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Communications

NSA Overstepped the Law On Wiretaps 164

Hugh Pickens writes "The NY Times reports that legal and operational problems surrounding the NSA's surveillance activities have come under scrutiny from the Obama administration, Congressional intelligence committees, and a secret national security court, and that the NSA had been engaged in 'overcollection' of domestic communications of Americans. The practice has been described as significant and systemic, although one official said it was believed to have been unintentional. The Justice Department has acknowledged that there had been problems with the NSA surveillance operation, but said they had been resolved. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence, which oversees the intelligence community, did not address specific aspects of the surveillance problems, but said in a statement that 'when inadvertent mistakes are made, we take it very seriously and work immediately to correct them.' The intelligence officials said the problems had grown out of changes enacted by Congress last July to the law that regulates the government's wiretapping powers, as well as the challenges posed by enacting a new framework for collecting intelligence on terrorism and spying suspects. Joe Klein at Time Magazine says the bad news is that 'the NSA apparently has been overstepping the law,' but the good news is that 'one of the safeguards in the [FISA Reform] law is a review procedure that seems to have the ability to catch the NSA when it's overstepping — and that the illegal activities have been exposed, and quickly.'"

Comment Re:Only 40Gb/month? (Score 1) 394

An "abusive" user for using 500GB+ of bandwidth? The crime is telling users that it's ok to use your "unlimited" internet... and then inserting caps. Citizen, you pay for the potential. Nobody is forcing you to use the bandwidth you pay for. If you want to pay less then go with a lower plan, like a low tier DSL or Dial-up. That user isn't "sponging" off your payments, he/she's using what was allotted to them (the "unlimited" plan). Maybe that user isn't doing anything nefarious, he/she just likes to watch a lot of Hulu and Netflix and share Linux ISOs through torrents. So the simple fact they are using what was advertised as being what they paid for doesn't make them an "asshole". It makes you ignorant of the fact that not everybody has the same needs or wants as you do on the internet.

Comment Re:Good news! (Score 1) 590

This should have been modded Insightful. The comment was satirical in nature showing why a DA might push for one of these suits to go through. Really it's scary that they might be doing this to downplay the statistics. It's all a numbers game and the child's LIFE isn't even considered. Would the DA be a lawyer if he had taken pictures of himself to send to a girlfriend when he was 16? It's sad. Sad and scary.

Comment Re:Why is it needed? (Score 4, Insightful) 461

EVERYONE has something to hide. Not to say it would be illegal, but how about credit cards? Or something even a little more trivial, how about the way you like to have sex? Let's say you were talking to your wife over the internet about the way you like to have sex. Is it illegal? No. "Not tasteful?" According to who? And is it potentially embarrassing? Depending on what specifically you're talking about, maybe. Especially if it were revealed to your work or maybe your insurance company. Here you thought you were just talking about the great night you were gonna have with your wife and someone has 'eavesdropped' on that conversation and has twisted it to be a weapon against you. Yeah, that's extreme, but just one of those things that 'could happen' if we (the people) don't try to fight the little things.

Comment Re:I can live with it (Score 0, Flamebait) 640

It wasn't the violence I didn't like about the movie. What got me was the copious amounts of sex in that movie. Why are superheroes fucking? I can understand they were trying to display the emotion they felt towards each other, but why not convey that relationship through dialogue and actions and have the sex implied? The violence is a little more understandable as Rorschach was a major character and the violence was key to his character. He was a good half of the movie, so understanding and seeing the world through his eyes was key. The blue schlong also didn't mean much to me, everyone's seen a penis (just anatomy). But 'superheroes' fucking each other, what? 3 times was it? Why not have it implied or something else. I know there are worse things out there and priorites are jacked when it comes to sex vs violence and such, this just happens to be what ruined this particular movie for myself is all.

Comment It'll never happen... (Score 1, Insightful) 197

There will always be one ISP that does not monitor it's traffic. Why? Because that's where the business will lie once all the other ISPs have monitoring equipment in place (even if it is imposed upon by the government). Not to say this will be in the U.S., but there will always be that one country. And on top of this, who is to say that encryption techniques won't make this argument obsolete anyway? If monitoring does break out on a wide scale, I see many, many websites turning towards things such as IPSEC or HTTPS. Darknets will be thrown up and proxies from that one country that doesn't monitor its ISPs will spring up like weeds. The internet is on a global scale, and as such we've had the freedom as an international privilege for far too long to let it go now. Someone or something can try to bring down the internet, but I just don't see it happening.

Comment Re:!news (Score 1) 250

Wow. Last time I went to a Hollywood Video store specifically was some years ago when at the time Blockbuster was costing ~$5 for a video game rental while Hollywood Video was around $3. I don't see prices on their website (of course), but if it really is $9 for a video game for 5 days then that's insane.

Comment !news (Score 1) 250

Blockbuster has been dead for a while. The only thing they had going for them was their physical presence for those with slow internet or those who like brick and mortar stores. Now they've killed the interaction between the two and alienated those who will now go to Netflix (likely) and those who see themselves as being screwed and will go to Hollywood Video and other rental stores. This wouldn't have been such a shot in the foot if they had given notice to users, but now they haven't and costumers are going to feel like they got the short end of the stick. I haven't been to Blockbuster in years because of their prices alone, but that's just me.

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