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Print E-mail del.icio.us 39 comment(s) - last by creathir.. on May 24 at 4:45 PM
Confidential sealed documents appeared on the Internet early this week

Bellsouth, AT&T and Verizon Communications have recently been accused of participating in US domestic surveillance programs.  Each company has been under fire for allegedly violating the privacy of customers by allowing the National Security Agency (NSA) to wiretap and monitor the communications of Americans without a court order.  The companies allegedly monitored and tracked billions of domestic phone calls of American citizens after the September 11 terrorist attacks that occurred five years ago. 

After the September 11 terrorist attacks, US President Bush agreed to have the NSA intercept certain telephone and Internet communications by citizens inside the United States, but without any court orders or warrants.  Because of legality issues and invasion of privacy, many people have called the government and telephone companies out on these activities.

AT&T, specifically, has received the most criticism as of late.  Wired News just recently published documents that claim AT&T was involved with the NSA's wiretap operation on American citizens.  Wired said that the documents it has published were provided by a witness in the class-action lawsuit against AT&T.  The documents explain how a former AT&T technician realized that the company, at the request of the NSA, installed devices designed to watch Internet traffic.  According to Wired News:

Former AT&T technician Mark Klein is the key witness in the Electronic Frontier Foundation's class-action lawsuit against the telecommunications company, which alleges that AT&T cooperated in an illegal National Security Agency domestic surveillance program. 

Groups like the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) have been very active in trying to get telephone companies, specifically AT&T, to stop all illegal conduct that it has and is committing against American citizens.

Some companies have chosen to take a stand against the request from the NSA --  Comcast, Time Warner and Cox have chosen to try and protect the privacy of their customers.  Each company requires some sort of subpoena or other court document before turning over any sensitive information.

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Good lord
By DigitalFreak on 5/22/2006 8:48:08 PM , Rating: 1
F*ck you, Bush!




RE: Good lord
By creathir on 5/22/2006 9:30:37 PM , Rating: 1
The funny thing is... that reaction of yours would have been the same after another terrorist attack...

FYI, AT&T, until last December, was not a local phone company, but a long distance company. MEANING, the NSA would have been watching anything exiting the United States, making it totally legal to observe. You honestly do not think people cannot track what you do on the Internet do you? You have this little number assigned to you, that ISPs keep records of. Your footprints are all over the digital beach.

- Creathir

- Creathir


RE: Good lord
By DigitalFreak on 5/22/2006 9:38:16 PM , Rating: 2
Uh... No, it wouldn't. There has to be a line drawn at what the government can & cannot do, and Bush has consistantly been stepping over it.


RE: Good lord
By Orpheus333 on 5/22/2006 9:45:00 PM , Rating: 2
Personally I would die for the country so why do I care if they listen in on my phone calls/intarweb? You're nothing more than a social security number, birth certificate and driver’s license- all government. Privacy is a myth when all you are is a few numbers the government assigns you... Thats how I look at it, but, to each his own.


RE: Good lord
By TomZ on 5/22/2006 10:07:43 PM , Rating: 1
I would die for my country too, if we were seriously threatened, or if the just was cause. I would not, however, give my life to invade another country (Iraq) and fight to bring them democracy (or whatever they will end up with) and to ensure our steady supply of oil. Sorry, that is not a just cause. It disgusts me when I hear from our president about the "war on terror" and when he and his staff make comparisons to WWII.


RE: Good lord
By creathir on 5/22/06, Rating: 0
RE: Good lord
By TomZ on 5/22/2006 10:47:45 PM , Rating: 1
...compared to WWII? I don't think so. 9/11 was terrible, don't get me wrong. But millions were killed in WWII. Not the same threat, sorry. Invading Iraq was our choice, our decision, a problem we created. Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. Bush decided to sacrifice the lives of over 2500 U.S. soldiers, not to mention the tens or hundreds of thousands of Iraqis killed, and the tens of thousands of U.S. soldiers injured. Our government is just throwing all this life away.


RE: Good lord
By TomZ on 5/22/2006 10:52:21 PM , Rating: 2
...one more thing.

How many people were killed on 9/11? Around 3000.

How many people were killed in traffic accidents in 2004? 42,636.

Maybe we need to declare a war on traffic accidents. Oh yea, that's "different."


RE: Good lord
By rushfan2006 on 5/23/2006 10:26:34 AM , Rating: 2
Dude, I'm all for part of your views that I interpret as "we need to get rid of Bush" -- I agree. But your state comparing deaths in 9/11 to traffic accidents, implies the attitude of "big deal more people die traffic accidents than in 9/11". I find that incredibly harsh and off base. I also then assume, you were totally isolated from any loss on 9/11 -- meaning no one you cared about died in the 9/11 tragedy. Count your blessings.

There is a difference. The difference is akin to comparing the sun to a flashlight.

A traffic accident, is largely that an accident. The attacks on 9/11 were no such accident, they were planned out, they were intended.

So with that logic you have -- you are telling me that you wouldn't feel any different if the person who mattered most to you in the entire world was killed by "accident" or because they were minding their own business and they were murdered for no reason at all?

I don't know about you but I'd have a lot more anger and problems dealing with the latter of the two.

We should have absolutely went to war, the problem is though -- we went to war with the wrong folks.



RE: Good lord
By segagenesis on 5/22/2006 11:00:05 PM , Rating: 2
I'm going to be the devils advocate here before we bite peoples heads off...

In terms of loss of life hundereds of thousands of people die for other preventable reasons every year. When we compare terrorism in the big picture its very horrible no question about it but at the same time we have a huge amount of effort focused into it. I think they have succeeded in making us afraid of flying and many other things which is far more powerful than killing a few thousand people. Terrorism has always been more about fear than the body count. This does not justify people dying but personally I sleep as well as I did before 9/11 and I've flown since then.

Maybe I'm off base but as I said, trying to play the other side of the coin here. I consider myself a moderate but all this "ZOMG YOUR ALL GOING TO DIE, YOUR PHONES ARE BEING TAPPED WATCH OUT" is just people just helping the fear cause even further. Terrorists hate us because they hate our freedoms, we also quickly forget the Oklahoma city bombing and Olympic park bombing which were... Americans?


RE: Good lord
By rushfan2006 on 5/23/2006 10:36:02 AM , Rating: 2
quote:
This does not justify people dying but personally I sleep as well as I did before 9/11 and I've flown since then.


Just like the guy I replied to above you, to not see the difference in murder and death by disease, accident or whatever -- is amazing to me. To me its a huge difference. As for sleeping as well as I did before 9/11 and after, well that can be taken two ways. One -- the harsher way, which is well if you didn't lose anyone in 9/11 no shit sherlock, no wonder it was easy for you deal with. I mean hello? Anyone home? Have a little compassion for those that DID lose husbands, wives, sons, daugthers, etc. If you were in their shoes I don't suppose you would have "slept so well" before and after 9/11. If you want to put in harsh terms...well if someone in your family is murdered I'm not losing sleep over it? Get it?

Secondly, I haven't flown since 9/11 -- but it has NOTHING in the least for me to do with fear...shit happens..their is risk in everything we do...no the reason I haven't flown since 9/11 is because I haven't had the time or the money to afford a real vacation since then which is the only time I fly.



RE: Good lord
By lifeblood on 5/23/2006 11:41:10 AM , Rating: 3
As a Desert Storm vet I risked my life for this country. My oath was to the constitution. I feel this was a worthy risk because the constitution and the ideas it embodies are worth defending. Freedom is a double edged sword. By living in a free society it opens you to easy attack. Not having to worry about the government listening in on your phone calls is a freedom. Yes, terrorists can use that freedom to plan an attack. But it is that freedom that makes this country worth dying for. By removing that freedom, you remove one of the things that make this country so great. You remove one of the things our forefathers fought and died for. No, the biggest threat to my freedom is not Osama Bin Laden, its George Bush. Osama can only kill me. George Bush can arbitrarily declare me an enemy combatant and ship me to Guantanamo Bay without access to a lawyer or other legal recourse.


RE: Good lord
By creathir on 5/22/06, Rating: 0
RE: Good lord
By smitty3268 on 5/22/2006 11:21:26 PM , Rating: 3
He got wiretaps on local-to-foreign calls without warrants. He had the NSA record who everyone in the US was calling (also in the US), but didn't actually record any of the calls (as far as we know...) Also without any warrants. Frankly, I think these actions are good ideas. However, what is bothering me is the insistence that warrants can't be used. There are no good reasons against warrants except for a lack of manpower, and it's not like the government can't hire any more people. History has shown that unchecked and (more importantly) unseen power almost always ends badly. That was the reason the founders created 3 "seperate but equal" branches of government.

I understand that a strong leader is necessary, but it worries me when an American can say: "I'm breaking this law, but it is legal because I say it is necessary for national security. Oh, and don't tell anyone or you'll go to jail." Yes, that actually is the President's position on several issues. By the way, I'm not exactly anti-Republican and this isn't an anti-Bush rant. I'm just as worried about what a future Democrat with this kind of power would do - I don't necessarily think this is a short term problem, but I think this could drastically change the way our country looks in say, 20-30 years.


RE: Good lord
By TomZ on 5/22/2006 11:36:28 PM , Rating: 2
I couldn't agree more, with everything you said. But I'm not that worried about our next president if he/she is a Democrat. I would think that the next administration will probably dismantle some of this stuff that Bush put into place. This seems to be quite common when a new administration gets into power.


RE: Good lord
By djthomas on 5/23/2006 10:46:30 AM , Rating: 2
He brakes the Law with ILLEGAL wire taps when they have 72 hrs to go the secret court to get a warrant after the fact. This should be plenty of time. Do you not remember your history with Hitlor, and the SS. Come on man wakeup and smell the coffee.


RE: Good lord
By Tegeril on 5/23/2006 12:03:32 AM , Rating: 1
quote:
but a long distance company. MEANING, the NSA would have been watching anything exiting the United States


There are still many places in the US where you pay to make long distance calls -within- the United States.

Foot in mouth much?


RE: Good lord
By Samus on 5/23/2006 1:53:20 AM , Rating: 2
Even Dynamic IP addresses are logged to specific user logins. There are records of all activity you do on the internet while your IP is leased.


RE: Good lord
By Methusela on 5/23/2006 12:35:15 PM , Rating: 2
Creathir,

You're absolutely wrong about AT&T not being a LEC (Local Exchange Carrier) till Dec. of 2005. As of February of 2000, I was a Sprint Local employee. We had many, MANY lata across our 12-state territory where AT&T provided local service and we were a CLEC (Competitive Local Exchange Carrier), as well as many areas that were next to AT&T LEC lata. As I understood it,AT&T held LEC status in at least 27 states at that time.

(Not to mention the fact that long distance does not imply calls made outside of the USA.)

So, long story short, you're wrong, but it happens :).