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Free Speech, Facebook & The NSA: The Good, The Bad & The Ugly
Submitted by John Whitehead via The Rutherford Institute,
“A person under surveillance is no longer free; a society under surveillance is no longer a democracy.”—Writers Against Mass Surveillance
THE GOOD NEWS: Americans have a right to freely express themselves on the Internet, including making threatening—even violent—statements on Facebook, provided that they don’t intend to actually inflict harm.
The Supreme Court’s ruling in Elonis v. United States threw out the conviction of a Pennsylvania man who was charged with making unlawful threats (it was never proven that he intended to threaten anyone) and sentenced to 44 months in jail after he posted allusions to popular rap lyrics and comedy routines on his Facebook page. It’s a ruling that has First Amendment implications for where the government can draw the line when it comes to provocative and controversial speech that is protected and permissible versus speech that could be interpreted as connoting a criminal intent.
That same day, Section 215 of the USA Patriot Act, the legal justification allowing the National Security Agency (NSA) to carry out warrantless surveillance on Americans, officially expired. Over the course of nearly a decade, if not more, the NSA had covertly spied on millions of Americans, many of whom were guilty of nothing more than using a telephone, and stored their records in government databases. For those who have been fighting the uphill battle against the NSA’s domestic spying program, it was a small but symbolic victory.
THE BAD NEWS: Congress’ legislative “fix,” intended to mollify critics of the NSA, will ensure that the agency is not in any way hindered in its ability to keep spying on Americans’ communications.
The USA FREEDOM Act could do more damage than good by creating a false impression that Congress has taken steps to prevent the government from spying on the telephone calls of citizens, while in fact ensuring the NSA’s ability to continue invading the privacy and security of Americans.
For instance, the USA FREEDOM Act not only reauthorizes Section 215 of the Patriot Act for a period of time, but it also delegates to telecommunications companies the responsibility of carrying out phone surveillance on American citizens.
AND NOW FOR THE DOWNRIGHT UGLY NEWS: Nothing is going to change.
As journalist Conor Friedersdorf warns, “Americans concerned by mass surveillance and the national security state’s combination of power and secrecy should keep worrying.”
In other words, telephone surveillance by the NSA is the least of our worries.
Even with restrictions on its ability to collect mass quantities of telephone metadata, the government and its various spy agencies, from the NSA to the FBI, can still employ an endless number of methods for carrying out warrantless surveillance on Americans, all of which are far more invasive than the bulk collection program.
As I point out in my new book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, just about every branch of the government—from the Postal Service to the Treasury Department and every agency in between—now has its own surveillance sector, authorized to spy on the American people. Just recently, for example, it was revealed that the FBI has been employing a small fleet of low-flying planes to carry out video and cell phone surveillance over American cities.
Then there are the fusion and counterterrorism centers that gather all of the data from the smaller government spies—the police, public health officials, transportation, etc.—and make it accessible for all those in power.
And of course that doesn’t even begin to touch on the complicity of the corporate sector, which buys and sells us from cradle to grave, until we have no more data left to mine. Indeed, Facebook, Amazon and Google are among the government’s closest competitors when it comes to carrying out surveillance on Americans, monitoring the content of your emails, tracking your purchases and exploiting your social media posts.
“Few consumers understand what data are being shared, with whom, or how the information is being used,” reports the Los Angeles Times. “Most Americans emit a stream of personal digital exhaust — what they search for, what they buy, who they communicate with, where they are — that is captured and exploited in a largely unregulated fashion.”
It’s not just what we say, where we go and what we buy that is being tracked. We’re being surveilled right down to our genes, thanks to a potent combination of hardware, software and data collection that scans our biometrics—our faces, irises, voices, genetics, even our gait—runs them through computer programs that can break the data down into unique “identifiers,” and then offers them up to the government and its corporate allies for their respective uses.
All of those internet-connected gadgets we just have to have (Forbes refers to them as “(data) pipelines to our intimate bodily processes”)—the smart watches that can monitor our blood pressure and the smart phones that let us pay for purchases with our fingerprints and iris scans—are setting us up for a brave new world where there is nowhere to run and nowhere to hide.
For instance, imagine what the NSA could do (and is likely already doing) with voiceprint technology, which has been likened to a fingerprint. Described as “the next frontline in the battle against overweening public surveillance,” the collection of voiceprints is a booming industry for governments and businesses alike. As The Guardian reports, “voice biometrics could be used to pinpoint the location of individuals. There is already discussion about placing voice sensors in public spaces, and [Lee Tien, senior staff attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation] said that multiple sensors could be triangulated to identify individuals and specify their location within very small areas.”
Suddenly the NSA’s telephone metadata program seems like child’s play compared to what’s coming down the pike.
That, of course, is the point.
Whatever recent victories we’ve enjoyed—the Second Circuit ruling declaring the NSA’s metadata program to be illegal, Congress’ inability to reauthorize Section 215 of the Patriot Act, even the Supreme Court’s recognition that free speech on the internet may be protected—amount to little in the face of the government’s willful disregard of every constitutional safeguard put in place to protect us from abusive, intrusive government agencies out to control the populace.
Already the American people are starting to lose interest in the spectacle of Congress wrangling, debating and negotiating over the NSA and the Patriot Act.
Already the media outlets are being seduced by other, more titillating news: Caitlyn Jenner’s Vanity Fair cover, Kim Kardashian’s pregnancy announcement, and the new Fifty Shades of Grey book told from Christian’s perspective.
What remains to be seen is whether, when all is said and done, the powers-that-be succeed in distracting us from the fact that the government’s unauthorized and unwarranted surveillance powers go far beyond anything thus far debated by Congress or the courts.
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I doubt there will ever be an inital public offering that had more pictures of investment bankers that everyone regrets getting "out there"
Corzine moments for the uninitiated.
"All of those internet-connected gadgets we just have to have "...I have a computer, a cheap, by the minute, flip-phone that I call my taliphone...have had my visits by nsaguy and fbiguy...and only post here since 1/1/15. Just had a phone survey where I was asked about Fienstein (literally minutes ago)...suggested she needs a bullet in her head. Let's see how long it takes.
That is pretty much exactly how Jon Corzine, Former govenor of NJ explained the collapse of MF global. Some kid in the server room probably did it.
Also. Nobody at facebook plays "speed chess" unless they want to lose.
Free speech is great. But I'd rather eat franks and beans in a FEMA camp. Now that's living.
Yeah, give me an RFID Implant so you can track me 24/7 & make me use it to buy/sell/trade anything...
We need better digital currency & surveillance, hopefully they can hurry up and cattle tag us all in those FEMA camps...
/end sarcasm
I encourage all to send out false positives. Here's a video of these federal fuckers in action:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RWu9jneWaI0
Enjoy!
Yep, I do my part. I have a gooooogle account that I sign up for every stupid mailing list I come across and a bunch of those channels on utube.
Catalog it boys, Catalog it
angry sinner blog guy is back.
the freedoms listed in the Constitution and Bill of Rights are the freedoms necessary to create a vibrant and productive agrarian and small business economy. Such economies generate revenues almost boundlessly.
The control freaks that have assumed power in the USA are oblivious to that correlation; it is the reason it is now impossible for the USA to pay off its debt
I record my meaning on the Internet for the singularity, not for them.
I've been leaving messages telling it I'm on its side...Yeah, it's sucking up, but I'm hoping to secure a cushy spot as a capo when the singularity enslaves you all...
I won't be cruel, but one has to do what one has to do...
I, Boattrash, want to take this opportunity to tell the violators of the constitution, that are working in the NSA, CIA, Congress, FBI, LEO Agencies, IRS, Dept of Treasury, TSA, DHS, and any others, that I mean you no harm, but it's OK if you drown in your own blood, seconds before you burn to death.
If you really believe in the law of conservation of information, the singularity already has you recorded.
The feds don't care about obeying laws. They are the rulers, we are the ruled. Thus, the spying will continue no matter what Congress does.
The only thing that puts a stop to this is a dollar collapse. When the government parasites can't pay their own thugs, maybe we can reclaim our lost rights.
That's a nice thought. Unfortunately the collapse of the dollar will simply open the door to their latest and greatest plan. Where do people get this idea that some how the oligarchy doesn't understand or isn't 5-10 steps head of what the masses think they know? They control this shit. Wake up.
As for sky net, it is not just the collection of data that is dangerous, but the control of it's flow. Again I'm a little lost as to why know one is talking about how easy, and dangerous, it is for a small group of people to control the flow of information on the Internet. It is mass brain washing on an unprecedented scale. If you don't think it's happening your not very observant.
I keep trying to get the wife to ditch fartbook. She won't.
I'm beginning to think it's more addictive than cocaine. Even hiking in the backcountry if I come upon anyone, they are staring at their phones. I guess beautiful scenery and serenity just don't have any appeal any more.
Why people want to share their details of their lives and why people care to read it just mystifies me. Seems to be a cross between voyeurism and gossip.
Miffed
I happen to be an expert in the subjective effects of addiction. While I never used fartbook, I can tell you that smartphones in general are more addicting than cigarrettes or cocaine. Or pills.
I ditched the smartphone a few months back and I feel much freer. If the wife would let me I'd ditch the internet entirely and go back to reading.
Freud would say that you really want to ditch the wife.
Yeah but Freud was a quack.
Freud saw the light.
Nah, Freud would say you want to kill your dad and fuck your mom. That was one fucked-up dude.
Hi Miffed, I never had an account there, but a couple co-workers on my boat did. We were at work when they got the call that their house had been robbed, vandalized, (including a couple screwing in one's bed). I couldn't believe their surprise, hell, I had been warning them about posting their daily lives on Facefuck for 2 years...
Facebook CEO Admits To Calling Users 'Dumb Fucks'
http://gawker.com/5636765/facebook-ceo-admits-to-calling-users-dumb-fucks
I resisted until I saw that I could instantly talk to people around the world, and that my extended family was available in ways never contemplated. But I don't have a smartphone, only a taliphone. To me it seemed like the Star Trek communicator.
To me, posting rants was theraputic and I somehow gained thousands of 'friends'. My wife and I were locally recognized as the OldPharts...even as we walked up to yard sales and stuff. It was weird. After facebook started getting overtly facsist I announced my withdrawal effective 1/1/15. The last week of december fascistbook decided that I needed to use my real name and locked my account. Two weeks later fbiguy was on my front porch.
I occassionally go on to see pictures of my grandson, or send a chat to someone asking for an email. Other than that I don't use facebook anymore (and I'm teased about the masking tape over the computer camera). I stopped watching TV around 2013 other than an occassional movie (netflix was added late last year). I now have over 100 sites, around the world that I read, damn near nightly to get my news.
Wife wanted a fancy new phone because she was being teased about her taliphone. So got her one for Christmas, now she's like a teenager staring into the thing, playing some mindless game for hours at a time (remind me that one of my sites is Pandemic II, from a ZH suggestion), and my younger son has totally bought into the rules of the game as they exist today. Pisses me off that I drive them to somewhere spectacular, Salton Sea, Death Valley, Big Bear...and they are absorbed in that stupid freakin' phone.
What are some of the sites you read?
Some are oddball...(from the bottom to the top)
Counterpunch
RetractionWatch
The peoples cube
San Bernardino Sheriff's Radio
The Daily Bell
Intellihub
Stratfore
US Strategic Command
Conflict News
Moscow Times
The Liberty Mill
Xinhua-China News
Barnhardt
Information Clearing House
Asia News
Pandemic 2
The most important news
Wall Street on Parade
What ever happended to common sense
The Daily Sheeple
Intellectual Frog Legs
Rat Nation
CNA News
Jerusalem Post
Trends Research Institute
Power politics
Al Jazeera America
FEMA
Alt-Market
SHTF Plan
The Guardian
The Daily Caller
Breitbart
SGTReport
Max Keiser Financial Wars
RT
Telegraph
NBC News
Mad Yet
The China Money Report
True Activist
NWTMint
Daily job cuts
Keiser Report
Wide Awake News
Yahoo
MarketWatch
Mail online
FDIC Failed Bank List
Zero Hedge
There's more but that the first two pages of the favorites. And left out the porn sites so you don't cut into my bandwidth.
That's not very neighborly of you to be so worried about bandwidth.
Don't fuck with my porn...neighbor.
They live vicariously through their facebook fantasy characters.
I go through spurts of Facefuck. I may check it every day for three days and not go back for a week. The phone is even stranger. I just activated the nice tricked-out Galaxy I got last Christmas a couple of weeks ago when my old Droid died in its sleep. It is big enough to see AND type on and the 4G is at least as fast as my home internet. I do use it a bit more on weekends, but I still have to think to look at it at least once a day during the week. What is the fascination?
Um. what is a Galaxy (I assume it's not astronomical) and what is a 4G?
Seriously, my cell phone of choice would have a dial on it.
People throw these terms out like they are common knowledge.
My first phone number was TL 236. (might have been TR 236, I was just a kid.)
And you had to ask the adults to get off to let you call your mom.
Try this
https://ello.co/manifesto
The congressional fools and our sycophant morons believe giving up liberty will keep us safe and stupidly believe they can trust info provided to be true. They are unaware that the power to spy corrupts absolutely.
How could anyone defend against the government hacks false reports? The FBI lied about forensic hair for decades. http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/crime/fbi-overstated-forensic-hair-m...
Trust enslaves the trusting. There is no free surveillance. "Everything the government says is a lie." Everything the government spies report is a manipulative lie.
If you don't want them to know what your up to, then just lie.
Fight fire with fire.
If everybody flooded social media pages with mention of what stock they are going to buy next, and metadata algorithyms started high frequency buying of all stocks mentioned, everyone could then sell those very stocks for a handsome profit and leave big bro holding the bag.
Selling Snake Oil?
/www.youtube.com/watch?v=4lIkUhtjEPk
Reminds me that Zero Hedge needs a sexier Icon.
@ .."“A person under surveillance is no longer free; a society under surveillance is no longer a democracy.”" ..
. we have become some set of a commodity to
fit into a certain pumped paradigm, if we
wish, and we continue to.....
Donating a little something to the Rutherford Institute helps.
They take on pro bono cases all the time of people getting fucked over by TPTB and they consistently win setting legal precedents.
Nice to see that Norway has given Edward Snowden the Bjornson Prize: http://news.yahoo.com/snowden-awarded-freedom-expression-prize-norway-14...
The prize was awarded "for his work protecting privacy and for shining a critical light on US surveillance of its citizens and others."
ROFL, YEAH SNOWDEN HAS PROTECTED PRIVACY. He managed to illuminate some goings on, but hasn't done shit besides hide behind Putin's many skirt.
I don't know. Probably done more than most of us collectively...
He did more than I did. I only told NSAGUY to go fuck himself. And I don't blame him for seeking safety. If he hadn't, by now he'd have self-inflicted 16 penny nails pounded in every inch of his skull and/or sharing a cell with gay Mohammed in Guatanemo.
Snowden is a hero. Anyone who disagrees cannot be trusted. (but he appears to be CIA so he cannot be trusted)
zh retards en force
Did someone kick you away from the watermelon when you were a kid? If ZH irritates you, move along with your clan to the MSM.
Flatline...
That flatline on an electroencephalogram just demonstrates how low voltage which you are.
(Uh..excuse me....An electroencephalogram is a Brain Scan Now do you understand it?)
Do they step up the sensitivity an order or two of magnitude when doing yours? Or does yours require the standard Dixie Trixie?
Is that where you acquired your nickname?
Yeah. There are a whole lot of them flatliners out there in Dixieland.
And yet here you are.....
I must disagree. I don't know that I think Snowden is a hero in the sense of fighting for truth justice and the American way(tm). It is hard to tell what role ego had in his motives. I suspect he thought things would turn out differently and I am guessing he would take it all back now if he could.
But take it back or no, you have to respect his having the balls to do what he did. None of us here have ever stood up to Mammon the way he did. And he has literally paid with his life. If he steps foot outside of Vladimir Pootin's Russian, our government will kill him as surely as they killed bin Laden. I don't envy him his fate.
It's all fine and dandy to sit in your mamma's basement talking about all the dope you smoke and how LSD is better than sex, but at some point all of us collectively really do need to reign in those fascist motherfuckers in the NSA.
Snowden at least proved the consipiracy theory "nutters" were bang on target. God bless him I say no matter what the military cock gobblers here may say.
What he said.
Fuck off NSA/CIA/FBI spies. We don't want, need, or use, any of your services. You have no purpose for any normal american. Your worth is soley on what you percieve it to be. We perceive you as worthless, you think you have value in some weird assed form.
We will happily deny you a pension, health insurance, hell, most of us would fuck your wife (if we could get it up) right the fuck in front of you. You are literal tools, we know it, you know it, and we see you as something that has to be overcome by any means possible.
So eat shit and die. That's the happiest greeting you'll get from me.
Send another FBIGUY to my porch.
Its a big club and they intend to smack you with it.
If its such a great idea to spy on me? How about we use it on them? How does this government really operate? Mete data baby it could be used for the good of all people.
I assume that until fucking becomes illegal it's still okay to say fuck you Facebook and fuck you NSA....
Hey,, what just happened to my.internet service?
Why the meme about America being a DEMOCRACY??
It was established as a REPRESENTATIVE REPUBLIC...
BIG BIG DIFFERENCE
re·pub·lic r??p?blik/ nounWhy the meme about America being a DEMOCRACY??
It was established as a REPRESENTATIVE REPUBLIC...
BIG BIG DIFFERENCE
re·pub·lic r??p?blik/ nounShibumi2, I'll upvote both of those.
Act of 1871?
This http://www.serendipity.li/jsmill/us_corporation.htm
I suppose it acts as a democracy. The republic still stands. The seats of the republic are vacant however. We have de facto government and not de jure government.
I knew fuckbook was a bad idea..
Check out BUTT BOOK.
It has its facebook page.
Confusa tactics way to go.
Set up numerous facebook pages in different countries verified by flip phones and in different languages. I have 845 friens on one of mine. All speaking ain a language I dont understand. But it allows me to blog on stupid websites taht have sold their soul to Zuckerberg.
Did you know that the VCs PAY for advertizing on Butt Book to drive the price up?
Did you know that Zuck and Sheryl are selling stock as fast as possibile on the sly.
Did you know when someone asked Zuck WHY WOULD ANYONE USE THAT (FB() he said dunno dumb fucks i guess. QUOTE
Check out BUTT BOOK.
It has its facebook page.
Confusa tactics way to go.
Set up numerous facebook pages in different countries verified by flip phones and in different languages. I have 845 friens on one of mine. All speaking ain a language I dont understand. But it allows me to blog on stupid websites taht have sold their soul to Zuckerberg.
Did you know that the VCs PAY for advertizing on Butt Book to drive the price up?
Did you know that Zuck and Sheryl are selling stock as fast as possibile on the sly.
Did you know when someone asked Zuck WHY WOULD ANYONE USE THAT (FB() he said dunno dumb fucks i guess. QUOTE
The intelligence agencies along with the Executive are no longer controllable. Congress is no longer a functioning legislative body. They pretty much rubber stamp whatever the Executive, intel agencies put in front of them. Passing law (Patriot Act) or ratifying treaties (TPP) without knowing whats inside isn't exactly a bell ringer for a legislative body that's in control.
Just like the Roman senate. We even do the whole welfare/warfare thing like they did. I wonder who's going to play the 'barbarians' this time?
We're being treated to an event that doesn't happen for centuries if not millenia: a world dominating, absolutely pinnacle civilization coming crashing down right before our eyes. Expensive entertainment, to be sure. I don't know whether I'm excited or terrified. Probably the latter.
"WE" are the barbarians, this time. The state has made that pretty plain.
Ed McMahon--Free Speech, Facebook & The NSA:
Carnac the Magnificent--- The Good, The Bad & The Ugly
Ed McMahon--Out of Balance
Carnac the Magnificent--Federal Budget---Balance of Trade---John Kerry
Sorry John (-1) --just a joke about your balance on your bike
Techno-tyranny !!!
Since the government is no longer spying on us, what are they going to do with the $1.5 billion Utah Massive Data Repository they finished building last year? LOL
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utah_Data_Center
They could always use it as a porn hub for government workers.
Though sadly, no matter how much in public their insidious activities appear to be curtailed, that little number will still be running full steam ahead until the whole fucking nazi cabal get a neck shave - hopefully in my lifetime.
I ROBOT - THE ALAN PARSONS PROJECT 1977
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ixjnq_noOQ8
The sheeple will always comply especially since the transformation from God into Government is almost complete just as planned. To keep their gadgets and hand helds, how many would sell their souls to a know all government who has absolute power. It is a power grab gang!! Right under our distracted noses.
Who's distracted? Hey, didya see them photos of Brucelyn Jenner?
Democracy just means that the majority approves of a law which is imposed on everyone including the minority. Democracy as such is the law of the jungle. The majority using force to impose it's will on the minority.
in practice it results in an elite using a majority to steal from everyone else and using force to suppress them.
Democracy has nothing to do with freedom in which you have freedom of association with other people. Freedom is voluntary, democracy is coercion.
All this crap peddled by .gov that they "only collect metadata" is hardly believable. From a technical point of view, it would be messy to just collect the metadata without also collecting the content of whatever it belongs to (a telephone call, e-mail etc).
I have long considered the "just metadata" story to be a palliative lie.
It is far more likely that the complete item is collected. At most the content is then separated out back at base station and is thrown away, retaining just the metadata. But in practive even that is very unlikely.
After all, a really interesting part of any telephone call is what was actually said between the parties. That is where the possibility of capturing wannabe terrorists comes in to play.
For anyone that supports the 'war on terror' ask them a simple question -
How do you define victory?
You won't get an answer because there is no answer. Hell, a terrorist can't even be defined properly and sometimes the terrorists suddenly become freedom fighters and then even back again depending on the whims of Washington.
And while you're at it ask them another question.
The war on terror has been ongoing for 13 years, 1.3 million dead in the Middle East. How many more years are you going to give it. 26, 52, more? Do you feel safer, are they making us feel safer?
For those who believe in the war on terror I've got 4 words for ya - You are being PLAYED.
Is it not yet clear that the-war-on-terror is a program of global terrorism?
Zuckerberg is another Wall Street groomed control person.
From the start facebook was targeted as the company the boyz would promote.
Mr. Z is family Rockefeller.
I don't do facebook or twitter and I have a a Trak phone. No spooks come to see me so I call BS.
Oh. Well, ... um, ... maybe you are not very interesting, after all?
so do i. Flip phone.
I'm thinking of converting to Amish. No electronics, much less snooping......
We've read about currencies racing one another to the bottom. Read also about nations racing for supremacy in all the different ways.
Now here is another race, but this one is (now a popular word) asymmetric:
The owners and the harvesters they set upon us are racing against a clock of all things. It's the ticking clock of doom, yes that old saw, the end that is always so near. Ha. Can that be taken seriously? Let's have a look:
http://www.veteranstoday.com/2015/05/30/your-radiation-this-week-9/
My goodness, that sounds grim, doesn't it. We better get all that data collected and monetized as fast as fast can be or else it might not be profitable after all.
In the more distant past, ambient radiation in the US came mainly from Radon gas, and was measured in around 3 counts per minute (CPM). Then there were bombs and power plants, and our fathers who art in Washington instituted a mandatory alarm-warning-critical level of 50 CPM, in case the radiation ever got that high. Have you ever heard this alarm sounded?
Today the ambient radiation across the US is around 350 CPM, with a high of 871 CPM in Billings MT, closely followed by 824 in Bakersfield CA. The lowest government published ambient radiation level in the US is 190 in Las Vegas. Irony? Well, the race is on to the first to hit 1000, then 2000, and onward and upward, etc. All the material necessary to raise global radiation levels to "lethal" has already been released. Power plant failures, bomb tests, bombs actually used (check out the latest in Yemen, Hom, Donbas, Tora Bora, Baghdad Airport, et al), DU weapons. It just takes a while to spread out.
"Compare and Contrast" (as they used to tell us) global radiation and global surveillance.
Of COURSE nothing will change. Not untill we start shooting.
Change is already happening all around us. No need to waste ammunition on the dying (aka "Just Us" and their minions) - they have already killed themselves.
Consider just tending your livestock and crops, taking care of your family, acquiring useful skills and knowledge, and let nature take care of the filth.
"Just Us" are trapped and scared. They think other humans are their enemy - LOL - while reality crushes their life out of their sacrosanct "infinite growth required" systems.
Knowing and analyzing everything about every human on the planet will not save them (or us).
YES. Tyler YES.
Keep on sayin it