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Why wait? We have heard it plenty. How about wait for something like why that sentiment is not correct? Nothing I do online is illegal so why do I care that they are wasting their time reading my email, facebook, etc. Nobody has every given a legitimate response without resorting to slippery slope logic.

 

Are you sure? Assuming you live in the United States, no on in the country knows how many Federal crimes currently are on the books. As a result, you can't accurately say that nothing you do online isn't illegal as you can't possibly know... But even skipping that part for a moment... The problem posed with stuff such as this isn't just illegality today, but also illegality tomorrow. You have no way of knowing what laws will be passed and what actions you have taken that will be viewed as illegal tomorrow that may be perfectly legal today.

 

The sliding scale of legality is the major problem here. The government can monitor you, invade your communications, and take punitive actions against you without adequate safeguards in place for you. This is a major problem in a democratic republic such as the United States as it has to effect of suppressing the free expression of speech which is the only real check the population has on governmental power. We are entering an era where the government has unprecedented power in this area and that should have anyone who cares about the future of this Republic concerned.

 

There is a reason our political system was setup as a Republic and not a true democracy. The active participation of the populous continually declines as you get further away from the original cause for the establishment of the democracy, complacency takes over. The unique experiment for us has been a question of could a dedicated governing body with lower overall participation requirements on the populous ensure we survive long. Current governmental power will put this to its true test. Have we reached the point where the populous is so complaisant that we will welcome Tyranny?

There is a difference between spying on someone, and then someone using your details to royally screw you over.  Monitoring vs Theft.

What difference is this? The act of spying is done not with the intent of collecting aggregate data, much like application usage statistics in modern software, instead it is done with the intent of active usage against targets. As a result, the government has all intents of using the information it gathers in a manner that is negative to anyone it considers a target. That may not be you today, but it may be you tomorrow. The TSA no fly lists are one such area where this is shown to affect everyday Americans, even young children.

 

Obviously, no the NSA probably won't empty your bank account, but they may do far more intensive things to you if you trip a wire to become a target; a wire you have no idea exists or when you've tripped it. This is akin to your own home being wired with a burglary defense system that you have no control over and actively sees you as an intruder. I'm not sure how this is much different from, or better than, the reality of being burglarized.

If it is encrypted then yes it is your private property. Hacking/cracking is illegal and should require a warrant.

 

I don't care if im not doing anything wrong I still have a right to privacy.

Only if it happens and stays in the privacy of your own home. The second it leaves your home, in this case you send it over the internet unto public lines of communication, you lose that. That's what the courts have backed up time and time again.

Only if it happens and stays in the privacy of your own home. The second it leaves your home, in this case you send it over the internet unto public lines of communication, you lose that.

Bullcrap my bank account is my private information. You nor anyone else has the right to see it. If the NSA has the ability to crack pretty much every security measure who's to say that someone isn't looking at my bank account. 

There are people that are dumb enough to think there is a human being sitting on the other end reading, watching, and recording everything you do with their eyes.

You're the one saying that. Who said that ? They can access your info on demand, they are not monitoring. Supercomputers does that for them and they access it when they need to. For example, FBI calls them, they say, hey I need everything you have on this guy. They will do it for them in almost an instant. Phone records, transactions records at their finger tips. No warrant.

 

Who's dumb enough ?

 

/THREAD

<<< waits for the "if you've nothing to hide you've nothing to fear" crowd

 

:rolleyes:

 

 

Why wait? We have heard it plenty. How about wait for something like why that sentiment is not correct? Nothing I do online is illegal so why do I care that they are wasting their time reading my email, facebook, etc. Nobody has every given a legitimate response without resorting to slippery slope logic.

 

I do not/have not conducted illegal activity online and I while I have nothing to fear, I have plenty to be outraged about. Its called a reasonable expectation of privacy and we are all losing more and more of it. Maybe you do not care that your personal affairs are becoming less and less 'personal'. For me, this latest revelation is just another way to remove my ability to NOT be seen/monitored unless I choose to be.  Do I fear the NSA is clearing out my bank account, of course not. What I do consider troublesome however is if there is some other guy like Snowden that isn't as honest (wow, that was hard to actually say since I'm not sure if I'd rather him go to jail or give him a hero's parade) that now has the ability to pick and choose to see whatever they want and the money involved in selling identities can be a big motivator to become dishonest. I'm not saying this has happened, just that it can. 

 

I shred all my documents so that no one can easily get them - and I mean anyone. Now we find out there are plenty of people whose intentions we assume are just have access to that data, encrypted or otherwise and that make me uncomfortable.

 

Bottom line, if I came up with an algorithm to to crack 256 bit AES encryption and used that to break your secure communications without your permission (or even knowledge of), you'd want me arrested.  Not because you are doing anything wrong but because I did something wrong.  That is what the NSA is doing here. Breaking my encrypted secure communications without my consent or a warrant is just plain wrong.  

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I mean really it doesn't matter if they're not looking at mine, they could be looking at some elses bank account illegally and to think that these people are so ethical that they would  want to pry into someones personal finances is complete bullcrap. 

I do not/have not conducted illegal activity online and I while I have nothing to fear, I have plenty to be outraged about. Its called a reasonable expectation of privacy and we are all losing more and more of it.

You can't lose something you never had. This is the problem with the majority of people. They actually think that if they do something in public, they still have the right to privacy. When you send it over the internet, OVER PUBLIC LINES OF COMMUNICATION, you have lost that right to privacy regarding that.

You can't lose something you never had. This is the problem with the majority of people. They actually think that if they do something in public, they still have the right to privacy. When you send it over the internet, OVER PUBLIC LINES OF COMMUNICATION, you have lost that right to privacy regarding that.

When you have a bank account or something similar that is not public information. You do not have the right to see it. So yes there is places on the internet that demand privacy. 

When you have a bank account or something similar that is not public information. You do not have the right to see it. So yes there is places on the internet that demand privacy. 

That information is not private at all. How do you think the IRS can see that without every asking you? I get my tax return directly deposited into my bank account and I have never given them that account.

Or 90 year old grandmas. Those are the ones you really have to watch out for.

Don't you know that those that hold power abuse power? Same applies with the NSA sure their goal is to catch terrorists but you don't know what they are doing. 

You can't lose something you never had. This is the problem with the majority of people. They actually think that if they do something in public, they still have the right to privacy. When you send it over the internet, OVER PUBLIC LINES OF COMMUNICATION, you have lost that right to privacy regarding that.

What you're saying has no basis in law. SCOTUS has recognized the right to privacy that exists while in a public space... The classic case is the requirement that the police obtain a warrant to bug a public pay telephone. Even though the phone is in public and you approach it openly you still expect to be in private while communicating on that device. Much like encryption...

 

So, no everything you do in public isn't fair game for the police.

What you're saying has no basis in law. SCOTUS has recognized the right to privacy that exists while in a public space... The classic case is the requirement that the police obtain a warrant to bug a public pay telephone. Even though the phone is in public and you approach it openly you still expect to be in private while communicating on that device. Much like encryption...

 

So, no everything you do in public isn't fair game for the police.

We are not talking about the police. We are talking about the government, which has its own rules.

That information is not private at all. How do you think the IRS can see that without every asking you? I get my tax return directly deposited into my bank account and I have never given them that account.

You have to give the IRS that information first. You have to manually input your banking information. The IRS just doesn't put it in. If it was public the IRS would just look your name up and do it automatically. 

 

 

Bottom line, if I came up with an algorithm to to crack 256 bit AES encryption and used that to break your secure communications without your permission (or even knowledge of), you'd want me arrested.  Not because you are doing anything wrong but because I did something wrong.  That is what the NSA is doing here. Breaking my encrypted secure communications without my consent or a warrant is just plain wrong.  

 

^ +1000

We are not talking about the police. We are talking about the government, which has its own rules.

:huh: What? I'm not even sure what to make of this...

You have to give the IRS that information first. You have to manually input your banking information. The IRS just doesn't put it in. If it was public the IRS would just look your name up and do it automatically. 

That's not true. Never given the IRS my bank account info. All it takes is a SSN and they have all your info. Banks report you to the credit offices too which ties everything together, bank, credit cards, cellphone, etc.

That's not true. Never given the IRS my bank account info. All it takes is a SSN and they have all your info. Banks report you to the credit offices too which ties everything together, bank, credit cards, cellphone, etc.

That's never happened to me  I had to imput my banking info otherwise id get it through mail..

Why wait? We have heard it plenty. How about wait for something like why that sentiment is not correct? Nothing I do online is illegal so why do I care that they are wasting their time reading my email, facebook, etc. Nobody has every given a legitimate response without resorting to slippery slope logic.

 

Yeah okay. It's not hard to do a google search yourself.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panopticon#The_panopticon_as_metaphor

That's never happened to me  I had to imput my banking info otherwise id get it through mail..

Might be a state thing. I know Oklahoma has its own credit office apart from the national one. What sucks is there is a 200 point different between my national score and my state score. :(

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