It’s hard to believe that there are that many Americans. (In 2006, Verizon responded to about 88,000 such requests, and through the first nine months of 2007, it had cooperated with 61,000 requests.) That Bush believes are dangerous enough to investigate without warrants.

And since, it’s very unlikely that any where near that number of Al Caeda agents, have cell phones and are operating in this country. It seems more likely that The Bush adminstration views Americans as the enemy because they could threaten to end the phoney the war on terror. 

Thus in some crazy way the Bush administration views American’s as the enemy, a threat to the political power of the right, and it’s attempts to manipulate people through fear, to get them to give up their freedoms for security.

reply to #107728 by Verne Arnold on 10/17 at 5:48 am

Ok. How do you suggest Verizon fight the bush admin.

Goto the press. Assuming the press would even take the story , Verizon exec. would end up in jail for “leaking state secrets” or something similar and the bush admin would then flood the MSM with their spin and Verizon would look like the bad guy

Or Goto congress , face it both the dems and the gop in congress just rubber stamps and signs the check for bush.

Goto to the courts , again that would take years even if the courts heard the case and it was not dismissed on national security grounds.

So again I ask how do you suggest Verizon fight the “request” of the Bush Admin.

I have to give half a kudo to Rowdy down there...for the spirit of dropping out from the big corps, but I think its rather naive if one realizes the span of the NSA (and its corporate outsources’ capabilities.) All of this is quite inconsequential and a bit of a diversion. By raising a fuss over the Data mining Bill, the illusion is cast that the Eschalon system doesn’t just scoop up ALL electronic transmissions, with the ability to trace whatever they want. This has gonew on for years. You haven’t had genuine prvacy since sometime during the Cold War.
So, “sneaking off” the main grid just looks conspicuous. Just because they have vast capabilities doesn’t mean it operates with any kind of real eficiency. One might be safer just blending in witht he noise, in plain sight as it were.
If we are worried that the average free soul will be classified a dangerous criminal and scooped up in a big urge...then we’re pretty much fucked anyway.
The way to screw their system would be a mass movement of arbitrarily using all key words they might be seeking. If “Overthrow the government by Force!” (OTGF) replace “brb” or “lol”....well, you get the picture. Total overload.

#107674 by driving bear on 10/16 at 9:25 pm
(101 comments total)

What choice did verizon or any other telecom company have. play ball with bush or have the FCC put them out of business.

So...don’t fight?  bullshit!!!!

I have a feeling that Bush is pretty pissed at me. Me and my friend used to talk about the war via phone quite a bit. When we heard that Bush was listening in on phone calls...well, we decided to have a little fun. Two girls, sitting in suburban homes, started talking about the war nonstop, throwing in as many words as possible that Bush was probably trying to pick up on. Bet he hates us.

On another note, it now makes PERFECT sense why congress cries so much about violent video games. Kids talk about games like Halo 3 over the phone a LOT! What do they say? “Yo, I blew up a ton of guys the other day!” “I totally shot ten people last night!” “I’m selling grenades for really cheap!” With things like this, how can Bush successfully wiretap?

It’s a RIDICULOUSLY STUPID idea to try and wiretap America; we talk about war and war games quite a bit. For every person that he finds, he goes through billions of calls that weren’t related to terrorism. That’s just a guess, though; he hasn’t FOUND anyone yet from this, and if he did, he would be doing so illegally.

What’s the saying about government? Government is just a body of people ungoverned. That’s exactly what it is; a bunch of anarchists telling us what to do.

I am not in the least surprised to hear Verizon is involved with the Bush regime. I am only surprised that so many people are shocked by this revelation.

If you have ever attended a protests against Bush, or the Iraq war, written a piece that’s been published in a newspaper, or written on internet sites such as Truthdig, the odds are this regime has a file on you.

My parents remember the days of McCarthyism. The public hearings that ruined the lives of many americans. Those were dark and shameful times that no american could be proud of and yet it happened with few average citizens speaking out against McCarthy, or the government. 

Our politicians did nothing to stop the ruination of men and women across this country until McCarthy decided to go after politicians and military big wigs. Only then did they put a stop to the lunatic McCarthy. In other words our politicians and generals stood aside and let it happen. Now we find ourselves in the same position approximately 50 years later.

To many americans sit back quaking in their shoes, worried that our enemy will come to this county to fight us, so instead are willing to give away not only their rights but the rights of future generations.

Benjamin Franklin said it best when he said: “Those who would trade essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty nor securtiy.”

What choice did verizon or any other telecom company have. play ball with bush or have the FCC put them out of business.

Greed in all forms, including lust is the mother of all sins against humanity. Sins against humanity are always committed by fellow humans!

Verizon did this for one reason only. It didn’t want to stand for freedom, or for the right to privacy or for the right to Due Process of law, held so dear for close to 230 years in America. It wanted to assure a smooth flow of profit so it chose to disregard its civic responsibility. Much like the business community in Germany chose to do in the late 30’s.

how many of you truthdig fools still use verizon? how many of you still use at&t;? how many of you get your internet from comcast or at&t;? how many of you stood in line overnight just to buy an iphone,so steve could sell your souls to at&t;? at this moment we have absolutely no kind of phone service in our household. my lover had a cell with cingular as his server,now part of “the new at&t;. the landline was from bellsouth,now part of “the new at&t;”. bigger and more evil than ever. how can you, in good conscience, support these mega-companies? there are alternatives. seek them.