So the answer to your question is: ignorance. They don’t get the threat of the NSA program because they don’t get the technology. It’s an issue which will get resolved either (best case) by generational changed, i.e. slowly, or (worst case) by the government being caught doing something extremely (not just very) reprehensible with the technology.

I say the government needs to step in and stop multinational corporations from collecting information on us and invading our privacy. They need to pass a law that prevents all phone calls from being made in the first place. That way, multinational coorporations wont be able to access our private information (which they have traditionally used to bill their customers).

Speak truth to power gentlemen!

You want to track down terrorist networks? Well then do some old-fashioned investigative work.

Well, of course, but now are the times of ultimate data gathering…the time of Google. I think that perhaps we’re abandoning more basic methods for easier paths, and that’s concerning. I hope we find a better middle ground, that being we limit our data gathering to those who are truly suspicious, instead of the whole. After all, we had good old fashioned intelligence of the 9/11 terrorists, but simply ignored it. If we had paid more attention to that…well…who knows.

In the end, with our present level of comprehensive (yet dumb) tech, nothing can substitute for human intuition.

No one is saying the NSA shouldn’t be allowed to vigorously seek out terrorists. We just don’t want that agency and the executive branch being the sole deciders of what’s in our best interest.

O.K.

Why stop there? People with guns can use them to do illegal things to people as well, so by all means lets take guns away from cops.

Police also have the ability to arrest people, but they COULD abuse that and detain people illegally. But instead of relying on false inprisonment laws lets take away their authority to detain people at all.

Look! I’m saving the world one imaginary threat at a time!

I don’t see any exception for ChoicePoint or the phone company in either amendment. People may choose to interpret these rights away, but to me they seem self evident.

The IV Amendment say: The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

While the XIV Amendment say: …..No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. ….

Commerce has illegally been selling our personal data with impunity for quite a while

It is not illegal in most circumstances. Sorry. If you can give me a concrete example of what illegality it is that you are referring to, I would appreciate it. Maybe it should be illegal, and that was somewhat of the idea of my comment, but it is not. Bush Co. was/is within their legal authority to buy this information and it is the right of QWest to refuse. And here is the rub, it is the right of the other telephone companies to sell that information. If you don’t like, I think we should be a law or a constitutional amendment.

If we responded to the attack by the Japanese in the same manner as the attack on NYC and D.C. …. we would be wearing kimomos ot jack boots. It is incredible that we, as a nation, are debating what we are going to tolerate in mitigated freedom …. all while our loyal, patriotic Ad-whores are hawking military garb to beach brats! Where are we headed?

The victory that civil libertarians need to win is in awareness. As it stands one does not have a reasonable expectation of privacy, barring certain statutory protections for certain types of information (medical, SS#, exc.), in most information divulged in the course of most consumer transactions.

I think it was in 1995 that the E.U. passed their Privacy Directive which boldly grants fundamental privacy rights to all citizen of member states. It also set up an elaborate system of enforcement. It hasn’t been very effective in “protecting” European identities, but he sentiment was there. It has caused some stress with U.S. corporation because if the Directive were strickly adherred to (which it is not) - the privacy directors of the members states would have to block the U.S. from internet access to the country. So far Luxembourg hasn’t gotten any uppity ideas.

Here in the U.S., California has a privacy law and whole department, but I believe it is incredibly unstaffed. Anyway, it is an important issue and it should be debated and, maybe now is the time to introduce a Privacy amendment to the Constitution, because as it stands now, this is legal under the Constitution. (There has been some talk that there might have something statutory go after, but I think the government would easily defeat it).

Look, this is not about an inability to view the world in post-9/11 terms. This is about an unwillingness to believe that 9/11 has somehow altered us so much that we must either void our traditional freedoms or die in a horrible terrorist attack.

It’s not so black-and-white. We can have freedom AND security and to pretend otherwise is, well, useless and ignorant. The trick is to find a balance–but I’m not sure how many people on either side will even admit that a balance is possible. It’s a damn shame because we could really use some smart, honest leaders these days.

I agree we need the ability to conduct surveilance. But we don’t have a basis in law for a lot of what is being done, and we don’t have oversight. On the contrary, the president insist on his absolute right to do as he pleases, whether or not it complies with law.

I am 100% in favor of conducting whatever surveillance is legal, necessary, relevant and subject to judicial and congressional oversight. Give me law and oversight and I withdraw all my objections.

The problem is

a) We *do* need some kind of effective, reasonably nonintrusive surveillance system to prevent terrorist violence, and

b) That system needs effective, transparent checks and balances, but otherwise needs to be free to make quick technological and tactical shifts.

I am not sure the current system fails to meet that standard.

There’s a bigger issue here, too, which is that in a society whose informational technology is growing by leaps and bounds, the very notion of privacy is about to be extinct. We need to figure out how to preserve meaningful levels of democracy and liberty in the face of that. But that conversation is about much more than who’s in the Oval Office.

But I appreciate your facility for deploying world-weary sarcasm against straw men. Later maybe you can respond to what I actually wrote. That might be fun, too.

I haven’t really spent time thinking about this, so maybe I shouldn’t comment. Perhaps you all have spent enough time examining the details to do more than spin elaborate hypotheticals (by the way, I like the options: “impossible, or benign, or irrelevant.” How about unlikely?). I’ll get right on reading that when you write it, as long as our ‘flavor’ isn’t too “soviet union” like and I’m still allowed to read it.

Ah, hell. You mean well, I’m sure.

If this is safety, I’d kind of like to see what danger looks like so I can compare the two and choose for myself.

http://www.time.com/time/photoessays/shattered/index.html

If this is safety, I’d kind of like to see what danger looks like so I can compare the two and choose for myself.

America seems to be slowly acquiring a very Soviet Union flavor, and the public is blissfully going along. Trading freedom for security is always a bad idea.