RUSH: Folks, I don’t want to frighten you here, but I want to you to face a reality about the NSA revelations that every phone call that Verizon handles must be turned over to the NSA on the orders of the regime. Don’t forget, now, that we have a nation of I don’t know how many millions of people who are voluntarily giving up every bit of data about themselves — on Facebook, on Twitter, on MySpace, on My Butt, on whatever social media site there is.
They may not think anything of it.
They may not think it’s any big deal.
They may not find a problem with it at all.
They might think, “Obama is my guy, and I don’t think Obama would do anything to harm me! Obama’s a great constitutional scholar.” I just want to warn you. Like everything else in the media, if you see a story that you think might outrage the whole country, don’t be surprised if you start seeing the media reporting something else. Remember during the nineties when Clinton was lying every time he opened his mouth?
It wasn’t long that we got stories in the media about how lying is good for us!
It protects people and their feelings from being hurt. Lying is good.
During the massive unemployment uptick early on in the Obama regime, we got stories from the media on how great an opportunity being unemployed is to rediscover your family, rediscover your friends, and spend time with the pets or whatever it is. So don’t be surprised if in the midst of this (why, maybe even tomorrow) we get stories in the media about how this is actually good that the government is able to do this in order to protect us.
“It’s okay! If you haven’t done anything wrong, you’ve got nothing to worry about,” and keep in mind — I don’t know how many millions it is, but — you know that we’ve got a whole slew of uninformed voters out there, low-information voters that are dying for everybody to know everything about them, ’cause they want to be famous. Now, it may be a bit of a stretch, but there probably are some idiots out there hoping that they are discovered in this operation.
You never know.
“Attorney General Eric Holder refused to answer when asked if the Justice Department is spying on Members of Congress, citing the need for a classified conversation, which lawmakers accepted while asking him to make sure that evidence of such surveillance is not destroyed.”
Are you spying on us?
Well, I can’t really tell you that. It’s classified.
Well, okay. But if you are, keep the data so that we can find out later.
Okay, will do. No problem.
Here is Janet somewhere in Vermont, a lost state.
CALLER: Thank you, Rush.
RUSH: Great to have you. Hi.
CALLER: My late veteran father would be very proud that I got through and got a chance to talk to you. I wanted to make the point that even though the government obtained only the phone numbers of all these Verizon customers, I’m sure they have access to databases that they could easily use to match names with those phone numbers. You know, think of White Pages’ Reverse Phone Number Search. They could easily load their database with the numbers, and they could do a search of names. They could do anything once they get that, and they might even be able to identify the Americans who call your show.
RUSH: “Identify the…?” Oh. Oh. Identify the Americans calling this show?
CALLER: Sure.
RUSH: I have no doubt that they’re getting a database on who’s calling this show.
CALLER: We’re thinking only numbers, but they could easily match those with names, I’m sure, you know?
RUSH: “Match those with…?” Yeah. Well, of course that’s the point. You get the numbers, and you find out who the people are. The only thing they’re supposedly — supposedly — not being granted is wiretapped conversations, recordings of content. No content of the calls are part of this order, just the so-called metadata.
CALLER: True.
RUSH: Now, look at me. I happen to never make a phone call because I can’t hear on the telephone, and, as such, nobody ever calls me. I have it so great. Nobody calls me because they know I’m not gonna pick up. I hate the phone ringing. There’s always somebody on the other end and they always want something, so nobody ever calls me. I don’t use the phone, so they’re not learning anything on me. However, however what about testing, SMS? Are they getting that data, as well?
Is it just voice calls, or is it every use of the phone number? In the case of texting, you don’t have to have a voice recording to get the content. It’s text. I don’t know. I’m just raising the question. (interruption) No, I’m not gonna tell you whether I have a Verizon account or not. Why should I tell you that? Anyway, I’m saying that if I were a low-information voter, I’d say, “I don’t care! I don’t care! I don’t make phone calls. So it isn’t gonna affect me. I don’t care. They can do what they want. It doesn’t matter to me. I don’t make phone calls. It may be a problem for the rest of you, but I’m free and clear.”
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RUSH: It’s not just the NSA, and it’s not just the IRS. It’s the EPA and any number of organizations the government collecting data, spying, what have you.
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RUSH: So the IRS has our tax records; they are going to soon have our medical records, and guess what else? The police can now take our DNA after an arrest. It was a Supreme Court decision. “It’s no different than fingerprints!” After a standard, ordinary traffic stop, the police can now take your DNA. NSA has your phone records. And, by the way, they’re not targeted. This is just scattershot. They’re just taking everything.
I’m now hearing, “Hey, look, Limbaugh! Come on, this started seven years ago. Bush started this.” This is not the same. When this all started seven years ago, it was targeted. They were looking for specific identifiers, foreign telephone calls to be matched against numbers that they knew involved terrorism. This is just a sweep, pure and simple. Obama knows what political organization you belong to.
He wants to have veto rights regarding that. The EPA wants to regulate carbon dioxide. Michelle Obama’s demanding the right to tell us what we can eat. Democrats are demanding a national gun registry. Universities have speech codes. Obama drones can see where you are in your home and can shoot you. About the only people that have any privacy left are women who are gonna have abortions, thanks to Roe v. Wade.
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RUSH: Now, ladies and gentlemen, the NSA scandal, there’s a woman who really is at the heart of this. Here name’s Dianne Feinstein. She is among the senators that first got interested in these kind of procedures, phone records and phone companies being pressured to comply with government requests. This morning in Washington she held a press conference to talk about this Verizon thing, the NSA. I just want to you hear a portion of what she said.
FEINSTEIN: This renewal is carried out by the FISA court under the business records section of the Patriot Act. Therefore, it is lawful. It has been briefed to Congress, and the letters that we have distributed — and this is — you’ll note on the dates, this is prior to, ahh, the Patriot Act amendments, ahh, coming before the body, each of those. As you know, this is just metadata. There is no content involved. In other words, no content of a communication.
RUSH: People might say, “Well, then why do they want it?” Well, they’re gonna algorithmically search this data, synthesize it, and hope to detect patterns with it. When they find a pattern that fits a problem they think exists, then they dig deeper, then they go get a warrant and ask for the content. That’s the theory. As I say, I read a lot of tech blogs, and I’m telling you, some of this really is funny, ’cause all these people — and not just the tech bloggers. I don’t want to pick on them.
All of these young people who think they know everything about everything, and they’re all properly liberal, just can’t believe that their savior would be doing this. This is the kind of stuff that Bush and Nixon did, and they’re worried. They say, “Obama’s a constitutional scholar. This is not the kind of thing they do. We don’t expect Obama to do this kind of thing!” Now, I don’t know that it matters. I’m not even saying it’s a tipping point. I don’t think it is. This is not the event that’s going to cause massive numbers of people to abandon Obama.
That’s not what this is, but it’s perhaps one of a number of things that could happen that might cause that. I’m not predicting it, so don’t get your hopes up. I still don’t think that’s gonna happen, and I know it’s not gonna happen with the media. I really don’t even think Obama is the point now. I mean, you can’t avoid looking at Obama, and it’s useful for the purposes of educating and informing people. But in terms of neutering or nullifying Obama, that’s not going to happen.
As I keep saying: “What needs to be the focus here is this is what big government does. This is who liberals are. This is what they do.”
That needs to be educational point.