{"id":12209,"date":"2013-06-12T16:47:57","date_gmt":"2013-06-12T16:47:57","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2013-06-12T16:47:57","modified_gmt":"2013-06-12T16:47:57","slug":"who_owns_the_content_of_your_phone_calls","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/admin.rushlimbaugh.com\/daily\/2013\/06\/12\/who_owns_the_content_of_your_phone_calls\/","title":{"rendered":"Who Owns the Content of Your Phone Calls?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Listen<\/a><\/p>\n

RUSH: There\u2019s a big argument that has ensued over this that\u2019s kind of constitutionally fascinating. And the people that are not bothered at all by what the NSA\u2019s doing<\/a>, it\u2019s just common, this is part of intel, and you have nothing to fear. All three branches signed off on this. It\u2019s entirely lawful. It\u2019s entirely constitutional, and, guess what? You don\u2019t own your phone calls. They\u2019re not yours. You don\u2019t own your phone number. It isn\u2019t yours. It\u2019s the phone company\u2019s. The record of your phone call is not yours to give. It\u2019s the phone company\u2019s. You don\u2019t own it. It isn\u2019t yours. So you run around thinking your calls here are private. They\u2019re not yours. So goes the theory. The information belongs to the phone company. It doesn\u2019t belong to you. So you have no leg to stand on when you demand —<\/p>\n

(interruption)<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

No. The content of the call belongs to the phone company, and now the government. You don\u2019t own it. You don\u2019t own the phone company. The content exists only because the phone company made their phone lines available for you to rent. You don\u2019t own them. I\u2019m telling you how these people are looking at it now. The information belongs to the phone company, not you. Well, your house doesn\u2019t belong to you until you\u2019ve paid it off. You might think you own it, but you don\u2019t until you\u2019ve paid off the mortgage. The bank does. <\/p>\n

The phone company owns the audio. You don\u2019t. You are renting. You are leasing. In fact, most people don\u2019t even own their phones. They\u2019re subsidized by their contract with the cell provider. There is a law that if you are going to play on the air recorded phone calls, you have to get the permission of the people on the call before you can. That\u2019s an FCC rule. Now, let me go further with this business that the information doesn\u2019t belong to you. The content of your phone calls, your texts, your video chats, doesn\u2019t belong to you. It belongs to the phone company and therefore it\u2019s entirely up to the phone company whether or not they want to give it up to the government. <\/p>\n

Now, let\u2019s add a new wrinkle. In PRISM, in everything that we\u2019ve learned about that sweep involving Verizon where every call they are giving to the government for three months, and then it gets renewed, probably all the other phone companies as well. Yeah, you don\u2019t own the information. The phone company does. But, added wrinkle, the federal government has passed a statute giving immunity to the phone companies from civil suits based on privacy representations by phone companies to customers via private contract. So the phone companies have immunity. They struck a deal. The government said we want everything on your phone line, everything in your system. The phone company, “Okay, we want immunity from what\u2019s on there because it\u2019s all these different customers of ours.” That\u2019s part of the Patriot Act. The phone companies have immunity. <\/p>\n

The phone companies have immunity. The cell phone companies all have immunity by virtue of a statute that was passed that is part of the Patriot Act, and it\u2019s renewed, that gives them immunity from civil suits based on privacy violations. Meaning, you can\u2019t sue the phone company for violating your so-called privacy by giving the government details of your account. But that\u2019s not all. There\u2019s another wrinkle. In addition to that, the federal government has made it virtually impossible for phone companies to protect this information from government access, as evidenced by the NSA project. The government has access to all of this phone data. Consequently, saying that the individual does not own or control the information, saying the information does not belong to the customer is all well and good, but it doesn\u2019t belong to the government, either. <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

This is what bothers me about where we are. Okay, you can say to the people that want to talk about strict interpretations of law, okay, fine. Right. The phone company owns every detail of my account. Fine. I don\u2019t own it because I don\u2019t own the carrier, I don\u2019t own the equipment, they enable the call because they own it, and I\u2019m paying them rent blah, blah, blah, but why is the government automatically entitled to it? We make this assumption that government can fix health care, government can fix global warming, government can fix problems with oil. Government can\u2019t do diddly-squat. Okay, so you don\u2019t own the contents of your phone calls, but then there\u2019s this automatic assumption the government does. All they gotta do is say, “We want it.” <\/p>\n

If you went to Verizon and said, “I want every phone call you handle. I want to be able to see the data,” what are they gonna tell you? “Fat chance, Joe.” The government calls \u2019em and says we want that, “Oh, oh, okay, here it is.” In some cases even without warrants. It doesn\u2019t belong to the federal government either. Yet the federal government has appropriated it from the phone companies and has immunized the phone companies from civil challenges under long-established contract law. And you know how ubiquitous phone usage is. I mean, it\u2019s incomprehensibly large. And now people say it\u2019s no big deal because there\u2019s judicial oversight because all three branches signed off on it. I don\u2019t know. I\u2019m just not that reassured. I\u2019m not a paranoiac and I\u2019m not a conspiracy theorist, as you know.<\/p>\n

BREAK TRANSCRIPT<\/p>\n

RUSH: It\u2019s section 215. Snerdley is really blown away. I tell you, the interesting things about this, folks, all of this, the sweep of metadata, what I\u2019m describing here is section 215 of the Patriot Act. That is where the phone company owns the records. That\u2019s where the phone company has been immunized. That\u2019s where the phone company grants the government whatever they want. They have to go to the FISA court. The only oversight is the FISA court. The FISA court never turns the government down. Never. I don\u2019t care what government, what administration. “We want this.” FISA court says, “You got it.” Phone companies are immunized; they give it up. <\/p>\n

The thing for you to know is that all this collection of metadata such as the Verizon Hoover operation, not PRISM, but just every record of every phone call on every carrier\u2019s network, the FISA requests for that data has gone up something like 1,000% under Obama over Bush. It used to be limited by the requirement of a foreign component in the phone call. That\u2019s out the window now. So the president who\u2019s telling us that the War on Terror is over and we basically kicked ass and that we got nothing to worry about because everybody loves us now because Obama\u2019s a great, lovable messiah, and there is no more war, FISA requests for this kind of data are up 1,000% the last four years under Obama. <\/p>\n

Why? <\/p>\n

All of this collection of metadata skyrocketed under Obama. <\/p>\n

Why? <\/p>\n

Well, I mean, you answer the question. Why does he want it? Why does he need it? What are they doing with it? All three branches have signed off on it. This is where I fall back, and maybe this is juvenile, naive and so forth, according to educated constitutionalists, but when I say it matters who\u2019s doing it, it matters. If the same people who are using the IRS to target citizens and to suppress their participation in the political process, if the same people doing that are collecting all of this data, sorry, my red flags of suspicion skyrocket. And the fact that all three branches have signed off on it doesn\u2019t comfort me that much because the FISA court\u2019s a branch, the judicial branch, and they rubber-stamp every request, that we know of. It\u2019s secret. But we assume that they rubber-stamp it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

RUSH: There\u2019s a big argument that has ensued over this that\u2019s kind of constitutionally fascinating. And the people that are not bothered at all by what the NSA\u2019s doing, it\u2019s just common, this is part of intel, and you have nothing to fear. All three branches signed off on this. It\u2019s entirely lawful. It\u2019s entirely […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0},"categories":[],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\nWho Owns the Content of Your Phone Calls? - The Rush Limbaugh Show<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.rushlimbaugh.com\/daily\/2013\/06\/12\/who_owns_the_content_of_your_phone_calls\/\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:title\" content=\"Who Owns the Content of Your Phone Calls? - The Rush Limbaugh Show\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:description\" content=\"RUSH: There\u2019s a big argument that has ensued over this that\u2019s kind of constitutionally fascinating. 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