The Marketing Technology Blog

It is not an issue of a disagreeing opinion, Doug. It is the difference of what is necessary to avert another attack and keeping innocent people as safe as possible, isn't it.

What was valid before the Patriot Act was waiting for the warrant where the call would be well over by the time it could be secured.
Is it not then an intentional exercise in suicide which would predictably result in many deaths of innocent civilians?...the ones whose freedom of life is probably much more important to them than the remote possibility of a temporary encroachment of their privacy of a phone call that they might receive from a foreign country or targeted person of interest??

All of which is hardly "simply throwing out a net" and will not affect the overwhelming majority of American's privacy rights.


The bottom line here is your telephone calls will not be monitored if you're not speaking with someone in places like Afghanistan or Iraq and don't associate with people you might remotely suspect of criminal activity here in the U.S. ..which is good advice at any time in any country and thereby not an unreasonable or undue caution by any stretch of the imagination.


At which point I bluntly offer you again sir, don't cry about what must be to protect life and our country from the enemy while we are at war against terrorism. Realize that circumstances dictate what is being done is completely necessary and correct.

My question is which "citizens" are you referring to?

If your name happens to be Adam Gadahn or John Walker Lindh the nobility of Henry's ultimatum immediately vaporizes.
Which doesn't define the hundreds of other individuals and entire cells of terrorists who are more recent additions to our "citizenry".

Obviously, these scum can't be who you are referring to yet others like them live amongst us today thanks in no small part to the imbeciles I mentioned earlier and our lack of response in changing their miniscule minds.

Our law enforcement who are "spying" have no time to be listening to a grocery list or the itinerary of a soccer mom. They know who they are targeting unless the call originates oversea's where they rightly follow a potential lead on terrorism as far and as deep as they can legally articulate Probable Cause. This is why they required "warrantless" wiretapping as they have no time to seek a warrant when a call is being made. Our circumstances demand from us that this be done.

Understanding how our law enforcement operates under the law is critical in appreciating the work they do for us. As long as they adhere to those parameters they are doing their job in protecting us from all threats foreign and domestic where these people are chosen carefully and should rightly be viewed as hero's as the job is more than just demanding.

I have already defined our limited loss of privacy but, most of your concerns should have been addressed by this point where you could have found this information on the net.


After all this time what is left unanswered?

What is left unanswered is the opportunity for our government to utilize this data against its own citizens with no judicial oversight. You are correct, you are admitting limited loss... my point is that any loss is a grave mistake.

I truly respect your opinion, Winghunter, I simply disagree with it. Luckily, we live in a great democracy where it's okay that each of us have our own opinion - and we can lobby and vote for people who we think represent us well.

Lets take the very last step here;

Judicial oversight does not begin and end at a warrant and it is not the only supervision involved in law enforcement. There are layers upon layers of it from different agencies.

I know you would not offer that they lose the ability to track terrorism so, what would you have them do instead??

I would have them do what was valid prior to the Patriot Act. When probable cause suggests the need for spying, law enforcement should bring their proof to a Judge who makes the call. It's not right to simply throw a net out and then see if you caught what you wanted. That's not how our constitution reads.

I'm not looking for anarchy here, but I do not trust people in power not to abuse the information. I want a third party... it's why we have an executive, judicial and legislative branch. Each is there to safeguard the other.

You know we can agree to disagree, right? :)