NSA Director Alexander admits lying about surveillance stopping 54 terror plots.

[frumper]

Except their ruling says otherwise. You can quote dissenting opinions all you want, but in the 5th Circuit that's the law.

Their ruling applies to historical data, not real time tracking....go read up on that case. It is about LE requesting information and the request being denied by a magistrate.

Your claim that they can track you is still bogus.

[Manhands]

Sometimes it feels like the government has just become another vehicle by which those with power are screwing over the general population.

"Yeah, it's almost like...I don't know...power corrupts or something." - Modern John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton, 2013

[0ptimo]

This is wrong for the reason I just stated. You are broadcasting the signal to the world.

Am I broadcasting it to the world or am I broadcasting it to Verizon who is then allowing agencies to track me? It would seem the average citizen would not be able to track me anytime they see fit unless they are able to pull the data from Verizon's towers or have an agreement with Verizon to hand over their records. I don't really see that as not having an expectation of privacy.

[Lucetia]

God dammit these guys don't even need Snowden to humiliate themselves in the public eye anymore.

http://www.salon.com/2013/10/02/nsa_..._terror_plots/

Excerpt:

Always reading stuff like this reminds me of the Simpsons Movie (as it came on again the other day) when they are running away from the government and the NSA is trying to track them down and they finally find them and the guy goes "The government finally found someone it was looking for". I just find it funny because they claim it does things every day when in reality it probably rarely finds anything.

[Kellhound]

How so? One failed underwear bomb (which is probably why it got thru to begin with, I could do more damage with a lighter which is permitted) and 1 adolescent boy gets on a plane without a ticket. Those are the main security breaches that come to mind within the last 12 years. You can easily make the argument that the security is a hassle, unprofessional, illiterate, whatever..but I'd need more than that to show me that air travel isn't more safe and secure than it was 12 yrs ago.



I'd try to make the "those were different times, different circumstances" argument for anything pre-9/11, but I don't think that's going to score many points without being able to substantiate it. Also, remember that these laws have been around for loong time (I think the executive order that is used/amended to govern these laws dates back to Reagan and it just gets a facelift every few decades to modernize it) and have been keeping us "safe" a lot longer than people think. There are other more obvious things like the Patriot Act and the NDAA, but they work in very tight conjunction with the executive orders. I have cited all of these multiple times in multiple threads, so forgive if I'm too lazy to dig thru the archives to find links.

With that said, it's no mystery that hostility towards the West (at least hostility that is actively pursued by the bad guys now) has increased exponentially over that last 15 years.

Ok, I know the NSA is likely to be knocking on my door now....
It is still easy to get an edged weapon on a plane if you think it through, not that I would recommend it. Bombs? Who needs bombs. 3-4 people with an old school SA-7s (from, say, Libya) can basically bring air travel to its knees, we have no counter measures installed.
I remember the chief of security of El Al laughing at our "security upgrades", they are really meant to make people FELL safer.

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Always reading stuff like this reminds me of the Simpsons Movie (as it came on again the other day) when they are running away from the government and the NSA is trying to track them down and they finally find them and the guy goes "The government finally found someone it was looking for". I just find it funny because they claim it does things every day when in reality it probably rarely finds anything.

Most successes can't be talked about though. The curse of intelligence, failures are usually public and victories are hidden.

[Spectral]

At this point, everyone should always assume the NSA is lying about everything. There's absolutely no reason to believe that any public proclamation they make is true, because of legitimate intelligence reasons, political reasons, and a self-aggrandizing desire to paint their work as incredibly important.

[Kellhound]

At this point, everyone should always assume the NSA is lying about everything. There's absolutely no reason to believe that any public proclamation they make is true, because of legitimate intelligence reasons, political reasons, and a self-aggrandizing desire to paint their work as incredibly important.

I never assume they ever tell the truth, but their mission is important.

[Spectral]

I never assume they ever tell the truth, but their mission is important.

Sure, sometimes. The intelligence community is allocated vast resources to do a lot of things that don't have any valid national benefit though (or legitimate legal justification), and they're remarkably good at hiding behind fuzzy references to "security". That they so consistently lie to the public makes it more difficult to determine what sort of resources they should get though.

[Payday]

Ok, I know the NSA is likely to be knocking on my door now....
It is still easy to get an edged weapon on a plane if you think it through, not that I would recommend it. Bombs? Who needs bombs. 3-4 people with an old school SA-7s (from, say, Libya) can basically bring air travel to its knees, we have no counter measures installed.
I remember the chief of security of El Al laughing at our "security upgrades", they are really meant to make people FELL safer.

I guess I don't understand what good a knife is when you can't get in the cockpit. If they want to do terrorism by knifing the shit out of people, they can do that much easier and inflict more damage/casualties on a random spree on the ground. As far as rocket launchers go..I don't know. If it's that easy for them to do it, I'm surprised they haven't tried by now.

[Shurkuris]

Please tell me this is sarcasm and you were never that naive.

Maybe I'm reading this wrong, but are you implying that the government is the not the source of evil in most countries?

[Mayhem]

I guess I don't understand what good a knife is when you can't get in the cockpit. If they want to do terrorism by knifing the shit out of people, they can do that much easier and inflict more damage/casualties on a random spree on the ground. As far as rocket launchers go..I don't know. If it's that easy for them to do it, I'm surprised they haven't tried by now.

bridges, railroads, undergrounds... better targets than airplanes

terrorists are obviously idiots

you do have to wonder how incredibly silent the terrorists are by now, i mean, you´d think by being hunted down for more than 10 years, you´d at somepoint start being a terror network and get this terror thing going

we had, what, 2 major cases, both happened to have a safety drill near by (talk about being lucky) and done... they really are some lazy terrorists if you ask me

[Kellhound]

I guess I don't understand what good a knife is when you can't get in the cockpit. If they want to do terrorism by knifing the shit out of people, they can do that much easier and inflict more damage/casualties on a random spree on the ground. As far as rocket launchers go..I don't know. If it's that easy for them to do it, I'm surprised they haven't tried by now.

Compare the cockpit doors of an El Al plane to a Southwest plane, theirs is far stronger.
They have tried, hence why all El Al planes have countermeasures.

[Payday]

Compare the cockpit doors of an El Al plane to a Southwest plane, theirs is far stronger.
They have tried, hence why all El Al planes have countermeasures.

Not that it really matters, but how do we know that our cockpit doors are easier to breach than theirs post 9/11? Even if they were, it still doesn't mean that ours can be breached. I'm pretty sure that was the main priority immediately following the attacks.

[Kellhound]

Not that it really matters, but how do we know that our cockpit doors are easier to breach than theirs post 9/11? Even if they were, it still doesn't mean that ours can be breached. I'm pretty sure that was the main priority immediately following the attacks.

They were reinforced, but that doesn't mean they are impenatrable. And most of ours are single doors, El Al uses a double door, so even if they have to open the door in flight, the cockpit is always behind a locked door.

[Payday]

They were reinforced, but that doesn't mean they are impenatrable. And most of ours are single doors, El Al uses a double door, so even if they have to open the door in flight, the cockpit is always behind a locked door.

They're not impenetrable in the same sense the El Al's doors aren't impenetrable. The only thing that matters is that neither airline's doors are being breached by anything that is allowed (or not allowed but in almost all cases would be screened) by the TSA. No one is getting into the cockpit is the point. If they get knives or even handguns onto the plane, even if they kill the entire cabin and crew, they aren't turning the plane into a missile. At least not in any amount of time fast enough for the pilots to take reactive maneuvers.

Remember that this whole argument started over your position that we as a country in general, and airline traffic especially, are no safer now than we were when all of this started. That's silly.

[Deleted]

I don't feel "screwed over" by having my emails in a DB that no human will ever lay eyes upon, but maybe I'm weird.

That's cool. However just because you are willing to give up your rights doesn't mean anybody else should or has to.

[Rukentuts]

Am I broadcasting it to the world or am I broadcasting it to Verizon who is then allowing agencies to track me?

To the world. It's a mere signal you can track ala Zero Dark Thirty.

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That's cool. However just because you are willing to give up your rights doesn't mean anybody else should or has to.

You never had it. Next.

[v2prwsmb45yhuq3wj23vpjk]

To the world. It's a mere signal you can track ala Zero Dark Thirty.

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You never had it. Next.

The intent is to only communicate with a specific party. There is a reasonable expectation of privacy simply in that the design of a phone implies it. The intent of cellular phones is still to be private. This is evidence by numerous things, not the least of which being the illegality of listening in on conversations via radio scanners.

The "putting your signal out there" thing is a bullshit argument attempting to capitalize on the nature of cellular technology and compare it to being in a public locale. It fails because the design intent was for them to be private and there is no way around the way they broadcast.

[Evelyn]

That's cool. However just because you are willing to give up your rights doesn't mean anybody else should or has to.

Good point. While some people don't mind, it sure as hell doesn't make it ok for them to abuse our rights without punishment.

Isn't it crazy that those whistleblowers are being called traitors, and being punished, just for revealing how the govt is violating those rights of ours? It's so unbelievably ridiculous. What's more absurd, is all the people who just don't seem to give a damn.

[McCulloch]

Good for Leahy. I'm glad he's doing something about this, unlike my senior senator.