WATCH WHAT YOU SAY

NSA data storage facility under construction in Utah

Since my last article, the government has continued its cover-up of the extent of the NSA spying.  Attacking the messenger in politics is always a first line of defense.  To this end, the authorities have suggested that Snowden, was working with the Russians all along.  Admittedly, Snowden’s intention and purpose is an important issue, but it is irrelevant to the issue of whether the government is illegally spying on its citizens.  The N.S.A. admits that the Snowden documents are authentic (when prior to the release N.S.A. denied any such program existed).  The intentions of Snowden are beside the point.  Assume the documents were released by Putin himself.  If they are authentic, would that change the issue of whether the N.S.A. obtained them illegally in the first place?

            Snowden’s documents show that the NSA is collecting metadata on the phone calls of most Americans, both abroad and inside the USA.  Prior to the disclosures the N.S.A denied this to Congress on the record.  Thus, we know as a matter of fact, that the government lacks credibility here, and that to some extent Snowden is telling the truth.   Snowden’s documents also show that the data has in fact been misused, although, after initially denying it, the government now admits there has been abuse, but in only a few cases. 

            Snowden’s documents also show that there is a clandestine government program to install spying devices in computers prior to their delivery to recipients; a program to collect Americans personal data through Trojan horses hidden in popular apps like “Angry Birds”, and a Program called PRISM to tap directly into the servers of the major internet providers including Microsoft, Google, Yahoo and a host of others.  This provides direct government access to all e-mail content and internet searches of most Americans without a warrant.  The N.S.A. is building a massive complex in Utah to house the data mined through these and other mass data collection programs.   It claims it can then access the data later, through a secret F.I.S.A. warrant, if anyone does anything suspicious in the opinion of N.S.A.; like, say criticizing the government just a little too much?

            The government argues these programs are collecting data that is not private because it is voluntarily put out into the public domain by virtue of using the internet and cell phones services in the first place.  But these arguments do not hold up to scrutiny.  The cell phone is the modern equivalent of the telephone and the net, the equivalent of the mail.   We even call it “e-mail” and cell phones are called just ”phones”.  Under traditional law telephone bills are private papers requiring a warrant to produce even though the phone company had the data.  A warrant was required to “tap” a phone call even though the phone company could listen in at any time. Similarly, traditional mail was considered private even though it traveled through the post office on its way to another person.  The constitution protects the “papers” of the individual from being searched or seized without a warrant based on probable cause.  The net did not exist then, but the principal is just the same.  What is meant by “papers,” if not communications between the people?  Internet traffic is private and not subject to mass collection by the government just because the government can.

            The government has justified its mass spying programs on national security grounds; and, as proof, it claims to have “broken up” over fifty plots by collection and analysis of the data; however in one lawsuit over the constitutionality of the program, the Judge wrote in his opinion that the government was unable to produce any proof of even one plot broken up as a result of the NSA mass surveillance program.    

            Other than sending a nasty letter demanding terrorists to stop plotting bombings, the government has no authority under the constitution, to “break up” plots except to arrest and charge the suspects with a crime. Such proceedings are required by the sixth amendment to be public. Why then can’t the government prove its claimed 50 plots?  Where are the warrants, the arrests, indictments and public trials?  I understand that there could be terrorists using cell phones in Yemen, Afghanistan, etc. and that their phone calls could and should be monitored, but what does this have to do with collecting data on US citizens inside the United States?  The only point of collecting such data would be to stop plots inside the United States.  These acts would be subject to the constitutional protections of the 4^th through 6^th amendments and would be publically known.

            There are only two conclusions -- There are either no plots being broken up inside the US or our government is engaging in secret arrests, detentions, trials convictions of individuals without public disclosure. In either case, the implications are not good.

 

            I prefer to believe that the government cannot show proof, because there are no such plots broken up. (Don’t get me wrong here; I believe the secret detentions are coming. I just don’t think we’re there yet).  This begs the obvious question: why then have the programs?  The answer of course is just as obvious; the real purpose of the NSA domestic spying programs is to repress domestic political dissent, in particular those that believe the government needs to be smaller, less powerful, less intrusive or more frugal.  After all, the political class is not likely to get blown up by jihadists; but if this limited government idea gets out of hand, the politicrats could be out of a job!

            But let’s go beyond the point that the Government cannot deny the existence of the programs or prove that the programs have been effective. There is other corroborative evidence that the programs are really aimed at repressing legitimate political dissent from the right.  Early on in the Obama administration, leaked Homeland Security documents generated by his administration, claimed that the greatest threat to the United States is not international terrorism but rather right wing extremism. As examples of the mind set, the Obama administration has refused to label obvious jihadist terrorist attacks as such, witness, Major Hassan; while, in case after case leftist government operatives have characterized other random violent acts as those of right wing extremists, only to be proven wrong as facts develop, witness the shooting of Gabrielle Gifford or the nut who flew his plane into the IRS office building.  

            The IRS internal Inspector General found that Tea Party groups had been segregated out for special scrutiny and denial of legal rights not required of similar liberal groups. NY Senator Chuck Schumer recently said that Tea Party group's false claims of government overspending have to be stopped by the IRS. An internal military policy to repress Christian chaplains’ rights to minister to service persons and prohibiting open displays of Christian symbols within the military was recently disclosed. Dinesh Disousa, who produced a documentary of Obama’s life before election showing his anticolonial, anti western communist roots, has been indicted for alleged campaign contribution violations, of a type virtually routine on the left, but just as routinely ignored. On and on go the examples of government vilification, misrepresentation and outright repression of any and all advocates of individual freedom, traditional morality and fiscal conservatism.

            Many believe the news media, the Courts or Congress will fix the illegalities in the spying operations, but there is little hope for more than window dressing here. Congress passed the laws that are the basis of the programs and most ranking members have known about all of it and approved; the F.I.S.A. Court, made up of sitting Federal Judges, approved the NSA spying programs in the first place.  The corporate giants whose records were subpoenaed, Google, Verizon, ATT, Yahoo, etc. were all threatened by the DOJ with prosecution under F.I.S.A. if they revealed anything about the secret subpoenas and they complied.  The main stream media is unlikely to be of any help,  they have been the lap dog of big government for a long time now and have no intention of changing course any time soon.  So who really thinks any of these institutions is going step in to stop the abuse, without a major overturn of the current parties in powers?