How to Profit from Data Collection

I can see the day when we will communicate with each other via an enigma encryption machine, but instead of 6 dials, 10 or more will be needed.

Who really is the enemy?

We have met the enemy and he is us.

I have Verizon and their wiretaps cost the most at $775 per month and then $500 for each month after that.

There is no hope for our future.

Beam me up Scotty, please.

Looks like this is happening across the board, and involves all of the big telecommunications/internet companies.

I have to wonder...

With this kind of illegal collusion going on, can we still depend on the FCC and other government regulatory agencies to protect us from predatory practices from these same companies?

If they decide to rip us off with bogus charges and fees, will the government step in and stop them?

I don't see it happening.

"If they decide to rip us off with bogus charges and fees"

They already are. The infrastructure is paid for. There's no upgrading going on that I can tell, so it's mostly all gravy.

It's like I pay you to paint my house, then you send me a bill every month for the paint you used.

The "activation fee" is a pure rip-off! 20 keystrokes and you're activated.

Guess where the government people who put this sweet deal together will be working next? Can you say Verzion?

There's no doubt that some of our fine representatives will be getting some sweet jobs on the boards of some of these companies, once they leave politics.

As long as the government depends on these companies to keep us connected and communicating, I wouldn't be looking for any price drops for service...or a stop to bogus billing practices.

Heard of Democracy? By the people, for the people , of the people? If the people have become apathetic the government will take advantage. You voted the Gov in and you can fire them to, so why accept the pathetic excuse "There is no hope". The power lies with the people, not governments. Why do you allow the spying? Did you give up your privacy? If you don't fight for your own rights then you don't deserve them in the first place and you have no right to condemn others, who fight to maintain their God given birth rights and freedoms.

It is life Jim, just not as you know it!

Pound sand!

As far as I know, nobody's "allowing" this. Nobody asked me.

I was under the impression that this type of unwarranted surveillance was completely illegal.

The anon poster is right about one thing...I think we can put a stop to this; which is why I started the thread. I think a lot of people are simply unaware that this is going on.

Reciting myths for school kids won't fix this- and neither will inciting a revolution.

The real question which is on the table is: "how do we not get eaten by the dinosaur?".

Pretending that the big UGLY is somehow manageable is probably non-productive at this late stage of events.

That's a good question Ron.

I read that they are tapping 8 million phones a day, just in the US. I'm sure that number will ramp up considerably, once the NSA super center is completed in Utah.

Obviously they consider us citizens the enemy, but I think the bigger question, is why?

I think we're also going to have to invent some new names for the massive amounts of information that will be gathered and stored. I still have a hard time comprehending teraflops.

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/07/01/seven-stats-to-know-about-nsas-utah-data-center-as-it-nears-completion/

Teraflops??? You're way out of date, you can get that performance on a single PC graphics card (nVidia GTX Titan w/2668 cpu cores, 7 billion transistors), even Petaflops is so turn of the century!

The latest computing architecture is measured in Exaflops (10**24), that's a lot of floating point operations in one second, 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 to be precise, a little pricey for the desktop user though:

http://www.brightsideofnews.com/news/2013/5/20/abenomics-japan-to-build-worlds-first-exaflop-computer-for-usd-1-billion.aspx

Yeah. I'm no computer geek.

It sure seems to me, with that kind of processing power, there could possibly be a few better uses for machines like that, besides building files on us. Although, I guess they will be able to do it pretty quickly.

Soon they will have our complete medical records.

I wonder if they will share this information with us? They will know more about me than I know about myself; it would be neat to log in and find out exactly what I was doing, a month or a year ago.

Probably griiping about government tyranny.

I try to proudly display the bullseye on my back.

Back at the beginning of this century my brother and I sat in a noisy smoky bar with a really loud band and cold beer and talked about how small a transistor could be.

He's pretty high up security wise so he wanted some background noise in case someone was listening...and beer.

It was pretty much the same conversation I had with my physical chemistry professor in 1971 at an after hours casual brainstorm session at his house with wine and snacks.

Both times I told them there was no reason it couldn't be taken to the molecular level and that three molecules of gold was as small as you could go and still get the three contact points needed to make it work.

I'm pretty sure they've gotten there now or pretty close to it. I'm not in the loop.

In the 1970's it had to wait until the computers could build themselves, we're there now.

Now it is a purity and gold supply problem but that seems to have been handled too.

There it is probably a cooling problem...consistant temps anyway.

I think Superman had that problem already solved by putting his crystalline processors in a cave in the Arctic!

How small a transistor could be?

I think you just said... that your brother, (with a high security clearance), used to go out drinking with you in public, and talk about things he shouldn't have been talking about.

Thanks for illustrating why massive data collection on US citizens is a really bad idea.

"...the bigger question, is why?", Well then, the biggest question is "why not". What's happening today arround the world has always been the dream of controll freaks that crawlled onto goverment chairs. It's true of course that they mean well, and just want to save us from commies, saddams, billandens, ourselves, and other enemies that they'll think on the way. Have no fear. S.M.

I think I may have figured out the "why", while I was sleeping last night.

I've been focused on the personal loss of privacy and freedom, (the trees), and completely neglected the bigger picture, (the forest).

This gives us a clue:

http://www.standard.net/stories/2012/11/15/google-twitter-being-used-track-flu-outbreaks

Suppose they are able to teach this behemoth all human language, written and spoken...which would be pretty easy.

It's not a stretch to think that at some point it will be listening to, and reading, all human communications, along with knowing everything about us.

Now suppose that as all of this information is processed, trending attitudes and thoughts are presented on a map in real-time. Not only could it identify flu outbreaks, but it could identify and map areas of potential resistance to eventual full government take over. Or it could be used in a more subtle fashion; if the map is showing that the population is becoming concerned about a particular topic, lies could be fashioned and fed through the media pipeline to put those concerns to rest.

Ever watch the series 'Person Of Interest'?

I will let you do the googling and reading. It's actually a rather good series.

Heck yeah. I like that show. It's about the only series that I make an effort to watch.

the GoverMob...

When did Germany become a sponsor of terrorism?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/30/us-taps-half-billion-germ_n_3524359.html

I don't know if you guys have heard of these. They are being implemented across the country, and are being helped along with federal grant money.

http://cironline.org/reports/license-plate-readers-let-police-collect-millions-records-drivers-4883

We have them here, in the city of wide streets and narrow minds.

We also have five, yes five, cameras at every major, and not so major, intersections in this town of 132 square miles.

Because I have a politically sensitive job, I have not tried to find the motivation or uses of these cameras.

Many of our cops also wear video cameras on their uniforms, for propaganda purposes. Citizens/taxpayers are not allowed access to these videos. One cop told me "that's evidence, you know".

"Brave New World" is here.

Brave New World - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I don't know what the motivation is either.

I believe the data gets fed to the Fusion Centers, where it is either stored, or sent to a centralized storage facility, which is what the Utah NSA complex will be.

So far, even while ignoring the crazy right wing conspiracy theories, it looks as if these things are specifically aimed at people that support the US constitution. It would be kind of naive to think that the IRS is the only agency involved in targeting specific people and groups.

I wonder what the end game is?

I can imagine certain scenarios, and none of them have a happy ending.

From your link: "the fusion centers often produced irrelevant, useless or inappropriate intelligence".

Another government success story!

A 1% success rate would be monumental- so moist of them can till up zip-nadda and it still works.

Advertize: Engineered spy information source for money.

Well at least somebody is paying attention to all the nonsensical cr@p that so many of us say on the phone and type on the computer every day!

I am rather hoping they bugged my house too so I can be confident that someone is listening to whatever my wife is going on about and it doesn't have to be me!

Yes dear every word you said was heard. Trust me. (Glad it's not me though.)

Verizon just put out this 800 number where if you call it and go through the steps and make sure to punch 1 at the end, they promise not to sell your info to anyone ever again.

1-800-333-995six

You have until the end of August I think to do it.

Do you honestly think that includes the government? Not.

I'd be willing to bet that that promise only applies to commercial interests.

Well, when I bought a nice cheap bike to fix up off Craigslist, I accidentally uncovered a terrorist cell down here in April and I was perfectly happy for the Feds to be in my phone to make sure I wasn't in some mad bombers phone.

When the NSA is in your phone it is amazing what they can do! Can't even begin to fully tell you what their total capabilities are but let's just say they OWN you, 24/7.

My opinion now is I WANT them in my phone when I need them to be! They're a bunch of Boy Scouts anyway.

Now they're gone and I miss them... ...and the daily adrenalin pump, lol.

Glad that's over tho.

Cheap bike?

Craigslist?

Terrorist cell?

"I accidentally uncovered a terrorist cell "

Could you please turn off the encryption and give that to us in plain English, cause nothing you said is coherent.

true story...they got them all rounded up from the guy's phone contacts I bought the bike from...

Please elaborate.

Did the feds begin monitoring your phone after you discovered that you were involved with a terrorist cell, or were they there all along?

Nobody's going to argue against going after terrorist targets, but that should not involve listening to the calls of all Americans.

The NSA might seem like Boy Scouts, but we learned in the IRS scandal, that just a couple of "rogue" low level agents, can completely compromise and overtake an entire operation. Same happened in Fast & Furious.

That entire final paragraph is intended to be dripping in sarcasm.

No I called the FBI a week after the Boston Bombing which started things rolling...and I mean they rolled! But no uniforms, all unmarked cars, no press coverage and enough of our people that there was no way out for the bad guys. It was impressive to say the least. We are a lot safer here than we realize.

That is complete nonsense.

The residents of North Korea are safe from a terrorist attack also; I don't want to live there.

There are worse things than dying...having my privacy and freedom stripped from me, is pretty high on the list.

Maybe the NSA is comprised of decent people; not so in Washington DC, and they call the shots.

Your comfort with this, worries the hell out of me. Nothing personal...it's gaining traction, and I'm neither the dependent or the trusting type.

Legal Notice - Customer Proprietary Network Information (CPNI) for ...

As a taxpayer, I'd like to see this entire Utah complex handed over to medical researchers, and others that are involved with projects that would benefit mankind.

The government has already proven that they are too petty, selfish, greedy, and irresponsible, to have something like this in their hands. They need to get to work on the single biggest threat that this nation faces; the one that was created by them.

Our completely out of control spending and debt. They don't need giant computers to fix it.

Thanks for putting this back up. It's worthy of discussion.

One question...

Was it right to place US citizens of Japanese descent in internment camps?

Was it okay to allow people to be sent to prison for years, over a pot seed or a roach, because Nixon hated hippies?

Was it okay to allow J Edgar Hoover to build massive files on everybody that voiced a different opinion?

Well, 3 questions. The answer is NO.

War time is another thing, and many things you don't expect or even imagine just happens. Now on the files thing, in Hoover's time with your opinions, your files wouldn't fit in a medium sized room. Nowadays all they got on you is a measly USB stick. (LOL) S.M.

I'm sure they don't have much on me at all, but I'm also sure that my persistent preaching about their flagrant abuses of power and usurpation of our rights, probably has me on a list somewhere.

The only thing that stopped Hoover, is that he had info on his elected bosses and it made them nervous.

So, if we go with the wartime excuse, does that mean that all of this stops when we pull out of Afghanistan? Will the Patriot Act be fed through the shredder?

They will, (and are), using the war on terrorism to excuse everything they are doing, and it will only get worse as time goes on.

I'm amazed at how many people are perfectly fine with this.

They were doing this in 2006...the old days, when it was still necessary to get a warrant.

http://news.cnet.com/2100-1029-6140191.html

I wonder how many people have thought about commenting on this thread, and thought better of it, for fear of being tagged as an anti-government type. It shouldn't be that way.

Not how they work. They could care less what you are saying, it is who you are saying it to, so they only collect numbers.

Ok, let's use the Boston Bombers phones for an example. The older of the two was tracked to Chechnya or somewhere when he went there for 'terrorist training'. At this point they are still only tracking phone numbers including country codes.

They had him in their office so they would know his phone activity. They would then track the phone numbers only to the phones of everyone he talked to and the phone numbers of everyone they talked to.

If any of those three layers talked to the phone number of a known terrorist suspect then they would backtrack those numbers to see if any cross-contact was made in the three groups and if any of them came from a region of a middle eastern country known to harbor terrorists.

Once a 'potential terrorist cell' was formed in the computer's mind, because it had linked several phone numbers together that had contacted a know terrorist suspect, it would then kick out a warning to agents that a group of phone numbers were contacting a known terrorist suspect's phone number. Then they would get the court order to actually listen to some calls or look at texts. This is the only time they listen in using a court order, after the computer has made a connection between a group of phone numbers and the phone number of someone who is a terrorist suspect.

It's all just numbers crunching until some kind of link is established.

I only gave them one phone number which made them want the bicycle seat and grips off the bike I bought to check DNA. Once they got that all hell broke loose and I think they rounded up a small army of illegals who were living here and working here and part of a cell.

We are about 40% Hispanic in this county but are an English speaking community unlike Miami where nearly everyone speaks Spanish and many don't even know English there. We also have a million tourists every year in this county , have an international airport and 1800 miles of coastline, so foreigners of every size and color are common, including commercial fishermen from around the Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean. But I've lived and worked here for over 40 years and am used to knowing who is local and who is not and something just seemed odd that day and it was just 3 days after the Boston tragedy so I dropped a dime.

That was your experience, and maybe what you were told; as were we all.

Problem is...there is no one agent that knows what's going on, (in totality), and very few at the top...if any.

The information that Snowden has released, has already shown that they are going much deeper than looking at phone numbers.

Fortunately, (maybe), I heard a radio report yesterday, that said that liberals and conservatives, (both in and out of Washington), have joined together to put a stop to it.

I've known for quite some time, that there was a lot more to it than looking at international calls. That was the original lie we were told; it has been expanded to included searching for evil keywords like "constitution" and "patriot".

Slightly off the trail here....... but only slightly....

I went to college later in life, and I recall in my Computer Communications class "Mid 80's) our instructor had a personal project of constructing contact information of people. he mentioned the value what it was worth, and as I recall it was a couple of cents for each contact individual. He used it as a project for us.

And the information consisted of Name, Address and Phone number........ there may have been more demographics on it.

Frankly, I think he used the info for his personal project.

Sounds like he was putting together mailing lists and selling them.

And who says our educational system is progressive and liberal bias........... When it's capitalistic.

I am still just dying to know what became of the 'bicycle terrorist gang'.

It certainly adds a little levity to such a painful topic.

I have been trying to think of a culture or state that did this sort of thing to such a degree and for which everything worked out just fine.

Does anyone have an example from history to cheer me up?

Me too!!!

I asked CBrider to give us the scoop. Sounds like a cool story.

I don't know if this is what the bad guys were doing, but I had thought about this before...

It seems highly unlikely that terrorists would openly discuss their plans, on line or over the phone. If they had preconceived code words, it seems that bicycles on craigslist would be an easy place to hide...or even pretending that they were a bunch of teenage girls discussing weekend plans on twitter.

What I'd really like to know, is precisely how phone taps and information gathering and storage, on all American citizens, helps the effort. It makes me nervous when the government decides to permanently suspend our constitutional rights, while at the same time, getting caught abusing the technology; as we saw with the justice department tapping into the phones and computers of various reporters and their family members.

It's not the rank and file government employees that I have a problem with...it's those corrupt rascals in Washington.

promoted?

kramarat:

There are predators who look for pray all the time. These predators look for information by hook or cook and some intermediators baggers often help them for pea nuts or pennies.

Look at Directories where you can find predators who pay for their entries and information about pray are filled in by all means without their knowledge. It is sometime like a fish hunting, when it looks like a free meal only to be a trap.

Without information game does not assume wider scope so all predators are hunting for addresses of their pray. You get lots of SMS and email and your government keep announcing the date on which all this will stop and then they get their on kick and the game goes on.

Now, entire Government is sitting on social media network for luring voters there. Their game plan goes on and they are hunting common citizens. This make mobile more cheaper and free computers rather than free food. When you raise your voice or problem in public then you expose yourself and then you are part of the hunting game. If you have no problems then you may sit in some corner so Governments need to creat problems to pop you out from your den to become part of the game.

Are you going to assist such people? Perhaps you may be already doing this. In the initial phase you make your small group and until then it is fine and then someone gets quick access to your ID and then starts misusing this information. Most of the call centers and service center workers copy the addresses, email and phone number and either sell these or start using in private.

Stealing information is now also done by the Governments in the name of security of you and me and of course none of us have permitted them to do this favor for us. Sometime this may look easy thing but sometime may look like horror for some people.

You are only a pawn in the wider game plan.

One Engineering institute Director sold thesis of some other person to his student and certified it as his original work under his guidance and finally has to quit his job and perhaps may land in jail. Info theaf may also get cought so get ready for that part as well.

I have seen one Columbus forte in Domnican Republic and I am sure he never went there or did he? Ideas are so attractive that people simply copy them. Many discoveries done elsewhere find their local name as inventor. There are many USA Universities where researchers have stolen tribal knowledge from other countries calling them their own.

It is human nature that people will misuse information and civilization is only a show business of dual identity in most of the human.

All good points, Shyam.

Privacy doesn't really exist on the internet. I'm well aware of the collecting of information by commercial interests, and I know that the specific reason they do it, is to use it themselves, or to sell it to someone else that wants to sell me something. Aside from pop up ads and junk in my email box, I'm not really bothered by it.

In the US, we have a right to question what the government is doing; in fact, it's practically a civic responsibility that is placed in the hands of the citizens. I doubt I'm on any watch list; I just draw attention to things that don't make the evening news, but are reported by various sources on the internet, or foreign news agencies. People are out there saying some really vicious and nasty things in their internet lives...I'm not in that group.

From an engineering perspective, it's interesting to speculate on the technology that is being employed by the US and other governments, that hasn't seen the light of day in the public arena. I think they have some really amazing stuff.

Being an unapologetic free market capitalist, if I were the CEO of one of these companies that is profiting from the sale of our data to the government, (or thinking about it), I would refuse to take part in it, and make a public announcement stating it. The profits that would be rolling in, would more than compensate for the targeted annual IRS audits.

kramarat:

Well said and wise people are not expected to do anything better. World has all shorts of people and for some we build jail/s as harder as Alcatraz. Most of us ignore possibility of crime going to be committed with us directly and in all those get abused some are like us. It is going to happen to some. It is more statistical, peaking at sometime somewhere in some form or the other. Sometime entire very calmn nation enters into such a furry that decades of work get ruined in minutes and mostly simpler good people in large proportion become victim.

I think, irrespective of what happens, the basic nature of good must be retained. It is harder as all people have inherrent reaction in their head but some can manage it better than others. Some will live with gun and some may never like to touch one. Whatever happens to those good people who one day become victim, my flowers to them irrespective of their nation of birth or living.

Stealing and surviving is very natural as you have to pick things from this world and truely you don't own anything on birth other than this body. Learning from others and picking ideas is not at all bad. However, to value privacy is very good. Something you wish to share and many things you don't. There is temptation and to resist is what makes us special.

Resistance is futile critical.

Citizens must keep their governments in check. They will always misbehave, if given the opportunity and the power to do so.

Citizens must keep their governments in check.

Yes, I'll have My Attorney General investigate himself. ^lmao

Ah-h-h... a subject near and dear to my dossier.

I know I've referenced the movie "The President's Analyst" before, but it is just one of those niche movies that has a special place in the FBI files, as well as my heart. -- I don't know if that documentary ever got finished but I'd like to see it if it did.

I've found that once I've seen a movie and then watched it's "trailer" the trailer can seem like a mishmash of the movie storyline; scenes are usually not chronological in trailers. But there is some resemblance. So here is the trailer for this gem of a movie -- not so much for art's sake, just the prescience it demonstrates. Or maybe, as they say, some things never change. During J. Edgar's era, personalities were singled out at his whims for monitoring. Now with the mine-sweeping (and mind-bending) technology at "their" disposal, we're all on the bubble. Interesting trivia about the movie is here at IMDB. IMDB reports that some scenes have been omitted from some releases (likely VHS and Laserdisc, as mentioned). Reviews, on Amazon, for the DVD say these are now restored. I have a copy taped off of TCM. I'll have to compare the 2 some day. It would be a shame if the intact movie is now a "crippled" release.

This article came in today about a Colorado town which is considering paying a bounty on drones shot down over the town by hunters.

http://www.gizmag.com/colorado-drone-hunting/28360/

Now THAT is proactive! Maybe it will catch on (let's hope so).

I hope they don't go the same route with license plate readers.......towns of 600 people have been surrrounded and burned when law enforcement gets P.O'd...

and as for the NSA, well they had better pre-arrange their new lives in Ecuador or they too could be inhabiting a Russian air terminal.

If they touch those drones then they may also terminator in town.

nobody is laughing too hard. you have touched a nerve - I think.

One persons Robocop is only another person's Terminator.

Do you remember that popular concept: "technology will set us free"?

A sober second thought might hold that to be completely inaccurate.

I recently read about Homeland Security causing an ammunition shortage, due to the magnitude of their requisition, which the article claimed to dwarf the ammo expenditure of Gulf One and Gulf Two.

When we add all of the encroachments on civil liberties to the ramping-up of 'civil' policing to military levels, the last thing that works for "freedom" is more technology. At least until we get personal teleporters so that we can "beam up" to escape suffocation.

There are a lot of things happening, that used to belong in the crazy conspiracy pages.

Aside from the infringement on us, we don't know who has access to all of this data. Politicians are regularly, having affairs, engaging in questionable business dealings, insider trading and who knows what? I know that most of them that didn't have a lot of money to begin with, emerge as millionaires.

I could see the potential for some very messy political blackmail going on, with whatever party that is in power, using this data tracking to burn their enemies.

Maybe we should start by only tracking the calls, emails, posts, locations, etc., of our political elite in Washington, only.

Talk about a fast way to get this crap shut down...it wouldn't last a week.

So far, we know that Snowden, (a low level contractor), and a lowly Army private, were able to, not only access the data, but walk out the front door with it. Not a comforting thought.

Well, it will continue.

A bill was introduced to eliminate the data collection, and was shot down.

Somehow congress has managed to rationalize this, by saying that nothing is being listened to...only recorded for possible future use in terrorist investigations. Every phone call, and who knows what else?

What could go wrong?

I just switched over to StraightTalk wireless home phone, which runs on the Verizon network. It's a good deal; it will only cost me $15 a month for unlimited calling in the US, with the government supplementing my cost with eavesdropping payments.

I'm thinking that in a best case scenario, (now that this is common knowledge), all of the terrorists and criminals will use throw away cell phones, (which they probably already do), and the government, (in their infinite wisdom), will end up spending billions of dollars, to record and store billions of phone calls, that will amount to nothing more than the everyday drivel of regular Americans. Great!

A security plan proposal against the USSR was put forth in the early '70's.

It worked like this, not to have any intelligence security safeguards and let everything open. And also throw in some b.s. intelligence

....... the thought was to literally bury the Russians with information that they would have to verify every thing to make sure it's valid.

Some number crunchers actually felt that this could bankrupt the U.S.S.R.

Of course, cooler heads decided not to implement.

So maybe if we are feeling like civil disobedience is the appropriate response to this over-reach by the state we should be using a Demon Dialer program to call as many answering machines as possible - with scripted buzzword messages. Make them spend more and more for less and less.

Our campaigner in Chief aka ' commander in chief' would like that........ He'll see it as synergy. Look at all the jobs that would be created.

They will be spending more and more of OUR money.

A real twisted mind like mine could easily believe that this last one was the f*cking goal all along, and all the rest was cheap (or expensive) fabricated excuses to bypass our stupid remorses and allow it. Nah.... I'm probably just another stupid conspiracy theorist. If only that million coincidents hadn't happened, I wouldn't be all that suspicious. S.M.

All is fueled by profit then consequently control. This will start from spying cellphones, credit card chips-unifying one banking database and couple more years this would all be simplified to an RFID chip implant.

The thing that we think makes us free actually will be in time imprisoning us all.

There's no going back, we are all heading there-they don't sleep. Tough times are coming soon.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zHdrTiPcQ3g

It looks like I can post again, but only in Chrome...not my other browser.

I've been reading about the repercussions regarding the illegal behavior from the US government. Yes, they are collecting virtually everything, but supposedly still need a warrant to look and listen to the information.

Here's the rub... I haven't verified this yet, but it looks like if they find a potential terrorist suspect, a warrant covers all of his contacts, all of those contacts, contacts...and so on down the line. Considering that every person on this planet is separated from every other person, by as little as 5 contact points, a single warrant could grow to include tens of millions of people. It's even scarier, knowing for a fact, that the current administration has been directly involved with tyranny and corruption. Not bogus scandals, but the intentional targeting of reporters and political enemies.

The ripple effects are being felt hard. Internet sales are dropping, and the big boys are scrambling to try to paint themselves in a good light. Good luck with that, a**holes.

All is not doom and gloom though; other companies are out there that are not willing to sell their souls for a quick buck.

Here is a search engine that is free, and does no tracking:

https://duckduckgo.com/about

I'll be using it in the future. There are also some very inexpensive email options out there, that encrypt your information and keep it private. I'll be looking at some of those too. Not so much because of the criminal behavior of our government, but mostly because of the hundreds of junk emails I receive every week...it's past the point of of being good because it's free; I'm willing to pay an honest business to keep my info secure.

You must trust us a lot!

Well, it's not really about trust, and I don't even know if doing anything differently will make any difference. We've got an administration in place, that has made it very clear that they don't like people that would like to stick to the US constitution, and they have shown a willingness to use any agency at their disposal to target them. Since I'm one of those people, this snooping makes me nervous.

We've got a radicalized, gun running criminal in charge of the DOJ, and I would imagine that he has a higher security clearance than Snowden. Their promises mean absolutely nothing.

We armed the citizens,not the cartels...

http://articles.latimes.com/2013/apr/11/world/la-fg-mexico-vigilantes-20130412

Also, the group that invaded SWFla this summer was a combo of Russian, Mexican, Jamaican, and Haitain drug cartel financed terrorists who were poisoning food in the local grocery stores, smuggling in drugs and human trafficking victims and other terrorist group members. They had gotten jobs at fast food restaurants, grocery stores, Wal Mart, Lowes, Home Depot, Salvation Army and Goodwill and other businesses with a lot of customers and employees where they would blend in with our multi-cultural population here. When they would get smuggled in they would go to Salvation Army or Goodwill to get clothes and stuff to use in the empty foreclosure houses they were squatting in.

http://articles.latimes.com/2013/apr/12/world/la-fg-wn-mexico-europe-cartels-20130412

I had personal indirect contact with a few of them because I am a 'picker' and stop in all the thrift stores on my way home every day (instead of going to the bar every day like I did in my reckless youth ,lol. Cheaper in the long run.) I also witnessed two of them buying 3" bolts, one at a time, in Lowe's and Home Depot to make home-made bombs one day when I was looking for a certain kind of white heat paint that everyone was out of and had to go to 3 different stores to find 5 cans to paint an aluminum stairs with. This I passed on to the FBI who caught both of them immediately.

Our security agencies and local law enforcement tracked them down using the very methods you are trying to get banned. There were dozens if not hundreds already operating here!

Electronic communication records are the new 'paper trail'.

Unless you or one of your friends or one of their friends is a known terrorist or has communicated with a known terrorist the NSA, CIA and FBI could care less what you are talking about. Simply too much Hot Air on the air waves for them to monitor the BILLIONS of phone calls, tweets, emails, Facebook messages and blogs that go on every day.

Apparently they missed a couple of them resulting in this...

http://rt.com/usa/florida-gas-plant-blast-769/

In order to avoid another 9/11 sized event we need to keeps tabs on these people.

In supporting a ban on phone data, you are being duped into giving the terrorist organization free reign in our country by taking away the only way to track them down in a viable time frame. They have unlimited funds behind them from the cartels.

That's why the Boston Bombers Uncle kept saying, "This is not about Islam!" over and over again to the media. He was right.

They already live among us!

Maybe these were all 'accidents' but I think maybe not...

http://rt.com/news/trains-collide-switzerland-injuries-754/
http://rt.com/news/spain-train-derailed-killed-546/
http://news.yahoo.com/first-glimpse-canada-disaster-shows-scale-devastation-152216520.html
http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2013-07-25/national/40862279_1_train-derails-ethanol-csx-spokesman-gary-sease
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/20/nyregion/train-derailment-on-metro-north-track-snarls-commute.html?_r=0
http://thelirrtoday.blogspot.com/2013/03/march-18th-derailment-of-non-passenger.html
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2013/07/12/paris-train-derails/2512431/
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-110476/Six-die-US-train-derails.html

http://mainlinemedianews.com/articles/2013/07/09/region/doc51dbf10967409548563617.txt

Someone is doing the final production testing on the newly engineered stupidity beam gun. That's my take anyway. S.M.

Here is another one:

https://startpage.com/

it is offshore and the operators claim that they hold no info on those who use their service, making them audit-proof.

http://news.yahoo.com/government-requests-twitter-users-data-rise-021624645.html

This is cute...

It appears, that in order to circumvent US law, the NSA is paying big bucks to foreign governments to do the US eavesdropping for them.

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2013/aug/01/nsa-paid-gchq-spying-edward-snowden

This would certainly explain why we are collecting all of Germany's communications; we likely have a similar, reciprocal agreement. Since each government is not doing the actual spying on their own citizens, no warrants would be needed to look at something that was supplied from outside. How damned convenient.