I don't think the federal government needs to know who you've been calling or emailing, or where you were.
I also don't think Verizon should have denied a police request, and demanded a court hearing on principle, in the case of tracing the location of the active cell phone in the carjacked SUV of the Boston bombers.
Until we have a Congress that is at least as interested in setting clear standards for the executive branch as to privacy, as they are for 'protecting' the unborn or repealing Obamacare, the executive branch will, apparently, lack common sense restraint as to metadata collection. All, perhaps, to preclude partisan attacks in the case of failure to prevent terror attack(s).
The income tax erased the distinction between what private companies or corporations and banks know about you, in the way of income sources and amount, and what government does, tax you and keep records of your jobs, age, address and dependents. The data can also be used for police purposes to trace illegal activities or fraud. So is the existence of the income tax and the IRS a form of authoritarian fascism?
Professor, thanks for your daily commentary on national and world events, and for enduring the harassment you were subjected to under the war profiteering George W. Bush administration. I don't believe that the 1979 court ruling you note was 'fascist' and it is over the top to describe it as such.
Get a grip on yourself over the phone call logs. The intent is not to start another illegal war, like the one in Iraq, but to prevent a domestic 'Benghazi'. We all know what the GOP has done in disgraceful partisan attacks, endless investigations and hearings with that tragedy. Partisanship aside, all the phone call records residing with billions of others in Utah, are not worth the life or limb of one more victim of a terror attack such as the recent one in Boston.
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I don't think the federal government needs to know who you've been calling or emailing, or where you were.
I also don't think Verizon should have denied a police request, and demanded a court hearing on principle, in the case of tracing the location of the active cell phone in the carjacked SUV of the Boston bombers.
Until we have a Congress that is at least as interested in setting clear standards for the executive branch as to privacy, as they are for 'protecting' the unborn or repealing Obamacare, the executive branch will, apparently, lack common sense restraint as to metadata collection. All, perhaps, to preclude partisan attacks in the case of failure to prevent terror attack(s).
The income tax erased the distinction between what private companies or corporations and banks know about you, in the way of income sources and amount, and what government does, tax you and keep records of your jobs, age, address and dependents. The data can also be used for police purposes to trace illegal activities or fraud. So is the existence of the income tax and the IRS a form of authoritarian fascism?
Professor, thanks for your daily commentary on national and world events, and for enduring the harassment you were subjected to under the war profiteering George W. Bush administration. I don't believe that the 1979 court ruling you note was 'fascist' and it is over the top to describe it as such.
Get a grip on yourself over the phone call logs. The intent is not to start another illegal war, like the one in Iraq, but to prevent a domestic 'Benghazi'. We all know what the GOP has done in disgraceful partisan attacks, endless investigations and hearings with that tragedy. Partisanship aside, all the phone call records residing with billions of others in Utah, are not worth the life or limb of one more victim of a terror attack such as the recent one in Boston.