Quote:
Originally Posted by Daradon
Wow, you can be a massive (deep breath/serenity now!) sometimes. I know what scope shifting means. Just because you can use the term doesn't mean it belongs to you or that I am guilty of it. I've been holding my tongue thinking that maybe this was just a big misunderstanding, but apparently not. You are either so far into your own argument you refuse to see what I'm saying, or you just don't want to admit another point of view and the fact you may be wrong.
1. Collecting the data at all, would be considered an abuse. Maybe not under the new Patriot Act, but many civil liberty lawyers both in the US and abroad would agree. This is exactly why many people want the act to be repealed, and in fact cases like this are still shady on whether they step over the line or not.
2. While this information has not yet been used in anyway that we know, and that probably is only because we don't know enough about it yet, information gathered like this in the past has. So it's not unreasonable to believe this information either has, or will be used to abuse civil liberties.
3. Ways that illegially collected information has been used in the past include cases like GB and extraordinary rendition. While again I yield that this specific batch of information has not been tied to anything, I suggest that this is because we've only just found out about it. It is also my central argument that any information collected for no specific reason, which is a good term when a whole carriers data is collected, is privacy abuse, and will be used to further violate civil rights. Obviously the millions of Verizon customers are not suspected terrorists, and even those that are, have rights within the US constitution and legal framework while they are still 'suspected'.
So yes, this act in itself is an abuse, and history teaches us it will lead to further abuses. Bringing up the abuses it has historically lead to is not scope shifting in anyway. And even if you believe it is, you asked about abuses and the use of such information in a court of law, so it's only natural to bring up history on the issue as this example is just breaking.
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1. I disagree. I should expand on this. I disagree because I see this as high level data gathering, as opposed to individualized and targeted data gathering. I have issues with the Patriot Act, but to me this is pretty small potatoes. As others have said, we already hand over much more information to the government on a daily basis.
2. As I expressly said, everything has the potential for abuse, I'll be concerned when I see evidence of actual abuse. This is also not something we have just found out about, as evidenced by the numerous people in this thread who have been aware of it for years.
3. I asked for examples of this data being abused, not historical evidence of abuse.