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The Welcome Center => Current Events => Topic started by: Jim Nunziato on May 24, 2015, 09:04:52 AM

Title: Big Brother is (and has been) watching
Post by: Jim Nunziato on May 24, 2015, 09:04:52 AM
The Patriot Act was signed into law by president George W. Bush on October 26, 2001. Title II of it provided for "Enhanced Surveillance procedures," which basically allowed the National Security Administration, (NSA) to collect "metadata" on every call made by every body on every phone.

Some may not understand what "metadata" is, so I'll explain. I worked for almost 45 years for the telephone company. Metadata is data about data. It's what we used to refer to as,  the "call details." It records what telephone number called what what other telephone number, the date, time and duration of the call, and what telephone company equipment and facilities were used to connect and complete the call. Conversation and/or content of the call were not recorded. Only the "data" about the "details" of the call. With this information, a complete calling history can be assembled on any telephone in the country. It used to be that this type of data was only recorded on "toll" calls, because that information was needed to determine charges, and for billing purposes. Several years before I retired, this information was recorded and stored for every call, whether you called across the country, or the other phone sitting at the other end of the same desk. The Patriot Act of 2001, allowed the NSA to collect and store all this data.

The Patriot Act is set to expire on June 1, 2015 if it is not renewed. Over 60% of Americans feel that the federal government has no right to collect and store data about every call they make without a court order. The FBI has confirmed that not one single case of terrorism has been solved or thwarted by the use of all this metadata. So what's the point?

The House of Representatives passed the USA Freedom Act which pretty much leaves the NSA surveillance intact. Senator Rand Paul spoke for almost 10 and a half hours on the Senate floor, on why the Patriot Act needs to expire and stop the unconstitutional spying on American phone calls.

What's your opinion?

Jim