hypothetical question

[slick]

If an acquaintance and myself held a series of phone calls threatening the resident or planning an attack on the citizenry, How long would it take for the FBI, NIA or Secret Service [[SS?) to come knocking at my door. Maybe Charlie LeDuff should host this experiment in surveillance. Hey it's research or reporting!

[oladub]

If an acquaintance and myself held a series of phone calls threatening the resident or planning an attack on the citizenry, How long would it take for the FBI, NIA or Secret Service [[SS?) to come knocking at my door. Maybe Charlie LeDuff should host this experiment in surveillance. Hey it's research or reporting!

It would probably be a bad idea. On the other hand, they didn't intercept the Tsarnaevs even with warnings from Russia. They also overlooked Fort Hood's Major Hasan. I just read a 10 page NY Times article about how reporters are being harassed when they start asking questions. A couple of these reporters are living outside of the US and afraid of coming home. My guess is that we live in enough of a police state that it would be foolish to take chances just to find out. However, national police organizations are probably more concerned about what is reported than your hypothetical prank.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/18/magazine/laura-poitras-sno...

[gazhekwe]

That reminds me... Arlo Guthrie told this story starting in 1968, he might still be telling it:

...But think of the last guy. For one minute, think of the last guy. Nobody's got it worse than that guy. Nobody in the whole world. That guy...he's so alone in the world that he doesn't even have a street to lay in for a truck to run him over. He's out there with nothin'. Nothin's happenin' for that cat. And all that he has to do to create a little excitement in his own life is to bum a dime from somewhere, call up the FBI. Say, "FBI," they say "Yes," say "I dig Uncle Ho and Chairman Mao and their friends are comin' over for dinner" [[click). Hang up the phone. And within two minutes, and not two minutes from when he hangs up the phone, but two minutes from when he first put the dime in, they got 30,000 feet of tape rollin'; files on tape; pictures, movies, dramas, actions on tape. But then they send out a half a million people all over the entire world, the globe, they find out all they can about this guy. 'Cause there's a number of questions involved in this guy. I mean, if he was the last guy in the world, how'd he get a dime to call the FBI? There are plenty of people that aren't the last guys that can't get dimes. He comes along and he gets a dime.I mean, if he had to bum a dime to call the FBI, how was he gonna serve dinner for all of those people? How could the last guy MAKE dinner for all those people? And if he could make dinner, and was gonna make dinner, then why did he call the FBI?They find out all of those questions within two minutes. And that's the great thing about America. I mean, this is the only country in the world...I mean, well,it's not the only country in the world that could find out stuff in two minutes, but it's the only country in the world that would take two minutes for that guy.Other countries would say, "Hey, he's the last guy...$^#*! him!", you know? But in America, there is no discrimination, and there is no hypocrisy, 'cause they'll get ANYBODY. And that's a wonderful thing about America.

[Papasito]

We need a Republican President elected & to continue these surveillance programs so that the Media and the Left will fight against them with the ferocity they once had when Bush II initiated the Patriot Act.

Right now the Government is being awarded so much power and citizen intrusion without a fight that we will be reeling from the magnitude of what has been done for years to come.

[oladub]

Papa,The majority of both parties supported the Patriot Act. Senator Proxmire[[D) was the only Senator to vote against it. A higher percentage of House Democrats than Republicans also voted in support of the recent Rep. Amash[[R)-MI amendment that would have defunded the NSA from nosing into Americans' lives without a warrant.

from wikipedia- "the [[Patriot) Act passed the House 357 to 66, with Democrats comprising the overwhelming portion of dissent. The following day, on October 25, 2001, the Act passed the Senate by 98 to 1."

[gnome]

Proxmire retired from the senate in 1989, I believe you mean Russ Fiengold, Dem of Wisconsin. Same State, different guy.

[oladub]

Proxmire retired from the senate in 1989, I believe you mean Russ Fiengold, Dem of Wisconsin. Same State, different guy.

Thank you for the correction. Both had their good points too. Senator Feingold [[D) was the only Senator to vote against the the Patriot Act.

I should add here that in the 2011 vote to renew the patriot Act, 40 Republican senators voted to renew it. 4 did not. Thirty democratic Senators voted to renew it. 18 did not. The following is the list of Senators who voted against renewing the Patriot Act in 2011. Credit should be given where due; even to Democrats. The NY Times map showed one R Senator from Alaska voted against the Patriot Act but did not include that Senator in the following list.
No Votes [[23)

Member	Party	State
Daniel K. Akaka	D	HI
Max Baucus	D	MT
Mark Begich	D	AK
Jeff Bingaman	D	NM
Sherrod Brown	D	OH
Maria Cantwell	D	WA
Christopher A. Coons	D	DE
Richard J. Durbin	D	IL
Al Franken	D	MN
Tom Harkin	D	IA
Dean Heller	R	NV
Frank R. Lautenberg	D	NJ
Patrick J. Leahy	D	VT
Mike Lee	R	UT
Jeff Merkley	D	OR
Lisa Murkowski	R	AK
Patty Murray	D	WA
Rand Paul	R	KY
Bernard Sanders	I	VT
Jon Tester	D	MT
Mark Udall	D	CO
Tom Udall	D	NM
Ron Wyden	D	OR

[G-DDT]

Proxmire probably would've voted against it. First he'd bean-count the money being squandered to spy on artists, then he'd spy on the amount of money squandered on the artists [[like the ones who spent thousands to film burning confetti flying out of helicopters), then he'd check up on the amount of money he spent scoping out the artists and the guys who spied on them. Then he'd go for a jog, come back to drop a high-fiber load, but not before finding out how much the state spent on the toilet seat.
God, I honestly think we need more guys like him.