Did Vonage give NSA our phone records?

Posts: 4 · Posted: Wed May 17, 2006 5:05 pm Post subject:

mbkerk wrote:

I struggle with this quote all the time...

Quote:

"They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty or security." - Ben Franklin

Mr. Franklin could not have imagined what we are facing today. I think, were he alive, he might adjust his thinking just a little bit!

Mr. Franklin foresaw this very problem...as did the other founding fathers. His statement above shows that he very clearly saw it. They saw this problem being repeated throughout history. That is why we have the Constitution and Bill of Rights to clearly define governmental limits, and why we have laws that prevent the Executive or Legislative branches of government from intruding on the personal privacy of American Citizens and others living in this country without judicial oversight.

FISA was created so that they can have the oversight without it becoming public record to protect sensative information. Bush has a habit of circumventing legal and Constitutional processes.

As a vetean of the Army, I swore an oath to defend the constituion from enemies, both foriegn and domestic. Right now we have domestic enemies in the White House and controlling congress. Anyone who does not have a problem with it and gives them a bye on this is part of the problem and enabling traitors. By traitor I mean anyone who violates the constituion and violates their oath of office. Anyone who does so is that domestic enemy our oath spoke of. Lincoln was also right when he said that we well not lose our freedom though invasion of foriegn armies...we will gladly give it away.

Eric
Veteran, US ARMY 1986-1989
Operation Nimrod Dancer/Just Cause
Panama Canal Zone Sep-Dec 1989

Posts: 4 · Posted: Wed May 17, 2006 5:13 pm Post subject:

blakadher wrote:

enodo wrote:

Again, the data was *NOT* anonymized.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/12/AR2006051201656.html

Quote:

But, according to USA Today, the telephone records voluntarily provided to the NSA had been anonymized.

Isn't that like them saying they provided your SSN, all anonymized of course...

Your phone number is not that much different. While can change, they know the time frame that it belonged to you.

Eric

Posts: 4 · Posted: Wed May 17, 2006 5:17 pm Post subject:

navydavy2001 wrote:

Ok, so hypothetically speaking, let's all decide what could be other ways this information could have been obtained. And that doesn't include a court order. We are at war, and this is intelligence gathering. Stripped of identifiable information, why shouldn't the agency that handles signals intelligence analysis be allowed to analyze signals intelligence inside of our own borders? I suspect, they do not care about Joe-blow Americans calls about things that may be "Un-American"

And for all those that say, "Well, maybe it's not identifiable info now, but that's next", I think you have not factored in any of the oversight that's involded in this kind of operation. All the way from Senate/House oversight to the FOIA.

Bottom Line: I will reiterate that if you are not communicating with terrorists, or plotting to overthrow the government, no one cares what you are talking about.

Bottom line is that it is agaisnt the law for the government to collect intellegence domestically unless granted the OK by the FISA court. That law is plain and simple. Our governmentment willfully broke the law and should be punished for it...just like anyone else.

Eric

Posts: 229 · Posted: Thu May 18, 2006 1:12 am Post subject:

navydavy2001 wrote:

Bottom Line: I will reiterate that if you are not communicating with terrorists, or plotting to overthrow the government, no one cares what you are talking about.

It doesn't matter if anybody cares what I am or am not talking about. What DOES matter is that it doesn't matter what I am or am not saying, I have a right to privacy, a right to assembly, and a right to be free from unwarranted searches. The government has to present compelling reason in order to circumvent these basic rights. The NSA did not present any compelling reason to sift through millions of phone records.

Posts: 4 · Posted: Thu May 18, 2006 7:55 am Post subject:

kamnet wrote:

navydavy2001 wrote:

Bottom Line: I will reiterate that if you are not communicating with terrorists, or plotting to overthrow the government, no one cares what you are talking about.

It doesn't matter if anybody cares what I am or am not talking about. What DOES matter is that it doesn't matter what I am or am not saying, I have a right to privacy, a right to assembly, and a right to be free from unwarranted searches. The government has to present compelling reason in order to circumvent these basic rights. The NSA did not present any compelling reason to sift through millions of phone records.

Not to mention they did not follow the laws in place that allow for domestic spying. If they would have followed the rules, then there wouldn't be a controversy.

Posts: 229 · Posted: Thu May 18, 2006 9:56 am Post subject:

There is no law that would have them demand millions of telephone customers records to be sifted through. That's why they did the end-around that they did, hoping to circumvent both the law and any scrutiny. The idea being that if they simply asked companies to do so and those companies complied, it wasn't illegal.

WRONG.

Posts: 1715 · Posted: Thu May 18, 2006 11:33 am Post subject:

kamnet wrote:

navydavy2001 wrote:

Bottom Line: I will reiterate that if you are not communicating with terrorists, or plotting to overthrow the government, no one cares what you are talking about.

It doesn't matter if anybody cares what I am or am not talking about. What DOES matter is that it doesn't matter what I am or am not saying, I have a right to privacy, a right to assembly, and a right to be free from unwarranted searches. The government has to present compelling reason in order to circumvent these basic rights. The NSA did not present any compelling reason to sift through millions of phone records.

I hate to say it, BUT, there are plenty of things the gov't can't do which private citizens can. The three-letter agencies are fully aware of this, and routinely buy this information from private citizens, thus skirting around the laws which normally prevents them from obtaining certain information in certain ways. Not sure if this is how this issue went down, but this type of thing goes down very frequently. It's legal for them to buy information from private contractors.