'modest encroachments'
 

http://news.yahoo.com/obama-staunchl...164030963.html

The Washington Post reported late on Thursday that federal authorities have been tapping into the central servers of companies including Google, Apple and Facebook to gain access to emails, photos and other files allowing analysts to track a person's movements and contacts.

That added to privacy concerns sparked by a report in Britain's Guardian newspaper that the National Security Agency (NSA) had been mining phone records from millions of customers of a subsidiary of Verizon Communications.



“If tyranny and oppression come to this land it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy.”
― James Madison

http://news.yahoo.com/-why-does-obam...201343244.html

The court order allowing the government to inspect all Verizon phone records was slated to be declassified on April 12, 2038, when today’s political leaders had passed from the stage and were beyond political accountability. Until then, American citizens were supposed to have no way of knowing that the NSA knew when they were good (phoning Grandma for six minutes on her birthday) and when they were bad (arranging an adulterous rendezvous with a 19-minute call to an ex-girlfriend from the office).

Instead, in a major rebuke to Obama’s reputation as a purported defender of civil liberties, the Guardian, the British newspaper, published a top-secret court order Wednesday night that requires Verizon to provide the NSA with access to all of its phone logs. In one of the more chilling passages in the four-page document, Verizon is not allowed “to disclose to any other person that the FBI or NSA has sought or obtained tangible things under this Order.”

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/s...221024826.html

Did Director of National Intelligence James Clapper mislead Congress in March when he denied that the National Security Agency intentionally collects any type of data at all on millions of Americans? Judge for yourself.

It certainly looks bad. The revelation that the NSA secretly vacuumed up the telephone records of millions of Verizon customers would seem to fit the definition of "data" and "millions of Americans."

Clapper is denying that he misled anyone, telling the National Journal in a telephone interview: "What I said was, the NSA does not voyeuristically pore through U.S. citizens' e-mails. I stand by that."

All in the name of protecting us....yeah right, it BS.

But take my gun(s).

based on your posts the other day in the thread about the dna, i'm surprised you're not applauding these illegal searches.

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_a...overnment.html

“The people who set up this program didn’t intend to be malevolent,” he said. “It’s capacity-driven. We have this enormous capacity to collect and sort data. We do this because we can, and because it’s the one area where the government can really overmatch its terrorist adversaries.”

The problem is what happens incrementally. “What now seems extraordinary is soon accepted as normal, and becomes the baseline for the future,” Jenkins said. “Over a period of time, this baseline shifts, and these new intrusions accumulate and reinforce one another—and that fundamentally changes things.”

This dynamic has taken hold in many liberal democracies during crises and wars. “In the past, at the end of the emergency, the balance has shifted back and a lot of those powers were ended,” he said. “But we’re in a situation now that doesn’t have a finite ending. If there isn’t an end, then these powers accumulate and accumulate and accumulate. This is a fundamental difference. What we put in place becomes a permanent part of the landscape.

“We are driven,” he continued, “by fears of what might happen, not by things that have happened.” He noted that since Sept. 11, 2001, there have been 42 terrorist plots in the United States. All but four of them were halted. Three of those succeeded and killed a total of 17 people. “Not that this isn’t a tragedy,” he said, “but, really, in a society that has 15–16,000 homicides every year, it isn’t a lot.

This one's for dell..:D

Arrest equals taking DNA/fingerprints not just being alive. Small difference I know :zz:

Wouldn't let me open. Virus/malware? LMAO

Dang, thought i had ya..:D


How bout this one...

you're wrong. making a mass search to find suspicious activity is no different from checking one person, without probable cause, for the same thing. you are not being consistent. you either have to have cause, or you don't. a judge did not sign off on king, but did on the phone records. is king a criminal? yes. are some verizon customers probably criminal? yes.

the obama admin. may start a criminal probe about these phone record searches...
not into who ordered it, or who gathered all the evidence, but into who leaked the existence of the search.

obama has prosecuted more 'leakers' than all previous presidents combined.
yeah, land of the free, with an unfettered freedom of the press. freedom from illegal search and seizure....:rolleyes:

Here's another for dell..

'George W. Obama'....That's an insult to Obama..:eek:







http://now.msn.com/george-w-obama-vi...from-the-left/

Except for the fact King was under arrest for a felony and verizon customers were/are not.

If he left a finger print at the scene of the rape, instead of DNA that was entered into IAFIS and came up as a match to the crime when his prints were run be OK? Or would printing him be a violation of his 4rth amendment?

DNA is just a more precise fingerprint IMO.

Had he been arrested on trumped up charges solely in order to get a DNA swab, that would be a violation of his 4rth amendment rights but that wasn't the case.

America's first half-Black President

I just wish the President would realize the Patriot Act wasn't put in place to listen/watch/harass Patriots but instead to keep them safe. Obviously the Boston bombers weren't part of the public being monitored but then again they weren't Patriots either. ;)

Now tell me you don't like this one..:D

i'm sorry you're choosing to ignore the fact that his dna was NOT USED FOR ID. an arrest does NOT equal guilty. looking at one man's dna in a dna pool with NO names isn't making sure he's who he says he is. it is looking at all unsolved crimes as a way to create suspicion. much like looking thru phone records is a way to create suspicion, not confirm. searches are supposed to be performed on people if you have reasonable suspicion they have committed a specific crime.
and kings arrest when they did the dna-resulted in a misdemeanor conviction, not a felony. many states do dna swabs on convicts, not arrestees. that is what it should be in all states.

And you choose to ignore the fact when one is printed it is run through IAFIS not only to see if it matches a previous print on file but also latent prints taken from crimes. If the arrestee is coming through the system for the first time there is no print match on file but it is still run for unknown suspects from a crime. I'm sure when the latent print is obtained and ran it comes back no hit. Otherwise a warrant would all ready exist for the arrestee. I believe there is even an award given by the FBI for latent print hit of the year. This guy's original charge was classified as a felony and he pled down for a reason I suspect.

Fingerprinting started with no data base to confirm identity but it did create an identifier besides a name for arrestees/convicts. The same can be said of DNA especially taken in a swab only it's a much more precise identifier.

The comparing of Verizon customers to this felon I just don't get.

they both have to do with the fourth amendment. if you read scalia's dissent, which i figure you have not, you'll see the case he laid out, and the arguments he made. it all has to do with searches to create suspicion, vs a warranted search due to suspicion/probable cause.

I will stick with the majority of the Supreme court on this one. Maybe it's because I see a difference between an individual under arrest for a felony and an individual going about his day, armed with a cell phone. Meanwhile I don't see much difference between a fingerprint and DNA swab.

You keep ignoring the fact arrestees and convicts have had their prints matched to murders/rapes/bank robberies for eons with no suspicion or probable cause as you see it. The matching of King to the rape could have come from a print left at the scene, instead it came from DNA.

have you read the dissent?

the majority gave a ruling based on 'identity'. scalie completely demolishes that reasoning, and excoriates the 'logic' behind the ruling. the dna swab was NOT to search identity, which was what the majority based their decision on.
also, his dissent explains in detail about searching based not on probable cause, but on finding probable cause. he also explains that fingerprinting has never been ruled on by scotus, it's one of those things that we've become inured to with time.
you know, what this admin is hoping we will become regarding emails, etc? and we've seen majority opinions be wrong, and later overturned. i'm hoping that's what happens here.

again, have you read the dissent? if not, you're refusing to look into something that may sway your thinking. better not do that, right?

I've put in 60 hrs. at work the last 4 weeks in a row and with the hawks playing and my golf addiction calling frankly I haven't had time. I may this evening, we'll see?

Needed a break from work and read the majority as well as Scalia’s minority opinion and contrary to your theory it did not sway my opinion. But here’s how I dissent Scalia’s dissent.

Scalia states, “The Fourth Amendment forbids searching a person for evidence of a crime when there is no basis for believing the person is guilty of the crime or is in possession of incriminating evidence. That prohibition is categorical and without exception; it lies at the very heart of the Fourth Amendment.”

I’d argue King was not searched for evidence. The evidence in this case was the DNA left at the scene of the rape. King was legally swabbed per the Maryland DNA Collection Act.

He goes on to say, ‘or to search a person “whose offence is not particularly described and supported by evidence,”’

I believe waving a shotgun at a group with many witnesses outside of those threatened meets the criteria of an offence described and supported by a preponderance of the evidence. King after asking for a ‘speedy trial by his peers’ as Scalia pointed out pled guilty much later but he left that fact out of his opinion. Seems the Judge is very time sensitive sometimes and not so much other times.

He then attempts to describe the differences between finger print and DNA data bases albeit with great bias. He points out an electronic finger print takes an average of 24 minutes yet neglects to point out it’s a relatively new technology and it wasn’t so long ago, finger prints were taken manually, on a card, and then sent to Quantico for a manual check against cards on file after the print was ‘pointed’. Many times a arrestee would bail out before his/her prints came back.

He does go into detail of the time needed to run a DNA sample thru CODIS. He then explains the two data bases of CODIS pointing out the one for arrestees/convicts bears no name only an identification number (that can lead to a name by back tracking the sample). The other is for unsolved crimes, obviously with no names attached.

He neglects to point out that finger prints, like DNA samples from arrestees and convicts aren’t filed by name but by FBI Number. Like the DNA sample number the FBI number can then be back tracked to find as Scalia stated, “detailed identification information, including “criminal histories; mug shots; scars and tattoo photos; physical characteristics like height, weight, and hair and eye color.” Without looking up the FBI number the identification can not be made. Similar to the way a DNA sample number would be looked up.

Lastly he points out “Latent prints” recovered from crime scenes are not systematically compared against the database of known fingerprints, since that requires further forensic work.”

If it didn’t require further forensic work to systematically check would it then be a violation of 4rth Amendment rights? If say the 24 minutes to process an electronic finger print is reduced to 24 seconds and a simultaneous search of the data base of latent prints taken from crimes is completed would fingerprinting then cross the threshold and become an illegal search for evidence?

Bottom line for me is the evidence in this case was the DNA obtained from the semen left at the rape, could have been a finger print or even a name on a deposit slip. The process of matching that DNA to the sample taken at the time of the arrest is akin to a name match made through a NCIS check after a traffic violation with a match to say again a deposit slip.

Lastly, if this has little to do with finger printing as an accepted form of identification why did Scalia spill so much ink on it, as he likes to put it?

I’ll wait for your dissent of my dissent one more time and I’m putting this one to bed. Just hope Alonso has something special planned for tonight and the poor woman who he raped enjoys hers. I’m out for some barbeque ribs and sweet corn so I know I’ll enjoy the rest of mine.

“The Fourth Amendment forbids searching a person for evidence of a crime when there is no basis for believing the person is guilty of the crime or is in possession of incriminating evidence. That prohibition is categorical and without exception; it lies at the very heart of the Fourth Amendment.”

how does swabbing for dna and running it thru the dna unsolved crime database not fit this description?
when they arrested king, did they suspect him of committing the crime from six years ago?
how is swabbing for dna of a person arrested, not convicted, but arrested, disimilar from searching thousands of phone records? other than quantity, there is no difference. when a person is arrested, he is under suspicion only for the crime for which he was arrested. unless he possesses evidence of other crimes, they have no basis for a search. and running his dna was most definitely a search.
searching phone records is a way to produce suspicion, not act on it. the act of using a phone makes one no more suspicious of committing a crime than being arrested for one thing makes one suspicious of any other crime that's been committed. also, arrest itself is zero proof of crime, one must still be found guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. he was not found guilty of a felony on the initial charge.
also, as scalia asked, what is a serious crime? who will define it? is speeding a serious crime? maybe, maybe not. who chooses?


and scalia 'spilled so much ink' on it because the majority opinion was mainly based on using dna as an identification tool, which he shows is not what happened here.

i get that king is a bad guy, i am concerned about the far-reaching affects of chipping away at our fourth amendment. this ruling does that. the patriot act being used as a way to search phone and emails is another. where does it end? and it won't be just bad guys who pay.

as a man famously said after being found completely innocent after getting his name dragged thru the mud after arrest, etc 'how do i get my reputation back?' the kings of this world aren't the only ones swept up in nets like this.

DNA is not just a form of identity, it is your identity. It only becomes evidence when it's associated with a crime. Similar to your drivers license being a form of ID unless say it was dropped at the scene of the crime.

King's 4th amendment rights were violated as much as a driver pulled over on a traffic stop being asked for ID and then run through NCIC.

the traffic stop is done after probable cause, witnessed by the officer who pulls you over. the info is run to verify id.
and if used for identity, why was the dna run thru the unidentified unnamed database? how can it be used to prove identity if done that way?

So a traffic stop is probable cause and waving a shotgun at a group of people is not?

DNA is in itself an identity and a swab is its drivers license. Just as a cop has a right to ask for a DL to find out whether there are any warrants/holds so does the jailer to check for warrants/holds.

And if the DNA data base was truly unidentified/unnamed how did it lead back to King? Somewhere his name was identified by the numbered sample despite Scalia's claims regarding the data base.

he was arrested and anything regarding THAT CRIME is fair game.

the dna in the database matched his after they put it in the system. it didn't match by name, but by dna. if they haven't got a name, they number it.

and a cop can't ask for dl, name, anything unless he has a reasonable need to know, such as if he thinks a crime has been committed. he can't ask for that stuff just to then run a name and search for crimes. he must first suspect the crime.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pAlRDGUx-B8

it is not an insult, they are one in the same

oh bullshit.

The Patriot Act was put in place to strip away the constitution of the united states.

The only thing that has equal, Bi Partisan support in Washington is spying on the citizens and taking away rights. I laugh when someone who is attached to a party blames the other party. They both do it, equally.

hey lori!!!!!!!!!

I'm neutral..:)

When I am President, one of the first things I am going to do is call my Attorney General and say to him, 'I want you to review every executive order that's been issued by George Bush - whether it relates to warrantless wiretaps, or detaining people, or reading emails, or whatever it is - I want you to go through every single one of them.' And if they're unconstitutional, if they're encroaching on civil liberties unnecessarily, we are going to overturn them." Barack Obama, 2007

I'm waiting for riot to confirm that quote is authentic...or at least Jon Stewart.:)

i can't see your pic above, just a red X

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2136477/posts

BROWN: And when you are... if you were to be elected president of the United States, Senator Obama, do you feel that we need to look back if the investigations have been done on this administration find out what happened, because there’s a fear there’s a dangerous precedent being set... the CIA interrogation tapes missing, warrant-less wire tapping, all of these are violations of the Constitution, and people can be forgiven for thinking that it seems like we only enforce the Constitution when its politically expedient.

OBAMA: Well one of things that I’ve said, and I’ve said this repeatedly publicly, since I taught constitutional law for ten years is that...one of my first acts as president is going to be call in my new attorney general to review every single executive order that’s been issued... to overturn those that are undermining the Constitution, undermining our civil liberties, that are promoting this cockamamie theory of Unitary government, that says that somehow the executive branch does not need to obey the Constitution…uhh

See this one?