Well, maybe. Here is quote from Snowden:
"I, sitting at my desk, certainly had the authorities to wiretap anyone, from you, or your accountant, to a federal judge, to even the President if I had a personal email."
Personally I don't believe he could do this. But he claims he could and, if so, this is definitely new news. But if, in fact, he couldn't then I think it puts much of what he has told us in doubt.
I believe that the "authorities" will deny that such a capability exists. Will we believe them? I doubt it. Even if they are telling us the truth I think the mood of the country and certainly here on FR is to doubt everything and anything we hear from the Obama Administration or, in this particular case, the pro-defense arm of the GOP.
Sad to say but then again it's probably a healthy development. Maybe a few Dems will wake up.
Maybe he couldn’t, but Glenn Beck had a guest at least two years ago that said that that kind of database and query structure have been operational for quite some time. Put in a phone number, get a name and address. Put that address back in, get any other phone numbers at that address. Put one of those phone numbers back in, get all the phone numbers they called. Put one of those numbers back in, get that person’s address. And so on, without limit, and keeping in mind that any or all of SSN, driver’s license, arrest record, credit history, utility bills, bank statement, credit card bill and more are in the mix as well.
I completely agree with you. I think it’s the pervasiveness of this that is shocking, not the fact that it’s being done. I don’t trust this government to do the right thing at all, especially after the IRS scandal. But then the Founder’s didn’t really trust government either, did they? If we the people don’t rise up and take action, then we are also accountable.
“”I, sitting at my desk, certainly had the authorities to wiretap anyone, from you, or your accountant, to a federal judge, to even the President if I had a personal email.”
Personally I don’t believe he could do this. But he claims he could and, if so, this is definitely new news. But if, in fact, he couldn’t then I think it puts much of what he has told us in doubt.
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It’s the way the Internet works. If you have access to the servers, you can grab the packets. If you can access enough servers you can guarantee you get all of someone’s traffic, as the only difference is what server it is traversing when. Whether you can decrypt anything secured is another matter, but I’d expect NSA has the horsepower for that.
By the way, are you unfamiliar with the Internet “museum” that flashes (or did) thousands of e-mails every minute on displays?