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Project Prism


RavenHawk

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What’s the big deal with Project Prism? Wasn’t this known back before 2008 as part of the Patriot Act? I may be losing it, but I’m pretty sure, I’ve had conversations over it. I’m sure our enemies knew about it. Our phone conversations and emails are probably not being listened to or read. Meta data is being collected and all those conversations are being stored for later use. The Government can’t get to them without a warrant. But the fact is that they exist. The government does not need to do that. If they just stuck with the original intent of monitoring the metadata and disposing of it after a few months, then I had no problem. But what is going on is a clear violation of the Constitution. What needs to be done? Go after the whistle blower or go after the government? What is up with making Edward Snowden a scapegoat anyway? Something just isn’t right. This is reminding me too much of Mark Basseley Youssef (Sam Bacile).

OBTW, I’m sure the OP will set off some flags and this will end up in the data warehouse, so make sure you include plenty of Terrorism, al Qaeda, bombs, hijacks, plots, etc. in your replies.

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I've calmed down about this since it came to light that it is really only metadata that is being collected. My feelings about privacy are still well intact however. It's like I've said before; to the best of my knowledge, there just isn't a feasible technology for monitoring internet content in real-time. To pass the billions of gigabytes of online data through a handful of screening points would bring online communication to a halt. Hence, the collection of metadata which many sites have (correctly) pointed out can be more dangerous than the actual content. The metadata is a logistical log of the communication that was sent. Ergo, the location it was sent from, the length, the recipient. If you were to lay out a year's worth of a person's metadata, you could effectively map that person's daily activities.

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I carry my cell phone, always "ON", everywhere I go.

They could "ping" my location(actually the phones location) within 15-20 feet, or so I've heard, depending on cell tower coverage.

But I'm OK with that, especially if I'm in an accident(or as a hostage), I dial 911, and I have no idea where I'm at or can't talk.

Of course, that has nothing(or little) to do with PRISM, and is public information, but thought I would shout it out for those who don't know.

Edited by pallidin
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Some folks just have trouble understanding the meaning of "...and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause."

Cripes, some folks are perfectly happy for the government to seize personal papers and effects WITHOUT a warrant. :no:

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The Fourth Amendment states:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized

Link to History behind the Fourth Amendment: http://www.revolutionary-war-and-beyond.com/4th-amendment.html

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Some folks just have trouble understanding the meaning of "...and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause."

Cripes, some folks are perfectly happy for the government to seize personal papers and effects WITHOUT a warrant. :no:

Funny you should say that. I, for one, have nothing to hide. Nor do many others.

I couldn't care less what the Gov. knows about me. As long as their activities, public or secret, keep me and my family safer while we're, say, on a jetliner for vacation, hey, I'm all for it.

As you well know, their are some bad-ass people out there, wishing nothing more than the destruction of Western peoples and values, so monitoring is important.

Sure, our "liberties" have gone from a 10 to a 7, but our safety has gone from a 2 to a 9.

Edited by pallidin
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so it's the 21st century version of Echelon then.

That's nice.

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You have to wonder, why does the government need all this information about it's citizens? What possible purpose could it serve?

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You have to wonder, why does the government need all this information about it's citizens? What possible purpose could it serve?

Donate a hundred grand to a prominent republican and you'll find out. This info is collected not to necessarily be monitored but to be used when needed. Perhaps you're on the wrong side of politics or perhaps you've plssed off somebody that knows somebody and perhaps you have an uncle who you talk to but happens to be a drug dealer and suddenly your phone number comes up as a regular connection to the known dealer and suddenly your life is miserable. Don't tell me it can't or won't happen. I'm sure the are multitudes of crappy scenarios that can be concocted to be used against you. Anyone else think of any?

As for our security going from a two to a nine? There have been more terrorist attacks and attempts since 9-11 than there were before. There have been, I believe, more mass shootings since also. All this time these spying activities have been in force, like Raven said. So the, what good are they. James Holmes bought a bunch of stuff online to commit his crime. Fort Hood scumbag was a member of the military in contact with al Queda on his computer. The Boston bombers were in constant contact with their Russian relatives and even a warning from the Russian government didn't get our Feds to do a damn thing about it.

So these programs are inefficient at best. My guess is that they just may have national security in mind with all this data but ultimately this is a gold mine of data on US citizens that will be used for nefarious purposes and while they may not have an ultimate plan for how to use all this data it doesn't hurt the power players to collect and store it while they figure it out.

Our security is no better than it ever was and if anything I'd say it worse. They're more interested in owning US than helping US.

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Funny you should say that. I, for one, have nothing to hide. Nor do many others.

I couldn't care less what the Gov. knows about me. As long as their activities, public or secret, keep me and my family safer while we're, say, on a jetliner for vacation, hey, I'm all for it.

As you well know, their are some bad-ass people out there, wishing nothing more than the destruction of Western peoples and values, so monitoring is important.

Sure, our "liberties" have gone from a 10 to a 7, but our safety has gone from a 2 to a 9.

that is exactly the attitude i was talking about in nsa thread.

you don't need freedom. you don't even want it.

and if you think you are any safer than you were 20-30 years ago, lmao. if you think gvmnt cares about your safety, i feel sorry for you. you are in bigger denial than river Nile. to the gvmnt you are disposable.

Edited by aztek
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post-117199-0-83732700-1370919661_thumb.

Edit: Here's the link to that pic. Interesting article.

http://www.businessinsider.com/pictures-of-the-nsas-utah-data-center-2013-6

One Fox News report says as much as 5 zettabytes — 1 zettabyte = 1 billion terabytes = 1 trillion gigabytes — and with just 1 zettabyte (1024 exabytes) of space, the NSA can store a year's worth of the global Internet traffic (which is estimated reached 966 exabytes per year in 2015).

Here's James Bamford of Wired, author of the book "The Shadow Factory: The NSA from 9/11 to the Eavesdropping on America":

"Once it's operational, the Utah Data Center will become, in effect, the NSA cloud. The center will be fed data from the agency's eavesdropping satellites, overseas listening posts, and secret monitoring rooms in telecom facilities throughout the U.S."

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/pictures-of-the-nsas-utah-data-center-2013-6#ixzz2VsHSQ31k

Reams of data will be handled by NSA hackers — who harvest 2.1 million gigabytes of data per hour — and they'll get help from the most powerful computer the world has ever known.

That machine, the Titan Supercomputer, is capable of churning through more than 20,000 trillion calculations each second or 20 petaflops. (1 petaflop = 1 quadrillion instructions per second).

The top-of-the-line tech will be used to analyze foreign and domestic communications — obtained from Americas major Internet Service Providers (ISPs) — in an effort to detect terrorist activity (note: the facility's precise mission is classified).

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/pictures-of-the-nsas-utah-data-center-2013-6#ixzz2VsHbl4WH

Edited by F3SS
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Funny you should say that. I, for one, have nothing to hide. Nor do many others.

I couldn't care less what the Gov. knows about me. As long as their activities, public or secret, keep me and my family safer while we're, say, on a jetliner for vacation, hey, I'm all for it.

As you well know, their are some bad-ass people out there, wishing nothing more than the destruction of Western peoples and values, so monitoring is important.

Sure, our "liberties" have gone from a 10 to a 7, but our safety has gone from a 2 to a 9.

If some of those bad-ass people out there enter into GOV it might change your mind... try thinking long term.

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To the person who says they have nothing to hide, I can but not shake my head in pity at you.

That's the same attitude that led people off into concentration camps and siberia alike...

you don't need freedom. you don't even want it.

:tsu:

Edited by Bavarian Raven
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I've got nothng to hide, but I'd still like to have the freedom to hide it ;)

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One has to wonder if our current notions of privacy and secrecy will be laughed at by citizens in 100 years the way we laugh at the notion of Victorian ideals.

Face it, if it's not the government, it will be someone else collecting and analyzing all of this data - for better or worse. I know several leading "Big Data" scientists and they tell me it's the next frontier of science that has the potential to revolutionize our planet. Of course it also has huge potential for evil and misuse.

Several computer scientists where I work have just been given access to more than 25 million medical records (anonymous of course) from a leading healthcare provider. Analysis of this data and other megadata sets of this type will surely advance medical research.

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Funny you should say that. I, for one, have nothing to hide. Nor do many others.

I couldn't care less what the Gov. knows about me. As long as their activities, public or secret, keep me and my family safer while we're, say, on a jetliner for vacation, hey, I'm all for it.

As you well know, their are some bad-ass people out there, wishing nothing more than the destruction of Western peoples and values, so monitoring is important.

Sure, our "liberties" have gone from a 10 to a 7, but our safety has gone from a 2 to a 9.

You kid yourself Pallidin. But you do help make my point, and I thank you for that.

You are more concerned with trivia, and apparently not concerned in the least about the rule of law and constitutional governance.

Statistically, you are more likely to be struck by lightening than by a "terrorist attack", but that little factoid does not enter into your mental assessment.

Safety from 2 to 9? Tell that to the dead folks at the hands of so many different people, like the kid in Santa Monica with the weapon. The government does not make you any safer, and the statistics show that.

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One has to wonder if our current notions of privacy and secrecy will be laughed at by citizens in 100 years the way we laugh at the notion of Victorian ideals.

Face it, if it's not the government, it will be someone else collecting and analyzing all of this data - for better or worse. I know several leading "Big Data" scientists and they tell me it's the next frontier of science that has the potential to revolutionize our planet. Of course it also has huge potential for evil and misuse.

Several computer scientists where I work have just been given access to more than 25 million medical records (anonymous of course) from a leading healthcare provider. Analysis of this data and other megadata sets of this type will surely advance medical research.

An excellent point! And I would offer that the huge potential for evil and misuse can be corrected by, controlled by, the strict adherence to the rule of law, with good laws written and (more importantly these days) enforced to prevent this potential from being realized.

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they'll make more enemies and terrorists to ensure that your "liberties" will go from a 10 to a 0, and your safety will still be going from a 2 to a 2 eventually

~

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What's the big deal with Project Prism?

OBTW, I'm sure the OP will set off some flags and this will end up in the data warehouse, so make sure you include plenty of Terrorism, al Qaeda, bombs, hijacks, plots, etc. in your replies.

So far as I can tell this is a huge deal, and the information is a goldmine for not just Government but also for private corporations, neither of which I would trust for a start.

So far the media has determined that PRISM has been used for a lot of spying on Germany, which brings into question Industrial espionage..

& so far as I can tell the media seems to have missed the point that the information can/could & probably has been used to create mega databases about the spectrums within society right down to individual levels.. That imo is the biggest and bad'est thing about it.. It exists in the wrong hands..

*singing to santa*

making a list..

checking it twice..

Trying to find out if you are naughty or nice..

Then WHam!

The drones are coming to town..

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I can already see Santa's sled coming down the slippery slope.

One thing is not going to lead to another except in the mind of the conspiracy theorist...

Broad spectrum data collection is not going to cause any lost sleep here. Remember how a few folk hooted and howled over social security numbers back in the 1930s?

Nothing has happened yet. There are also innocent people already dying in drone attacks. Instead of manufacturing fantasy of our own victimization we should advocate the already existing victims and the overall ethical use of drones. This could prove more beneficial in the long run.

Edited by The world needs you
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I can't see any immediate problem.

It is hardly a newsflash that what you put into cyberspace is available to be read and seen by folk.

You want privacy? Try something more traditional like face to face conversations and social gatherings and I don't want to shock anyone but you can enjoy these without your i phones at the ready - imagine spending time with the person in front of you uninterrupted, wow you might even manage a whole conversation :whistle: and the bonus is - it's all between friends, no outsiders sidling in sideways with targetted ads flashing all over your talk space and the NSA don't have to wade through your social trivia either, poor overworked souls.

Let's be clear though I said I can't see any IMMEDIATE problem. The potential for corruption on both a small and huge scale is definitely inherent in this.

Small scale: Someone with access starts to track their ex wife or husband or track someone because a friend asked them too - for reasons both stupid and potentially fatal to the poor person being spied upon, finding out if an affair is taking place or pay back for an imagined wrong by deliberately misinterpreting the tracked calls and cyber bytes to make them appear guilty of something they are completely ignorant of.

Large scale: Grabbing targetted sound and cyberbytes from public figures, mixing them up and creating something the public figure was not saying at all then using them to have the victim removed from their position or office or even arrested for treason etc. As if the politic scene wasn't already muddy enough.

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An excellent point! And I would offer that the huge potential for evil and misuse can be corrected by, controlled by, the strict adherence to the rule of law, with good laws written and (more importantly these days) enforced to prevent this potential from being realized.

Very true, but more importantly it comes down to trust in our Government and other institutions - which is in short supply right now.

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post-117199-0-83732700-1370919661_thumb.

Edit: Here's the link to that pic. Interesting article.

http://www.businessi...a-center-2013-6

One Fox News report says as much as 5 zettabytes — 1 zettabyte = 1 billion terabytes = 1 trillion gigabytes — and with just 1 zettabyte (1024 exabytes) of space, the NSA can store a year's worth of the global Internet traffic (which is estimated reached 966 exabytes per year in 2015).

Here's James Bamford of Wired, author of the book "The Shadow Factory: The NSA from 9/11 to the Eavesdropping on America":

"Once it's operational, the Utah Data Center will become, in effect, the NSA cloud. The center will be fed data from the agency's eavesdropping satellites, overseas listening posts, and secret monitoring rooms in telecom facilities throughout the U.S."

Read more: http://www.businessi...6#ixzz2VsHSQ31k

Reams of data will be handled by NSA hackers — who harvest 2.1 million gigabytes of data per hour — and they'll get help from the most powerful computer the world has ever known.

That machine, the Titan Supercomputer, is capable of churning through more than 20,000 trillion calculations each second or 20 petaflops. (1 petaflop = 1 quadrillion instructions per second).

The top-of-the-line tech will be used to analyze foreign and domestic communications — obtained from Americas major Internet Service Providers (ISPs) — in an effort to detect terrorist activity (note: the facility's precise mission is classified).

Read more: http://www.businessi...6#ixzz2VsHbl4WH

tumblr_lwkituXzAx1r8q0iuo1_500.jpg

I WAS SO WRONG! THEY HAVE THE TECHNOLOGY!

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Very true, but more importantly it comes down to trust in our Government and other institutions - which is in short supply right now.

And with good cause, is that trust in short supply.

Sadly, blind allegiance is rather in ample supply.

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I am just waiting for the day when all this so called 'for the good of mankind' falls into the 'wrong' hands yellow brick road //

try clicking your heels three time then ..... hell ... TOTO will still be just along for the ride ....

~

941210_590650667625751_535034355_n.png

No ... but one day TOTO was right all along ...

~

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