‘We Are Moving Closer and Closer to the Surveillance State’

[jimnyc]

This was prior to any clarification that it wasn't a "wiretap", but rather what they call "monitored", and only records the who and when, not the conversation.

It is funny, where is the ACLU, where are the other activist groups worried about privacy rights?

---

Dershowitz on Cohen Wiretap: ‘We Are Moving Closer and Closer to the Surveillance State’

Thursday on MSNBC, Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz stated that President Donald Trump’s longtime personal lawyer Michael Cohen being wiretapped by federal investigators meant America was “moving closer and closer to the surveillance state.”

Dershowitz said, “I think we are moving closer and closer to the surveillance state where phone calls are tapped, where emails are secured without a real basis. I think prosecutors should not be seeking wiretaps on lawyers’ offices and search warrants and subpoenas for lawyers’ email files unless they have very substantial evidence of very serious crimes—campaign contributions don’t qualify for the kind of crime that should justify the wiretapping of a lawyer. Remember that when you wiretap a lawyer, you are wiretapping his clients and you wiretapping conversations between a lawyer and the client and you are searching for emails. Where is the American Civil Liberties Union on this? Where are civil libertarians? We live in such a partisan atmosphere, get Trump at any cost that we are prepared to give up our basic civil liberties in exchange for getting Trump.”

He continued, “These rules are only as good as the people who enforce them and only as good as the motives of the people who are behind them. And I have to tell you. I do not trust the government. I do not trust judges. I do not trust prosecutors when they are zealously seeking to go after a particular target, in this case, Donald Trump. Nobody would have been going after Michael Cohen if he weren’t Donald Trump’s lawyer. That’s the reality. People don’t investigate campaign contribution lapses or campaign law violations generally about people who aren’t in the public life. And I just worry that when you have somebody with a target on his or her back, whether it is Hillary Clinton, who could have been elected and the same thing would have been happening to her, or Donald Trump, that civil libertarians ought to express concern. That’s all I’m doing is expressing concern and distrust of government. I don’t want to live in the surveillance state, and I want to do everything in my power, no matter who the target is, to prevent this from occurring.”

He added, “It is so easy to get a warrant. It is so easy to persuade a judge to give you a wiretap warrant. That simply doesn’t protect American citizens. And any civil libertarian who was exposed to what’s going on here today—if Hillary Clinton were the subject—would be taking exactly the opposite position. There is so much hypocrisy, partisan hypocrisy out there. I don’t mind if conservatives take the view we ought to trust government, or former prosecutors take the view we ought to trust government. My gripe is against civil libertarians, and criminal defense lawyers are always on the side of challenging the government. The ACLU has suddenly lost its way and forgotten what they’ve preached for 50 years because it is Donald Trump they’re after. We’re on the road to losing our civil liberties when you allow our civil liberties to be compromised because you are going after one particular person.”

http://www.breitbart.com/video/2018/...illance-state/

[revelarts]

"We're Moving Closer and Closer to the Surveillance State"...???
the Surveillance State really?
umm,
uh,
ya don't say?

[jimnyc]

"We're Moving Closer and Closer to the Surveillance State"...???
the Surveillance State really?
umm,
uh,
ya don't say?

Yeah, that's because, ummm, when... Ok then!

[Elessar]

"We're Moving Closer and Closer to the Surveillance State"...???
the Surveillance State really?
umm,
uh,
ya don't say?

It had become pretty clear when Obama 'ruled'.

[aboutime]

BIG BROTHER has been watching longer than we all know.

[revelarts]

It had become pretty clear when Obama 'ruled'.

Weeell, really It became pretty clear after 9/11. When many people lost their collective crap and thought it was a good idea that the Executive branch NOT be constrained by the constitution... in any area.... "to fight terror".
Because you know, the constitution is "a suicide pack" we are told, .... if you actually do something crazy like follow it.
or STOPPED the gov't from spying without warrants... or jailing people without trial, or drone attacking people in any foreign country willy nilly.

Bottom line, even though many have pointed out since 2012-13 that the NSA and other Intel agencies in conjunction/cahoots WITH foreign intel agencies, the Israelis and the British primarily, are tapping, recording and storing ALL phone and ALL email communications. As well as scanning ALL postal mail. And can pull up most phone conversation from the archives with EASE. people have some how missed the fact that the surveillance state is here.

It's was set up fully and in earnest under Bush's leadership and Obama's enthusiastic follow through. DESPITE his promises to do the opposite. Both with the help and CHEERS of BOTH parties in congress.
But the seeds were started decades before with "secret" programs like "Echelon".

The surveillance state is here. And too many people were, and still are, OK with it.
Notice it wasn't even an issue BROUGHT UP by either side during the last presidential campaign.
Will it be an issue during the mid-terms?
If Trump’s Ox is gored by it, maybe a few more folks on the right will take “the Surveillance State” as a serious problem.
hmmm, yeah, I’m not holdin' my breath though.

[aboutime]

Weeell, really It became pretty clear after 9/11. When many people lost their collective crap and thought it was a good idea that the Executive branch NOT be constrained by the constitution... in any area.... "to fight terror".
Because you know, the constitution is "a suicide pack" we are told, .... if you actually do something crazy like follow it.
or STOPPED the gov't from spying without warrants... or jailing people without trial, or drone attacking people in any foreign country willy nilly.

Bottom line, even though many have pointed out since 2012-13 that the NSA and other Intel agencies in conjunction/cahoots WITH foreign intel agencies, the Israelis and the British primarily, are tapping, recording and storing ALL phone and ALL email communications. As well as scanning ALL postal mail. And can pull up most phone conversation from the archives with EASE. people have some how missed the fact that the surveillance state is here.

It's was set up fully and in earnest under Bush's leadership and Obama's enthusiastic follow through. DESPITE his promises to do the opposite. Both with the help and CHEERS of BOTH parties in congress.
But the seeds were started decades before with "secret" programs like "Echelon".

The surveillance state is here. And too many people were, and still are, OK with it.
Notice it wasn't even an issue BROUGHT UP by either side during the last presidential campaign.
Will it be an issue during the mid-terms?
If Trump’s Ox is gored by it, maybe a few more folks on the right will take “the Surveillance State” as a serious problem.
hmmm, yeah, I’m not holdin' my breath though.

It was brought up by the first BUSH as "THE NEW WORLD ORDER!"
In fact. It was Obama's desire, and hope to destroy today's America by handing it over to those who sought that NEW WORLD ORDER...under Sharia Law, which created ISIS, sanctioned by Obama as the MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD that also wanted HILLARY to win the election, giving the America Haters the Keys to the World.

[pete311]

After the NSA scandal years ago it's safe to say there is no privacy. Hasn't been for a long time.

[High_Plains_Drifter]

After the NSA scandal years ago it's safe to say there is no privacy. Hasn't been for a long time.

Thing is though, none of it is admissible in court unless there was a warrant.

[Abbey Marie]

Thing is though, none of it is admissible in court unless there was a warrant.

But it is apparently leak-able. And that's just about as good.

[revelarts]

Correction on my earlier post, it started in 2003-04 right after 9/11, not 2012-2013.

Thing is though, none of it is admissible in court unless there was a warrant.

But it is apparently leak-able. And that's just about as good.

Leak-able gets the job done.

But also what's not as widely known is that the fed courts ...and other courts... do manage to let the unwarranted or otherwise unconstitutionally obtained info into courts.
It's done by the LEOs basically ...umm...misrepresenting... where and how they got the info, by doing something called "parallel construction". The NSA(or other intel agencies) looks at the unconstitutionally obtained raw data and then they tell the FBI and/or cops at the state and local level about that and where to find the same or other evidence that they CAN "discover" and use "legally" in court. But the LEOs and prosecutors in court never mention where they got the original "tip off" of so called wrong doing.


https://www.hrw.org/report/2018/01/0...criminal-cases


...

[revelarts]

Trump was wire tapped, so was his lawyer and all his people as well.
has been for years.

the sad thing is that the Congress has known that the CIA, FBI Justice dept etc.. do this crap to people.
But they didn't have a problem with it until they found out it was happening to them in 2014.
but they STILL haven't done JACK to reign this crap in. haven't sent ANYONE to jail.
nothing but REAUTHORIZE the patriot act and every other piece of 'Spy on Americans willy nilly' legislation that show up in front of them.

WASHINGTON — Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), a staunch defender of government surveillance of ordinary citizens, took to the Senate floor Tuesday with the stunning accusation that the Central Intelligence Agency may have violated federal law to spy on Congress.
Feinstein, head of the Senate Intelligence Committee, railed against the CIA for compromising the legislative branch’s oversight role — a theme echoed by many of her Senate colleagues throughout the day. The outrage was palpable among lawmakers on both sides of the aisle, and some suggested CIA Director John Brennan should resign if the allegations are true. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), who has stuck up for intelligence agencies in the past, declared a potential war.
“This is Richard Nixon stuff,” Graham told reporters. “This is dangerous to the democracy. Heads should roll, people should go to jail if it’s true. If it is, the legislative branch should declare war on the CIA.”
When former contractor Edward Snowden revealed last year that the National Security Agency was secretly collecting phone and electronic records from millions of ordinary Americans, the response in Congress was far more muted. Top senators insisted the surveillance was critical to U.S. counterterrorism activities.
“It’s called protecting America,” Feinstein said then. Graham said he was glad Verizon was turning over customer records to the government to ensure that his phone was not linked to any terrorist activity.
It was not until reports that the NSA had spied on foreign leaders and allies, such as German Chancellor Angela Merkel, that Feinstein offered criticism of the agency’s surveillance.
Snowden said Tuesday it was hypocritical for some lawmakers to finally express anger when the privacy of elected officials was breached.
“It’s clear the CIA was trying to play ‘keep away’ with documents relevant to an investigation by their overseers in Congress, and that’s a serious constitutional concern,” Snowden said in a statement to NBC News. “But it’s equally if not more concerning that we’re seeing another ‘Merkel Effect,’ where an elected official does not care at all that the rights of millions of ordinary citizens are violated by our spies, but suddenly it’s a scandal when a politician finds out the same thing happens to them.”...

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/...n_4945584.html

[High_Plains_Drifter]

But it is apparently leak-able. And that's just about as good.

Which is also actually illegal.. but pfft... when it comes democraps, they don't give a rats about the LAW... they're ABOVE the law.

[revelarts]

bump necro