Snowdon is a dummy

You,

Quote:

They are not interchangeable.

If they are not interchangeable, please provide proof/evidence?

Quote:

proof
pro͞of/Submit
noun
1.
evidence or argument establishing or helping to establish a fact or the truth of a statement.
"you will be asked to give proof of your identity"
synonyms: evidence, verification, corroboration, authentication, confirmation, certification, documentation, validation, attestation, substantiation More

Quote:

ev·i·dence
ˈevədəns/Submit
noun
1.
the available body of facts or information indicating whether a belief or proposition is true or valid.
"the study finds little evidence of overt discrimination"
synonyms: proof, confirmation, verification, substantiation, corroboration, affirmation, attestation More

Posted: 1:55 p.m. Sunday, Jan. 5, 2014
NSA sidesteps questions about Congressional spying

The headquarters of the National Security Agency is located at Fort Meade, Maryland. The agency is the single largest employer in the state of Maryland.
By Evan Thomas
The NSA isn't necessarily not spying on members of the U.S. Congress. In response to a letter from Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, the agency isn't offering a very clear answer.
A Friday letter to NSA Director Keith Alexander from Sanders expressed concern that the NSA's data-gathering practices were unconstitutional and asked, flat out: (VIa C-SPAN)
"Has the NSA spied, or is the NSA currently spying, on members of Congress or other American elected officials?"
And in a statement to The Guardian, the NSA replied:
"Members of Congress have the same privacy protections as all US persons. NSA is fully committed to transparency with Congress."
This isn't an explicit answer to an explicit question, but Techdirt points out the evidence is there. Members of Congress are just as susceptible to the NSA's trawling as any U.S. resident.
"We know that the NSA is gathering metadata on pretty much every phone call that is on a major mobile phone network, meaning that, yes, the NSA is collecting metadata on the phone calls of elected officials."
There's another way to look at it though — from The Washington Post's Brian Fung:​ "It's a relief to know that Congress doesn't get a special carve-out (they're just like us!). But the egalitarianism of it all will likely be of little comfort to Sanders."
The NSA's phone dragnet is coming under increased scrutiny, though.
A U.S. District judge ruled the program was unconstitutional in December 2013, saying it violated protections against unreasonable search. (Via Los Angeles Times)
That same month, a White House task force issued a 300-page report to President Obama, recommending changes to the program that, among other things, would transfer control of phone metadata to a private third party. (Via The New York Times)
The president is expected to address these recommendations this month. Then again, a New York judge recently ruled NSA phone surveillance legal, so the whole question could be on its way to the Supreme Court.

The quotation "All men are created equal" has been called an "immortal declaration", and "perhaps [the] single phrase" and popularized as "theory of prediction" of the United States Revolutionary period with the greatest "continuing importance".[1][2] Thomas Jefferson first used the phrase in the Declaration of Independence. It was thereafter quoted or incorporated into speeches by a wide array of substantial figures in American political and social life in the United States. The final form of the phrase was stylized by Benjamin Franklin.[3]

Supreme Court puts Utah same-sex marriage on hold
Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Monday put same-sex marriages on hold in Utah, at least while a federal appeals court more fully considers the issue.

Gay marriage supporters ask top court not to block Utah weddings Reuters
Utah asks Supreme Court to block same-sex unions Associated Press
Gay marriage supporters ask top court not to block Utah weddings Reuters
Utah's same-sex marriage ban back in court Associated Press
Utah turns to higher court to halt gay marriage Associated Press
The court issued a brief order blocking any new same-sex unions in the state.

The order grants an emergency appeal by the state following the Dec. 20 ruling by U.S. District Judge Robert Shelby that the state's ban on same-sex marriage violates gay and lesbian couples' constitutional rights.

More than 900 gay and lesbian couples have married since then.

The high court order will remain in effect until the Denver-based 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decides whether to uphold Shelby's ruling.

The state's request to the Supreme Court was filed with Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who handles emergency appeals from Utah and the five other states in the 10th Circuit. Sotomayor turned the matter over to the entire court.

The action now shifts to Denver, where the appeals court will consider arguments from the state against same-sex marriage as well as from the three gay and lesbian couples who challenged the ban in support of Shelby's ruling. Shelby and the appeals court had previously rebuffed the state's plea to stop gay weddings pending appeal.

The 10th Circuit has set short deadlines for both sides to file their written arguments, with the state's first brief due on January 27. No date for argument has been set yet.

The Jewish view: It’s a question of morality, not legality.
[...]
As the months went on, more information came to light about the extent to which the U.S. government spies on its citizens. Consequently, analysts, politicians, policymakers, and judges have been vigorously debating whether any or all of the NSA’s domestic surveillance programs are legal.

The legal discussion, while interesting, is secondary to a serious discussion about the morality of government surveillance. If programs like the NSA’s are morally good, then we should support them. Likewise, if they are immoral, then people of conscience must oppose them, even if they are legal.

Despite having been authored over the course of many centuries before the advent of the telephone or the Internet, the Jewish tradition has much to say on this question, and offers moral guidance worthy of our consideration.

Privacy is a core Jewish value. In the Book of Numbers, when the Midianite sorcerer Bilaam blesses the Children of Israel, he marvels, “How good are your tents, O Jacob, your dwelling places, O Israel!” Many Jews still recite this passage each morning. But upon reflection, it is a peculiar blessing. What could possibly be so good about Israel’s tents? According to the Babylonian Talmud (Bava Batra 60a), the Israelites pitched their tents so the doorways would not face each other; they respected the privacy of their neighbors' closed doors.

Judaism holds privacy as crucial because it protects human dignity. According to Rabbi Elliot Dorff’s masterful 2003 book, “Love Your Neighbor and Yourself,” when we know others have access to our secrets, we can feel compelled to sacrifice our individuality for fear that we will be judged, criticized, or even punished for our unique qualities.

For related reasons, creativity and innovation becomes less possible in a world with no privacy. If you knew that your crazy (but potentially genius) idea was exposed to the judging or unsupportive eyes of strangers before you had a chance to work it through, or that your failures would always be revealed, would you try to accomplish anything untested? In a recent interview, Glenn Greenwald, the reporter who originally broke the NSA story, put it pithily: “Surveillance breeds conformity.” Similarly, our tradition celebrates the uniqueness of every individual, even seeing God’s greatness as revealed through human diversity (Mishnah, Sanhedrin 4:5). Violating privacy diminishes individuality and minimizes diversity, and is therefore an assault on human dignity and an affront to God.

These basic values have been enshrined in Jewish law. The Torah prohibits intrusion (Deuteronomy 24:10-11) and gossip (Leviticus 19:16), and the ancient rabbis extended these prohibitions to include looking into another’s property. In the 10th Century, the great French sage Gershom ben Judah expanded those rules to forbid reading another person’s mail. Later authorities went even further, arguing that the prohibition should apply to postcards, whose contents are easily visible.

The postcard rule is important in our context. According to the view of these rabbis, even if a person has a lower expectation of privacy, Jewish law still demands that that person’s privacy be protected. Today, most people know that virtually everything they do on their digital devices can be – and often is – recorded and studied by others, including corporations and governmental agencies. As Aaron Sorkin wrote in “The Social Network” screenplay, “The Internet's not written in pencil, Mark. It's written in ink.” Our digital footprints last longer than we might wish. Yet even though our expectation of privacy is diminished, our right to privacy remains inalienable.

On the other hand, from the perspective of Jewish ethics, a government would be justified in violating the privacy of its citizens if it believes it will save lives by doing so. After all, Jewish law adjures that saving a life overrides most other biblical precepts (Babylonian Talmud, Yoma 85b), including privacy protections.

However, according to Rabbi Dorff, “the burden of proof always rests with the government to show why it must invade people’s privacy at this time and in this way to protect the body politic.” The government has no right to clandestinely, indiscriminately, and perpetually collect citizens’ private communications data based on a vague security claim.

In the Jewish view, a government must demonstrate how, and in what ways, each specific piece of data collection will help neutralize a specific threat. U.S. President Barack Obama has said that the NSA’s programs help “anticipate and prevent possible terrorist activity,” even as a federal judge reviewing the NSA’s programs recently wrote, “The government could not cite a single instance in which the bulk data actually stopped an imminent attack.”

The Torah calls on us to protect our own – and each other’s – privacy, which means we must demand proof from our leaders that collecting our personal data saves lives. Without proof, surveillance remains immoral, an assault on our human dignity.

Don't play fool, you're smarter than that. When you said: "vital information may come out of it", you implied that mass spaying NSA-style was a worthwhile, potentially effective antiterrorist tool. Yet you can't prove it. It's just a guess.

The approach is unproven, and given its huge cost and drawbacks, it should be scraped.

By the same token, vital information may come out of my arse... Why don't you guys pay me billions of dollars for it?

Just showing you how sloppy your reasoning is... You can't base a policy, investment or decision on vague, 'MAY OR MAY NOT' statements.

What Frank seems to imply is that his guesses are more important than evidence/proof that our government has broken the laws of this land.

There are plenty of evidence that not only did Clapper lie to congress, but provided numbers that could not be supported. The bigger problem is that the president and members of congress continued to stonewall the issue thinking time will eventually kill this subject. We're talking about overturning our Constitutional rights to privacy. They don't seem to be that smart about Constitutional Law.

Obama taught Constitutional Law at Harvard?

im·ply
imˈplī/Submit
verb
3rd person present: implies
1.
strongly suggest the truth or existence of (something not expressly stated).
"the salesmen who uses jargon to imply his superior knowledge"
synonyms: insinuate, suggest, hint (at), intimate, say indirectly, indicate, give someone to understand, convey the impression,