Is America Really 'The Land of The Free'?
Byrnzie
Posts: 21,037
I don't think so. For many reasons.
Here's one:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree ... fbi-boston
Are all telephone calls recorded and accessible to the US government?
A former FBI counterterrorism agent claims on CNN that this is the case
Glenn Greenwald
guardian.co.uk, Saturday 4 May 2013
The real capabilities and behavior of the US surveillance state are almost entirely unknown to the American public because, like most things of significance done by the US government, it operates behind an impenetrable wall of secrecy. But a seemingly spontaneous admission this week by a former FBI counterterrorism agent provides a rather startling acknowledgment of just how vast and invasive these surveillance activities are.
Over the past couple days, cable news tabloid shows such as CNN's Out Front with Erin Burnett have been excitingly focused on the possible involvement in the Boston Marathon attack of Katherine Russell, the 24-year-old American widow of the deceased suspect, Tamerlan Tsarnaev. As part of their relentless stream of leaks uncritically disseminated by our Adversarial Press Corps, anonymous government officials are claiming that they are now focused on telephone calls between Russell and Tsarnaev that took place both before and after the attack to determine if she had prior knowledge of the plot or participated in any way.
On Wednesday night, Burnett interviewed Tim Clemente, a former FBI counterterrorism agent, about whether the FBI would be able to discover the contents of past telephone conversations between the two. He quite clearly insisted that they could:
BURNETT: Tim, is there any way, obviously, there is a voice mail they can try to get the phone companies to give that up at this point. It's not a voice mail. It's just a conversation. There's no way they actually can find out what happened, right, unless she tells them?
CLEMENTE: "No, there is a way. We certainly have ways in national security investigations to find out exactly what was said in that conversation. It's not necessarily something that the FBI is going to want to present in court, but it may help lead the investigation and/or lead to questioning of her. We certainly can find that out.
BURNETT: "So they can actually get that? People are saying, look, that is incredible.
CLEMENTE: "No, welcome to America. All of that stuff is being captured as we speak whether we know it or like it or not."
"All of that stuff" - meaning every telephone conversation Americans have with one another on US soil, with or without a search warrant - "is being captured as we speak".
...There have been some previous indications that this is true. Former AT&T engineer Mark Klein revealed that AT&T and other telecoms had built a special network that allowed the National Security Agency full and unfettered access to data about the telephone calls and the content of email communications for all of their customers. Specifically, Klein explained "that the NSA set up a system that vacuumed up Internet and phone-call data from ordinary Americans with the cooperation of AT&T" and that "contrary to the government's depiction of its surveillance program as aimed at overseas terrorists . . . much of the data sent through AT&T to the NSA was purely domestic." But his amazing revelations were mostly ignored and, when Congress retroactively immunized the nation's telecom giants for their participation in the illegal Bush spying programs, Klein's claims (by design) were prevented from being adjudicated in court.
That every single telephone call is recorded and stored would also explain this extraordinary revelation by the Washington Post in 2010:
Every day, collection systems at the National Security Agency intercept and store 1.7 billion e-mails, phone calls and other types of communications.
It would also help explain the revelations of former NSA official William Binney, who resigned from the agency in protest over its systemic spying on the domestic communications of US citizens, that the US government has "assembled on the order of 20 trillion transactions about US citizens with other US citizens" (which counts only communications transactions and not financial and other transactions), and that "the data that's being assembled is about everybody. And from that data, then they can target anyone they want."
...Some new polling suggests that Americans, even after the Boston attack, are growing increasingly concerned about erosions of civil liberties in the name of Terrorism. Even those people who claim it does not matter instinctively understand the value of personal privacy: they put locks on their bedroom doors and vigilantly safeguard their email passwords. That's why the US government so desperately maintains a wall of secrecy around their surveillance capabilities: because they fear that people will find their behavior unacceptably intrusive and threatening, as they did even back in 2002 when John Poindexter's TIA was unveiled.
Mass surveillance is the hallmark of a tyrannical political culture. But whatever one's views on that, the more that is known about what the US government and its surveillance agencies are doing, the better. This admission by this former FBI agent on CNN gives a very good sense for just how limitless these activities are.
Here's one:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree ... fbi-boston
Are all telephone calls recorded and accessible to the US government?
A former FBI counterterrorism agent claims on CNN that this is the case
Glenn Greenwald
guardian.co.uk, Saturday 4 May 2013
The real capabilities and behavior of the US surveillance state are almost entirely unknown to the American public because, like most things of significance done by the US government, it operates behind an impenetrable wall of secrecy. But a seemingly spontaneous admission this week by a former FBI counterterrorism agent provides a rather startling acknowledgment of just how vast and invasive these surveillance activities are.
Over the past couple days, cable news tabloid shows such as CNN's Out Front with Erin Burnett have been excitingly focused on the possible involvement in the Boston Marathon attack of Katherine Russell, the 24-year-old American widow of the deceased suspect, Tamerlan Tsarnaev. As part of their relentless stream of leaks uncritically disseminated by our Adversarial Press Corps, anonymous government officials are claiming that they are now focused on telephone calls between Russell and Tsarnaev that took place both before and after the attack to determine if she had prior knowledge of the plot or participated in any way.
On Wednesday night, Burnett interviewed Tim Clemente, a former FBI counterterrorism agent, about whether the FBI would be able to discover the contents of past telephone conversations between the two. He quite clearly insisted that they could:
BURNETT: Tim, is there any way, obviously, there is a voice mail they can try to get the phone companies to give that up at this point. It's not a voice mail. It's just a conversation. There's no way they actually can find out what happened, right, unless she tells them?
CLEMENTE: "No, there is a way. We certainly have ways in national security investigations to find out exactly what was said in that conversation. It's not necessarily something that the FBI is going to want to present in court, but it may help lead the investigation and/or lead to questioning of her. We certainly can find that out.
BURNETT: "So they can actually get that? People are saying, look, that is incredible.
CLEMENTE: "No, welcome to America. All of that stuff is being captured as we speak whether we know it or like it or not."
"All of that stuff" - meaning every telephone conversation Americans have with one another on US soil, with or without a search warrant - "is being captured as we speak".
...There have been some previous indications that this is true. Former AT&T engineer Mark Klein revealed that AT&T and other telecoms had built a special network that allowed the National Security Agency full and unfettered access to data about the telephone calls and the content of email communications for all of their customers. Specifically, Klein explained "that the NSA set up a system that vacuumed up Internet and phone-call data from ordinary Americans with the cooperation of AT&T" and that "contrary to the government's depiction of its surveillance program as aimed at overseas terrorists . . . much of the data sent through AT&T to the NSA was purely domestic." But his amazing revelations were mostly ignored and, when Congress retroactively immunized the nation's telecom giants for their participation in the illegal Bush spying programs, Klein's claims (by design) were prevented from being adjudicated in court.
That every single telephone call is recorded and stored would also explain this extraordinary revelation by the Washington Post in 2010:
Every day, collection systems at the National Security Agency intercept and store 1.7 billion e-mails, phone calls and other types of communications.
It would also help explain the revelations of former NSA official William Binney, who resigned from the agency in protest over its systemic spying on the domestic communications of US citizens, that the US government has "assembled on the order of 20 trillion transactions about US citizens with other US citizens" (which counts only communications transactions and not financial and other transactions), and that "the data that's being assembled is about everybody. And from that data, then they can target anyone they want."
...Some new polling suggests that Americans, even after the Boston attack, are growing increasingly concerned about erosions of civil liberties in the name of Terrorism. Even those people who claim it does not matter instinctively understand the value of personal privacy: they put locks on their bedroom doors and vigilantly safeguard their email passwords. That's why the US government so desperately maintains a wall of secrecy around their surveillance capabilities: because they fear that people will find their behavior unacceptably intrusive and threatening, as they did even back in 2002 when John Poindexter's TIA was unveiled.
Mass surveillance is the hallmark of a tyrannical political culture. But whatever one's views on that, the more that is known about what the US government and its surveillance agencies are doing, the better. This admission by this former FBI agent on CNN gives a very good sense for just how limitless these activities are.
Post edited by Unknown User on
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Comments
i've heard of professionals not owning or using landlines or billed cell phones, they be using those trac-phones/pay as you go & dispose of that short term phone as soon as possible. you don't call me, i'll call you type a thing. once a month is plenty of communication for these people.
"Hear me, my chiefs!
I am tired; my heart is
sick and sad. From where
the sun stands I will fight
no more forever."
Chief Joseph - Nez Perce
Associated Press: seizure of phone records an unprecedented intrusion
Obama administration took records in apparent effort to track down source who disclosed alleged Yemen terrorist plot story
Ewen MacAskill in Washington
The Guardian, Tuesday 14 May 2013
The Obama administration has opened up a new front in its battle against media freedom by seizing phone records from the offices of the Associated Press news agency in what appeared to be an effort to track down the source who disclosed an alleged Yemen terrorist plot story.
The US attorney's office for the District of Columbia confirmed on Monday that subpoenas had been issued for phone records. It said it valued press freedom but it had to balance this against the public interest.
AP revealed on Mondaythat the justice department, without informing the organisation in advance, had obtained two months worth of phone records of calls made by reporters and editors.
Lawyers for AP said the records, which the justice department appears to have obtained from the phone companies earlier this year, listed every call made by about 100 reporters from AP's main offices in New York, Washington and Hartford, Connecticut, and from its office in the House of Representatives press gallery between April and May last year. The justice department informed AP last Friday. AP described it as a "massive and unprecedented intrusion" into news-gathering operations.
...AP's president and chief executive officer Gary Pruitt sent a letter of protest to the attorney-general Eric Holder. "These records potentially reveal communications with confidential sources across all of the newsgathering activities undertaken by the AP during a two-month period, provide a road map to AP's newsgathering operations, and disclose information about AP's activities and operations that the government has no conceivable right to know," Pruitt said.
He described it as "serious interference with AP's constitutional rights to gather and report the news".
Although Obama was elected on a liberal ticket in 2008 and again in 2012, his administration has mounted a sustained campaign through the courts and other means against whistleblowers, particularly in relation to what it claims are sensitive intelligence matters.
Media organisations and civil rights groups complain that many of the cases it appear to have to do with administrative secrecy than matters of national security.
The Obama administration has brought six cases against people suspected of leaking classified information, which AP described as being more than under all previous presidents combined...
"Hear me, my chiefs!
I am tired; my heart is
sick and sad. From where
the sun stands I will fight
no more forever."
Chief Joseph - Nez Perce
Godfather.
this is an american-dominant board. it makes sense to post issues of topics that people would be interested in.
Fargo 2003
Winnipeg 2005
Winnipeg 2011
St. Paul 2014
nahhh dude that's bullshit,they guy lives in another country and and constantly bangs the US,maybe it's time to call him on his loud mouth bullshit.
Godfather.
Is AMT really American dominant? I think many if not most of the regulars on this section of the board are not American.
"...I changed by not changing at all..."
Gotta agree with the Godfather here. There are a few on this board who seem blind to the fact that a prejudicial hatred of Americans is no different than a prejudicial hatred of blacks or gays or women. That this kind of hatred is so widely accepted does not make it any less repulsive.
"...I changed by not changing at all..."
I'd agree that there are times that criticism of the US on this board should be less focused...where people should be criticizing 'the west' or 'NATO' instead of their figurehead.....but you're playing the old 'you criticize Israel, you're an anti-semite' card here. THere is a BIG difference between criticism of a nation, and hatred of a broad demographic. Such a low-brow argument. It's falling to base tribalism at its worst.
Nobody's stopping you. So what have you got to say?
Except there is no 'prejudicial hatred of Americans' on this board. So your post is Bullshit.
https://athens.indymedia.org/local/webc ... llshit.pdf
show me ONE post, just ONE, that shows prejudicial hatred of the American public. You can't. Because what goes on here is simply discussing topics that involve American government or military or foreign policy. Which, is quite a lot. What goes on in the US affects more than just americans. by way of american foreign policy itself. so yeah, we're going to talk about it.
Fargo 2003
Winnipeg 2005
Winnipeg 2011
St. Paul 2014
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming?
Whose broad stripes and bright stars thru the perilous fight,
O'er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming?
And the rocket's red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there.
Oh, say does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?
On the shore, dimly seen through the mists of the deep,
Where the foe's haughty host in dread silence reposes,
What is that which the breeze, o'er the towering steep,
As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses?
Now it catches the gleam of the morning's first beam,
In full glory reflected now shines in the stream:
'Tis the star-spangled banner! Oh long may it wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!
And where is that band who so vauntingly swore
That the havoc of war and the battle's confusion,
A home and a country should leave us no more!
Their blood has washed out their foul footsteps' pollution.
No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight, or the gloom of the grave:
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!
Oh! thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand
Between their loved home and the war's desolation!
Blest with victory and peace, may the heav'n rescued land
Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation.
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto: "In God is our trust."
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!
Naming names is probably a one way ticket to ban town, and that is not something I want. A few of them self identify themselves pretty regularly in my opinion. Others will disagree.
I'm not playing the card you describe because I am not referring to every criticism and every critic. Much of what is written here has at least some if not total validity. I guess my point is that when you read post after post from someone ripping on America or Americans, imagine what you would think if you were reading post after post ripping on blacks or gays women. How many would it take before you questioned if you were reading the words of a racist or a sexist or a homophobe?
"...I changed by not changing at all..."
Not me or us or anyone against the world, no. I just question if this particular section of the board is as American dominant as some others may be.
"...I changed by not changing at all..."
I wouldn't imagine you would think so.
"...I changed by not changing at all..."
I made this point earlier but will repeat it here: Ask yourself what you would think if you read post after post from someone ripping on women or blacks or gays. How many would it take before you questioned if you were reading the words of a sexist or racist or homophobe? I'm betting not many. But post after post attacking America or Americans is widely accepted.
And, for the record, I was in no way referring to you, Hugh.
"...I changed by not changing at all..."
Provide one example of someone 'ripping on America or Americans'.
Don't have to look very far. What was the point of this particular thread that you created? Be honest.
"...I changed by not changing at all..."
What was the point of this thread? Did you even bother reading the article in the OP before you started frothing at the mouth? It deals with the U.S government infringing on the rights of American citizens.
I'll ask you again: Provide one example of someone 'ripping on America or Americans'.
No frothing here Byrnzie. This was just another post in a pattern that I have noticed.
"...I changed by not changing at all..."
A pattern of 'ripping on America or Americans', despite you being not able to provide even one example of anyone (me) 'ripping on America or Americans'.
There's a difference between criticizing a government and it's policies, and criticizing an entire country and/or it's people. I suggest you take note of that difference.
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
There is, certainly. But there is also taking into consideration the source of said criticisms.
"...I changed by not changing at all..."
but then you must also take into consideration the source of his criticisms. american government bullies the rest of the world, sticking its nose where it doesn't belong all over the place. people on here trumpet america as the bastion of freedom and glory, so you have to expect the opposite.
why don't you see criticisms of the canadian conservative government on here? because they aren't out starting wars they have no business being in all in the name of false freedom, telling the rest of the world how they must live in order to be happy.
they don't record the public's conversations.
they recognize marriage equality.
they don't have mass school shootings and/or a gun association telling them they aren't patriots if they don't own a gun in the wake of said shootings.
I could go on.
Fargo 2003
Winnipeg 2005
Winnipeg 2011
St. Paul 2014
Go on. I am not saying anything you list is untrue or something that I am a fan of. What I am saying is that someone whose first response to a British soldier being hacked to death on a city street was
then that person's criticisms of America should be taken with a grain of salt.
America is far from perfect. We have many problems and many criticisms are valid. But when someone consistently demonizes America then in my mind they have no more credibility than a racist who demonizes blacks or a sexist who demonizes women or a homophobe who demonizes gays. That you don't harbor this hatred Hugh does not mean that others do not.
"...I changed by not changing at all..."
i'm pretty sure jimmy v is referring to at least me ... as much as i've tried to explain to him the differences - he's pretty much made up his mind ... which is fine ...
americans are as nationalistic as they come ... it's beaten into them ... even the liberals here have an aversion to hearing what is wrong with the country ... they can't separate their defensive nature from the objective criticisms ...