while you were sleeping

[albed]

I still remember when the media revealed the CIA's tracking of Osama Bin Laden from his satellite phone. There wasn't any question of U.S. privacy laws then and it's only a shallow excuse now. People in the media are simply getting away with treason.

[JackSpratts]

Originally Posted by Drakonix

The President has Constitutional authority to order surveillance without warrant given certain conditions of national security. This authority is above the 1978 FISA.

The leak places U.S. citizens in increased danger as terrorists could use counter-measures against surveillance and therefore escape detection.

couple of things. we're talking about spying on u.s. citizens here, not on foreign nationals outside the u.s., and the president can’t usurp congress's rights on u.s. soil. also fisa requires notification in 3 days which isn't happening and that's how the president is violating the act. finally, fisa is well known, it's been law for ages, over 25 years, so any one with an interest in escaping detection already knew we wiretap w/out warrants. bush's strange rants to the contrary, nothing in the nytimes piece in any way surprised our enemies, who surely had plans in place to remain anonymous that took fisa into account. the only surprise is on us, the u.s. public, that bush's a.g. didn't get the ok to spy on american citizens after 3 days of tapping, and that's against the law, even of the admittedly loose fisa variety.

of course if bush thinks even knowledge already public is too dangerous for the public to (re-)know, he could've have lied about it, denying the very existence of a well-known program, and by extension, his violation of it, or he could have simply refused to comment, which he usually does when confronted with something controversial.

if knowledge of the program has damaged u.s. security, bush shares most of the blame, for violating the law to begin with and for acknowledging it with such aggression. “yeah i did it 30 times and i’m gonna keep doin it, no matter what.” woah there pardner.

we know you can't believe everything in the paper, no matter what the name says on the masthead. a few no-comments might not’ve quieted critics but it wouldn't have screamed to the most ignorant terrorists "we are listening to you!" either. i mean bush hands them a gold-plated official affirmation then turns around and snaps "that aids them!"? he obviously has a lot more problems than i give him credit for.

meanwhile it sounds like the bad old j edgar hoover days of internal us surveillance are on us all over again, with the nytimes reporting the F.B.I. Watched Activist Groups, New Files Show

WASHINGTON, Dec. 19 - Counterterrorism agents at the Federal Bureau of Investigation have conducted numerous surveillance and intelligence-gathering operations that involved, at least indirectly, groups active in causes as diverse as the environment, animal cruelty and poverty relief, newly disclosed agency records show…

One F.B.I. document indicates that agents in Indianapolis planned to conduct surveillance as part of a "Vegan Community Project." Another document talks of the Catholic Workers group's "semi-communistic ideology." A third indicates the bureau's interest in determining the location of a protest over llama fur planned by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/20/politics/20fbi.html

more than most, this administration really needs the oversight, and that's saying a lot. asking citizens to trust them is asking too much of any american.

- js.

[albed]

Aww, now whining about the FBI monitoring domestic terror threats; which is just as legal.

Cry me a river bitch.

[theknife]

Originally Posted by theknife

via Kos:


http://www.southcoasttoday.com/daily...5/a09lo650.htm

full disclosure time...appaprently, this story is a hoax:

NEW BEDFORD -- The UMass Dartmouth student who claimed to have been visited by Homeland Security agents over his request for "The Little Red Book" by Mao Zedong has admitted to making up the entire story.
The 22-year-old student tearfully admitted he made the story up to his history professor, Dr. Brian Glyn Williams, and his parents, after being confronted with the inconsistencies in his account.
Had the student stuck to his original story, it might never have been proved false.
But on Thursday, when the student told his tale in the office of UMass Dartmouth professor Dr. Robert Pontbriand to Dr. Williams, Dr. Pontbriand, university spokesman John Hoey and The Standard-Times, the student added new details.
The agents had returned, the student said, just last night. The two agents, the student, his parents and the student's uncle all signed confidentiality agreements, he claimed, to put an end to the matter.
But when Dr. Williams went to the student's home yesterday and relayed that part of the story to his parents, it was the first time they had heard it. The story began to unravel, and the student, faced with the truth, broke down and cried.
It was a dramatic turnaround from the day before.

so timely yet so bogus...

http://www.southcoasttoday.com/daily...5/a01lo719.htm

[albed]

So why doesn't anyone reveal the lying shitstains name? Seems like the Dartmouth professors might be the real liars since everything the media reported came from them and they seemed eager to play politics with the supposed incident. But I wouldn't exclude the journalists, who thought a second hand source was good enough for a story, from complicity.

[son]

Originally Posted by multi

LOL

[Nicobie]

Originally Posted by albed

So why doesn't anyone reveal the lying shitstains name? Seems like the Dartmouth professors might be the real liars since everything the media reported came from them and they seemed eager to play politics with the supposed incident. But I wouldn't exclude the journalists, who thought a second hand source was good enough for a story, from complicity.

Wait until u have a garage sale or do a little $200 private sale, how about sell your old car for $2500 and the govmn't steps in wanting taxes and income reported. Don't forget the penalties.

U're fuc'd my friend. We have let our gov get too big and now it is eating us up.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~revolt if u have the balls~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

[theknife]

this is the kind of government the Bushies have brought us....

Pay too much and you could raise the alarm

By BOB KERR
The Providence Journal
28-FEB-06

PROVIDENCE, R.I. -- Walter Soehnge is a retired Texas schoolteacher who traveled north with his wife, Deana, saw summer change to fall in Rhode Island and decided this was a place to stay for a while.

So the Soehnges live in Scituate now and Walter sometimes has breakfast at the Gentleman Farmer in Scituate Village, where he has passed the test and become a regular despite an accent that is definitely not local.

And it was there, at his usual table last week, that he told me that he was "madder than a panther with kerosene on his tail."

He says things like that. Texas does leave its mark on a man.

What got him so upset might seem trivial to some people who have learned to accept small infringements on their freedom as just part of the way things are in this age of terror-fed paranoia. It's that "everything changed after 9/11" thing.

But not Walter.

"We're a product of the '60s," he said. "We believe government should be way away from us in that regard."

He was referring to the recent decision by him and his wife to be responsible, to do the kind of thing that just about anyone would say makes good, solid financial sense.

They paid down some debt. The balance on their JCPenney Platinum MasterCard had gotten to an unhealthy level. So they sent in a large payment, a check for $6,522.

And an alarm went off. A red flag went up. The Soehnges' behavior was found questionable.

And all they did was pay down their debt. They didn't call a suspected terrorist on their cell phone. They didn't try to sneak a machine gun through customs.

They just paid a hefty chunk of their credit card balance. And they learned how frighteningly wide the net of suspicion has been cast.

After sending in the check, they checked online to see if their account had been duly credited. They learned that the check had arrived, but the amount available for credit on their account hadn't changed.

So Deana Soehnge called the credit-card company. Then Walter called.

"When you mess with my money, I want to know why," he said.

They both learned the same astounding piece of information about the little things that can set the threat sensors to beeping and blinking.

They were told, as they moved up the managerial ladder at the call center, that the amount they had sent in was much larger than their normal monthly payment. And if the increase hits a certain percentage higher than that normal payment, Homeland Security has to be notified. And the money doesn't move until the threat alert is lifted.

Walter called television stations, the American Civil Liberties Union and me. And he went on the Internet to see what he could learn. He learned about changes in something called the Bank Privacy Act.

"The more I'm on, the scarier it gets," he said. "It's scary how easily someone in Homeland Security can get permission to spy."

Eventually, his and his wife's money was freed up. The Soehnges were apparently found not to be promoting global terrorism under the guise of paying a credit-card bill. They never did learn how a large credit card payment can pose a security threat.

But the experience has been a reminder that a small piece of privacy has been surrendered. Walter Soehnge, who says he holds solid, middle-of-the-road American beliefs, worries about rights being lost.

"If it can happen to me, it can happen to others," he said

http://www.shns.com/shns/g_index2.cf...ALARM-02-28-06

[Drakonix]

Sometimes bank employees do stupid things. I have had a few bad experiences in that area. In this case, the bank lied to the person or the story is bogus.

I have recently made similar payments, even larger than that. Nobody delayed or witheld payments from reaching my accounts and nobody from Homeland Security appeared.

Loans of money by commercial lenders, including mortgage loans are sometimes monitored by Homeland Security. There is no reason for Homeland Security to monitor payments to credit accounts unless the source of the funds is questionable. Purchases of certain things with a credit card may also be subject to monitoring. For example, it would not be advisable to purchase (or attempt to purchase) large quantities of ammonium nitrate. Purchases with large amounts of currency may be subject to scrutiny, especially if the cash transaction is $10,000.00 or more.

This is not about government snooping. This is just the bank (JC Penny in this case) enjoying an extra period of "float" by coming up with some bullshit. They make some excuse to sit on the money before crediting the payment to the account. The bank gets the interest on the payment money, and then continues to charge the victim interest on the credit account balance. It's a game that some credit card companies play. They get away with it unless the consumer stands up for him/her self.

JC Penny is notorious for stunts like this, but there are others that do the same thing and pull other stunts.

The best thing to do is raise hell with the credit company, close the account and never do business with them again.

Other companies I have known to pull similar shady stunts include Centennial Bank, MBNA, Citi, and Discover. I used to have accounts with these companies but they played similar games with me, so I closed the accounts.

[albed]

Are you sure he wasn't visited by two agents from homeland security?


Fuck knife, how ridiculous does a story have to be for you to figure out it's bullshit?


"madder than a panther with kerosene on his tail" Who says stupid crap like that? It seems like something you'd read on April fools day.

[theknife]

Originally Posted by albed

Are you sure he wasn't visited by two agents from homeland security?


Fuck knife, how ridiculous does a story have to be for you to figure out it's bullshit?


"madder than a panther with kerosene on his tail" Who says stupid crap like that? It seems like something you'd read on April fools day.

the story speaks for itsef - keep flailing

[albed]

Someone needs to flail you with this:

Originally Posted by theknife

full disclosure time...appaprently, this story is a hoax:

Originally Posted by theknife

full disclosure time...appaprently, this story is a hoax:

Originally Posted by theknife

full disclosure time...appaprently, this story is a hoax:

Anything anti-government seems to draw you like a moth to a porch light; and with the same level of intelligence. The tiniest bit of thinking and you'd figure out that those types of transactions happen thousands of times a day and you'd wonder why only that one article in some piss ant paper got reported.

No thinking for you though, only parroting.

[multi]

http://www.ioerror.us/2006/03/03/bec...-credit-cards/

[Drakonix]

Well, I've made numerous credit card payments above $3000.00 within the last year. Not even one of the payments was delayed for any reason. Creditors that do not apply my payments to my accounts promptly lose my business.

I made a credit card payment well over $3000.00 within the last week. Sooooooo why am I not being given a clandestine location grilling by Homeland Security right now????

The reporting rules I am familiar with involve reporting transactions made in currency. Paying bills by check is not a currency transaction and is therefore not within reporting guidelines.

I recently withdrew a lot more than $3000.00 in currency to purchase some precious metals. This is above the reporting threshold - but I still got the money instantly, and made the purchases I wanted. The government probably knows I withdrew the funds and the next day exchanged the currency for precious metals. No Home Security men in black showed up. What I did was perfectly legal all the way.

I know several people who used to have JC Penney accounts. They no longer have JC Penney accounts because of the stunts pulled on them. One person I know even sued JC Penney and TRW Credit Data for false information on his credit report regarding a JC Penney charge account - and won.

The experience that Walter Soehnge had was simply JC Penney pulling one of it's stunts with an unsuspecting client debtor. My advice to him is to tell JC Penney to stuff it and pay off the account any (legal) way possible, close the account, and never do business with JC Penney again.

Here is my Centennial Bank experience: I operated a small sporting goods store and had a business account with Centennial Bank. The branch in question was in Castro Valley, California. One day, I went to make the daily deposit, which happened to include ten $100.00 bills. The teller claimed the $100.00 bills were counterfeit. I looked all the bills over very carefully and noted that all the security measures that I could detect were present. My response to the teller was “bullshit”. I told the teller that “whereas I am not an expert on identification of counterfeit currency these bills seem to exhibit the security measures I know about and can detect. If these are counterfeit, they are good counterfeits, and the government must be alerted. Call them. NOW”. They gave me a bunch of bullshit about having to send the bills to the Secret Service. I made them give me a receipt for the bills, including the serial numbers of the bills. Two weeks went by and no word from the bank, so I went down to the bank to inquire in person. I was told that the Secret Service had authenticated the bills as genuine, and that they had received the bills back. I asked them if they deposited the money into my business account. The answer was no. I was steaming HOT. I took the bills, along with the rest of the money the business had in that bank and closed all the accounts the business had there.

I have no training or special knowledge in detection of counterfeit currency. That bank probably handles in one day more currency than I have seen in my lifetime. They are supposed to be in tune with anti-counterfeiting measures. Yet, they were less qualified than me in authenticating genuine U.S. currency? I really don’t think so. They sat on $1000 for two weeks and got free use of the funds. It was a bullshit game and they lost.

Whereas we must always be on guard for unreasonable actions by the government, making up stories and/or embellishing a true story to make it serve a political purpose is simply irresponsible - and that goes for any “side” in the effort. It just spreads disinformation and is counter-productive to the quest for a more responsible government.

[albed]

The knife who cried wolf.

[theknife]

keep swinging, slugger - you'll get a hit one of these days

[theknife]

and on and on:

Bush claims right to open people's mail
The "signing statement" is contrary to law and contradicts the bill he just signed, experts said.
By James Gordon Meek New York Daily News
Article Last Updated: 01/03/2007 08:39:32 PM MST


Washington - President Bush has quietly claimed sweeping new powers to open Americans' mail without a judge's warrant, the New York Daily News has learned.

The president asserted his new authority when he signed a postal reform bill into law on Dec. 20. Bush then issued a "signing statement" that declared his right to open people's mail under emergency conditions.

That claim is contrary to existing law and contradicted the bill he had just signed, say experts who have reviewed it.

Bush's move came during the winter congressional recess and a year after his secret domestic electronic eavesdropping program was first revealed. It caught Capitol Hill by surprise.

"Despite the president's statement that he may be able to circumvent a basic privacy protection, the new postal law continues to prohibit the government from snooping into people's mail without a warrant," said Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., the incoming House Government Reform Committee chairman, who co-sponsored the bill.

Experts said the new powers could be easily abused and used to vacuum up large amounts of mail.

"The signing statement claims authority to open domestic mail without a warrant, and that would be new and quite alarming," said Kate Martin, director of the Center for National Security Studies in Washington.

"The danger is they're reading Americans' mail," she said.

"You have to be concerned," agreed a career senior U.S. official who reviewed the legal underpinnings of Bush's claim. "It takes Executive Branch authority beyond anything we've ever known."

http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_4945109

[multi]

wouldn't most Americans suspect their mail has been checked over by the government anyway ?

at least this way you know for sure


bad news for people who send each other stuff like DVD and HDD's via snail mail

[miss_silver]

Gee, I posted that link 2 days ago in one of my so called "rant"...

yet another freedom taken away by your's truly ADM.

When will the free and proud american citizens wake up and do something about it?

[floydian slip]

Originally Posted by miss_silver

Gee, I posted that link 2 days ago in one of my so called "rant"...

yet another freedom taken away by your's truly ADM.

When will the free and proud american citizens wake up and do something about it?

whenever there is no more electricity for the tv/pc to work