I know, It's the LAW...so I shouldn't question it

When it comes right down to it I don’t want the government spying on me or invading my privacy. What I don’t understand and please set me strait is the Patriot Act, the one that Senator Barack Obama (D-IL) voted for in a reauthorization act in 2006, lets the government do certain wiretaps and searches legally. I do not think it has anything to do with the technical ability of the government to spy on its citizens. If the want to wiretap you they can and it is only illegal if they get caught. With the Patriot act maybe it would be legal; it depends on who your friends are and what you are up to.

When Newt Gingrich was illegally listened to and taped by John and Alice Martin, and then a tape of that phone call makes its way into the hands of a New York Times reporter we are advised that Newt is stupid and everyone knows that those old cell phones just didn’t cut it for secure phone calls. Ironic that a slip and fall barrister would blame the victim for the crime and yes a crime was committed and the Martins pled guilty and paid a whopping $500 fine. Now I’m not one for conspiracies nor do I abuse psychotropic drugs but I could see how some may think that the Martins were just the “fall guy(s)”, Patsies if you will for a much larger and sinister group, party or President but I’m sure that no such agency would engage in such horrendous acts and mind you this was pre-Patriot Act so that would have been really, really illegal.

stockingfull wrote:It's all BS and, thankfully, soon will be history.

So if we trade a load of BS for a load of BS we get….Roses? C’mon boyz wake up and smell the coffee. BHO is just another Chicago street punk, soon to be a footnote in the history of the late great USA.

You don't think there is a difference between the government illegally listening to your conversations and private citizens illegally listening to your private conversations?

While neither is right, I, as a private citizen, aren't required to go to a judge and present my evidence that I should be allowed to listen to your conversations.

And frankly, if any wave comes through the air, and I manage to intercept it, I've done nothing wrong. Before cable, things like HBO were broadcast over the air. If you were handy, you could buy a kit, solder it together, combine it with some hardware store parts and get yourself free HBO. It wasn't illegal. Even today, if you buy an antenna, you can get many of the HD channels I am paying for. All for free.

I think there is a difference between immoral citizens actions, and blatantly illegal government actions.

I don’t want anyone, government or private citizen spying on me or listening to my conversations that I have a reason to think are private. I am not sitting here telling anyone that I am in favor of the Patriot Act. Like almost everyone else I have not read the Patriot Act nor do I intend to so I am at the mercy of news reports and commentary on the subject. What I am saying is that I assume that the government has the ability to spy on anyone they choose and all we are relying on is ink on a paper to stop them. How do I know if they are or not? I don’t have time to worry over things like that. It is more productive to worry about what is for dinner tomorrow.

I don't agree. I think worrying about what the government does is high priority. It's complacency that allows governments to ignore the ink on the page. Dinner will take care of itself one way or the other. Once your rights are gone you don't get them back.

jpete wrote:I don't agree. I think worrying about what the government does is high priority. It's complacency that allows governments to ignore the ink on the page. Dinner will take care of itself one way or the other. Once your rights are gone you don't get them back.

Couldn't agree more jpete. If a private citizen illegally taps your phone you can call the cops & have him arrested....& then you can sue him civilly in court for whatever he's worth. If the police themselves illegally tap your phone....who do you call?
You should most definitely be more afraid of, & therefore more vigilant against government illegality. The mantra that "I have nothing to hide" is false security against an oppressive government.

OK I’m afraid and vigilant, I guess, but it still feels the same so I must be doing something wrong.

I have run through the wire tap-spying-paranoia stuff about as far as I can stand it. It is now tiresome and I have things to do and will be gone most of the week so we will agree on what we agree on and can agree to disagree on the rest. This is a bit of a detour from what started the thread and I’m as guilty as anyone for going down this road but to return to the origins of the thread here is the full text of the quote that was referenced.

SEC. 1527. INDEPENDENCE OF INSPECTORS GENERAL.
(a) INDEPENDENT AUTHORITY.—Nothing in this subtitle shall
affect the independent authority of an inspector general to determine
whether to conduct an audit or investigation of covered funds.
(b) REQUESTS BY BOARD.—If the Board requests that an
inspector general conduct or refrain from conducting an audit or
investigation and the inspector general rejects the request in whole
or in part, the inspector general shall, not later than 30 days
after rejecting the request, submit a report to the Board, the head
of the applicable agency, and the congressional committees of jurisdiction,
including the Committees on Appropriations of the Senate
and House of Representatives. The report shall state the reasons
that the inspector general has rejected the request in whole or
in part. The inspector general’s decision shall be final.

Find it on page 180 of the bill I posted in another thread. When read in its entirety I think it is rather benign so that puts this to bed for me unless I am shown otherwise.

jpete wrote:You don't think there is a difference between the government illegally listening to your conversations and private citizens illegally listening to your private conversations?

I just wanted to get back to Jeff's point here. The law recognizes a vast difference in the danger presented to society from individuals who violate you rights, as opposed to government violating your rights.(government violations are much more dangerous)


Example:

If the police violate your constitutional rights by performing an illegal search, (let's say of your house without first getting a search warrant) ANY evidence they find Cannot be used against you in court...PERIOD! (if they found 200 human bodies in your living room......they couldn't even charge you with littering!)

NOW.....

If your crazy neighbor breaks a window & enters your house illegally & HE finds those 200 bodies...& then HE turns that information over to the police, it CAN & WILL be used against you in court, even though the evidence was obtained illegally by your criminal neighbor.
Why?......because the illegal search was not performed on behalf of the police(government) but by a private person, acting illegally.Even though anything he finds would be based on a crime (burglary) it still can be used against you if the police get it. (the police did nothing illegal in acquiring the evidence, just your neighbor!)

The concept is we all have much more to fear from an oppressive government violating your rights than we do from a (private citizen) burglar violating your rights & therefore the law is much tighter for government actions than for private citizen crimes.

Exactly, the difference is that one is state action, the other not.

(BTW, I've never in 28 years of practice handled a "slip and fall" case, so you can put your stereotypes away, gaw.)

gaw wrote:If the want to wiretap you they can .....

Only when you're using conventional means of communication, there's plenty of ways to communicate privately if you wish to do so. Perfectly legal and legitimate encryption open source methods that can be examined for backdoors are so hard to break if everyone used them it would all be private due to the overwhelming volume. The NSA is only effective because they pick and choose what to break.... I'd like to know what that electric bill is.

A very interesting case was one I read about a while ago in which a pervert landlord had wired a small, hidden video camera into the ceiling of his female tenant's bathroom. He had then video-taped her taking showers, etc.
I forget how she discovered the "bug", but she did & she then notified the police who, after checking with the D.A. couldn't do anything to the landlord! ...He had violated no laws!
The closest law the D.A. could find involved interception of verbal communication over a wire......If the landlord had bugged his tenant's phone, he could have been arrested, but since the laws predated the technology of small, hidden video cameras, there was no law against it! (I think a new law was subsequently written)
I mention this for all the people that say..."We have enough laws on the books....We just need to enforce them!"

The fallacy of that argument is shown by the case I mentioned above. New technology & changing social ideas of morality make the law a constant dynamic....in need of evolving.

Devil505 wrote:The fallacy of that argument is shown by the case I mentioned above.

... when that statement is made there is already plenty of enforceable laws on the books. As far as the landlord getting away with that I would love to see some documentation showing someone taping someone within a private residence without their knowledge and getting away with it. I'd imagine the standard peeping tom type laws would more than likely cover such actions.

Edit: and just to add if there wasn't a law that's when the law of fist takes precedence.

Richard S. wrote:As far as the landlord getting away with that I would love to see some documentation showing someone taping someone within a private residence without their knowledge and getting away with it. I'd imagine the standard peeping tom type laws would more than likely cover such actions.

Sorry Richard....I missed this earlier. It was a report I saw on TV a few years ago & I think I got the details correctly but I'll do a search & see if I can find a link tomorrow.

Edit: I found it:

Landlord secretly filmed female tenant in the bath

Published: 30 Nov 05 13:28 CET
Online: http://www.thelocal.se/2602/20051130/


A landlord from Blekinge has been given a conditional jail sentence and 100 hours of community service for setting up a video camera in a female tenant's bathroom and recording tapes of her.
Using the video camera itself was not found to be a punishable offence. Instead, he was found guilty of unlawfully entering the woman's apartment to set up the camera.(my emphasis)

However, the court still managed to pin a charge of sexual harassment on the man, finding him guilty of placing an imitation penis in the woman's letter box.

The camera was fitted in the bathroom air vent and directed at the woman's bath tub. It was linked via a long cable, which went up through the attic and then down into a store room in the basement, to a video recorder.......


I guess what I missed was that, even though the taping was not a crime at the time, the landlord's entering her apartment was & he was sentenced for that.
Still an interesting case in that he wasn't guilty of peeping, just unlawful entrance. & that laws must evolve with new technology.

Richard S. wrote:Edit: and just to add if there wasn't a law that's when the law of fist takes precedence.

" law of fist takes precedence"?????

So, has a consensus been reached wether or not an appointed member of Dear Leaders party will have the power to instruct "watchdog" agencies what and who to investigate? Has it been determined in anyones mind that having such a persons/person with the ability to squash, say and ethics charge? Bribes...etc..

My personal feeling is that this reeks of government paranoia, that is dangerous and reminisent of Stalin or Kim JungIl. Perhaps Rahm and Dear Leader have somethings they need not come out? There is no good reason for them to unsurp the investigative powers of the Watchdogs, our safeguards if you will to stop absolute power from the top levels. It's what our nation was founded on. IMO of course.

Devil505 wrote:

Richard S. wrote:As far as the landlord getting away with that I would love to see some documentation showing someone taping someone within a private residence without their knowledge and getting away with it. I'd imagine the standard peeping tom type laws would more than likely cover such actions.

Sorry Richard....I missed this earlier. It was a report I saw on TV a few years ago & I think I got the details correctly but I'll do a search & see if I can find a link tomorrow.

Edit: I found it:

Landlord secretly filmed female tenant in the bath

Published: 30 Nov 05 13:28 CET
Online: http://www.thelocal.se/2602/20051130/


A landlord from Blekinge has been given a conditional jail sentence and 100 hours of community service for setting up a video camera in a female tenant's bathroom and recording tapes of her....

Um, it may explain it that this happened in ... SWEDEN!

Gotta stay away from that Swedish porn, Dev!

stockingfull wrote:Um, it may explain it that this happened in ... SWEDEN!

Gotta stay away from that Swedish porn, Dev!

Hey!!....Whose side are you on!!




(I knew that......... ....I was just......making sure everyone was paying attention!!! )

(besides......It could be....Sweden, MAINE....or Sweden Florida!! )



Edit: "Swedish Erotica" used to be a big name in porn.....so I've been told)


In actuality, it really doesn't matter to make my point if that was a case in Sweden or Manhattan. My point is the same: Laws evolve with technology & social "Sea Changes."