quote:

Originally posted by pkcRAISTLIN you and i have had this argument before mate. at the end of the day i believe its a pretty silly argument...

Yes, we have had it before, and I don't really want to turn this thread in to a gun debate, so I'll leave off "shooting" down all your bad points.

But I will say this; You're wrong about small arms not being effective as an insurgency weapon. How is it that you figure having no right to bear arms is better than at least some fighting chance with the right to bear arms, should the U.S. Government ever decide that it wants to somehow opporess us?

Did you know that Bush is one of the biggest supporters of the 2nd Am. we've had here in the states in a long time? Does it make sense that a man whom you all think is trying to oppress us would also empower us to fight this oppression?

Think about it.

Then realize that this paranoia about data-mining is just that.

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Originally posted by Groundhog Boy See, jumping to conclusions is bad. I own guns ...So don't come in here expecting that just because I believe in civil liberties I'm this super liberal. I disagree with liberals/Democrats quite frequently.

I said "most".

Now who's jumping to conclusions?

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Originally posted by MisterOpus1 Ya know, it's interesting. If I recall correctly on the timeline of events pertaining to this NSA scandal, I believe the first Democratic president you Bush apologists went running to for comparison was Clinton. Well that blew up in your face because it was demonstrated that although Clinton's actions on physical searches were ethically questionable, they were not illegal. So then you drew up Carter, which also blew up in your face because what he did was before the FISA courts were created in '79. So now you reach back into your pocket for another Democratic president, FDR. I just want to make sure you haven't skipped other Dem. Presidents in that timeline, because just in case you were wondering, there are a few in between.

look dude, FDR was an example of "any" president worth being called an apologist for defending such action. such legal action.

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When was FISA created?

around your birthday.

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Straw man. This has nothing to do with either one. It has everything to do with breaking current FISA and telecommunications laws, those same laws that this President swore to uphold. What past presidents have or haven't done to uphold that swear is irrelevant to the argument at hand.

no one gives a damn if it's a straw man argument or not. you would not be so indignant about this if it were Chuck Schumer doing this as President. thats just my gut feeling. you are sickeningly blinded my hate and bias.

quote:

Tell ya what, champ, when you actually address the specific points I made previously, then I think we'll actually be holding a worthwhile conversation. I just pointed out to you specific laws that were broken by both this Administration and the phone companies for their complicit actions. You jumped right over those points as if they didn't exist. Do us all a favor and address the points given to you, rather than tango your way out with ad hominems.

no. FISA makes distinctions between what is "electronic surveillance" of communications and addressing info of communications. FISA can be interpreted as a non-regulatory entinty with regard to those billing addresses.

NSA data mining is also protected from the 4th Amendment by Supreme Court precedent.

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Well when I see "big boys" actually handling the jobs given to them, believe me sweetie, you'll be the first to know.

don't count on the mid-terms then.

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Originally posted by donnybrasco Yes, we have had it before, and I don't really want to turn this thread in to a gun debate, so I'll leave off "shooting" down all your bad points. But I will say this; You're wrong about small arms not being effective as an insurgency weapon. How is it that you figure having no right to bear arms is better than at least some fighting chance with the right to bear arms, should the U.S. Government ever decide that it wants to somehow opporess us? Did you know that Bush is one of the biggest supporters of teh 2nd Am. we've had here in the states in a long time? Does it make sense that a man whom you all think is trying to oppress us would also empower us to fight this oppression? Think about it. Then realize that this paranoia about data-mining is just that.

Do you really think that even with assault weapons, a revolution could really occur here? Bush and his military people know this. I mean, how can the common citizen armed with an assault weapon compete with trained military personnel, infrared technology, night vision (yes, I know you can buy night vision, but who has it?), aerial bombings, etc? You're insane if you think that allowing citizens to own firearms is a threat to the government. It's more of a threat than Americans having no firearms, but not much more. Now if we were really allowed to bear arms in the sense that would allow revolution (aka bombs, fully automatics, more control over ammo making capabilites), then maybe there'd be an argument. You see what happens to militias or any other group in this country that even comes close to starting a stockpile of weapons and traing members, don't you?

Secondly, data mining can be effective at eliminating threats for all the reasons I put down before. It's hardly paranoia. There's a reason we do intel in other countries, and it's to gain an upper hand. Now our government is doing it against their own people. Why?? It's surely not because we're all terrorists.

Lastly, I don't even care about the motives. Spying on American citizens and conducting surveillance without a warrant, which must be obtained with some semblance of cause, IS ILLEGAL. It was one of the first laws put into place here, protecting the rights of the citizens from unnecessary intrusions by the government in our lives. Read some history of the US prior to the Revolutionary War. Find out why people left Europe to come here. Find out why they fought, and learn their justifications for making the laws the way that they did following the war. I majored in American Studies when I was in college. I took classes about this stuff in college and read plenty of books about the founding of this country. The people who founded this country would be appalled at what is going on here. Sure times have changed, technology has changed, but in the end, it's still the same type of unlawful intrusion into our lives that they hated.

Oh and to pkcRAISTLIN, there are more reasons for owning firearms than to kill other people. I mean, you could be a PETA person and my argument would be void, but hunting is a pretty common thing in the US. I also used to shoot competitively in my teens, which I really enjoyed. Gun control is actually one area where I'm with closer to the conservatives, but that's because I'm more of a libertarian than a liberal.

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Originally posted by donnybrasco I said "most". Now who's jumping to conclusions?

You've referred to me as a whiny or angry liberal how many times in the last 2 hours?? Pardon me if I took that as a direct comment, seeing as how there are only like 5 people that you've been debating with in the past couple of days.

___________________
"Go back to bed america your government is in control
Here's American Gladiators, here is 56 channels of it,
Watch these picturary retards bang their fuckin' skulls together and congratulate you on living in the land of freedom,
Here you go America you are free to do as we tell you
We want your soul
Your cash, your house, your phone, your cash, your house, your life" -Adam Freeland - We Want Your Soul

quote:

Originally posted by donnybrasco Yes, we have had it before, and I don't really want to turn this thread in to a gun debate, so I'll leave off "shooting" down all your bad points.

*cough* copout *cough*

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Originally posted by donnybrasco But I will say this; You're wrong about small arms not being effective as an insurgency weapon.

no, no they dont. i couldnt see an insurgency in the same understanding as iraq ever coming to fruition in the US.

quote:

Originally posted by donnybrasco Did you know that Bush is one of the biggest supporters of the 2nd Am. we've had here in the states in a long time? Does it make sense that a man whom you all think is trying to oppress us would also empower us to fight this oppression?

i never stated bush is trying to oppress us. merely that he seems to be doing some things that should be legally questioned, and things that could be oppressive in nature, depending on their use. i really think your argument is a non sequitur- since when has any government shown wholly consistent platforms of policy & governance? haha.

___________________

Fine; Just for you, Raisinette.

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Originally posted by pkcRAISTLIN ... you just have to ask the branch davidians how their right to bear assault rifles went in protecting themselves and their property from your government.

They fought back and killed a few ATF Agents. No whether you agree with their actions or not, this event had a HUGE impact on the way the ATF acts now when it comes to arresting those whom they think are are possessing weapons illegally. So I'd venture to say that their use of
small arms was VERY effective. It was the ATF's use of fire that was gruesome.

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Originally posted by pkcRAISTLIN the thought that any group could withstand the special forces in any western democracy is quite simply ridiculous. my argument re the right to bear arms is that the writers of the constituion couldnt have envisaged the technological improvements until the end of time, and that today's weaponry shouldnt be in the hands of your average joe.

This logic is so full of holes you should change your name to "Packistaniswisscheese".

First off; Even in recent history, whole armies have been kept at bay by guerilla forces using almost nothing but small arms. You don't know squatt about military history.

Second off; The musket WAS the Assault Rifle of its day. Civilians were given the same right as the military to have equally powerful weapons. It was always the intention of the framers of the Constituion that the civilian population have the ability to take on the military on equal footing, should that military and the government behind it become oppressive. In fact, it's a right to "bear arms". The argument could even be made that we have a right to own cannons and tanks. But you're trying to say that we can't even own a musket in this day and age?

So on the one hand, assault rifles aren't powerful enough to stop a modern army, yet they're TOO powerful for civilians to own? Double-standard, IMO.

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Originally posted by pkcRAISTLIN ...if we chalked up the amount of homicides related to citizen versus citizen when compared to citizen versus oppressive government, what exactly does it show eh? if the 2nd amendment isnt protecting a citizen from the actions of its government, and is merely allowing a flood of firearms to exist, i see it as completely counter productive.

Read your history. Countless millions have been killed by oppressive governments and Dictators because they were dis-armed. The Jews under Hitler. Cambodians under Pol Pot. Russians under Stalin, etc., etc...the list goes on.

Yet, many armed civilians have fought back and kept whole armies at bay with just a few small arms. Like the Jews during the Warsaw Ghetto up-rising.

You're a fool Raisin to think that people are ever going to stop taking advantage of their dis-armed enemy, wherever they see fit to create that enemy in their mind's eye.

quote:

Originally posted by pkcRAISTLIN now, america is too well fvcked now to ever disarm its populace, but im much happier living in a country where gun-related murders are quite low.

Last I heard, your incidents of crimes involving fire arms has been on the rise ever since they out-lawed guns over there...simply because the criminals now know that they're the only ones armed.

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Originally posted by donnybrasco Last I heard, your incidents of crimes involving fire arms has been on the rise ever since they out-lawed guns over there...simply because the criminals now know that they're the only ones armed.

im heading out so will attend to the rest of your post later, just wanted to talk about this. thats a bollocks statistic used by pro-gun groups in the US. that stat was gathered in 1996-7, and if you look at the gun related homicides since then there has been a steady decline. i posted that data last time we duelled

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Originally posted by tiesto14 stfu n00b....i said it would impossible to listen in on EVERYONE'S phone calls (which would be in the billions per day)...look at what i write before u jump down my throat!

Again you show your lack of understanding anything-
-1 machine>> OC-192 carries about 10 gigabits of data per second. Ten billion bits per second, monitored in real-time
I did look at what you wrote and it was pure fluff, what are you 15-25? This technolgy has been fine tuned for decades. Oh yeah Clinton must have something to do with this....

This subject has nothing to do with what party you support but with our basic rights which you seem to be willing to give away for the illusion of safety.


From the links I posted which you didn't read:
_________________________________________________________
"this machine was built for the sole purpose of wholesale Internet and Phone surveillance"

"created to connect directly to the AT&T backbone network"

"been created solely for spying on AT&T transmissions"

"this *one* box has the capability to fully monitor all of the layer four traffic of 16 major telecommunication companies at once"
_______________________________________________________
ATT's Daytona Database contains phone record data that goes back 30yrs. That is just one of the databases thats now open for snooping, now add all the other telecommunications network databases together.

___________________
GOD IS BEZIG KAN IK U HELPEN

quote:

Originally posted by tiesto14 They arent spying on everyone...and if it helps find the bad boys i am all for it.

the fact that they may acting illegaly against only some people is no defense of that illegality. this is a nation of laws.

if they're so concerned about catching the 'bad boys' then they should act within the legal and legislative system. otherwise, they're no better than the terrorists.

___________________
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I don't understand the all the hoopla...

The NSA isn't collecting any more data than what the phone companies already do and give you at the end of every month in your bill.
Some people forgot to read the fine print I guess...

It looks quite clear in recent polls that most Americans find the way NSA is going about this as acceptable.

AND this was reported back in DECEMBER...

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Journalistic archeology The first point to make is that this is not a new story. The New York Times first published a story about this back in December, 2005, just a week after the NSA al-Qaeda intercept program was blown. It is thus quite clear that the USA Today story is recycled old scandal-mongering from last year... and the only NSA-related story recently that could have sparked this renewed interest is (quite obviously) the nomination of Gen. Hayden. From the December NYT story: Since the disclosure last week of the N.S.A.'s domestic surveillance program, President Bush and his senior aides have stressed that his executive order allowing eavesdropping without warrants was limited to the monitoring of international phone and e-mail communications involving people with known links to Al Qaeda. What has not been publicly acknowledged is that N.S.A. technicians, besides actually eavesdropping on specific conversations, have combed through large volumes of phone and Internet traffic in search of patterns that might point to terrorism suspects. Some officials describe the program as a large data-mining operation. Sounds strangely familiar, yes? This is clearly the exact, same story as the one USA Today "broke" yesterday. Nowhere does yesterday's USA Today article divulge that the Times scooped them by four and a half months, and neither AP nor Reuters seems to be able to remember back that far. Today's Times story credits USA Today with the story in paragraph two; but it does not mention that this is old stuff, long ago reported by the Times itself, until the twelfth paragraph. Even then, it mentions its own earlier story in such an oblique, laconic fashion -- followed by a lurid charge supported only by Mr. Anonymous -- that readers could easily be excused for missing the point that this is old, dessicated outrage.

>>Source<<

So what's the problem again?
Looks to me like NSA is actually doing their jobs from up here in Canada...

I think this guy pretty much hits it right on the head...

quote:

Connecting-the-Dots, Data Mining and the Loss of Real Civil Liberties In the run up to the 2004 election I debated a very left-wing professor who went on and on about how the Patriot Act was essentially a reincarnation of Gestapo or KGB tactics. I responded that I was of course concerned about individual liberties and the unfettered power of the state, but that in the post-9/11 world there is a balancing act between liberty and security, and that I would be more sympathetic to critics of the Patriot Act if they could point to specific cases of abuse. Show me the real alive Jane and Joe Americans who have had their liberties violated in some grotesque manner by the Patriot Act. Needless to say, the professor moved on. I ask the same question today to the bloggers and pundits out there who are hyperventilating over the latest revelation that our security agencies are actually trying to do their job. Many of the people decrying these violations of civil liberties are the same ones who ripped the government for its inability to "connect-the-dots" prior to 9/11. But the paranoia on the left, and in particular, the hatred for the Bush administration has become so intense there is an automatic assumption that the NSA has to be engaging in nefarious activity, spying on you and your neighbor. The idea that the agency is thinking creatively and proactively about how they can legally monitor the bad guys instead of just going about business as usual is, apparently, out of the question for some. The sad truth is it is probably going to take another devastating attack to convince many in this country that we are actually at war against Islamic jihadists. That is something true civil libertarians should think long and hard about. The more vigilant we are today in preventing attacks, the more it will pay off in spades in terms of protecting our civil liberties in the future. Because if this country gets hit with a small nuke and 30,000 or 100,000 Americans die, all of the debating will be over. The ensuing crackdown will be massive, and the loss of REAL civil liberties will become very, very possible.

>>Source<<

___________________
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The grey rain-curtain of this world rolls back, and all change to silver glass...and then you see it...
...white shores...and beyond...the far green country under a swift sunrise."

quote:

Originally posted by Fir3start3r I don't understand the all the hoopla... The NSA isn't collecting any more data than what the phone companies already do and give you at the end of every month in your bill.

That, makes all of the difference. The US constitution's 4th amendment protects citizens from the government. Here is the part of the preample and the actual amendment text:

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The Preamble to The Bill of Rights Congress of the United States begun and held at the City of New-York, on Wednesday the fourth of March, one thousand seven hundred and eighty nine. THE Conventions of a number of the States, having at the time of their adopting the Constitution, expressed a desire, in order to prevent misconstruction or abuse of its powers, that further declaratory and restrictive clauses should be added: And as extending the ground of public confidence in the Government, will best ensure the beneficent ends of its institution. Fourth Amendment 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.

You may be able to argue that the NSA's acts are not prohibited by the case or statutory law, but you can't seriously entertain an argument that claims that governmental acts that are otherwise illegal become legal when non-governmental entities perform those same acts legally.

When people purchase phone service they willingly enter into a contract. Implied in this contract, if not already explicit, is that the companies will maintain call records and other data. In some cases, companies share data with other companies, but even here there is notice and even opt out procedures. There is no expectation that the phone company will share data with the government. Perhaps, if they make it explicit and have opt out procedures, then it would be ok. That is not the case here though.

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Originally posted by Fir3start3r It looks quite clear in recent polls that most Americans find the way NSA is going about this as acceptable.

The US is nation of laws, not of polls. If people don't like the laws , then let them go through the legislative process.

___________________
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My mixes:

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