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Revelations about the NSA ordering Verizon to hand over phone records...

Does this bother you?....

No, it doesn't bother me. If it's a surprise, then you are simply showing your naivety. The government has had the ability to wiretap phones since phones went into use. And when computers went into use, you can bet that the government had a field day. Snooping on phone records, emails, finances, bank accounts, social networking, you name it.

Call me a conspiracy theory nut, if you like. But the time to worry about this and/or do something about has come and gone, by about 40 years.

The best thing to do is just go about your normal daily life and don't discuss anything you don't want made public.

My main point of this is to insist that we NOT take it out on Verizon. They were COURT-ORDERED to surrender these records. By the government WE put into place. And don't show even more naivety by thinking that AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile and the smaller telcos aren't involved, too. Seriously.

The end...

Geri O

Comments

Ann154

Geri,

Out of curiosity, how many of the other discussions on this "topic" did you read before typing your opinion on the matter.

Nice to see you again here even only briefly.

gerio

Funny you ask, I heard about this early in the morning and figured that this topic would be percolating somewhere, but I haven't seen it. Anywhere. I figured I would have seen some discussion about it, but nothing. So is it a taboo subject? Or after hearing of it all day, on various-partisan-leaning both ways new stations (not talk shows, blehhh...), has it been revealed to be a hoax?

Nonetheless, the assertions I made stand. They have for many years now.

Always nice to see you around, Ann. Looking through here has become maybe a once-a-month thing. I'd love to say hi to DroidSW, too.

Geri O

gerio

Oh, and you remember the trouble I've (still) had with this forum. Some things I see, some I don't. Perhaps I've missed something...

commonsense101

Right now verizon is standing alone, people are dumb and lazy and will take out their aggression on the softest target...this was a problem in 2006, it is a problem now..people need to get mad at the correct people..great post

Ann154

I haven't seen DroidSW for a while. :smileysad: Still have your latest android purchase?

Oh it wasn't taboo, I am slowly catching up from today's activity and I have already gone through 3-4 and more are waiting for me in the communications tab. A short list is below.

Who thinks we should all dump Verizon Wireless for wrongfully allowing the NSA to illegally (read the constitution) spy on ALL OF US. We all know what the IRS was doing with their data collection.

gerio

Hi, Ann. Sorry to say, I went back to the fruity side about a month ago. The Droid Razr Maxx HD is indeed a great phone. I nearly had it ginning nicely with my iPads and MacBooks. But my Verizon guy offered me a buyback/trade-in on the Razr I couldn't refuse in trade for another 5. I had to get a Mophie JuicePack to get any battery life, though...

Yes, I just found those threads you mentioned and a few more. I couldn't make myself get through them. Even in the worst of times and circumstances, cool heads prevail, although I'm losing faith in that mantra as we speak. Let the community collectively blow a gasket over this (not entirely unjustified, but not the logical move). Have we forgotten the cars that have black boxes monitoring our driving habits? Have we forgotten the phones that can monitor our activity even when we think it's powered off? Have we forgotten our ISPs (Google comes to mind most recently) that can be ordered to hand over personal data of their users? What are these stores doing with those security camera records? What are the doctors and hospitals doing with our electronic medical records (especially lately)? Do we REALLY think the municipalities don't know who we vote for, especially with the advent of electronic voting? Like I said, we are way too late in getting upset about all of this. Doesn't mean we shouldn't, but when the genie is out of the bottle, what do you do?

But that's just me...:o))

grandmondo

You know, I really want to see this whole thing like you do. But if I were to see the guv as just another company who, for instance, is in a partnership with a company like Verizon to give up certain customer datapoints, then one might think that Verizon is simply complicit if they act on it. I mean its not like "court order" rules the day here and atleast a challenge or public outcry would behoove Verizon to go one step further and bounce this off some constitutional lawyers. And even if one might say that this has been tried before, standing on principle and going on record would be a statement that Verizon truly does care about where their customer's information is being distributed.

I really hope this pulls together a focus on a much needed privacy policy that actually has teeth. I could flip this around and truly say that if every person has a price--a monetary value on them, then surely the information contained about that person is of value as well. So why isn't the government paying me for my information? Now if there is suspicious activity going on, probable cause, etc., that's a whole different scenario.

While true we put some of these people in place in the guv, accountability sits at every level of this in my mind.

Just my 2 cents.

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