Posted on 06/20/2013 8:12:04 AM PDT by Aspenhuskerette
In the madcap TV series “Get Smart,” secret agent Maxwell Smart evades surveillance — and archnemesis KAOS — with an array of clandestine gadgets including a shoe phone and the legendary “Cone of Silence.” Americans once laughed at Smart’s privacy-enhancing schemes. But recent revelations about America’s ever-widening surveillance state have stirred many to Think Again about their privacy rights — and pine for their own Cone of Silence.
Originally designed to spy on foreigners and track the foreign correspondence of suspected terrorists, today the National Security Agency digitally frisks U.S. citizens, capturing and storing their communications data for as long as five years. Under the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and the post-9/11 Patriot Act, the NSA now claims the authority to systematically — and without warrants or court orders — sweep “metadata” into its dragnet, sourced from private telecom and server companies that enjoy immunity from civil liability or criminal prosecution.
The Patriot Act’s author, Jim Sensenbrenner, released a statement saying, “While I believe the Patriot Act appropriately balanced national security concerns and civil rights, I have always worried about potential abuses. ... Seizing phone records of millions of innocent people is excessive and un-American.”
Sensenbrenner advocates amending the act to ensure that the secret FISA court system performs its designed role — “to put a check on what the government could do.”
Under pressure to prove Uncle Sam isn’t a Peeping Tom, NSA and FBI officials pulled the curtain back on the ultra-secret surveillance programs.
(Excerpt) Read more at aspentimes.com ...
Sure there are. They’re called Mosques.
Facebook Status:
Using the Cone of Silence.
...and loving it
BINGO!
In the old Soviet Union,people would go into the bathroom and run water when they wanted to discuss something important!We are heading(as a breakneck pace)towards the SAME thing!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Well, I’m also dead wrong...
The NSA did not admit to what I posted - it was a spoof website. Mea culpa.
How does a Go-Phone work? They don’t know who has the number.
perhaps Go phone does not link your name with the number. But when you use your credit or debit card to purchase phone or to renew minutes, “they” know who paid for it.
wbat most people don’t realize is how innocent conversations can be interpreted as code for terrorist acts (are teh cookies in the over yet?), and once flagged, they will never unflag you. adn your every word will be mus-interpreted, adn you can wind up in a heap of trouble...
There HAS been a cone of silence around DNC wrongdoing,
illegal immigration, release of felonies,
weaponizing of narcoterrorists,
release of the COLE terrorists,
the LAWFARE waged by Holder and Obama,
illegal wiretaping of Congress and SCOTUS,
and the utilization of this sigint,
and of course the warnings by several TERRORISTS’ families,
imams, ex-friends, and even Russia.
They really never do let INFO interfere with their agenda.
Is that what those minarets do?
No Sunbeam Tiger.
And no Agent 99.
I want my money back.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.