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Fourth Amendment Protections...


paramedicmike

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... or increased national security?

It's been in the news lately.

What say ye?

Why say ye?

Bonus points for valid (and referenced) Constitutional case law.

Ready?

Aaaaaaaaaaannnndddd...

GO!

Oh! Almost forgot.

Be civil.

Research your arguments (if possible).

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It is giving the rush windbag crowd lots to cackle about. They are buying up tinfoil for hat making by the truckload.

If they only knew that communications surveillance has been going on for decades going back to the days of AT&T longlines microwave systems.

This hoopla is a case of what they don't know won't hurt them.

My personal belief is that if you have no criminal or illegal activity to hide, then why are they getting their panties in a bunch over this.

If the conspiracy theorists want to worry about something, worry about how happy the terrorists of the world will be by some moron giving away secret methods of surveillance.

Even osama bin laden figured out they were being tracked by burn phone usage and went back to mules carrying messages from point to point through dead drops.

I'll leave constitutional arguments to the academia crowd.

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It is giving the rush windbag crowd lots to cackle about. They are buying up tinfoil for hat making by the truckload.

If they only knew that communications surveillance has been going on for decades going back to the days of AT&T longlines microwave systems.

This hoopla is a case of what they don't know won't hurt them.

My personal belief is that if you have no criminal or illegal activity to hide, then why are they getting their panties in a bunch over this.

If the conspiracy theorists want to worry about something, worry about how happy the terrorists of the world will be by some moron giving away secret methods of surveillance.

Even osama bin laden figured out they were being tracked by burn phone usage and went back to mules carrying messages from point to point through dead drops.

I'll leave constitutional arguments to the academia crowd.

If I call my wife and talk about husband and wife stuff, that's nobodies business. If Osama figured out his phone was being monitored, then did the so called "moron" actually give anything secret away? I cannot fully condone his actions however.

My biggest issue is that repeated incidents show that the government simply cannot be trusted with our personal data. Recent scandals have set a poor precedent and as much as I love to call conspiracy theorists out, I find my self in the uncomfortable position of having to come to their defence (on a few issues at least).

Also, the government outright lies. Back on March 12th of this year, Mr. Clapper (Director of national intelligence) was directly asked during a congressional hearing, "does the NSA collect any type of data at all on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans?" Mr. Clapper replied, "No sir … not wittingly."

Sorry brother, but the government has consistently used information to potentially harm it's citizens (IRS scandal anybody) and has lied about what it is doing. If I cannot trust the government with my taxes I am not confident that I can trust them not to take the whole meta data thing a bit further. I have done nothing criminal but I guarantee there is still very personal information that my wife and I discuss (especially when we have not seen each-other for a while) that in the wrong hands could cause me great embarrassment at the least. I know Obama has come out and said that the NSA are professionals and would never misuse or abuse their positions of power. However, I thought the IRS people were professionals as well? What about Mr. Clapper and his lies?

Edited by chbare
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Chris: If you call your wife on a cell phone & want to have private discussions , It's not happening. Any kid with an old scanner can listen to you at will.

Yes there are supposed to be laws against doing so, but who is going to enforce them?

People have been led to believe in the tooth fairy and privacy for decades.

Neither is true

One thing to believe is true::: BIG BROTHER is watching and has been doing so for a very long time.

why do you think there are GPS chips in cell phones ??????

Edited by island emt
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I can't begin to tell you how badly I hate the "If you're not doing anything wrong, then why should you care?" argument....

So Island, you'll let the police come in and search your home, go through your things, and that wouldn't bother you assuming that you were doing nothing wrong? That's just complete insanity to me...

I won't argue my thoughts on the constitution as I can't search them from here...

But, at the very least, I would say that if you're going to push the limits of constitutional law, then you damn well should be required to show me some bad guys, right? So far the only ones that we're seeing eliminated stateside are those that have already killed Americans...

Though we do see some of this stuff being used on the law abiding...Where is the parade of bad guys that we should be seeing?

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If they have a reasonable suspicion of violation of a law : YES.

Listening in to electronic noise for key words/ phrases is not the same.

Just by traveling back & forth from a foreign country on a regular basis you are already on the radar dwayne.

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NO NO NO NO NO If the government has no reason to belive that I'm doing anything wrong then they have NO right to search or seize anything that I'm doing. It's none of their business what I'm doing.

they should not be tracking my phone calls. they should not be investigating who I call or what I do. it's as simple as that.

If I'm not committing any illegal acts, and they have no evidence or suspicion that I'm doing something illegal then they should not be gathering any intelligence on me.

It's like going fishing for Moby dick in the ocean by draining the ocean.

This gathering of millions of calls per day every single day every single year since 1996 I believe or further back is just such a over-reach of power and it took us 20 years to find this out even though many people were saying it was happening.

it just boggles the mind to say "It's not hurting anyone and lookie here, look who we've caught, woo hoo" Apparantly they didn't catch the Boston Bombers, they didn't catch the 9/11 terrorists. Just who did they catch with their surveillance and what good has it done the intelligence community?

if they can prove that it has done some real valuable and provable good, then maybe they can salvage some credibility, but until then, I'm still pissed.

And by the way, the other cellular carriers, Sprint, AT&T, T-mobile are also giving this info to the NSA as well but they aren't telling us this, I'm pretty sure because Verizon fought it and the NSA had to go to the court to get the warrant. The others went like Sheep to the Slaughter and just caved and gave the info. You can mark my words that they did. Verizon just fought the request and the government had to work at it to get it.

And one other thing, we have not heard the last of Mr Snowden, he's got MUCH MUCH more to tell.

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Chris: If you call your wife on a cell phone & want to have private discussions , It's not happening. Any kid with an old scanner can listen to you at will.

Yes there are supposed to be laws against doing so, but who is going to enforce them?

People have been led to believe in the tooth fairy and privacy for decades.

Neither is true

One thing to believe is true::: BIG BROTHER is watching and has been doing so for a very long time.

why do you think there are GPS chips in cell phones ??????

1) Older scanners made before 1985 could pick up cell phone conversations. There were also converter boxes enabling scanners made after 1985 to pick up cell phone frequencies.

2) The aforementioned converter boxes, most manufactured prior to 1985, were "grandfathered" in, under FCC rules and regulations. However, newer cell phone frequencies and their signals were migrated, as "G2" and "G3" changed the signals from "analog" to "digital". The converter boxes are not able to translate the digital conversations, and are supposed to not be manufactured anymore. This doesn't mean somebody who knows electronics a lot better than myself hasn't built a "home-brew" one.

3) You probably have noted I keep referring to 1985. It was in that year that Vermont's Senator Leahy (spelling?), who was and is not a HAM or scanner radio operator, pushed through a law known as the "Electronic Communications Privacy Act". This was primarily to protect information transmitted over the internet, but the wording included communications that went over telephone lines. By that, I mean voice communications, as in phone calls.

4) The Cellular Telephone Industry was the group behind Senator Leahy, pushing for that act to become law. They could have made a bunch of money, selling or renting equipment that would scramble and descramble voice communications of critical nature. Instead, the law technically makes anyone with a scanner an outlaw.

4-A) As mentioned in older strings on EMT City, I am a Scanner operator, "registered" with vanity "call-signs" WPC2SC and KNY2SC (please refer to Popular Communications Magazine re the call-signs), and maintain some of the older equipment, including the converter box. I turned 59 last month (May), so I'm hardly a kid with a radio.

5) There's a surprisingly large number of people who don't realize cell phones, and even Satellite Phones, using either voice or text, are actually very fancy and technically advanced 2-Way radio "Walkie-Talkies". I continue to presume Mr. Leahy is still one of them.

6) Considering the cost of the fancier cell phones, and the "apps" on them, the GPS is for recovery of a stolen one, or tracking a kidnapped person carrying one. If a cell phone user is committing a crime, and the LEOs (Law Enforcement Officers) track the miscreant with the GPS, well, it sucks to be the criminal. Unless you are actually doing, or are suspected of doing, something wrong, I wouldn't worry. Besides, that GPS chip might be used like a Garmin, Tom-Tom, or other GPS navigation device, so you can find that unfamiliar address and get to the patient quicker.

7) Enforcement? Unless the LEOs are specifically looking for someone for a specific reason, it would be an added on charge when caught doing something else against the law, either misdemeanor, criminal or felony.

Listening in to electronic noise for key words/ phrases is not the same.

We probably have machines that can do so, but not yet to the sophistication of "Harold Finch's" "Machine", on CBS TVs "Person of Interest."

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If they have a reasonable suspicion of violation of a law : YES.

Listening in to electronic noise for key words/ phrases is not the same.

Just by traveling back & forth from a foreign country on a regular basis you are already on the radar dwayne.

So it's your belief that the government has a reasonable suspicion of a violation for every Verizon customer that they've collected records on? Brother, that's the reason for warrants, to make the govt provide a reasonable argument for the necessesity to violate "your" or "my" civil and or constitutional rights. They don't get to violate, or shouldn't, everyone's on a fishing expidition.

And they said specifically that they weren't listening to messages, only collecting data on who called who and when.

I've long ago believed that as long as I choose to be so free with my internet usage that I've given up any realistic idea of privacy. But even if any kid with a scanner could listen into my cell phone conversations, which I don't believe that they can, that's a far cry from saying, "The kid next door can, so I guess it's ok if the government does too." There's a reason that we have a constitution and that so many have died protecting it...Protecting myself from my neighbor and protecting myself from my government are not, in any way, the same issue..

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