NSA Spying

I believe that this is basically illegal and should be unconstitutional. Spying on your own people, even in the name of "national security", is a violation of personal rights and privacy. If the NSA is supposed to stop potential terrorists, why haven't they? It seems more like a lousy excuse than a legitimate reason...

Since this is somewhat relevant, I want to bring up another point: technology's rapid advancement. Sure, many of us think of this as a good thing, but there's an unforeseen downside to it as well. I'm pretty sure many people have heard of the President's idea of launching drone strikes on suspected terrorists, am I right? If not, let me fill you in. The President is basically saying that if someone is suspected of being a terrorist and is planning an attack, an unmanned drone can be sent to eliminate the target before any damage is done. Seems bulletproof, right? Here's the catch, though: What happens if they're wrong? They've just killed an innocent civilian, and the people's trust in the government falls even further. What's my point in all this? Technology is advancing so fast, but legislation hasn't. There need to be laws set in place to limit the power of technology.

Ignore that rant if you aren't interested, I just felt like venting.

 

Frankly, I went pretty off-subject with that rant... On subject, what the NSA's doing is illegal and unconstitutional. Plain and simple. I honestly have bad feelings about the future... Something is coming. What it is, I don't know, but I don't like it.

 

Sigh...I realize what the US government is trying to do, but it clearly isn't working. It's just sparking protests and making everyone just a little bit uncomfortable. They're looking through average citizen's phone records! I realize it might end up catching someone, but it's a low possibility. In this day and age in America, people don't meet face-to-face all the time. The consequence, other than not getting outside, is that whatever you say can and will be recorded and studied by the government. Fantastic.

In conclusion, I don't think it's working, and it's making the people uncomfortable.

 

It just makes it clear to me that the American government doesn't trust their people. Well, if they don't trust their people, how can they expect their people to trust them? How does monitoring everything people do on the internet stop terrorism. It's right there, not only in the first post of this thread, but in the news as well. It still goes on whether the government stalks citizens or not. Yes, "stalking" is, in fact, the correct word.

 

Obama said (and no matter what your political belief is he DID say this) that it's important to sacrifice freedom for more security.

Really pay attention to that. That's not good. Security from what? lmao If anything we need protection from our own government. Did you guys know they passed obama care without even reading it first?

If anyones curious I'm not a democrat or a republican. I think they're all full of shit lol

 

I agree. Anyone who runs for president, if you were to ask me, is just someone who wants the power to say, "Fire a bomb!" That doesn't mean they would, but I do think that people who run for president just like having control over the country's nuclear weapons. Basically, I can't say that I find voting worth it, I might change my mind in four years when I actually will be able to vote, but... I mean... Nowadays they're both idiots and we're screwed no matter who wins. My dad told me that when he votes he literally decides based on who he's less afraid to have in control of the nuclear warheads.

 

I can't find anything saying that Obama said that...where did you read/hear it? In reply to that, though, I'll leave this here.

"He who sacrifices freedom for security deserves neither." -Benjamin Franklin.

But I do agree, the governement is getting extremely untrustworthy...that's actually an understatement.

Either way, I've heard way too much about Obamacare. I fucking hate it. It's just shit wrapped in shit and served with a side salad of shit.

 

I pretty much agree with everything in this post. I couldn't find anything on the internet that confirmed Obama having said that either, but he must believe it to be so otherwise he wouldn't have continued the spying.

 

I agree with everything. It pisses me off how overprotective the United States gets over the dumbest things. They're like that one guy that everyone knows that can't take a joke. They take everything seriously. You want to make a sarcastic comment online that may or may not relate to a tragedy that happened? Nope, fuck you. We'll take away your freedom of speech and try you as a terrorist. (Don't know if you guys heard about that...)

But, I honestly wish that they'd chill with everything that has to do with security. They're taking it way too far, and their anti-terrorist or anti-criminal organizations and technology never stop what matters. They never stopped Adam Lanza or James Holmes.

 

Pretty much. It doesn't seem to stop anything. It seems like at this point they're just doing it to see if they can get away with it.

 

Yeah. For reasons of experimentation. See how far we go before we SNAP.

 

The whole thing's been going on for YEARS now as it is. The only real shift of late was that the government's had to publicly admit it.

What made me roll my eyes were the number of congresspeople on both sides of the aisle who screamed about how it was unconstitutional/horrible/an abuse of power.

Gee, if you really feel that horrible about it, howabout you all focus your collective outrage and repeal the acts/laws that put these policies in place?

(Hell, the only person in congress I know of who's been consistently against anything tied back to the Patriot Act and its extensions/renewals time and time again is Sanders...)

 

To be honest, if you think about it, Google and FaceBook spy on you, too. This is only big because its the government, and people love to talk about the government. And, another point is, it wouldn't be this way if some a**holes in the Middle East hadn't bombed people, flown planes into identical towers, gassed their own people, etc. I'm not saying I'm supporting the government doing this, but you can't blame it ALL on them.
(This next part is off-topic, but about Zeta saying the drone strikes are bad, here's how I view it. Kill a terrorist and save a lot of people, or keep back from firing because you are 25% away from 100% and have a lot of people killed.)

 

[quote name='Garudarocks' timestamp='1374446364' post='31705']And, another point is, it wouldn't be this way if some a**holes in the Middle East hadn't bombed people, flown planes into identical towers, gassed their own people, etc. I'm not saying I'm supporting the government doing this, but you can't blame it ALL on them.
[/quote]
I could post a blame-chain back from stuff they've done to stuff we did to them first to stuff they did to us in response for something we did before that and so on, going all the way back to the Age of Imperialism. Your bit about us using drones on them because they attacked us (while not quite being how it's all gone down) is barely the tip of an iceberg.

 

The spying never surprised me. I mean, come on it happens all the time in movies, it's practically what the entire Bourne movies and books are about. They even used the NSA in the movie to find him. It also never surprised me because that's just how the American government works. It doesn't trust anybody and nobody trusts it. The colonies declared independence BECAUSE they didn't trust or like Britain.

And actually, Garuda, they didn't start this fight. We and the UK did. This particular fight has been going on since World War II ended.

And back to OP, no I don't think Snowden should be criminalized. And PRISM should be illegal.