Cost and Benefit and the Fourth Ammendment
The Obama administration on Thursday acknowledged that it is collecting a massive amount of telephone records from at least one carrier, reopening the debate over privacy even as it defended the practice as necessary to protect Americans against attack.
The admission comes after the Guardian newspaper published a secret court order related to the records of millions of Verizon Communications customers on its website on Wednesday.
A senior administration official said the court order pertains only to data such as a telephone number or the length of a call, and not the subscribers' identities or the content of the telephone calls.
Such information is "a critical tool in protecting the nation from terrorist threats to the United States," the official said, speaking on the condition of not being named.
"It allows counter terrorism personnel to discover whether known or suspected terrorists have been in contact with other persons who may be engaged in terrorist activities, particularly people located inside the United States," the official added.
The revelation raises fresh concerns about President Barack Obama's handling of privacy and free speech issues. His administration is already under fire for searching Associated Press journalists' calling records and the emails of a Fox television reporter as part of its inquiries into leaked government information.
A few thoughts:
- I have no doubt that this makes the job of tracking terrorists easier. So would the ability to break down any door anywhere and do random house searches without a warrant. The issue is not effectiveness, but the cost in terms of lost liberty and the potential for abuse. The IRS scandal should remind us how easy it is to use government power to harass political enemies and out-groups
- The FISA court is a bad joke, as it seems willing to issue "all information on all people" warrants. I think there is little doubt that similar data gathering is going on at all the other carriers.
- Luckily, Susan Rice is now the National Security Adviser. I am sure with her proven history of not just being a political puppet but really digging in to challenge White House talking points that she will quickly get to the bottom of this.
I find it extremely amusing that people who think their liberties aren’t in jeopardy utilize the most obnoxious means to jeopardize the rights of others.
Yeah, that B. Franklin guy was a moron.
Well, that was fun, wasn’t it Eric?
http://www.flickr.com/photos/expd/8973753053/
Okay then, since government is completely benign, let’s discuss how they’ve fucked the economy up so bad good, giving us the worst recovery on record.?,.????.....!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ZJsbdCEBbc&feature=youtu.be
This is private vs. public.
Leftists like you, and especially Obama, understand neither.
This is not “extraordinary” protection by any stretch of the imagination.
This is standard 4th Amendment protection, under common legal (read: prior to the Roberts Court) understanding of privacy.
You better bone up on your private vs. public, junior, because this is going to be one helluva fight, mostly for you.
Knowledge of who associates with whom is very powerful. As an example, knowing that someone is associating with people who are in currently disfavored groups allows for the government to engage in extra scrutiny. Consider whether this has happened to civil rights advocates, or more recently Tea Party members.
Further, the evidence of certain calls is proof enough, regardless of what those calls contain: calls to suicide prevention or domestic abuse hotlines, to the best-friend's wife at 2am, etc. These are all things which full under the rubric of "privacy".
Again, this demonstates a lack of understanding of what the data is and what can be done with it. To understand this, consider your comments about "the best-friend
's wife". There might be a lot of people that know your best friend, and there might be a lot of people that would be interested in knowing that you are calling this woman at 2AM. But, the government does not know, nor does it care.
If an entity/actor would want to invade your privacy in this manner there are a lot more efficient ways of doing so rather than a mass download of the call records of millions of people containing what has to be billions of calls. Your best friend might become suspicious and look into his wife's phone records. Much easier than trying to find an algorithm one those billions of records. And, it is the same way with the policitical issues. If I want to give extra scrutiny to "disfavored" groups, such as Mitt Romney's political donors, there are a lot easier and more accurate ways of doing so, like looking at the FEC public records.
The real question is with respect to this data is when/if a pattern is found what are the actionable steps. I would argue that if there is a reasonable probability based on this analyis that a person is a terrorist that further steps should be taken to investigate. What those allowable steps should be is a reasonable debate.
And lastly, if you are worried about your "privacy" because you are cheating on your best-friend, I really don't have much sympathy for you. I am not a Puritan by any means (nor even close to being a leftist as some are suggesting). But, you are giving away some of your rights to privacy when you engage in illicit behavior, or to extend it, illegal activity. You are not and should not be given a free pass to do immoral or illegal things. If you are caught because you stupidly called at 2AM and got caught, too bad for you. "Privacy" is the least of your worries.
"Unless you are committing crimes and have something to hide the "assault" on your "liberty" is equal to zero" I knew that was coming. The old "only criminals have something to hide" claim.