Who do you blame for the latest attack on civil liberties involving your phone records?

And add to that “Are people now going to avoid Verizon like the plague?”

I blame the members of Congress who voted to pass the PATRIOT ACT (*many of them are still in office). I also blame former President George W. Bush who signed it into law.

The American citizens. We let it happen and even encourage it because we’re putting safety over freedom.

Joe Lieberman, a traitor to the Constitution. But as one person pointed out today, “the public asked for that.”

I’m with @mrentropy, it’s a risk a lot of us are willing to take to keep our country safe from the infidels after 9/11.

I actually could give a crap, frankly. If some government employee wants to see that I called home, my wife’s cel phone, and my job (98% of all my calls), then more power to them.

There is a national illusion of privacy. NOTHING we do is private. If you go to the grocery store, your buying habits are stored and analyzed. Your credit cards are analyzed. Your web surfing is analyzed. The only way to be completely private is to take yourself off the grid.

Not to sound paranoid, but I am quite sure they are istening-lay right ow-nay….
.

This has been a routine practice since 9–11. If you’re not calling terrorists and they’re not calling you, what do you care if your phone number winds up in a computer that’s scanning for suspicious calling patterns abroad. Nobody’s going to come knocking on your door wanting twhy you ordered ordered pizza so many times last month. One more thing to get conspiracy paranoids something to rant about. Temptest in a teapot.

It’s the inevitable result of an out-of-control government. You can’t give unlimited power and not expect it to be used. Starve the beast is our only way out.

Bush. It was put in place as part of the Patriot Act.

I wonder how much of an outcry this news would have caused had it come out on the day of the Boston bombings…

(reply redacted by DHS)

I should mention that I preferred the “free” America over what’s happening now. I’d prefer people who are happy with what’s gong on to go ahead and move to a less free country.

@Yetanotheruser – (reply redacted). I trust the moderators of Fluther, but I do wonder, in a corner of my mind exactly what you wanted to say and why it was considered unsuitable.

@mrentropy Nope, they’ll just make sure we continue to have less and less freedom.

@bea2345 there actually was no reply that was redacted. It was an attempt at satire, in the spirit of this old thread. (DHS=Department of Homeland Security).

I was gonna say..the mods didn’t do that. You’re a terrible forgerer @yetanotheruser!

I don’t care.

Bush initiated it. It’s been in place for 7 years.

I blame the security-industrial complex and the fact that corporations can buy politicians easily.
Security is HUGE business in the U.S. because the companies ply congress with fearful scenarios an campaign contributions.
For example Lockheed Martin got many many millions for a new computer system for the NSA that several years and several cost overruns later still doesn’t work nearly as well as the home-grown in-house program that some NSA staff built before 2001. The new system is especially deficient in security controls that would moderate problems like that of the OP, and lacks features that the old cheap one had to anonymize data properly for wholesale scans for scary key-words and phrases. (When something scary is found, the information was presented by the old in a form appropriate for getting a FISA warrant for further non-anonymous research. The new gazzillion-dollar system can’t do that).

Cut the corporatists / lobbyists out of government and it would improve several things including this whole race to see who can spend the most on ‘security’.

Orwell tried to warn us.

I blame the citizens and the representatives that we contiously elect into office year after year, who do not have our best interests in minds.

@flip86

So did I. Back in 2008:
http://www.fluther.com/17542/how-do-you-feel-about-the-justice-department-considering-letting-the/
http://www.fluther.com/6261/should-the-government-give-telecom-companies-immunity-against-lawsuits-for-illegal/

I’m under no illusion that I have any type of privacy. I’m sure “they” could be watching now.

Freedom? Ha. It has never existed and it certainly isn’t going to start now.

Much ado about nothing, if you ask me. It’s all the phone companies, actually. But all that is shared is a list of phone numbers, their connections to other phone numbers, and the date, time and duration of the call. There is nothing in the entire database that records any information in those calls. When they identify a terrorist operative anywhere, they feed that person’s number into the database to see it there is a match, if there is, they look at what phone numbers they are calling. If that raises suspicions, then then go to court and ask a judge for a warrant to wiretap.

Think about the job of President, whether it is Bush or Obama. Every move either made to try to intercept terror plots has been roundly criticized and second guessed. But the same people will demand hearings and want to know why the President didn’t do more to protect us the moment a terror attack is pulled off.

And what’ so OK about multinational mega-corporations watching you? Not only does Verizon know who you call, they can listen in on what you say. Google knows more about you than your mate or mother knows. It’s the world we live in today. I guess I’ll just have to learn to be good.

Obama just gave a comment on this. He assured us that the NSA takes their work very seriously and are concerned about the constitution and personal privacy. I assume they care at least as much as the IRS does. I only hope they don’t snap a picture of my bare ass. It’s not a very flattering angle.