NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden..

[illestatus]

discuss

[8ball]

Ignorance is bliss.

People just need to becareful what thet say who they talk to what the look up online etc, wether bog bro is watching or not.

[Tnwagn]

The government has the ability to detain American citizens without reading them their Miranda Rights or without a warrant for their arrest based on the line of action we have seen from the recent apprehension of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the man responsible for the Boston Marathon bombings.

The government has the ability to, without warrant, monitor all communications you have been making and make judgements based on your private discussions.

Couple these two facts together and you have a perfect storm where the government now has the ability to indefinitely detain any citizen without right to a trial based on speculation that a person might be an immediate danger to the safety of the country.

No matter your private activities, legal or otherwise, this should be incredibly frightening to anyone. No one should have to worry about what they say in private conversations.

The law needs to be updated to reflect how the digital world is allowing those that enforce laws the ability to bend legal precedence in their favor. I believe the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence did an OK job of providing basic guidelines but they allowed modifications for a reason. I think it's high time that we started looking at how we define the digital world in relation to the physical world.

[Bcozzi71]

On a side note you dont need to read someone their miranda rights. Thats only a tv/movie thing. You only need to read them of your questioning them.

Ex: I see you steal a womens purse so i walk up to you and arrest you and throw you in the car. I have zero reason to ask you anything so i dont have to read you your miranda rights. Now on the driveback I say "why would you steal that old lady's purse?" I now should have read your rights.

[Ralphie]

That bs....

Everyone has to be read their miranda rights because of the fact that "anything you say may be used against you in a court of law"

Has nothing to do with questioning.




And TNWGN how do you know Tsarnaev was not read his rights? And why would they need a warrant for his arrest? He threw explosives at police officers....kinda defeats the purpose of a warrant?


You guys need to read up before making assumptions. The govt is not listening to EVERYONES phone calls. Can they? Sure. But I highly doubt they have the time to listen to 6 million phone calls.

They use it as a tool to zero in on threats. Sure they get it wrong, and sure it can be abused but it's not going to turn into a "arrest everyone in sight".



edit-

as far as Miranda goes -

Thus, if law enforcement officials decline to offer a Miranda warning to an individual in their custody, they may interrogate that person and act upon the knowledge gained, but may not use that person's statements to incriminate him or her in a criminal trial

So they do NOT have to do it when they make the arrest, but any good officer know's that if the suspect confesses on the ride to the precint and you didn't read him his rights, you're fucked.

If he doesn't confess again that would just be a shame.

[Ralphie]

As far as Snowden, Im always torn on this stuff.

I get why he did it, or people do this.....to keep certain things from being abused and letting people know that they are responsible for the actions they take...


but on the other hand, not in the case, but other times the information leaked puts people in harms way, especially soldiers fighting overseas.

Snowden carefully read every document and only leaked ones that would not endanger or really give out anything damaging.

It was just kind of like, "here is what's going on, the public needs to know" but not like "here is everyones social security #"

Which is what lulzsect does....they just release names and all kinds of info, and I get the purpose but if you use some tact and common sense you can get more accomplished then bludgeoning someone.

idk that's just how I feel.

If Iceland takes him in, then it's over as far as prosecuting him.

I think he's hold up in a hotel in Hong Kong right now.

[toycar]

Nah Bcozzi is right.


Miranda Rights are specific to Q&A. They say nothing about being put under arrest or anything like that. I bet I can resite them I have been read them so many times.


You have the right to remain silent. Any thing you say can and will be used against you in the court of law. You have the right to attorney. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be appointed to you. Do you understand these rights?


Would you still like to speak to me?




Then you say,"Fuck you, I want an attorney"



Then, like 46 hours later an attorney shows up. They can hold you for 48 hours without charging you in most states, and the cops like to make you sit as long as legally possible to try and get you to talk w/out an attorney-even though legally they cannot continue questioning you after you request an attorney-they do it all the time.


The attorney shows up, you tell him you wish to plead the 5th.


Attorney says,"Charge my client or let him go"


End of story. You either get charged, or you get released. Of course, if you can afford your own attorney then they will be there faster.



As far as this whistle blower, I dunno, shit like this has been going on for decades. Anyone that thinks the gov just started shitting on your rights is silly.




You have to assume that every right you have has been infringed upon. Because, most likely, it has. If we started talking about making bombs and shit someone in some office will find this forum, read our threads and go from there.


That has to happen. I get it. Do you? The collection of phone stuff so far anyways has been to identify contacts out of the country. They use a database to see a pattern in international calls and to find people that want to kill Americans. They have an assumed way of looking and shit to figure out if you are a terrorist or not. Just so its out there, you don't ever hear about a drone strike on Martha Stewarts vineyard or a random school bus getting blown up, so they must be pretty good at it.


My thougts;


The whistle blower has only made the gov's job harder. Now all the terrorists in the rest of the world will start using different numbers all the time, sattelite phones that are harder to trace, people in America will use payphones more and disposable cell phones more.


The shit is still going to happen though. So now, the gov will have to find another new way to both violate our rights and "catch the bad guys" so to me, the whistle blower probably only made things worse. Its not like they will ever stop doing this now that it is out in the open. The question is, what secret program replaced this one, and how bad does THAT program violate your rights?


At some point the escalation of infringing on our rights has got to stop. Stuff like this guy telling on the gov certainly isn't going to stop that from happening. Its only going to push them to find yet another way to be behind the scenes watching.



It is a balance, and the harder we push back, the more they will try to be sneaky behind the scenes and the uglier it will look when we catch them.

Period, end of story.

[Ralphie]

Any statements made in the presence of a sworn officer are inadmissable in court if the miranda rights are not read.

Many cases have been thrown out because the officers did not read them their rights and either asked questions or overheard a statement.

I realize it has nothing to do with being arrested, they can detain you and not read you your rights, but it behooves them to do so as then you can't claim you were not read them, and everything you said is now admissable.

[Tnwagn]

On a side note you dont need to read someone their miranda rights. Thats only a tv/movie thing. You only need to read them of your questioning them.

Ex: I see you steal a womens purse so i walk up to you and arrest you and throw you in the car. I have zero reason to ask you anything so i dont have to read you your miranda rights. Now on the driveback I say "why would you steal that old lady's purse?" I now should have read your rights.

Miranda Rights are about as far from "only a tv/movie thing" as possible. They are one of the most core rights citizens have when being apprehended by the police. As Ralphie later, mostly, correctly states any information gathered by questioning prompted by police without Mirandizing a suspect is inadmissible in court. You are correct they aren't needed the second they slap cuffs on a person but they do have to be initiated prior to any questioning. There is, however, an exception to this case which is what happened to Dzhokhar Tsarnaev (which I will explain further in this post).

And TNWGN how do you know Tsarnaev was not read his rights? And why would they need a warrant for his arrest? He threw explosives at police officers....kinda defeats the purpose of a warrant?

edit-

as far as Miranda goes -




So they do NOT have to do it when they make the arrest, but any good officer know's that if the suspect confesses on the ride to the precint and you didn't read him his rights, you're fucked.

If he doesn't confess again that would just be a shame.

It has been widely and independently reported by numerous credible news outlets that Tsarnaev was not Mirandized because the FBI officials who apprehended came out with a statement saying they hadn't Mirandized him. This article does perhaps the best job I have seen at explaining the timeline and reasoning for and against the use of the exception and what precedence it has set for the future.

They did so under the public safety exception, which states that

certain unadvised statements (given without Miranda warnings) to be admissible into evidence at trial when they were elicited in circumstances where there was great danger to public safety.

SOURCE

The FBI was using this under the thought that there might be more bombs planted and that this man might have information needed to protect the safety of the public. This would be fine, however they used this reasoning for a long period of time, long after virtually every other agency had dismissed the possibility of further public danger. I was pointing out that it appeared that the FBI was using this loophole in a very loose way to gain access to an individual who otherwise would have most likely been unwilling to speak with them.

Nah Bcozzi is right.

Miranda Rights are specific to Q&A. They say nothing about being put under arrest or anything like that. I bet I can resite them I have been read them so many times.

They are specific to Q&A, you are correct. I should have done a better job of explaining myself in my initial post. I made it seem like the issue was with them detaining him without Mirandizing him, which isn't a problem (legally speaking). The issue was with how the FBI was using the public safety exception to justify interrogation without reading him is Miranda Rights. I find issue with how they used this exception to interrogate the suspect.

[toycar]

The issue was with how the FBI was using the public safety exception to justify interrogation without reading him is Miranda Rights. I find issue with how they used this exception to interrogate the suspect.

Even though I hate the idea of people doing what that guy did, I completely agree with you that it is bullshit the fuzz used their loopholes to do that. I know what you are talking about, I read a few stories on that.

Actually I read an interesting article that was talking about the social affects of this kind of rule bending and how it is effecting the common opinion of citizens. I'd rather not spin this conversation into that, but I just wanted to point out that I agree with you on this topic and also that I feel like it has some very ill effects on people of America.

Asshole, terrorist, whatever. He was a citizen. He was in this country. Our pride as a nation means NOTHING if we are willing to push our values to the side in the face of fear to find peace-especially on our own soil. People that don't feel safe in America, generally live in really bad neighborhoods. They aren't living in fear because there is an ongoing war outside. Well I guess maybe in some situations they feel like its war, but in those situations its usually an American made problem.


Lately, it seems like all this country has been about is pushing our core values to the side in the face of fear. Its our right to privacy, our right to freedom and we have guaranteed liberties until some guy 7,000 miles away starts trying to influence people of our country to be radical and POOF everything goes out the window? Then, as a reaction, lets just forfeit our rights to the all mighty gov in the face of fear so they can feel like they have a grip on things?

Really? I don't understand that at all. To me, reacting in such a way is losing control of the situation entirely. These simple minded(most of them anyways) people are controlling the people of America, almost by extension of our own gov, by wreaking havoc in both our society and the rest of the world provoking a reaction that is now effecting us as a population.

The more we "try to catch them" the more we lose our rights and freedoms. The more we react, the more they have already influenced our actions. We loose control in this process, and now, the farther they are willing to take it-thats how far the gov will go to "protect" us. They have all the justification they need, so, prepare for the lube guys.


I refuse to live in fear. I refuse to live like a bunch of bitches. The gov didn't prevent Boston. Didn't prevent all kinds of shit actually. Just like 4-5 days ago I read a story about our military controlling some drug/gun/stolen car ring in San Diego. I mean, sure, these guys were rogue soldiers acting alone, but still, they wear the uniform and should represent our country and these guys were pretty fucking bad.

We cannot prevent everything and in the process of trying to they infringed on MILLIONS of peoples rights trying to prevent some crazy shit or another, and, in the end minimal positive gains for the largest violations of our constitution in history. Shit, after all this we now know that this guy in the Boston bombing we know he had friends that knew about it, he talked on cell phones after the fact, they executed their plan and basically got away for days, and the only reason we caught them as fast as we did is because they went on a crime spree.

So if this program that violates all of our rights is so "great" then why the hell didn't they catch these guys with all the red flags? I mean, OTHER COUNTRIES were more aware of them in our country then we were. They left plenty of trail(we now know) and had all the flags to catch them. They didn't get caught because at the end of the day, you'll never be able to follow up on all the bazillions of people that fit such a broad category for "terrorist"


There is no way they will ever stop everything, so I refuse to live in fear and that is the only resolve here to me. At some point, we all need to stand up and say "We are not afraid" and the gov should just stop. Focus on whats going on at home, preventing shit here and being ready to respond in the event something happens. Last I checked, its a pretty long swim from the middle east to America. If we could do something about the boarders people walk across, we should be in pretty good shape with an extensive at home approach.

The general flaw in the current plan is that they (gov) can overstep their boundaries basically at-will in reaction to fear. The fear isn't really warranted compared to the threat. Not in my opinion. In a nation of 318+ million, shit is gonna happen. As long as people blowing themselves up 7,000 miles away keeps our attention, they(gov) will continue down this dark path of forfeitting control and stomping on our rights. These people are willing to blow themselves up, of course they are willing to lead our gov down a long, dark path of death and destruction.

And, who's gonna stop them from chasing? They are "protecting" us from imminent danger remember, they have that right now to "protect" us at any cost. Even if that means following the titanic to the sea floor, they will chase this problem to earths-end and the destruction left behind will be felt most by us-the population.












Man, as I type all this shit and eat my breakfast I have to say that my cantelope today is awesome!

Lol. Its an Athena Cantelope, and its the shiznit.

[Ralphie]

I find no fault in that public safety factor. The guy just blew up people at a Marathon and was hurling explosives at Officers, carjacked a guy and was planning on hitting up NYC.

In a pursuit to stop such a threat, I don't believe we need red tape. Anyone who would be serious about finding him would, or should, gladly talk with Police freely and not worry about fucking privacy.

Idk, the miranda thing to me makes perfect sense when dealing with everyday people.

When in pursuit of actual terrorists hell bent on killing and maiming as many people as possible for Allah, then I think the public safety factor is very important and very real and the way they found him and apprehended him imo was executed flawlessly.

I think it works in a situation like this.

I mean honestly what is their to interrogate anyway? They have video footage of them at the marathon and then the testimony of 100s of officers who actually witnessed this kid throw bombs at cops....so really he is fucked...no need for him to worry about questioning lol.

[phatdoughnut]

I find no fault in that public safety factor. The guy just blew up people at a Marathon and was hurling explosives at Officers, carjacked a guy and was planning on hitting up NYC.

In a pursuit to stop such a threat, I don't believe we need red tape. Anyone who would be serious about finding him would, or should, gladly talk with Police freely and not worry about fucking privacy.

Idk, the miranda thing to me makes perfect sense when dealing with everyday people.

When in pursuit of actual terrorists hell bent on killing and maiming as many people as possible for Allah, then I think the public safety factor is very important and very real and the way they found him and apprehended him imo was executed flawlessly.

I think it works in a situation like this.

I mean honestly what is their to interrogate anyway? They have video footage of them at the marathon and then the testimony of 100s of officers who actually witnessed this kid throw bombs at cops....so really he is fucked...no need for him to worry about questioning lol.

The problem is that they will probably let him get away with it if they get info on a much bigget plot. That is how they make us think that the laws dont work and more need to be passed.

[Ralphie]

Na he isn't getting away with shit.

Im going to tell you where he is headed right now-

ADX in Colorado along with all the other crazies.

Think about the uproar that would come about if they let him go lol.

No way. They will get the info they need AND fry him, just watch.

[toycar]

Na he isn't getting away with shit.

Im going to tell you where he is headed right now-

ADX in Colorado along with all the other crazies.

Think about the uproar that would come about if they let him go lol.

No way. They will get the info they need AND fry him, just watch.

They won't fry him









And my point was pretty simple man. You are that AFRAID that you would rather give up your rights then live in a world where people die sometimes?



People are going to die either way.






Nothing the intellegience community has done did anything to PREVENT Boston, and the only reason they executed a "flawless" plan was the crime spree that said,"hi we are terrorists. Come get us please"



Granted they sifted through PRIVATE video and eventually ID'd the guys based on CITIZEN reports but they didn't even know their names until they went on a spree.



And this was WITH these programs in place. So, do you feel like your rights being violated yielded the kind of results that they are preaching about?



Seems to me like terrorists are still blowing shit up, people are still going on rampages all over America and nothing has really changed-WITH THESE PROGRAMS IN PLACE.



So, seriously, without them what happens? How often do you read/see on the news that they thwarted a plot? I mean it happens occasionally, but for the MILLIONS of people that are losing their rights and freedoms, I don't think the results warrant the violation of privacy. I dont.


They couldn't do anything to stop the Boston guys, and they were actually ON the radar. People will always be off the radar too, like Adam Lanza. Its a fallacy to think that any amount of "reach" will avoid stuff like this happening. There are just too many people in the world.


Giving up your rights though, that shit has real consequences across the board to every single person in our country. That to me is a real problem. Probably an unintended consequence of the "war on terror" but continuing down this path is exactly what the terrorists want.

How can you stand so firmly next to your constitution when the gov violates it constantly? What does the country stand for if the constitution means nothing?


These are real issues being forced by terrorists, not the gov. The gov cannot help themselves but feel like their actions are justified by "threat" however, acting on that feeling is basically handing over the control to our enemy.


The situation reminds me of parenting. Sometimes your kid is willing to be bad, to piss you off. How do you stop this cycle once you identify it? Stop getting pissed off. Adjust your expectations to what is happening, and stop playing into the bullshit.


That applies here. These guys don't even have a country to claim as their own, an air force, a navy, NOTHING.

Why do we put them on such a pedestal? Of course it costs billions of dollars to hunt down 1 person in a world of what 8 billion and millions of square miles. OF COURSE THAT TAKES SOME EFFORT.

Why acknowledge them as a problem in the first place?



In any single day more people die from starvation than violence. See what I am saying? Its not that it is not a problem. Its that the problem shouldn't be priority #1, theres plenty of other shit going on to focus on.

[Ralphie]

"When honorable men sit idle, evil triumphs".


Now we can question the integrity of the people doing the listening and research, and sure just as there will always be terrorists and one's who go undetected, there will surely be men who are not honorable, but the alternative you are suggesting is to just stop scanning the airwaves and tapping phone calls and collecting emails and let life take it's natural path?

Im confused. And for the record, I was directing my post at Phatd. Not you lol.

When I said fry, I didn't necessarily mean the death sentence but if you firmly believe that this man will not recieve a life sentence at the ADX facility in Florence CO, then you have lost your fucking mind.

I can't say if he will get life or the death sentence, but I can guarentee you he is at the least spending his remaining days on this earth at that facility where the unibomber is and the conspirators for 9/11 etc.

This is big boy shit. He killed 3 and wounded over 100 in a bombing and then killed a cop in cold blood. He is done, no question about it.


And as far as my freedoms and the Consitution, I really wish everyone would shut the fuck up about it already.

Name me a time when your freedom was taken away? Tell me more about how they listened in on your phone calls. Did they go through your bank accounts?

Really?

Should there be more oversight? Maybe, but im 100% comfortable with them screening phone calls and using wiretaps.

If some guy in TX can listen in on a phone call I place at any time, ok so what.

I don't expect privacy on a landline or cell phone, because I DO NOT OWN Verizon or any telephone company. It's a public service.

I do not expect to find bugs in my house or have my house tapped, but if they want to listen to me and my wife discuss her period or the grocery list, have at lol.

I really don't give a fuck, and I do not feel like im losing my freedoms. I feel like maybe they should double check their sources as im no threat but if they insist, have at it.

I just think people take this shit and run wild with it, like this is the movies. So they listen to our phone calls, and they are going to make us register our weapons, and then implant chips in our brains.....

Just, no.



As far as this dude goes, like I said earlier, I appreciate the fact that he didn't just upload all the documents to the web. He had a clear motive. Exposing the public to the fact that the NSA can listen in on anyones convo at anytime. Making it so that these people are held accountable to the people who put them in office. I stand by that 100%.

Oversight and transparency, definitely needed so that it's not ABUSED.

But I do not feel that my rights are being stripped away.

And while this hasn't prevented the Boston attack, it has stopped countless ones. I read the news every morning, and I have seen quite a few stories since 9.11 of attacks being thwarted.

They are on the internet readily available so im not going to hunt them down.

Some notable ones here on the East Coast, so maybe that's why you are not familiar with it.

Idk what else to say, im not afraid of anything. I live my life without fear and I understand how govt works. I vote if I want to make changes, and voting has power, but there are some things I have no control over and I decided long ago not to hoot and holler about it. The US has been spying since the invention of spying. Shit we had Native Americans sending messages in code so it couldn't be translated.

As long as they save one life, im all for it.

At the end of the day, this is what makes the US great. You don't have to feel like I do, and I don't have to feel as you.

If you don't like it, do your research and get involved.

I just think it would be a huge waste of time. Let them do what they need to do, if they listen to a few phone sex calls, big fucking deal.