NSA collecting phone records of millions daily, court order reveals

This top secret court order requires Verizon on an "ongoing, daily basis" to give the NSA information on all telephone calls in its systems, both within the US and between the US and other countries under Obama.



theguradian news article

The top secret - full court ruling

Will this scandal change anything? My impression: NO

Majority of the people are meanwhile used to this scandal news and apart from some people complaining nothing will change.

Sometimes it's really frustrating, not the politicians - we know who corrupt they are - but the reaction of the people - just like they are all under hypnotic trance - well the chemtrails fulfill their purpose

They're probably only after a few people but want to be able to see where messages go when they take someone in for questioning so the targets friend rings persons b,c,d who then ring other people but since they don't know who's going to be called they need to track everyone which will mean they'll need to have a trace at every teleco and probably will be working with other countries spooks to track down the international callers and you have to fill up the new NSA super data centre with something to work on to recover its billions in costs

Wow this is a really big thing, Iam not from the US so I will ask you who know more....does this go against any constitution?
Also you can bet the NSA will be looking for the person who passed this info on to a British newspaper, I would hate to be the reporter who wrote the article.

This has been going on for decades so it really isn't any surprise. For example, the ECHELON system based about 10 miles from where i currently am. This was signed, sealed and delivered during the height of the Cold War so, if anything, the systems used nowadays are far more advanced.

And whilst it is sinister, it could really be worse. Rather than monitoring every signal phone call, email, etc they simply have key words / phrases programmed into the system. If the system detects these keywords / phrases then an alert is issued and the material sifted through by the Intelligence community.

How do you find out if your Verizon records have been collected?

Is Verizon obligated to inform us if it is?

To give up records without cause is it not a violation of the privacy clause of their contracts we sign?

Last night I was talking to another Verizon customer and we had clicking noises and buzzes as if the old Bell Telephone relays were being used. this sounded like a live tap in the line it would be interesting to find out if we are allowed to be informed of this "unreasonable search and seizure" of our communication records.

reply to post by ChesterJohn


I would ring them up and ask...If they refuse to say change your provider....but who is to say the NSA hasn't done the same thing with them all...

reply to post by boymonkey74


ECHELON was agreed during the Cold War mate. Every telecommunication message since then has been monitored. It doesn't matter if you want permission or not, it is already done. They do not literally listen to every conversation, they just pick up on keywords and phrases.

Whilst this Verizon thing is not the same as ECHELON, the principle is the same. The data will be fed into computer systems with dedicated algorithms to spot suspicious activity and it is those that will then be highlighted.

To be quite honest, i am amazed that people are so surprised about this when this type of activity has been common knowledge for ages......

Originally posted by ChesterJohn
How do you find out if your Verizon records have been collected?

Is Verizon obligated to inform us if it is?

To give up records without cause is it not a violation of the privacy clause of their contracts we sign?

Last night I was talking to another Verizon customer and we had clicking noises and buzzes as if the old Bell Telephone relays were being used. this sounded like a live tap in the line it would be interesting to find out if we are allowed to be informed of this "unreasonable search and seizure" of our communication records.

edit on 6-6-2013 by ChesterJohn because: (no reason given)

Since their plan for years had been to monitor every single phone call made, every email sent, every text texted, you can probably assume every call you are making with Verizon is being monitored...

What should alarm us is NOT the fact that they are tracing calls.

What SHOULD alarm us is the fact the NSA is not interested in the calls content or the name of the caller.
Doesn't this seem contrary to a legitmate intelligence operation?

If you were trying to gather intelligence information to stop supposed "Terrorism" (for which the Patriot Act was made) then you would most certainly WANT the name of the caller and the content of the call. And yet, what we have here is precisely the opposite.

So the burning question is - why do they want this metadata, and what are they doing with it?

Also - this is headline news on CNN, Fox, NBC, AP, ACLU, EFF and every other major news organization. Somehow I don't think this is going to just die down any time soon. People are pissed. I've already had 4 people talk to me about it this morning, and I've only been at work for 30 minutes.

reply to post by Brucee
I would gladly volunteer for the NSA to monitor all of my phone activity if they would leave everybody else alone. I think that after a few days of listening to the kids ranting and the grandkid asking "What are YOU doing?" over and over along with my parent's complaints of aches and pains they would likely have learned their lesson about eaves dropping!