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posted by chromas on Thursday June 27 2019, @02:10AM   Printer-friendly
from the you-logged-me-at-hello dept.

CNet:

In 2016, the National Security Agency gathered 151 million call records even though Congress made rules to reduce the federal government's sweeping surveillance of Americans' phone records. A new report shows the NSA might have collected additional call data it wasn't authorized to obtain again last year.

The American Civil Liberties Union released documents on Wednesday that it says show the NSA's "unlawful" collection of call detail records, or CDRs, of Americans in October 2018. This comes months after the NSA purged millions of call records.

"These documents further confirm that this surveillance program is beyond redemption and a privacy and civil liberties disaster," Patrick Toomey, staff attorney with the ACLU's National Security Project, said in a letter Wednesday. "The NSA's collection of Americans' call records is too sweeping, the compliance problems too many, and evidence of the program's value all but nonexistent. There is no justification for leaving this surveillance power in the NSA's hands."

Iran, China, Russia, and North Korea are the greatest threats to America's freedom?


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  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by PartTimeZombie on Thursday June 27 2019, @02:27AM (11 children)

    by PartTimeZombie (4827) on Thursday June 27 2019, @02:27AM (#860343)

    When you consider how stiff the punishment was the last time the NSA was caught breaking the law, it is a surprise they would do it again.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 27 2019, @02:30AM (7 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 27 2019, @02:30AM (#860348)

    The previous guys who did it got fired, these are just their replacements.
    Doomed to repeat history et all.

    • (Score: 5, Insightful) by AthanasiusKircher on Thursday June 27 2019, @03:27AM (5 children)

      by AthanasiusKircher (5291) on Thursday June 27 2019, @03:27AM (#860381) Journal

      The previous guys who did it got fired

      Who got fired? Mostly what I've seen is just attacks and attempted prosecutions of every whistleblower, no punishment for the vast majority of the perpetrators.

      If we actually had a functional jurisprudence system in the U.S., half of the NSA should not only have been fired but put in prison for willfully perpetrating a conspiracy to subvert the Constitution they had pledged an oath to follow. And yes, not just the leaders -- all the workers who went along with it. "Just following orders" was supposed to have ended as a defense after Nuremberg.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 27 2019, @04:30AM (4 children)

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 27 2019, @04:30AM (#860408)

        Point is, people get "retired" and/or just disappeared to avoid prosecution, replacements didn't get the memo, so they do it all over again.
        You've never seen this dance in a big organization?

        • (Score: 5, Insightful) by AthanasiusKircher on Thursday June 27 2019, @04:38AM (3 children)

          by AthanasiusKircher (5291) on Thursday June 27 2019, @04:38AM (#860411) Journal

          Who are you talking about? Yes, I know precisely the pattern you're talking about, and it happens in big organizations all the time.

          Point is that THAT didn't happen in the NSA -- where basically no one was fired, no one was "disappeared," no one was forced to retire, no one was punished, which was the point of OP's ironic post (which I guess went over your head). Things have just continued the same they have been for the past few decades at least -- no reason to blame it on folks "not getting the memo" when they're the same folks not writing the memos that were never sent. They're literally THE SAME PEOPLE doing what they've always been doing.

          • (Score: 2) by AthanasiusKircher on Thursday June 27 2019, @04:42AM (2 children)

            by AthanasiusKircher (5291) on Thursday June 27 2019, @04:42AM (#860415) Journal

            Oh, I shouldn't have said "no one." What I meant was such a small number that it was a joke.

            • (Score: 2) by istartedi on Thursday June 27 2019, @08:10PM (1 child)

              by istartedi (123) on Thursday June 27 2019, @08:10PM (#860671) Journal

              Don't worry. We're cool here. We understand that it's rhetorical. Nobody has a problem with "no one".

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              Appended to the end of comments you post. Max: 120 chars.
              • (Score: 2) by martyb on Friday June 28 2019, @01:06AM

                by martyb (76) Subscriber Badge on Friday June 28 2019, @01:06AM (#860770) Journal

                You so missed a great opportunity:

                No one has a problem with "no one".

                =)

                --
                Wit is intellect, dancing.
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 27 2019, @04:22AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 27 2019, @04:22AM (#860407)

      Not even that. He resigned, effective at the end of Obama's term when he would have been replaced by the new President anyway.

  • (Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday June 27 2019, @03:28AM (2 children)

    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Thursday June 27 2019, @03:28AM (#860382) Journal
    Where is the epi-pen for doses of sarcasm this intense?