Politics & Current Events
missymo
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Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
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Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
They are watching you!
Anyone surprised that the government is watching them? No? That's what I thought.
Re: They are watching you!
Apparently the New York Times editorial board thinks so...
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/06/06/new-york-times-editorial-board-says-administration-has-lost-all-credibility/
According to the article,
"said the administration was using the "same platitude" it uses in every case of overreach -- that "terrorists are a real menace and you should just trust us."
The editorial continued: "Those reassurances have never been persuasive -- whether on secret warrants to scoop up a news agency's phone records or secret orders to kill an American suspected of terrorism -- especially coming from a president who once promised transparency and accountability. The administration has now lost all credibility."
The New York Times, overnight, amended the last line to say: "The administration has now lost all credibility on this issue."
The editorial board claimed Obama "is proving the truism that the executive will use any power it is given and very likely abuse it." "
No, not at all. And quite frankly, I know Obama's stance on it from his campaign has been brought into question but I'm guessing it's easy to say one thing when you're running for President and then once you get in office and are receiving all of the classified information you didn't beforehand, your stance may change.
I'm not saying I love it. But I feel like it wouldn't be any different no matter who is in office, Republican or Democrat. I've always lived under the assumption that if the government wants to know what I'm doing, they will find out. So I keep my nose clean. :P Except yesterday when I Googled 2 girls, 1 cup after people were talking about it on Parenting. Then I really wish I had had the sense not to Google. lol
Although I am not surprised, I don't like it. It feels a little creepy to me that information is being collected from my phone (do they really care that I am talking to my Aunt Suzie in OK?).
It feels like the 4th Amendment of the Constitution is dead, but I guess it died a long time ago with the Patriot Act. I never cared much for that either.
I agree with all of this. Although I am not surprised, and truthfully assumed we had no privacy, I don't like it one bit. I will never be okay with it. And yeah, I hate the Patriot Act too.
Agreed. It's the awful truth that I don't deny.
Everyone has known about the Patriot Act for years, so why all the feathers ruffled at this point?
I think it's because of the tie-in with Verizon.
As far as we know, the U.S. government has always been monitoring emails, texts, and phone calls, which is not new at all, but has been doing so from what we all thought were some kind of remote access points.
Could the feathers be ruffled because this is a more in your face kind of monitoring?
And, I'm don't know the answer to this, so if someone does, please fill in. Is Verizon the only company doing this? Or, is this the only company that we know of doing this?
I am sure they are all doing it. I had heard last night that a few other companies are
I do have to kind of chuckle about this.
People post the dumbest, weirdest, most personal crud on FaceBook and Twitter but then they get ticked when they discover the government is/may be watching them? People have already opened up their personal lives to the public.
One of my most vocal FB friends about the issue has 2,400 friends on Facebook. I don't think you're super worried about privacy if you let that many people, most of whom you've never met, learn personal information about yourself on the Internet willingly.
This goes back much further than the Patriot Act (a law that had a number of predescessors within the 2001 Congress - all with Democrat and Republican authors - with the final draft, USA PATRIOT Act, H.R. 3162, was approved by all but ONE senator Russ Feingold and actually specifically included "sunsets" at the insistence of a Republican Representative, Richard Army (TX)).
How do you think J. Edgar Hoover got all of his information? And who gave him his job and allowed him to do what he did in the first place.
Instead of being complacent and saying "I keep my nose clean" you need to care. Because you COULD be perfectly legal and be penalized - like the Palmer Raids or the MacCarthy inquisitions.
What is legal today can become suspect tomorrow. And do you really think it is OK to have your personal records reviewed because you looked up how to survive a natural disaster and GOOGLE brings you to a "survivalist" website that is under watch (illegally I might add) by the FBI and HLS?
Yeah. I find that to be scary.
Lol, Ilumine. Thanks for the history lesson, but that's the point! We all know and assume the government spies in its citizens. I think very few people fall into the "I don't care" category. It's more of a, "of course that is going on" attitude.
Personally, I care a whole hell of a lot. The problem is that I'm not sure what, if anything, can be done about it. I'm not frightened or scared, as you are. I honestly am not sure there is a solution for average citizens like us.
It doesn't matter if the government is ALLOWED to spy on us or not...they will.
I can't imagine living in fear of that.
ha! Seriously. 2400 "friends" can hear their rantings, but they think the government won't? Crazy person.
I agree with bolded.
This is why I hate the "well, *I* have nothing to hide" argument. Sure, right now maybe you have nothing to hide. But what if you're falsely accused of something? What if later you *do* have something to hide? What if, say, your child is accused of something and you want to help them?
I've never done illegal drugs and certainly never sold, purchased or transported them. There's nothing even remotely illegal in my car, unless you count old french fries on the floor that should have been cleaned out long ago. But if I got pulled over and a cop wanted to search my car, I would say no. Because you just don't know what can happen or what his motives are.
We do have to be concerned. I'm willing to give up a little security for some privacy. There was a time when we valued privacy. It's the entire legal argument upon which pro-choice policies were allowed to come into existence.
As a practical matter there is no real payoff for it either. If it was effective then we would have been able to stop more things like the Boston bombing and Fort Hood. On the other hand maybe it is effective and our govt is just to incompetent to handle it which is another reason why we shouldn't have it. Even worse is that the whistle blower on this whole thing had all kinds of access to this stuff just as a random IT guy for one of the contractors.
I mean we live in a world when you show up 9 mos pregnant at the ob's office and they use black marker to blot out your name on the check-in sheet lest anyone have any idea of why you were there. Somehow, somewhere Congress got the message that we don't want our personal information shared every which way. What in the same heck makes it ok for any random person of the govt to monitor internet, phone calls, etc of the average citizen without probably cause? I read in several places that if you contact people out of the country you are especially susceptible to being monitored in this way. My DH is not from this country and calls his family back home all of the time. He also has tons of out of the country clients. All perfectly legal and on the record. You could, and we've seen that people have, just as easily plan something to harm Americans right within the confines of our own borders.
As technology has developed and in the post 9/11 era Congress tried to get a handle on some of this by creating FISA which requires a warrant to get information. This PRISM program does not require notification and assistance of the provider as was previously needed (google, yahoo, AOL, Verizon, etc) but can pull information directly from the servers of the search providers without THEM even knowing what exactly was pulled. In one case an agent visited a provider and spent WEEKS downloaded data. How narrow is a search when you spend WEEKS downloading information?
The concept of needing warrants for searches and records for searches is part of the foundation building blocks of checks and balances in our government. If you don't know it's going on and there is no one else involved, how do you keep something like this from being abused? Not one single FISA request has been denied by the separate secret FISA Court in over 2 years. Should we blindly trust them like the IRS?
I completely agree, and yes, I find that to be terrifying.
**6.30.12** I have found the one whom my soul loves.