i am shocked by my lack of shock

I remember when the idea was a conspiracy theory.

And we were laughed at and ridiculed.

That's why you suck up your pride and communicate with confidence on this point. It is possible to win people over.

Shit my pride has been sucked up for a long time. They'll be laughing from the wrong side of the barbed wire fence soon enough.

That's called losing. Your ego is less important than bringing idiots around to truth. Sadly the opinion of idiots has always and will matter a great deal. It's up to us non idiots to remain persistent and compelling.

You're absolutely right. Unless someone's parents raised them with full knowledge of how the world actually works, everyone is in the dark until someone shows them how manipulated & lied to we've been. You catch more flies with honey than you do with vinegar.

I don't know. I'm excited to live in a totalitarian/post-apocalyptic world. (serious) This is history in the making.

[deleted]

Oh, I get it. You're actually just dumb. Ok, go in peace.

[deleted]

Nathan much love to you but maybe you need to drop out of /atheism for a while. Not everyone is a religious zealot trying to oppress you.

I will still be laughed at by FB friends for posting the facts and many friends irl will not want to discuss it. I literally lost a dozen friends and was called racist because I warned against Obama. My biggest fear is that few people listen until it's to late and then most just roll-over because it's easier than standing up.

Nah... rational thoughts will be obscured by the mass "I TOLD YOU SO!!"

We STILL are! Thats the even more fucked up part.

At least we have each other!

You can't logically claim that people should be critical of everything except conspiracy theorists.

You also can't logically claim that because this was something conspiracy theorists were shouting about (not really a conspiracy anyway) and it is real, that all the other conspiracies are also real.

Thats quite the thatched roof you have there. Nothing like it was said or implied. I'm still referring to this subject.

Forgive me. I lumped you in with all the dribble I've been reading now that this NSA stuff has reddit's attention.

Too many cats to look at, im afraid.

If you accuse the government of every possibly action they can take, you're bound to hit one or two.

This is the exact point I was trying to make. This used to be a conspiracy theory. Now it's out there. That's good news.

IDK about that , in a big way; It was always kind of 'out there'. It's funny seeing the way MSM handling it already. I keep hearing the word "unusual"

Anyone that spends a significant amount of time here in r/conspiracy knows that everytime an agency has asked for records, the telecoms have provided. Those records have been used in court cases for years now. MSM just didnt want to pay attention to that because of the criminal prosecution surrounding every incident of civil infringement. But NOW? Now that its a blanket snooping on everyone, watch them carry it. (Because now its their civil liberties too)

I believe once the Patriot Act was passed, it was clear to most people it's no longer a conspiracy but reality.

[deleted]

Most of the time they are cooks.

Who you calling a cook! I'll make you eat them words!

Only the interesting ones. The boring ones are kinda kooks.

hipsteracy

I knew about this in 2008. Pre Obombs without congressional authority.

Yeah, that was just a few weeks ago... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C7T7Y866kf4

It's so funny when you compare Bush with Obama. Everyone made fun of Bush for sucking at speeches, so this time we got a Teleprompter President in Obama. But this guy, even with his writers/scripts has made so many gaffes, its nuts how the media and talk-show hosts never make fun of him!

Obama: "Reject the voices warning of tyranny" (...few weeks later: IRS targeted conservatives; DOJ targeted journalists, NSA confiscated cellphone records). LOL WTF?!

And this doesn't get the attention it deserves: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2giMADC_iQQ

"Reject the voices warning of Tyranny"

• Obama

"Let us never tolerate outrageous conspiracy theories".

• Bush

Both are straight up Orwellian.

Weren't we supposed to get chocolate? I like chocolate.

i'm sure this had been going on for a while. i KNOW it's been going on for internet data. back around the year 2000 i was sysadmin for a regional ISP in the south east. we were PAID very well to put a "black box" between our router and switches that collected data on where our customers went online. we raised all sorts of hell about privacy issues, but management didn't listen. whoever this was paid them WAY too much to give it up because of what WE said. we did not have access to this box, and ITS traffic back to its handlers was encrypted. they said it was collecting data for "marketing research", but upper management never would tell US who paid for it and where the data is going. we tracked it all the way back to a Quest hub in VA, and lost it. we were upset because it effectively cut our bandwidth by a third (it was forwarding a LOT of packets back to its handlers to that quest hub somewhere around DC), and we bitched so much that whoever it was who installed it paid for us to have another T3 feed installed to make up for it. this equipment was still installed when i left in 2004.

the US data infrastructure is crippled by shit like this. EVERYTHING is routed through NSA data centers where packet level inspection is done on all traffic. this is why consumer internet is orders of magnitude slower in the US than in other modern countries.

By your own admission this only reduced bandwidth by a third. Even if they duplicate every single packet transmitted to the internet, it should, on average, only reduce bandwidth by 50%. I don't see how this would result in an order of magnitude reduction.

Wow this is fascinating

My fear is that even if the people say stop, and congress says stop...they will not stop...

Even the nsa will say they stopped..but they won't

In my opinion this is kinda how Kennedy ended up dead.

Once it has been started, it will not be stopped. You can look to the patriot act for confirmation of this. Many Americans are both aware and upset at the loss of privacy and rights, yet, year after year Congress continues to approve it for another term.

Hahahahahah. I got nothing. Just laugh like a maniac. At least it makes me feel better.

The sad thing is, you will always have those people that say, "Well, I have nothing to hide, LET THEM SEARCH ME! LET THEM LISTEN TO MY CALLS!"

That's not the point. The point is we are being watched at all times without consent. Sure, maybe you don't care when they're listening to you talk about work and sports, but what if you drop a keyword and you get arrested for some shit you really didn't do? That's the point right there.

Right? When I said the pledge of allegiance I wasn't pledging allegiance to this shit.

i wasn't really pledging allegiance to anything, I was just saying a bunch of words someone told me to say

I was thinking of this as well! Then I thought about the following hypothetical scenario followed by a question: FBI agent goes to a completely innocent individuals domicile. "someone told me there are drugs in this house & I'm going to search it" said FBI guy. "no problem! I have nothing to hide! I'm perfectly innocent!" the homeowner replied. "please stand outside while my team & I make sure by tearing you home apart." the FBI guy said. "oh gee, well I guess I understand, it is your job & national security." the homeowner says. Now, each preceding day would be followed by a new agency (CIA, NSA, DHS...) coming with the same claims & doing the same search, how many days do you think the 'I have nothing to hide!' guy would last until he totally changes his mind about the issue?

This exactly. That guy is gonna get really tired of someone knocking on his door once a week to turn his house inside out to look for "drugs."

And "child porno".

I feel this senario mirrors the level of invasive tactics on a physical interaction plain, & this cell & metadata appears to be the same on a digital plain. But with the digital the masses appear 'reactionless', no significant stimuli in a physical form to really upset their daily lives. Now if say, your phone froze, or went to an upload screen randomly during the day & interrupted the citizen's functions on the device, that would create observable discomfort & reactionary behavior. It appears that this had better make a big spash in the mind frames of the masses or the snowball will just keep growing.

Do you even have to drop a keyword? Maybe you call a guy who unbeknownst to you belongs to some organization labelled as terrorist? Maybe you guys went to college together? Or you are trying to sell him a bike on Craigslist? Now your phone number is linked to his which is linked to some group flagged as terrorists or a hate group. One day you get hauled into the police station and have to explain why you were associated with a hate group.

And of course, this "hate group" has already been targeted by the IRS so guess what? Audit. Want to get a concealed carry? Sorry. You are on a watch list now. Need to buy some fertilizer for Uncle Fred's farm? Nope. Want to fly or travel outside of the country. Not happening.

I think that may be a bit dramatic.

You are probably right. It's not like the CIA is going to show up at my house, question me and shoot me in the back of the head because I know a guy who knows a guy who planted a bomb.

That would be crazy.

lol. you realize we have a "no fly" list right? and that it contains a lot of false positives? hell, I wouldn't be surprised if it's mostly false positives

The sad thing is, you will always have those people that say, "Well, I have nothing to hide, LET THEM SEARCH ME! LET THEM LISTEN TO MY CALLS!"

What those people don't realize, it is not them who choose what is right and what is wrong, what is a crime and what is not.

Don't own a cell phone then.

Or, use your cell phone wisely. There are means of encrypted communication.

Interesting, do tell.

I use TextSecure for texting, and I use RedPhone for calls.

Edit: This is for Android.

Oh darn I have an iPhone, but thank you!

In case you have not been paying attention to reality, Google is not really resisting and fighting the MAN... Google is part of the problem and can be considered the enemy as well. Good luck w/ your "secure" encryption. Remember history, IBM helped the Nazi's become an efficient killing machine.

This is by Open Whisper Systems, not Google.

So when do we get to see the metadata from 2001 so we can prosecute all the traitors involved in planning and executing 911 against their own country? Where is the data? When can we see all the calls texts emails and credit card data from 911 so we can formulate a picture of the main cohorts?

We can't. It is a secret program. Not even Senators or most law enforcement people have access.

I know that the "big conspiracies" like 911 are the ones we really want to "win," but this is one that is happening now in the public discourse. This is right now. We need to be out there talking sense.

Also, do you remember that little, isolated fire in the WH a while after 9/11? It was "contained" to one office. I would bet a few, very incriminating files were lost (eliminated) in that incident.

This is one of the reasons that people disregard conspiracy theorists. Here, you have a conspiracy that is really going on (massive illegal wiretapping) and you immediately conflate it with something that is very likely to be made up of whole cloth (9/11 as a government attack.)

This is more important than any imagined 9/11 conspiracies by a large margin. This is about democracy itself.

Look, I agree with you. 9/11 for me was always more of a rhetorical device. It wasn't about the "truth" of the situation because in all honestly that was always out of reach. The point was to reorient people to a stance where they weren't completely trusting everything in the MSM. There was sufficient proof that the government was expanding rapidly out of control, but a specific story is easier to communicate that a broad, nebulous sense of "things are changing for the worse, and fast."

9/11 was a compelling enough story to capture people's attention, whereas unprovable allegations about NSA were harder to rally around. Now that this is happening, I absolutely agree there's enough out in the open to get people talking without resorting to false flags as a way to "wake people up" (to use the conspiracy language).

I hope hope hope that people really get pissed about this one. Also believe me this program is much larger and deeper than this leak suggests. This goes very deep. I predict it will eventually be revealed that in 2013 the government is recording all phone calls, emails and texts and tying that data to location and other personal data, probably also facial recognition.

For the time being, that sort of talk will stay in /r/conspiracy, but what's already been proven, as you said, is hopefully enough to get people oriented in the right direction so that we as a society can start digging.

The problem is that 9/11 is not a good rhetorical device for that purpose.

Think about the human endeavor that has been spent on 'researching' it, the cottage industry of books and alleged experts that's grown up around it. It distracts people from real shit that is actually going on - some are roped into believing the story and while making it that much easier for other people to write off stories like this as just another crazy conspiracy theory.

Credibility is a key component to be taken seriously.

Credibility is a key component to be taken seriously.

This is really true. however if you look at it, we're still in the nascent stages of communicating with each other freely. 9/11 was one of the first massive events to happen in the internet era. We saw the result. I suspect that as time goes by and the traditional media continues to lose its following and revenue streams, more "middle road" commentators will spring up to fill the void that we are both commenting on. Already people like Glen Greenwald and Dan Carlin are getting huge success in this space, and I predict their number will grow exponentially in the coming years, probably coagulating at some point into a few successful outlets.

DemocracyNow! is too dry, but it is another example of an early attempt at this sort of work.

The fact is that the gap between reality and what gets discussed is just too large now. Anyone willing to jump into that gap can make money. Therefore it will happen. First by the people like Alex Jones, but increasingly by legit reporters, perhaps some of those who were laid off from the old media giants.

The fact is that the gap between reality and what gets discussed is just too large now. Anyone willing to jump into that gap can make money.

Agreed, but the first rule of the Internet is "don't feed the trolls."

Uh freedom of information act?

IMHO the real "revolution" will happen when everyone has access to everyone else's metadata...just a few hacks away.

This is public knowledge. It is a shame most of the proles fail to grasp the conditions which we all live under. Society is a religion - it is the worship of jackels by jackasses.

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/03/ff_nsadatacenter/

It's an old article but there's a lot of really good information in there that's relevant to the scope of just how huge this is. This goes much further than meta data, literally everything we do electronically is stored.

Added to the top. Thanks.

You put the wrong link

They have been masturbating to my nakeds since 2001

am i the only one who likes to think that the bad guys are smart enough not to discuss bombs and airplanes over a cell phone? is it to track dissidence in the population, or simply because they can record every message/call ever, just to do it.

I think it is because authority has always relied on control of information. Now with the internet, we can communicate in real time and with a variety of media, the only method for them to continue to assert authority is to use this same technology to monitor our every move. Either that or they'll lose their grip, because we can easily expose what they do.

It's basically an information arms race between the people and the government. The arms race is initiated by the government because the people are by and large interested in pursuing their own happiness. What's resulted is that the contract between people and government (in the US this is the BIll of rights and Constitution) has been severely broken.

Can we add this to the list of things that people just said were conspiracies that turned out to be true?

And the plan is coming together perfectly.

You, you, and you! Get in the train immediately! and put your wrists in these shackles.

Listening to democracy now today they had a former NSA employee that quit after 9/11. He's been talking about this for years, he was even harassed by the FBI at gun point. This is so fucked up.

Im thinking its about time for some protests here

Predictive data analytics may well be one of our eventual downfalls

I just talked with a sprint supervisor. In my service agreement I can only be monitored/recorded when I talk to sprint themselves. If anyone has information regarding sprint I would like it, to cancel my service without any fees.

Not a bad idea. Someone ought to dig into Verizon and see if we can get a mass cancel going. Clearly this isn't entirely their idea, but if we can start mobilizing people to act or if we can somehow find a company that won't comply and all join it..... it's one avenue to explore

im actually gathering up information right now and going to my verizon store and stand outside to let people know whats going on.

Thank you for your service.

You know, now that WiSee is becoming public you should take a step back and realize exactly what's going on.

Special forces have been using a wireless technology called WiMoS for some time.

They can, by locating three wireless antennas, detect and map all motion within a 1km² area.

Combine a widespread network of these, with active "meta-data" from the NSA and you have a complete, real-time map of everyone in a wide area. Using WiMoS you have moving objects, and with NSA's meta-data you can map those moving objects to real people.

In real-time.

Right. That's what I'm saying, this is just the tip of the iceberg, but we should attempt to use this story as a lever to get the harder facts out there whilst ears are open.

haha..../r/conspiracy is leaking into /r/worldnews again

Lol. Say anything outside of the hive mind ideology there and you are invited to put on your tinfoil hat and fuck off to /r/con. Felt like rubbing this in, but I don't give that much of a fuck.

Right. Hive mind mentality is only allowed in /r/conspiracy.

[deleted]

Please read my update for why what CNN is saying is basically sweeping this whole thing under the rug. They are using this as an excuse to minimize the public's perception of a threat. They are defining "metadata" as "length of call and telephone number." That's like defining the metadata of a jpeg as "file type and file size." Right, those data are included, but also included are everything ranging from exposure setting to GPS location. Likely they know everything your phone is capable of telling them, as Verizon would have no reason to filter this data out before sending it to the government.

Do you know if you can request a copy of that data from Verizon yourself as well?

I know you have that right in Europe. Not sure about the US. The TED talk I posted above is the story of a guy who did just that, and figured out that he could recreate his exact location for several months down to the meter and the minute using the data he received.

Yeah, I was watching that and wanted to know if I could do the same. However Verizons customer service appears to be completely down.

Sadly, a huge portion of the general public does not have any regular interaction with news media. I believe it is affectionately called "willful ignorance".

[deleted]

Don't get me wrong. I am very glad that word is getting out about the lack of benevolence of the 1% of the 1%. I have children - I am stressed about their future.

How is using a prepaid phone different?

You want action, you want change, drop your carriers, stop using electronics, or go about it in a way that you are protecting yourself.

I am not sure what all this talk is about here. You go from saying in one sentence that even when the NSA says theyll stop they won't stop, to talking about getting this message out. You realize that is just a giant circle jerk right? If you "know" they won't stop as you say you do, then your only option is to stop using cell phones/internet/GPS or to do it in a way that protects yourself from being tracked. Protests, riots, standoffs only accomplish a goal that you have already said yourselves does nothing (ie NSA will not stop even when they say they did).

Restricting yourself from using cellphones isn't going to take you off the grid and evade tracking. I'm sure the [NSA] has more sophisticated means of tracking already that are passive and don't require you to carry a GPS transceiver.

I'm not talking about going completely off the grid, simply the context of this specific topic which is cell phones. Once again you make my point that you have this cynical look at things to where no matter what you do they are always tracking you, so what is the point of this?

I'm just saying that boycotting a service that keeps us connected isn't going to bring about political change. I like your idea of "go about it in a way that you are protecting yourself" better.

I think this news was allowed to become official. To see if the frog hops.

Me too. And I think they leaked it themselves. We'll never find the leak on this one and that's why. That's also why they had a lie ready about what metadata is and the timeframe, and why its only limited to Verizon.

The line that its only Verizon is a lie too. AT&T has dedicated work rooms for the NSA.

You have a source on that?

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A

Think what you will about Fox News, at least it is the top story. Over on CNN it is being trumped by an Israel soccer boycott.

You can't put the genie back in the bottle. If the technology exists (which is does), the state will use it to it's advantage. Every state. Every time. Whether it be a ancient king or a modern state. It does not matter whether it is legal to do so or not.

However, that's not to say we can't fight this surveillance and must submit. It simply means that we must counter their efforts with our own technology. Merely pass laws or asking them not to do it is so meaningless to be laughable.

This is so true I am punching myself in the face.

yes very true - and putting pressure on the vulnerable parts of the network - they are reliant on the ISPs and telcos - they collect the data - they are commercial entities - a class action is a good idea.

update: senators confirm this has been going on for 7 years. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2013/06/06/transcript-dianne-feinstein-saxby-chambliss-explain-defend-nsa-phone-records-program/

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Caveat: I'm not an expert.

From what I've gathered the situation is this: There are huge database centers being built to store a metric fuckton of data. There have been several whistleblowers.

Here is one such whistleblower.

Everything that's come out up till now is "you wouldn't fucking believe this. This is huge." but there's never been proof. Watch the whistleblower above to understand this general sense. It's also come out that US senators, even those on the Senate intelligence committee haven't been told the true extent of this program, nor at they at liberty to speak publicly about what they know.

What came out yesterday is proof that the government was snooping one network for a period of a few months. It is 99% likely that the program goes well beyond this. We wouldn't have been hearing murmurings for so long over a program of this scale.

The technology exists to track, record, and store the content of your Skype calls. That came out after the Arab Spring, where people breaking into the Egyptian secret police headquarters found evidence of a company that supplied this tech out of Germany. The US government therefore certainly has similar technology.

So it depends if you are asking if "this specific leak" deals with VoIP and third party SMS. No it does not. My gut tells me this leak is the tip of the iceberg and is intended as a red herring to make the whole thing seems minimal, and perhaps to inculcate the discussion with early signals that it should be acceptable.

My gut also tells me that the program goes well beyond what's revealed in this specific leak. I would guess that full surveillance has been ongoing for some time, and covers phone, sms, VoIP, third party SMS, email, and other online communications. This CAN also cover such information as your usernames and passwords. During the aforementioned breaking in Egyptian secret police headquarters, files held on activists included Skype usernames and passwords associated to such information as phone records, physical addresses, and emails.

KEEP IN MIND HOWEVER that this leak does cover metadata, which is crucial to understanding the importance of what's happening. The metadata they have will almost certainly allow them to pinpoint you if you have 3g turned on. So if you're a smartphone user with 3g, they have you tracked to the pint of where you are in your home (or where your phone is) probably going back at least a few years. Again, this specific leak is for a specified period of time, but there is no telling the full extent, because this has been "legal" since after 9/11.

I'm going to piggy back on top of you and suggest a few things.

If you have iOS, you will never have any good support for encryption/privacy both on device (physical data) and off device (calls/sms/data sent/received etc. etc.) Android has support for encrypting the phone and SD card, as well as allowing you to do anything you want in day to day operations. There are also great apps that can encrypt your phone calls and messages, although this poses a problem because the people you are communicating with will need these apps too. RedPhone and TextSecure have the communications bases covered, and a VPN is recommended for any data you wish to be private.

It makes me sad, scared, and sick that I'm a sophomore in college and I have to be this worried about my own privacy already.

Yes, all 330,000,000+ of us.

So here in Utah they (the NSA) is almost done with its new data center. It has the capibility to log 20 years worth of communication and is the largest data center built. Its basically in my backyard: http://vigilantcitizen.com/latestnews/the-nsa-is-building-the-countrys-biggest-spy-center/

yeah I don't understand computers neither!

Hasn't this been a thing for awhile?

I occasionally post stuff like this on Facebook and Twitter, only to have it completely ignored or maybe get 1 like from a friend of mine in law school. The majority of the public is refusing to pay attention to stories like this. It's not ignorance or lack of information, but rather a refusal to form a political opinion out of fear of backlash (either disagreements with friends or the idea that its "not cool" to talk politics). Bottom line: nobody will care until its their family and friends being targeted. By that point though, it's already too late.

Good day to be a conspiracy theorist, folks.

Just a nice big fuck you to all the people who have told you "you're crazy."

I'd like to call it a nice big "welcome" to all the people who now distrust government.

They're new in these parts and will need good information. We have work to do.

Besides being absolutely atrocious and demoralizing, doesn't this have even further implications for regular confidentiality in professions?

Isn't this a gross violation of Attorney/Client confidentiality? As well as Doctor/Patient confidentiality?

Excellent question. Hadn't thought of that.

[deleted]

Right. That's "metadata".

Is this the same for Canadians too?

Good post. Please fix the new last link for "Watch What You Say."

The CNN story does say the order "requires the communications giant to hand over 'originating and terminating' telephone numbers as well as the location, time and duration of the calls -- and demands that the order be kept secret."

It's the administration official that they later quote who misleadingly says that the order "relates exclusively to metadata, such as a telephone number or the length of a call," conveniently leaving out "location," and assuring that the order does not cover "the content of any communications or the name of any subscriber."

The court order doesn’t allow the NSA to collect any information whatsoever on the contents of phone calls, or even to obtain any names or addresses of customers.

What’s covered instead is known as “metadata”: the phone number of every caller and recipient; the unique serial number of the phones involved; the time and duration of each phone call; and potentially the location of each of the participants when the call happened.

If they want your name or address they have the unique serial number of your phone. What's your point?

“The technotronic era involves the gradual appearance of a more controlled society. Such a society would be dominated by an elite, unrestrained by traditional values. Soon it will be possible to assert almost continuous surveillance over every citizen and maintain up-to-date complete files containing even the most personal information about the citizen. These files will be subject to instantaneous retrieval by the authorities. ” -Zbigniew Brzezinski (Council on Foreign Relations, National Security Advisor to Jimmy Carter) - Book: Between Two Ages

I don't understand. The post says they are collecting data about your texts and calls AND metadata. Isn't data about texts and calls metadata itself? Unless they are collecting data about metadata, information about the information about the calls and texts your cellphone sends and receives? Like the memory adress of that data, or the time it was sent to the company?

So if any of us run for office, and we can't be bribed, the powers that be just search [NSA database for] our correspondence or files for something to simply humiliate or get us busted

I work for a big ISP and they sent out talking points today on how to react when a customer asks about the NSA issue. Something like: "I don't know anything about that." Which is true.

"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win."

I remember hearing about Echelon before 2000. They used triangulation spyware and voice recognition software in planes to find Pablo Escobar all the while he was using burner phones. That was almost 20 years ago. So many movies made it public knowledge before this also: Bourne Identity "BLACKBRIAR", Eagle Eye, Conspiracy Theory, etc etc.

The incredible thing here is it took this long to become an issue for people.

"literally everything you do electronically is stored."

All the more reason to conduct your personal life in person. Don't talk on the phone for an hour, go see the person. It's been shown that only face to face interactions dispell loneliness.

I agree, but we still shouldn't have to live our lives like Big Pauly in Goodfellas.

Surprised this video from Good Will Hunting hasn't been posted.

Very prescient.

how is PRISM different from ECHELON - why has it taken so long for people to care about this stuff? will they just go back to sleep next week? I think so sadly.

we have passed some threshold now - humans here - robotic technology and machines are really taking over. our kids are being conditioned to accept it too.

Don't despair. This sort of thing happens in history. If you want good perspective, I recommend jumping on the Dan Carlin Common Sense podcast.

He puts these times in historical context, gives you some breathing room. Are you going to need to adapt? Yes. Does it mean life is over? No. Start by fixing up the basics. Your health. Your closest relationships. Right your own ship.

We're all going to navigate this but we need to work together and use the tools we have at our disposal to communicate and better ourselves because I think that we're going to see some more interesting days in the future. Things are accelerating.

yes there has always been evil and men motivated by money, blood and power to kill and control the sleepy masses but something is different now. These 2 events 9/11 and boston bombing are linked and the people are only starting to care now about something that happened 10 years ago (widescale electronic comms monitoring) after 9/11 - Patriot Act. How long will it take them to care that the Govt sees them as the enemy. Another 10 years?

In the press conference today - Obama's talking head admits that the PRISM is a direct result of Patriot Act and 9/11 http://www.lawfareblog.com/2013/06/deputy-principal-press-secretary-josh-earnest-talks-to-reporters-about-the-fisa-order/

Aljazeera has a discussion panel about this. A lot of the topics brought up by the OP are gone over. http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/insidestoryamericas/2013/06/20136785850326449.html

edit: "discussion" to "discussion panel"

This is probably not the correct place to ask, but, could someone please explain to me why this NSA thing is bad? Is it not the governments job to protect its people? They're not sharing your information with the world... How else is the government supposed to moniter terrorism/ criminal activities? I would much rather that some anonymous person knew that I had watched porn or who I was sleeping with or where I was at that very second, if it meant that another terrorist attack was prevented...

Edit: I am Australian

I just got off the phone with my service provider (T-mobile). They assured me that I have nothing to worry about, and that they don't give away any information, like that, to the government unless they have a court order.

It is either hard core denial mode, or they are stand-up guys. Doubt it on the latter.

They've lied to you.

i know. His Mumbai accent telling me, "No 'Mr. dumpinglemur's first name' we do not give that information to anyone but you." was laughable. I tried very hard to not bust a gut in his ear.

Guess I will just take the good with the bad.

Not shocked at all cause I knew the whole time.

All of the people in r/conspiratard or whatever it's called are eating their words. Those people sit around and make fun of us, but when our conspiracy comes to be truth, where are they? Busy hammering down the next topic. I think that group is ran by government employees.

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they see me trollin. they hatin.

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Yeah you're right dude. Good points.

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Ok. Got it.

Terror, terrosist, terrorism, Obama, Jihad, Home grown terrorism, W. Bush, drone strikes, douche-bags in the CIA.

Hi, NSA.

You may kindly go fuck yourselves.

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It's not news but now we have the tools we need to convince squares.

Why isn't this top of /r/conspiracy? What is the matter with you people. Here we have clear evidence of government intrusion of your privacy and you don't give a shit

As I post this 4mins after you, it is number 2 on front page

only 500 upvotes though after 10 hours when crappy image macros/cartoons get several thousand upvotes

Came here to say this.

My God people...this is BIGGER than anything...bigger than any presidential misdeed, bigger than anything Israel could do; at least as big as 9/11 being our own government's work.

Fucking Reddit....

Who cares?! Really? If you ain't doing anything illegal your not to worry.

Did you forget the /s or are you serious?

Added to the top. Thanks.

IDK about that , in a big way; It was always kind of 'out there'. It's funny seeing the way MSM handling it already. I keep hearing the word "unusual"

Anyone that spends a significant amount of time here in r/conspiracy knows that everytime an agency has asked for records, the telecoms have provided. Those records have been used in court cases for years now. MSM just didnt want to pay attention to that because of the criminal prosecution surrounding every incident of civil infringement. But NOW? Now that its a blanket snooping on everyone, watch them carry it. (Because now its their civil liberties too)

I'm not talking about going completely off the grid, simply the context of this specific topic which is cell phones. Once again you make my point that you have this cynical look at things to where no matter what you do they are always tracking you, so what is the point of this?

I believe once the Patriot Act was passed, it was clear to most people it's no longer a conspiracy but reality.

You put the wrong link

They have been masturbating to my nakeds since 2001