US defends massive phone record collection

The mask of counter terrorism.
The US has always wanted to spy on their peoples.
Cellphones just replace inserting a microchip under their skin.
 
"Terrorism" - lets the US do whatever the **** it wants to it's citizens rights.
 
And then there is not even a good/clear definition of who qualifies to be tagged as a "terrorist". A person who would have tried to topple Hitler would have been tagged a terrorist by that government. And so would anyone who tried to bring down Stalin/Mao/dictatorship-of-your-choice. If a terrorist is someone who opposes a government then the world is filled with them.

America calls anyone who opposes it a "terrorist". And they have extremely broad powers to deal with any "terrorist", or anyone who might in any way be connected (real or imaginary) to a "terrorist".

Here in SA terrorists are called "agents". We may well end up with a "War on Agents" locally.
 
crackersa said:
i got a special on tin foil hats
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This kind of reply is unfortunate. People who warn others of the dangers are made out to be conspiracy theorists and then ridiculed. A straw man is created and then set alight. Most of us that warn against the dangers are not conspiracy theorists that believe America never landed on the moon etc. We are realists.

I am active in the surveillance industry. I know what is possible. I've worked in both the Public and Private sectors in this business. I know the snakes in the grass that operates in both realms. I know the technology. I know the efforts to control things. An I know without a shadow of doubt that people have reason to be very concerned.
 
marine1 said:
Oh please just like the IRS was targeting Republican organisations.
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Except the person who did it was appointed by George Bush ... lol... and this had nothing to do with the democrats. Also, the dodgy person appointed by GW Bush (and which had nothing to do with Obama or the Dems) was going after just right wing Tea Party orgs. IE, a specific faction with in the Republican party. The rest of the Republican Party had absolutely nothing happen to them. Just the tea baggers got victimized by the person GW Bush appointed.

I do agree, that even the tea party getting victimized by the IRS is a scandal, but blaming Obama and the Dems for that just shows you are ****ing clueless and dont know what you are talking about.

These Democrats are snakes
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See my previous sentence.


Regarding the phone call taps. This is a decades old system. Its apparently even Pre GW Bush. Trust a Republican supporter to only get upset about this when there is a black president. Standard hypocritical practice.
 
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crackersa said:
i got a special on tin foil hats
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Its hardly a huge conspiracy.
For decades governments, especially the US have invested Billions into tracing their citizens.
Facial recognition, RF IDs etc.
Now with mobile phones its become a reality and governments are still trying to push the boundaries.

The current situation however still has limitations, passwords and human intervention yet they persist with personalising data for them to "monitor".
Have a look a Motorolas latest invention.

The pill hides a little chip and switch inside, and is powered by the electrolytes in your stomach, which creates an 18-bit signal. Duncan’s view is that we swallow vitamins or medicine every single day, so there’s no reason we couldn’t swallow one for authentication purposes.
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http://www.geek.com/mobile/motorola-wants-to-replace-passwords-with-pills-and-tattoos-1556827/
 
By the time the reality of all that is going on hits it will be too late for anyone to do anything about it. There will be no-one strong enough to stop the abuses.
 
Personally I dont care that intelligence agencies have access to my phone records. I dont commit crimes through it. I always kinda assumed cops and stuff had access to those records already.
 
And the US is by far not the only country doing this, in fact, I would say that our South African govt are probably doing it far more with less oversight.
 
ghoti said:
Personally I dont care that intelligence agencies have access to my phone records. I dont commit crimes through it. I always kinda assumed cops and stuff had access to those records already.
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ghoti, having phone records is the tip of the iceberg. What sits under the water is what you should be concerned about. It is the stuff happening in the background where data becomes information and information becomes intelligence where the problems lie. There are algorithms running day and night to identify patterns. To an agency hunting criminals your innocent patterns may not mean anything, but to someone else selling insurance it is a treasure trove. Over time the patterns become the study of behaviour and when behaviour changes alarms go off and questions are triggered to try to explain the change.

We are already logged and analysed. Our kids are from a much earlier age. Over time patterns become extremely valuable in telling who/what we are and what we may be up to. Algorithms will predict our future behaviour based on past patterns. And in future it will include those from family members going back a few generations. A grand-grandchild may be imprisoned before he even starts school because of the outcome of these analytics. Woman may even be forced into abortions before they "bring a risk into society". Now connect this with genetics research. Get the picture?

Either we stand up now when it all starts up, or our descendants will suffer and blame us for selling them out in exchange for a convenient "safe" life inside our pizza-box-filled comfort zones.
 
BeVonk! said:
ghoti, having phone records is the tip of the iceberg. What sits under the water is what you should be concerned about. It is the stuff happening in the background where data becomes information and information becomes intelligence where the problems lie. There are algorithms running day and night to identify patterns. To an agency hunting criminals your innocent patterns may not mean anything, but to someone else selling insurance it is a treasure trove. Over time the patterns become the study of behaviour and when behaviour changes alarms go off and questions are triggered to try to explain the change.

We are already logged and analysed. Our kids are from a much earlier age. Over time patterns become extremely valuable in telling who/what we are and what we may be up to. Algorithms will predict our future behaviour based on past patterns. And it will include those from family members going back a few generations in future. A grand-grandchild may be imprisoned before he even starts school because of the outcome of these analytics. Woman may even be forced into abortions before they "bring a risk into society". Now connect this with genetics research. Get the picture?

Either we stand up now when it all starts up, or our descendants will suffer and blame us for selling them out in exchange for a convenient "safe" life inside our pizza-box-filled comfort zones.
Click to expand...

100%
With the studies of our behavior an their algorithms they predict how we think, how we vote, how we spend our money etc
 
BeVonk! said:
ghoti, having phone records is the tip of the iceberg. What sits under the water is what you should be concerned about. It is the stuff happening in the background where data becomes information and information becomes intelligence where the problems lie. There are algorithms running day and night to identify patterns. To an agency hunting criminals your innocent patterns may not mean anything, but to someone else selling insurance it is a treasure trove. Over time the patterns become the study of behaviour and when behaviour changes alarms go off and questions are triggered to try to explain the change.

We are already logged and analysed. Our kids are from a much earlier age. Over time patterns become extremely valuable in telling who/what we are and what we may be up to. Algorithms will predict our future behaviour based on past patterns. And it will include those from family members going back a few generations in future. A grand-grandchild may be imprisoned before he even starts school because of the outcome of these analytics. Woman may even be forced into abortions before they "bring a risk into society". Now connect this with genetics research. Get the picture?

Either we stand up now when it all starts up, or our descendants will suffer and blame us for selling them out in exchange for a convenient "safe" life inside our pizza-box-filled comfort zones.
Click to expand...

I already assume that all non-encrypted data is sniffed from many corporate and government sources. I literally have a dozen forms of communication I use regularly of which a half you cant eavesdrop on.

Honestly, none of this concerns me. If I wanna be secret there are means and ways that are easily accessible. However, I really dont care if the NSA has access to my phone records any more than I care that Google has access to my browsing data. I would never ever use those mediums to break the law.

Im sure data has been resold since the dawn of time. I think Telkom resells our personal data.

I remember spy movies in the early 80`s... with spys phoning in and saying "is this line secure?". This **** has been going on for as long as the tech has existed.

So in a nutshell, dont use the phone to break the law, expect unencrypted personal information to be "out there" (mostly with advertisers and less likely with abortion hunting future people). If you want to keep a communication secure because you are fighting future genetic abortionists.... there are many ways to hide your data so no one can sniff it.

This type of thing is not going away. Adapt or become extinct.
 
Well if criminals and others had any sense they would opt out of the electronics game and go back to the days of hand-offs and dead drops.
Field craft is a lost art in the technology age.
 
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