General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Have the champions of the NSA/Obama, and the detractors of Snowden apologized yet? [View all]jeff47
(26,549 posts)There's a whole bunch of programs that have been leaked. If you look at the details, only one does not have a filter to remove US Persons (more on that in paragraph 3). So yes, the NSA is collecting a crapload of intelligence.....on people who aren't US persons and thus don't have 4th amendment rights.
Those who are so sure the NSA is doing evil spend a lot of time talking about these programs, yet they gloss over the targeting part - allowing the readers to get enraged about being spied upon, when they don't actually have any evidence of US persons being spied upon.
There's one program where they're collecting data on US persons - the phone metadata program. No, it's not bugging conversations, it's collecting number called and how long. The SCOTUS ruled this information was not protected by the 4th amendment in 1979 - they ruled the information was the phone company's, not the individuals. So the individual had no right to privacy regarding that data - it wasn't their data. Btw, the phone companies have used this decision to sell the same information to other people for years.
So, have those behind Snowden actually managed to leak an illegal program yet? Or are they going to keep asserting every program targeted US persons despite what the leaks actually say?