Yes, The government is spying on American citizens. Period.

[cali]

FBI sharply increases use of Patriot Act provision to collect US citizens' records

The FBI has dramatically increased its use of a controversial provision of the Patriot Act to secretly obtain a vast store of business records of U.S. citizens under President Barack Obama, according to recent Justice Department reports to Congress. The bureau filed 212 requests for such data to a national security court last year – a 1,000-percent increase from the number of such requests four years earlier, the reports show.

The FBI’s increased use of the Patriot Act’s “business records” provision — and the wide ranging scope of its requests -- is getting new scrutiny in light of last week’s disclosure that that the provision was used to obtain a top-secret national security order requiring telecommunications companies to turn over records of millions of telephone calls.

Taken together, experts say, those revelations show the government has broadly interpreted the Patriot Act provision as enabling it to collect data not just on specific individuals, but on millions of Americans with no suspected terrorist connections. And it shows that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court accepted that broad interpretation of the law.

“That they were using this (provision) to do mass collection of data is definitely the biggest surprise,” said Robert Chesney, a top national security lawyer at the University of Texas Law School. “Most people who followed this closely were not aware they were doing this. We’ve gone from producing records for a particular investigation to the production of all records for a massive pre-collection database. It’s incredibly sweeping.”


<snip>
http://openchannel.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/06/11/18887491-fbi-sharply-increases-use-of-patriot-act-provision-to-collect-us-citizens-records

[Douglas Carpenter]

1. of course you are right - everyone know this - but here is something really depressing

[cali]

2. I know Douglas. It is alarming and disconcerting. But everyone doesn't acknowledge

that there is spying on Americans. Lots of denial here at DU.

DU has changed so much over the last few years.

[Douglas Carpenter]

4. perhaps it is denial - but the fact that liberal opposition to even outrageous surveillance

has largely collapsed and it is now looking like only fringe Ron Paul type Republicans and fringe Dennis Kucinich type Democrats and the ACLU who still believe in the Constitution - that means there is one enormous green light being given to the surveillance state to do as they please. Even if the current government under President Obama are so noble that they defy human nature and don't abuse the power that has been handed to them - it is absurd to imagine that a future administration will not.

[noise]

3. More often than not

the public is presented with a false choice. Preventing terrorist attacks or protecting civil liberties. And the public is conditioned to believe that a vast intrusive surveillance program is solely used to prevent terrorist attacks.

[Laelth]

6. The results are highly partisan, but I don't find that depressing.

Republicans don't mind the govt. having the power when they are in the majority (when they're in power), and Democrats don't mind the govt. having the power when they are in the majority (when they're in power). That makes some sense. What's important to remember is that the Bill of Rights was designed to protect the minority from the tyranny of the majority. As such, we should concern ourselves with the minority opinion when looking at these polls. Most people don't want the government spying when their party is out of power. Thus, the 4th Amendment should protect the minority from government spying (to the extent it is unconstitutional, which it is, imho). The warrant released by Snowden is far too broad to meet the 4th Amendment's specificity test.

-Laelth

[Skidmore]

8. Do you consider why the shift has occurred?

Let me refer you to this list:

http://politicalscience.osu.edu/faculty/jmueller/since.html

You cannot ignore the fact that the American people have learned to fear terrorism through concrete events and it is no longer a nebulous term from the other side of the planet to them any longer.

[cali]

9. pales by comparison to gun rampages and gun deaths. Pales in comparison

to drunken driving deaths or deaths from lack of health care.

[Skidmore]

11. Perhaps so but I think humans, being what they are, tend to group

events in their minds. These events are bracketed between two particularly horrific ones--the planes on 9/11 and the Boston Marathon bombing. I don't think you can divorce the emotive qualities of those string of events from the discussion. I think the perception of us and "the Other" is part of the psychology of this. For some there is the perception that we have more control over domestic issues as opposed to the impact of a random "other" coming in wreaking havoc either through direct violence or using a fellow citizen to that end. There is nothing rational about this aspect of the issue which makes terrorism effective.

[Recursion]

14. There was also a law passed between 2003 and 2013 regulating the surveillance

Last edited Wed Jun 12, 2013, 10:46 AM - Edit history (1)

I wouldn't overlook that as a reason.

[Laelth]

5. k&r for exposure. n/t

-Laelth

[RobertEarl]

7. massive pre-collection database

Let me repaet that:

"massive pre-collection database"

And what will the private contractors do with that data? They are in business to make money, and they have all that data just sitting there.....

[alc]

12. someone like Rove probably has some ideas

He has lots of money and only needs access to the data for a few 1000 people every 2 years (dem candidates, campaign managers, wives, etc)

There are other money-making options between elections. Like whenever a close vote is coming up in congress and it only takes one or two votes to turn it.

I have nothing to hide. But I can't say the same for ALL politicians and candidates. I'll demand my privacy to protect theirs and our processes. Make the database public to even the political field or don't even collect it and give someone like Rove an opportunity to misuse it.

[midnight]

10. I wonder what the budget is for these snooping programs.... Because if we have to cut food stamps

we should have to cut this first.... feeding a countries people is a matter of utmost national security, and not spying on it.....

[idwiyo]

13. K&R

[limpyhobbler]

15. We probably shouldn't let the executive branch operate with secret interpretations of laws.

Seems to be producing bad results.