What isn't PRISM? FISA? No shit. I said it feeds into PRISM. And I did not say it is ongoing. And I think you have a warped view of what surveillance is because a system used to query networks and other identifying information is a dragnet surveillance tool. You just refuse to be wrong here.

And a lot of the hooplah about these immoral dragnet tools is not only the fact that they partially target American citizens (after NSA executives said under oath, in very particular terms, that they do not collect files on American citizens) is that it was being accessed by employees without court orders.

Pre 9/11, maybe you could have made a case about this "anonymization" being legitimate. There were certainly programs in the work that attempted to incorporate homomorphic encryption into their design. But these have been gutted and reformed into what we have today.

You have to wonder, what are these tools being used for? They certainly haven't been publicly attributed to stopping any terrorist activities. If you don't think these systems, put in place by spy agencies with the legal ability to lie about their internal operations, are being used to spy on their targets (which is the general public) then what the hell do you think they are for?

> I said it feeds into PRISM.

It doesn't. That's my point. How many more times are you going to show that you don't know what PRISM is while claiming that you do?

Also, surveillance is, by definition, close observation. Merely having anonymized phone metadata is not surveillance any more than having access to Google Maps satellite imagery without any other data sources to join to. More specifically, it isn't mass wiretapping, which as you recall was your original claim that you have yet to substantiate, instead pointing to this metadata program that I had earlier used to show you that no evidence exists for mass wiretapping of Americans.

> PRISM is the program that brings the FBI's FISA electronic communication wiretaps into the NSA's databases

> It doesn't.

> Merely having anonymized phone metadata is not surveillance

OK. Not only are you inconsistent but your arguments are based around ill-defined terminology. Goodbye now.

How have I been inconsistent? I've repeatedly stated that collecting phone call metadata isn't wiretapping. Wiretapping is well-defined and requires collecting the content of conversations.

Surveillance != wiretapping. MYSTIC is the wiretapping program I was referring to. Only MYSTIC. It is indeed wiretapping because they recorded calls and SMS.

You are difficult to argue with because you continue to either misinterpret or warp my words. Goodbye now.

You originally claimed that the NSA was performing mass wiretapping on AT&T and Verizon. MYSTIC has nothing to do with those companies or with Americans, as I've already stated.

It appears that you finally agree both that PRISM isn't mass wiretapping and that AT&T and Verizon aren't being mass wiretapped. Good. You appear to have learned something even if you now claim to have known all along.

Listen. I said "mass wiretapping" and "exploitation" thru vehicles like AT&T and Verizon. And then in a separate paragraph I spoke about PRISM. At no point did I call PRISM a wiretapping program. And it is 100% accurate that the NSA and other agencies have wiretapped targets, many targets, through telecoms. I also provided you with various citations showing different government surveillance programs and their various forms of reach. Understand what I am saying here. I have not waivered in my position once.

Stop fucking putting words in my mouth.

You've just got to get your last word in to frame the conversation in a way that doesn't give you cognitive dissonance, don't you? OK. Go ahead and have it. Claim I am saying whatever you want me to say.

This argument has been wholly destructive and not the least bit constructive, because you constantly derail it at every turn and put me in a position of defending the same thing over and over instead of covering new ground. This is a common tactic used by authoritarian and conservative types across the world and I don't have time to play ball.

Have fun, kid.

OK, given what you claim to have known all along, what do you find bad about what they're doing? Everything you now say you've known all along is perfectly legal and what a spy agency is supposed to do.