How does everyone feel about the US Government storing our e-data without probab

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   Jmiller17posted 10 years ago

   How does everyone feel about the US Government storing our e-data without probable cause?
   
   Recent revelations has confirmed that the US Government is storing user data form sites like Google, Facebook, Skype, and major communications companies. Those companies were ordered not to alert their customers and the Government can access it whenever they feel like. Do you think this is in violation of the Constitution that does not permit search and seizure without a warrant or at least probable cause?  Are you ok with the government doing this?

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   MickSposted 10 years ago

   I don't think it's valid.  What is more worrying, I've heard that the US government is doing the same in the UK, which means that our government is allowing a foreign power to collect data on us.

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      Larry Wallposted 10 years agoin reply to this

      I would be more concern with what China, North Korea and even Russia are doing regarding internet data, rather than the U.S. and U.K.

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   Larry Wallposted 10 years ago

   When you put your life history out in public, be it Facebook, Google transactions, etc. it is there for anybody with the ability to collect the data. No one objects, at least I hope not, to police departments trying to track down child molesters. Probably most do not object to the ideas of tracking the transactions of drug dealers and suppliers.
   
   The Internet took the door off of privacy. We can probably never close that door again. If it is not the government collecting data, it could be advertisers that want to target you, or foreign governments tracking you. Today, your life is an open book. What we write here on Hub Pages is there for anyone to read and to copy. That includes the police if the so desire. No warrant is needed because we are exposing our views and thoughts to the general public and work to try and get more people to read our material. So if you run advertising on your hubs, that data too can become public.

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      Jmiller17posted 10 years agoin reply to this

      I see what your saying, but the government should not be storing the data "just in case" they need it.What about tracking phone calls? Those are not public

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      Larry Wallposted 10 years agoin reply to this

      Is  the nation is storing data or reviewing data? Some data is stored. The census data is stored every 10 years. You have to keep your tax records for several years. Your birth certificate and marriage license are on file as is your work history, etc

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      Jmiller17posted 10 years agoin reply to this

      Yes, but the census is in the constitution, where does it say personal conversations are to be stored until they need reviewed? It would be like forcing anyone you sent a letter during the colonial times to submit a copy to the US government.

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      Larry Wallposted 10 years agoin reply to this

      I do not know how much data is being stored, how it is being indexed and what value it would be in the future. If the data is used against you, you can argue in court it was improperly obtained. That issue has existed for decades, if not centuries.

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   Attikosposted 10 years ago

   PRISM and other sweeping data collection programs of the United States government are a subtle variant of prior restraint and are in ordinary fact, if not in federal law, searches and seizures without specific warrant. In both aspects, they spit on the Bill of Rights and form part of the framework of a postmodern police state. These are not mere moderate violations of the civil rights of Americans, as Obama called them, they are extraordinary wartime measures taken root as permanent fixtures in a new, more authoritarian mode of governance destructive of liberty. Sheep must tolerate whatever their shepherds choose do to them in the name of whatever cause du jour is being used to excuse official wrongdoing today, but we the American people should not put up with it.

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      Larry Wallposted 10 years agoin reply to this

      I do not understand your prior restraint argument. You can only collect data about what has been done. If that helps to avoid another 9/11 or similar attack, I am not going to get too worried. I wonder which group monitors Hub Pages.

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      Attikosposted 10 years agoin reply to this

      The routine collection of surveillance information on citizens with no probable cause to suspect them of criminal activity is a preparatory step for law enforcement. There is no other reason to do it. That is why I called it a "subtle variant."

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      Larry Wallposted 10 years agoin reply to this

      You may the acquaintance of a person who is under suspicion and therefore, collecting data on you may be appropriate. Our lives are so intertwined with other people,  etc, you sometimes need  data to separate the good guys from the bad guys.

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      Attikosposted 10 years agoin reply to this

      That is no justification for wholesale surveillance of American citizens. It is an insidious form of subtle prior restraint precisely because it is being done prior to the existence of any particular cause to suspect criminal activity.

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      Larry Wallposted 10 years agoin reply to this

      How do you know that no particular criminal activities are being investigated and whether or not they are confined to one small group or involved thousands around the country. I had not thought of that.

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      Attikosposted 10 years agoin reply to this

      The reason there is such a furor over these surveillance operations is that they are blanket sweeps. There are no specific criminal causes driving them, the government is collecting data on us all. That is the whole point of the controversy.

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      Larry Wallposted 10 years agoin reply to this

      Same question: How do you know this? Do you have contacts in the Justice Dept., Dept. of Homeland Security, Treasury,, IRS, etc. I do not know if there is a wide scale criminal act in progress, but maybe there is.

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      Attikosposted 10 years agoin reply to this

      I read the news. The NSA has admitted it by declassifying some files in an attempt to justify the programs, the white house by threatening the whistle blowers, and waves of revelations are now leaking out. There is no denying the programs exist.

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   ParadigmEnactedposted 10 years ago

   Sounds exactly what our founding fathers warned us about. Am I ok with it? All that matters is that America has lost the plot and people can't deal with who they are anymore.

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