper’s changing story suggests, there remains a smoking gun.

Notice this statement from Sen. Wyden about Snowden’s disclosures — a statement, mind you, that the Post didn’t reference in its story yesterday (emphasis added):


“One of the most important responsibilities a Senator has is oversight of the intelligence community. This job cannot be done responsibly if Senators aren’t getting straight answers to direct questions. When NSA Director Alexander failed to clarify previous public statements about domestic surveillance, it was necessary to put the question to the Director of National Intelligence. So that he would be prepared to answer, I sent the question to Director Clapper’s office a day in advance. After the hearing was over my staff and I gave his office a chance to amend his answer.

So Clapper had a full day’s notice of the specific — and impossible to misunderstand — question Wyden asked, and is nonetheless now claiming that in the heat of the moment he spontaneously misunderstood the question. In other words, he’s not coming clean, as the Post story seems to imply. On the contrary, he’s lying about his deliberate lie, which should only make a perjury prosecution that much easier, for it shows intent.

The importance of such a perjury prosecution, of course, should not be lost on our constitutional law professor-turned-president.

Out of all people, he has to understand that equal protection under the law means treating Clapper (and Alexander, who also lied to Congress) exactly the same way his administration treated pitcher Roger Clemens. Otherwise, the message from the government would be that lying to Congress about baseball is more of a felony than lying to Congress about Americans’ Fourth Amendment rights. Such a message would declare that when it comes to brazen law-breaking, as long as you are personally connected to the president, you get protection rather than the prosecution you deserve.

David Sirota
David Sirota is a nationally syndicated newspaper columnist, magazine journalist and the best-selling author of the books "Hostile Takeover," "The Uprising" and "Back to Our Future." E-mail him at ds@davidsirota.com, follow him on Twitter @davidsirota or visit his website at David Sirota Official Website. More David Sirota.

 

[Bogtrotter07]

This is the point. In this thread and other threads lately, Hernandez, Trayvon Martin, etc., people have used the term sociopath. As if it was a type of person. As if it could be used interchangeably with serial-killer. There are serial killers, (easy definition, unimportant to this discussion). There are sociopaths. These groups are not interchangeable; while a serial killer is sociopathic, most people that are sociopathic to the degree that they function out of little else (that their absolute self-concern and antipathy toward anyone and anything else), would never perform a violent act. Most "sociopaths" are not murderously violent, or even violent at all. Serial killers, killers et all, comprise less than 0.003 percent of those suffering full blown sociopathic personality disorder. Additionally, statistics from the other side, 1% of the American population is sociopathic; 33% of the prison population is so identified. 4% of CEO's of American companies are also so identified.

The true point of talking about sociopathy is measuring the range of behavioral responses. Many of our daily activities range on that scale; in other words, some days we have a little sociopathy in our behavior, some days we have much more. Some days we change that grandchild's diaper even though our eyes are watering and our gorge is rising. Other days we look our boss right in the eye and lie about that problem with the report we were charged with.

And socially, different levels of sociopathy are allowed, at different times and for different reasons. My true fear is that it has become all about lying. A football example is that everybody lies about 40 yard dash times. After a long enough time these results become excepted, and everyone assumes that athletes are just becoming faster. Then all of sudden, something happens and we are all pulled back to reality. How does this happen? We all agree to lie, and then except that as the truth. This works until the lie is exposed. Today, we are used to the lie that these bumbling mufolkers can keep us safe. They have already talked us down to our underwear, we have nothing to show for it, and they want everything else. They work for us. They don't need to keep secrets from us. They don't need to spy on their neighbors. They are just stupid motherfukers living off the public teat, making themselves rich and producing nothing of use.

 

[Grahambo]

Some of you are not as smart as you think you are.

 

[BobD]

Some of you are not as smart as you think you are.

I'm not very smart, but I got good looks. I look like Russel Crowe except for the beer gut and the face.

 

[Buster Bluth]

Really? I would normally agree with you, but in this particular thread I was beginning to wonder if a tin foil hat might be an appropriate birthday present for him.

One part imagination and ten parts studying history. It's not that hard.

True or false, does the US government now have the ability to detain someone indefinitely without trail? Did the US government imprison hundreds of thousands of Japanese-Americans for years, without ever charging them with a crime? Did the US government once, for for forty years, tell 600 poor black southerners they were being treated for syphilis when in fact they weren't and being left to rot for study? You don't need a a tin foil hat to remember the atrocities the government has done in just my parents' lifetimes. Can you name someone who has gone to jail for those things? The government isn't culpable, as demonstrated by the myriad bureaucratic inefficiencies and the scandals that just have one junior-level schmuck fall on his sword for a to-be-named promotion next media cycle.

But, but...the terrorists! They'll get us! They...hate our freedom! How many more times will we fall for this? Remember the Gulf of Tonkin incident--a fabrication of an international incident that lead to 58,000+ dead Americans? What about ol' Cheney, Rumsfeld, Powell, and Bush telling us about Saddam's WMDs? Another ~5,000 dead Americans (and 1.5mil Iraqis...nice work Bush) and trillions wasted. NEWSFLASH FOR EVERYONE: governments have a history of exaggerating threats in order to stay in power (or offer bids to the military-industrial complex...).

The real issue here is the assumption that government will abuse the system by using the information for other than what it was intended for. That's a legitimate debate to have.

I've been saying this almost verbatim. No?

The problem is that no one is debating what controls we need to have, to prevent that from happening. Instead, it is easier for people to argue against having the database in the first place. That's the logical equivalent to outlawing guns because the government might use them against us.

I find this to be rather weak. We aren't outlawing emails because the government could use them against us, we're pissed that the government feels it can do whatever it wants in regards to electronic communications, etc. It's that simple. We've been at war with "terrorism" for over a decade, with no real end in sight, just more big brother copying all of your emails and occasionally fondling your ballsack at the airport. When does it end? Because James Madison's famous quote, "no nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare" is looking rather relevant.

The "controls we need to have" are that the contents of my emails, texts, phone calls, skype sessions, etc are off limits for the federal government.

 

[Grahambo]

SMDH

 

[Bogtrotter07]

I'm not very smart, but I got good looks. I look like Russel Crowe except for the beer gut and the face.

I was thinking more like Billy Ray Cyrus.

 

[Bogtrotter07]

One part imagination and ten parts studying history. It's not that hard.

True or false, does the US government now have the ability to detain someone indefinitely without trail? Did the US government imprison hundreds of thousands of Japanese-Americans for years, without ever charging them with a crime? Did the US government once, for for forty years, tell 600 poor black southerners they were being treated for syphilis when in fact they weren't and being left to rot for study? You don't need a a tin foil hat to remember the atrocities the government has done in just my parents' lifetimes. Can you name someone who has gone to jail for those things? The government isn't culpable, as demonstrated by the myriad bureaucratic inefficiencies and the scandals that just have one junior-level schmuck fall on his sword for a to-be-named promotion next media cycle.

But, but...the terrorists! They'll get us! They...hate our freedom! How many more times will we fall for this? Remember the Gulf of Tonkin incident--a fabrication of an international incident that lead to 58,000+ dead Americans? What about ol' Cheney, Rumsfeld, Powell, and Bush telling us about Saddam's WMDs? Another ~5,000 dead Americans (and 1.5mil Iraqis...nice work Bush) and trillions wasted. NEWSFLASH FOR EVERYONE: governments have a history of exaggerating threats in order to stay in power (or offer bids to the military-industrial complex...).



I've been saying this almost verbatim. No?



I find this to be rather weak. We aren't outlawing emails because the government could use them against us, we're pissed that the government feels it can do whatever it wants in regards to electronic communications, etc. It's that simple. We've been at war with "terrorism" for over a decade, with no real end in sight, just more big brother copying all of your emails and occasionally fondling your ballsack at the airport. When does it end? Because James Madison's famous quote, "no nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare" is looking rather relevant.

The "controls we need to have" are that the contents of my emails, texts, phone calls, skype sessions, etc are off limits for the federal government.

Well you are becoming a rather radical rabble rouser, aren't you? If you go back to 1775, from the treatment of slaves, (even from a governmental standpoint, everyone knew ignoring this issue wouldn't work, to the treatment of Native Americans, etc., etc. Our fledgling government has shown that it is far from having the moral authority and acumen of doing the right thing. Because governments and large corporations don't. They often do the expedient or the profitable thing. And when they do, they get to stay in existence or business. It is rather simple. Government and businesses are amoral. Period. We have learned to worship that. It is a mistake. Anyone who rails against this I can understand and empathize with.

However this quasi-sociopathic envelope we have covered ourselves with has its limits. The only ones we will enrich is corporations. Lets start with them. If you think we have nothing to fear from large companies compiling a bunch of 'meaningless,' or 'trivial' data, you will get what you deserve. At the minimum you will get 20 hours of commercials per day, all designed to meet your purchasing needs. The maximum is unfathomable. Today, information is everything. It is power and wealth. People could own you with what you toss out with the trash. (I know everybody shreds everything.)

Government is a little different. But it has become so indifferent. Why is it indifferent? Because the people that think they own it at times become disconnected from those people that live in this country. We are at that point now, just as we were after Kennedy was assassinated. With the sell-out of Obama, I don't know the clear path to taking back control of the government, but ignoring Grahambo's points doesn't work. There are people who would like to see us all dead. Even ones that we haven't pi$$ed off first. What is the answer to working the balance? I am not sure. But it comes with a litmus test. Oversight. Good competent oversight. Public oversight. Today we don't have it. After the last uprising with the Church commission, we got the ship righted. For at least a few years.

Grahambo, I am the first one to believe in the job of protecting American citizens. But I am the last one who would give those people the keys to the kingdom. Can you understand this? As important the job, I think it needs real competent oversight. Can you understand this. Because all we have now is more and more reports of those in charge lying about their programs to those charge with maintaining them legally.

Happy Independence Day, this the 237th, celebrated 4th of July!

 

[Grahambo]

Well you are becoming a rather radical rabble rouser, aren't you? If you go back to 1775, from the treatment of slaves, (even from a governmental standpoint, everyone knew ignoring this issue wouldn't work, to the treatment of Native Americans, etc., etc. Our fledgling government has shown that it is far from having the moral authority and acumen of doing the right thing. Because governments and large corporations don't. They often do the expedient or the profitable thing. And when they do, they get to stay in existence or business. It is rather simple. Government and businesses are amoral. Period. We have learned to worship that. It is a mistake. Anyone who rails against this I can understand and empathize with.

However this quasi-sociopathic envelope we have covered ourselves with has its limits. The only ones we will enrich is corporations. Lets start with them. If you think we have nothing to fear from large companies compiling a bunch of 'meaningless,' or 'trivial' data, you will get what you deserve. At the minimum you will get 20 hours of commercials per day, all designed to meet your purchasing needs. The maximum is unfathomable. Today, information is everything. It is power and wealth. People could own you with what you toss out with the trash. (I know everybody shreds everything.)

Government is a little different. But it has become so indifferent. Why is it indifferent? Because the people that think they own it at times become disconnected from those people that live in this country. We are at that point now, just as we were after Kennedy was assassinated. With the sell-out of Obama, I don't know the clear path to taking back control of the government, but ignoring Grahambo's points doesn't work. There are people who would like to see us all dead. Even ones that we haven't pi$$ed off first. What is the answer to working the balance? I am not sure. But it comes with a litmus test. Oversight. Good competent oversight. Public oversight. Today we don't have it. After the last uprising with the Church commission, we got the ship righted. For at least a few years.

Grahambo, I am the first one to believe in the job of protecting American citizens. But I am the last one who would give those people the keys to the kingdom. Can you understand this? As important the job, I think it needs real competent oversight. Can you understand this. Because all we have now is more and more reports of those in charge lying about their programs to those charge with maintaining them legally.

Happy Independence Day, this the 237th, celebrated 4th of July!

Will reply via PM.

 

[Buster Bluth]

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/iFf5lEaXk7A" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

What a bunch of stuff.

 

[Buster Bluth]

SMDH

Succinct rebuttal.

 

[Irish Houstonian]

Here's the file they have on me:

BobD
1. Likes football, boobs and beer.
2. Sucks at golf.
3. His hands free cell device sounds like he's in the restroom.
4. Treats his dog like a human child.
5. Everyone on the freeway in front of him during rush hour is a worthless douche.

I think folks are way over blowing this and being way too dramatic.

Is that really all your Google searches would say...? And all your online posts...?

Have you ever downloaded or watched copyrighted material?

Have you ever discussed or researched contraband?

Have you ever emailed or spoken to anyone on the phone who may be involved in the sale of contraband?

Have you ever discussed or researched drug use?

Have you ever watched an "adult" video without a U.S.C. certification that all "actors" are over 18?

Have you ever accessed a bank account online in which you deposited income you didn't declare on your tax return?

Have you ever emailed your lawyer, accountant, doctor, psychiatrist or other professional with an obligation of confidentiality?

If the answer to any of these are "yes", then the "file" on you could be much, much broader than you think. Particularly if people don't take a more aggressive stance against this type of monitoring.

 

[Fbolt]

smdh@ufi

 

[Whiskeyjack]

Just read an interesting AmCon article regarding how we eavesdrop on our allies:

Do the German BND, Turkey’s MIT, and Italy’s SISMI avail themselves of opportunities to listen in on U.S. Embassy phone calls in their respective countries? They certainly do, but no one does it like the Americans, and efforts to suggest that there is some kind reciprocity in bad behavior are misleading. The NSA has the ability and resources to enable it to listen to everyone all the time, friend or foe, and its willingness to engage in collection operations that have no particular focus is perhaps a measure of how the burgeoning national-security state is incessantly searching for new enemies to expand its role. No one should be surprised that Washington routinely spies on friendly foreign diplomatic missions, but it does run the danger that allies can gradually become enemies if a growing perception in Europe and elsewhere that the U.S. is engaging in unrestrained and pointless behavior continues apace.

 

[dshans]

This whole thing has me wondering if it wouldn't be worth it to pony up the fees to file a Freedom of Information Act request to see just what the guv'mint has in its files for me. I started my "career" as "subversive, commie, hippie" as a high school student in the late '60's.

I wrote letters to editors in support of civil rights (including J. Edgar Hoover's bugaboo, MLK), voting rights and in opposition to entanglement in Viet Nam. I wrote essays and papers for classes. I attended anti-war rallies while in high school and at ND. I bought the album "Woodstock."

I've supported abortion rights, the ERA and humane immigration reform. I've opposed bullsh¡t laws intended to suppress voters' rights. I've expressed dismay and dissatisfaction with Haliburton and Blackwater. I've railed against the likes of Enron, AIG, Tyco, and the free-wheeling abuses of Wall Street in general.

The list goes on. I just wonder how much time, money, paper and data storage space is being wasted on little ol' me.

 

[Buster Bluth]

The list goes on. I just wonder how much time, money, paper and data storage space is being wasted on little ol' me.

I read a while ago that you could reduce the entirety of wikipedia's data onto a drive the size of the microchip thingy you stick into your phone. I almost doubt its true, almost.

It now costs less than $.05 to make a gigabyte of data space. Now imagine if you have an bottomless budget due to the War of Terror. Just assume you spend $1bil annually on space, you have 200bil gb of space!

Don't kid yourself people, they're storing everything.

edit: that last sentence wasn't meant solely for dshans

 

[BobD]

Is that really all your Google searches would say...? And all your online posts...? YES

Have you ever downloaded or watched copyrighted material? NO

Have you ever discussed or researched contraband? NO

Have you ever emailed or spoken to anyone on the phone who may be involved in the sale of contraband? NO

Have you ever discussed or researched drug use? YES, my wife is disabled and takes lots of meds.

Have you ever watched an "adult" video without a U.S.C. certification that all "actors" are over 18? NO

Have you ever accessed a bank account online in which you deposited income you didn't declare on your tax return? NO (statute of limitations)

Have you ever emailed your lawyer, accountant, doctor, psychiatrist or other professional with an obligation of confidentiality? NO, I only talk to them in person so I can see the look on their face

If the answer to any of these are "yes", then the "file" on you could be much, much broader than you think. Particularly if people don't take a more aggressive stance against this type of monitoring.

Added my response to your post.

 

[pkt77242]

Now I have been drinking so this might not make as much sense now as it did in my head but,

I don't understand the people who think it is ok for businesses to track this info but not the government as if the government is going to use it to hurt you but the businesses won't. What if the business is using the info to blackmail/coerce Senators and Reps to vote the way they want and are screwing you that way. What if the businesses are using it to drive up prices, etc and thus are screwing you. I don't love the government tracking what I do, but I don't have much to hide and what I have to hide isn't really a big deal.

 

[Whiskeyjack]

I don't understand the people who think it is ok for businesses to track this info but not the government as if the government is going to use it to hurt you but the businesses won't. What if the business is using the info to blackmail/coerce Senators and Reps to vote the way they want and are screwing you that way. What if the businesses are using it to drive up prices, etc and thus are screwing you. I don't love the government tracking what I do, but I don't have much to hide and what I have to hide isn't really a big deal.

I can't claim to have read every post in this thread, but has anyone here suggested that the private databases of personal information maintained by corporations aren't pernicious?

The main difference, as I see it, is that the NSA's dragnet surveillance of American citizens is clearly unconstitutional, whereas the private data gathering performed by corporations falls within a legal gray area. Doesn't make much practical difference, but it may explain the different levels of outrage.

 

[Buster Bluth]

I don't understand the people who think it is ok for businesses to track this info but not the government as if the government is going to use it to hurt you but the businesses won't.

Some thoughts:

1) I'm largely not okay with it. Specifically I think it's beyond wrong that every message you've sent on Facebook is "archived," and not deleted. Do you know how many billions of messages teenagers have sent embarrassing messages in their youth that are there, for the foreseeable future, permanently? There are countless flaws with current law, and that doesn't excuse the government. Citizens need the ability to delete their content from the internet.

2) I am agreeing to use Facebook, Google, etc. I am agreeing to use the internet and phones too, but it's like choosing a particular road and choosing to use roads at all.

3) The corporations are not above the law (unless we're talking about money laundering, bailouts, etc), the government is. People don't go to jail when the government ****s up. The tax payers get a settlement of tax payer money to compensate said tax payer for the tax payer's employee ****ing up. The amount of culpability is almost nonexistent.

What if the business is using the info to blackmail/coerce Senators and Reps to vote the way they want and are screwing you that way. What if the businesses are using it to drive up prices, etc and thus are screwing you. I don't love the government tracking what I do, but I don't have much to hide and what I have to hide isn't really a big deal.

Two really big flaws in logic. A corporation's wrong doesn't excuse the government, and you not having anything to hide is a shameful copout of another man's Constitutionally-protected right to privacy.