Right-wing companies are being contracted to track your phone usage...

[cherokeeprogressive]

If that fact alone doesn't concern you, I don't know what should. You keep telling yourself that it was approved by judges... judges I might add that have only disallowed 12 FISA requests since the FISA Court came into existence. Yup. Shhhh... go back to sleep. There's nothing to be alarmed about...

On the graveyard shift tonight there's going to be some fat fuck who went to his Senior Prom with a cousin, who was forced because he didn't have a date and his Momma wanted him to go. He's going to be sitting in front of a bank of computer screens, looking for the Dirty Birdies. You know, the ones who do the bad stuff. He's going to be sucking the mayonnaise off of his Cheetoh stained fingers after eating his third bologna sandwich. One of his screens will be showing DU PMs going back and forth. He knows who the Dirty Birdies are...

As he undoes his pants while logging into Chat Roulette he'll be wondering just which DUer he should fantasize about fucking tonight. Of course he wouldn't be logging in if they didn't FORCE him to, by being Dirty Birdies. Tonight he's thinking he'll drop his soiled Kleenex into HER locker because he bets SHE'S a Dirty Birdie too.

In the morning when he gets home, he'll lie to his Momma about the Chat Roulette thing and hate himself for it, just like he does every day. He'll succeed though, one day, for sure. He'll get his Dirty Birdie... maybe a WHOLE FLOCK of Dirty Birdies.

Yeah, you keep chanting Judge Judge FISA FISA... You have NO IDEA who's watching your phone usage but you don't care because you've been TOLD it's legal, and it's for your own good.

Shhhh... go back to sleep.

[JaneyVee]

1. Aren't they just collecting metadata? No "fat fuck" is going through your email.

ETA: I'm not advocating for it, I'm just saying hyperbole brings little to the debate.

[cherokeeprogressive]

2. Okay. No right wing subsidiaries of The Carlisle Group are collecting your phone usage.

And no, they won't EVER use it in an untoward way. Not ever. After all, there are LAWS against that kind of stuff.

And, what the hell; it's for your own good.

Shhhh...

[JaneyVee]

5. So are the rightwing CEOs of these telecom companies.

How do we get THEM to stop collecting our metadata? Seems like a reasonable first step. I mean, at least the Govt is saying they're doing it for National security purpose, what's their excuse?

[cherokeeprogressive]

8. The telecom CEOs can't ruin my life for calling the wrong number.

[JaneyVee]

10. It would be extremely hard for the NSA to ruin your life over a phone call to a wrong number.

It doesn't work that way.

[cherokeeprogressive]

11. Impossible? Or just extremely hard?

It works however they want it to work.

You trust the government. I don't. I haven't since I learned about the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, years after the fact. By that time, three of my Uncles had served in Vietnam, one was wounded, and two were never the same.

Nothing has changed other than technology, and they OWN technology.

Don't trouble yourself. It's for your own good, or so they say.

[JaneyVee]

14. What would be their ulterior motive? These guys can't even find Snowden months after he left.

And he's been in contact with journalists via cellphone.

[marions ghost]

19. Such trust

so sweet and quaint.

[Dyedinthewoolliberal]

15. What are they looking for?

I mean, don't they already have an idea of who needs watching? By the way, I'm not in favor of any Patriot Act activity, but wonder what they could be looking for.......

[marions ghost]

21. We are all under watch

We are all guilty til proven innocent. We have no legal protections.

On Rachel Maddow last night James Bamford (writer about NSA activity) said that the FISA courts are a complete farce.

[backscatter712]

12. The metadata is even more useful for the NSA's Google for Tyrants than the actual contents.

It takes more computing cycles to dig through phone calls and email text, while email headers and phone call metadata is already machine-readable, and provides plenty of information that obviates the need for actual eavesdropping.

[arcane1]

3. Your fat fuck also works for Yahoo or Google, and has access to all of your email

The government was last in line for this info!

[cherokeeprogressive]

4. Shhhh...

[arcane1]

7. Sorry...

From now on I'll send my comments via my totally-private-and-no-human-can-possibly-see it Gmail account, linked to my Facebook profile, and sent from my iPhone.

Nobody will ever know!

[Phillip McCleod]

6. yeh well according to many around here..

..that's just dandy.

fuck.

[cherokeeprogressive]

9. There is but one reason it's being defended.

Some are afraid it will make President Obama look bad somehow.

We can't have that.

[Phillip McCleod]

13. it does make him look bad. but this is his 2nd term..

..now is when some action *can* happen on entrenched issues like the military-corporate-spy establishment.

a couple times i've wondered if obama *wanted* this to get leaked. he's dealing with a goliath of cheney/rummy's making in the DoD & friends.

maybe now people will get pissed enough to see some legislation we can sort of like, and that obama might want to sign.. while maintaining plausible deniability of course.

[reformist2]

17. +1000.

It's sad, really. We ought to be calling the Republicans' bluff and getting them to work towards dismantling this whole program, like they *claim* they want to do right now.

[nashville_brook]

16. kr

[KG]

18. people are kidding themselves if they think data collecting entities feel bound by courts or laws.

[xchrom]

20. +1

[Coyotl]

22. Not to mention, who did Bush hire to fill all the new National Security positions?

No doubt, only those cleared by political operatives as loyal followers.