Posted on 08/01/2013 9:40:07 AM PDT by kristinn
That is a passage well worth repeating.
No mention of badges or uniforms yet. Something like that happens and I believe my Mossberg would have made an appearance.
we are beyond the awkward stage
I’m sure the FBI agent is just THRILLED to be sent to your doorstep for this as well. Takes time away from looking up high-school classmates of some contractor who’s applied for a Security Clearance to track them down and ask them if their classmate had ever been a member of the Communist Party.
Yep. I was a total waste of his time.
Ideally, it would require a browser that can encrypt the search request (such as: https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere) or anonymize you as the source (see: https://www.torproject.org/)
Plus a search server that would deliver the results in a discreet form (ixQuick and perhaps startpage and duck duck go) through a proxy server setup, as explained here: http://lifehacker.com/5763170/how-to-secure-and-encrypt-your-web-browsing-on-public-networks-with-hamachi-and-privoxy
A huge pain.
so... anyone saying you’re paranoid if you think they’re listening...
is just ignorant.
they ARE listening to you and watching everything you do
just the facts
I feel much better knowing that none of Ed Snowden’s high-school classmates thought he had been a member of the Communist Party.
And as one would expect the results they are getting are useless garbage.
The story sounds fabricated.
It has never been suffieciently expplained, as far as I know, how - with all of this out of control surveillance - they did not catch the Boston Marathon bombers.
Of course we later found out that Russia told us to watch these guys, but I would imagine arab oil money has been manipulating washington to look the other way or be attacked viciously by their owned media interests....
We are fully and completely the Soviet Union now.
Do you think the FBI really cares who has been a member of the Communist Party when the White House and Congress is currently full of them? After the cow has bolted from the barn, there is no point closing the door.
We should all install hidden cameras around the perimeters of our homes, over the front doorway, and even cameras inside the house that can be turned on before we leave for the day (or that can be turned on quickly when we are home if need be).
If this incident really happened as described, it would have been useful to have it all on video or digitized.
And these guys claim they do this 100 times a week?
I bet they never visit any mosques.
PLEASE tell me this is satire. This CANNOT be happening in our nation.
I have a family member who had to get a security clearance. Virtually every surviving member of his high school graduating class (from the 1950’s!) was tracked down and asked by an FBI agent whether he had ever been a member of the Communist Party.
Did not ask much more than that.
So stay away from your high school’s Young Communist Club and you’re good to go with Federal employment.
For what it is worth:
Privacy Policy
In short:
Startpage does NOT collect or share ANY personal information!
Nada. Zilch. Nothing.
The longer version:
Startpage is strongly committed to protecting the privacy of its user community.
This privacy policy details the - very limited and non-personal - information Startpage.com (”Startpage”) may gather and our disclosure policy.
IP Addresses
The IP address that is associated with your search will NOT be recorded.
The only exception is for abusive (automated) queriers that rapidly submit many queries to Startpage in a very short time.
Data Collection
We don’t collect any personal information on our visitors. Nada. Zilch. Zero.
When you use Startpage, we do not record your IP address, we do not record which browser you are using (Internet Explorer, Safari, Firefox, Chrome etc.), we do not record your computer platform (Windows, Mac, Linux, etc.), and we do not record your search words or phrases. In fact, the only information we do record is an aggregate total of how many searches are performed on our website each day (a measure of overall traffic), and those overall traffic numbers broken down by language, and statistics on a purely aggregate level.
This zero data collection policy protects your privacy, since your IP address, browser, and platform information can be combined with other data to uniquely identify your computer, your location, or you. It is also important not to record search terms, since they can convey personal information as well. (Think of someone entering their own name and/or social security number.)
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Cookies are small pieces of data that are sent and saved to your computer’s hard drive when visiting sites.
Startpage uses only one anonymous cookie called “preferences”. This cookie is to remember the search preferences you saved for your next visit. It expires after 90 days.
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Email addresses
When you send comments, questions, suggestions, or feedback to Startpage via email, and include an email address and/or contact information Startpage may use this information to respond to you.
Startpage will not sell or disclose your contact information to any third parties. We may, however, very occasionally send emails to our users regarding Startpage company information. This service is opt-in and includes the option to unsubscribe.
Children Under 13 Years of Age
Note that we do not collect any peronal data at all.
As a consequence Startpage does not knowingly request, collect, or share personally identifiable information from users under the age of 13 either. We feel protecting children’s privacy online is very important.
Information Sharing
Startpage has no personal information to share.
Startpage does not share personal information with any third party search engine or the provider of its sponsored results.
Click here for details. Governmental requests:
Startpage is headquartered in The Netherlands, Europe. Any request or demand from any government (including the US) to deliver user data, will be thoroughly checked by our lawyers, and we will not comply unless the law which actually applies to us would undeniably require it from us. And even in that hypothetical situation, we would refer to the fact we have no personal user data to share.
In the fourteen years we’ve been in business, we have never received such a request.
The only legitimate way that we see to make us start collecting personal information, is if there is a valid warrant or court order, obliging us to do so in relation to a specific user because that person is suspected to have committed a crime which is serious enough to warrant such a restriction of privacy.
Given the strong protection of the right to privacy in Europe, European governments cannot just start forcing service providers like us to implement a blanket spying program on their users. If that ever changed, we would fight this to the end.
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We strongly believe that we have the legal right to safeguard the privacy of our users by not collecting and/or encrypting their personal information, and to keep doing so.
Privacy.
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Operator
Startpage.com is owned and operated by Surfboard Holding BV, Postbus 1079, 3700 BB Zeist
The Netherlands. Representative for the Privacy Policy is Robert E.G. Beens. ( robert@startpage.com )
When I originally got mine they asked more than that. Of course i graduated well after the 1950s.
They also asked about my sexual proclivities, financial problems, drinking and of course drugs.
Probably because it would be racist to profile a Muslim. It is much easier to profile ordinary citizens instead.
They should go where the terrorism comes from. From Muslims. The Muzzies can do their internet searches etc in Arabic or Urdu. I doubt the FBI can deal with those languages in volume so they hassle American citizens instead. Visit enough Muszzies this way and they will raise hell and claim racism
This is TRUE...further updates and confirmation:
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