Obama Displays the Pluck,Courage That Senate Dems Lack

What can I say? President Barack Obama displayed courage and determination tonight in putting forward an executive action for immigration that has all the repukes going batshit crazy.

Obama has shown more than ample pluck in DOING something after the Repugs sat on their asses  for at least a year and a half. Also, Obama presented a welcome image of Democratic strength and cojones in total contrast to the pusillanimity of the Senate Dems (in voting for the Keystone abomination) and especially the timid wimp and weasel Harry REID. 

If you need an alert on Reid's cowardice  see my previous post on how the wussy-ish patsy plans to fully give in to the Reepos no matter what odious legislation they pass. 

At least it looks like we can depend on a re-energized Obama to veto any crap that arrives at his desk - including the Ryan Budget to turn Medicare into a voucher program, drastic Social Security cuts and also the Keystone XL pipeline. We sure can't depend on Reid to prevent R-contaminated laws from leaving Capitol Hill!

Basically, in his 17-odd minute address, Obama announced the extension of protections against deportation for approximately 5 m undocumented immigrants in the United States, many of whom would become eligible for work permits but who would not receive green cards or citizenship.

The measure encompassed migrant parents of children who themselves are citizens or legal residents, as well as an expanded pool of immigrants who arrived in the United States as children.  Obama billed his actions as a step toward “accountability" - which it is obvious they were.   As part of his action he also said hundreds of border agents had been added in the southwest and that the new orders would clear backlogs in immigration courts.


Obama's actions included a program to prioritize deportation of known criminals, individuals believed to pose a national security threat and others. Hillary Clinton and other Democrats welcomed the actions, but Republicans predictably decried the moves as a gross usurpation of power on the part of the president. 

Of course this is balderdash and even former Bush  Jr. AG, Henry Gonzalez- interviewed on CNN last night - was not about to refer to the actions as illegal - given that "the President has lots of discretion on the interpretation of laws."  He was clearly referring to the fact that Obama, contrary to the Repugs' bilge, was not  automatically "legalizing" 5 million immigrants - but only putting them to the very rear of the deportation line. A huge difference!

The Repukes plan to take it to court and some of the more insane are even using the I-word, but let them. They won't get anywhere. Presidents since LBJ have been expanding the warp and woof of executive power and Bush II was the ultimate, with his thousands of signing statements and openly flouting laws (such as the 1978 FISA law,  by using illegal wiretaps) then sitting back while congressional worms made it legit in retrospect.  Obama may not be a beneficiary of the same congressional passivity but at least I am 99 % sure no court will find against him. Even the Roberts' Supremes.

Stay tuned. In the meantime, enjoy the spectacle of a Dem Prez not frightened to use his power against the Rs, despite their hysteria about "lawlessness". Harry Reid, take note! The best defense is a bold offense!

See also:

http://smirkingchimp.com/thread/tina-dupuy/59699/republicans-can-stop-pretending-they-want-immigration-reform

'"Constitutionalists"? How About TEA BAGGERS?

 

 Brother! Seems some angry "Constitutionalists" (with too much time on their hands) saw my post yesterday and it has their panties in a twist. They claim that I represent the "Anti-constitutionalists", and am really trying to subvert that  document, and hey - I also can't "think for myself". Really? Then how come I have vigorously defended the Constitution on numerous  occasions, while extolling Ed Snowden's defense of our civil liberties, e.g.

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2013/07/too-many-americans-dont-deserve-liberty.html

 

The self-declared Constitutionalist (I call him a Tea Bagger, or member of the Tea Party) writes:

 

 "They have never been forced to seek out an inner strength, a personal treasure, which guides them to a greater purpose. Everything they think they believe in has been conditioned into them. Their uniqueness is suppressed, and their characters shallow. They have never loved an idea, or a principle"

 

Well, I dispute that, given that when I joined the Peace Corps, and served FOUR years in a backwater place, living in a shanty home - I most certainly summoned "inner strength" and saw the "personal treasure" in helping others.  As for believing and having it "conditioned" in me, I doubt it. If that were the case I'd not have been opposed to all our wars of choice (like Vietnam, Iraq etc.) as well as actually writing a book to expose the assassination of John Kennedy as a bona fide conspiracy. As far as "never loving an idea" - what bollocks! Of course, if I practice - as in the examples above - of criticizing my government I de facto must love the idea of freedom of speech as well as personal liberty. But these sort of arguments are typical for these "Constitutionalists" who claim to be the only ones to revere the Constitution and assert it is "cast in stone".

 

But this merely discloses their level of education.

 

True to form, we hear much talk from these zealots about the “original intent” of the Founders in writing the Constitution but very little evidence that these latter day, wannabe purists actually know what any single part means. For example, the Whacko Right and Tea Party (they insist they are "independents' but they're nothing of the sort), based mainly in the Federalist society and other bastions, insists the Constitution was designed to limit government – the reach thereof- and also any innovative government programs which they deem have no basis in the original parchment.

 

But dare to ask them about the “unenumerated rights of citizens" declared under the Ninth Amendment of the Bill of Rights (referred to as those rights 'not denied or disparaged' by the enumerated rights) and their faces all turn as blank as their minds. No wonder! The whole concept of rights that can exist without being actually mentioned is something beyond their ken, or conception!

 

Evidently, then, they have never really read the Constitution as carefully as they believe! In fact, as Prof. Garry Wills has pointed out, the unenumerated rights are all those rights not already specifically declared or described in the existing document. The Founders thereby realized and understood there could exist rights in the future they hadn’t conceived of at the time of the Constitutional Convention, and so allowed those (then) undefined rights to become realized later. In other words, the rights allotted citizens are not limited to the rights actually and specifically delineated, i.e. in the Bill of Rights.

 

Many Federalists actually believe the unenumerated Rights refer to “State’s Rights” but this is false. The States have NO rights, only flesh and blood citizens can possess Rights, as the selfsame authors (e.g. James Madison, Alexander Hamilton etc.) noted in The Federalist Papers - which one would have thought the Federalist Society would be acquainted with. Indeed, in Amendment X, the reference is specifically made to powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution - nor prohibited by it to the States- are reserved to the States respectively...). Thus, the States have prerogatives and powers, but citizens have rights. This is a critical distinction that most tea baggers lack clue one about, even as they pound their chests as being the only "true" adherents to the Constitution.

Another Teepee myth is the Constitution was created to protect states from federal power, but this is bollocks. The fact is, in The Federalist Papers James Madison himself compared the federal government system to the Solar system. Just as the planets (analogous to states) could not exist as part of that system without the centralized force of gravitational pull of the Sun, so also the federal system could not exist without the centralized pull of the federal government – leading the diversity of states to be one cohesive entity as government. Thus we do find the Constitution includes limits but mostly limits on STATE governments.

If the Constitution was intended to limit the federal government power it certainly doesn’t say so. In Article I, Section 8 – the longest segment of the document, we see an extended declaration of congressional power. (The States are mainly afforded their power in the articles of confederation). In addition, it ends by clearly delegating to Congress the ability “to make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers and all other powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or any Department thereof."

Another canard promoted by Tea Party idiots (based upon assorted signs at their rallies), is that of proclaiming "No taxation!" In fact, the REAL issue at the Boston Tea Party was: No taxation without representation!. Nowhere in the Constitution does it say 'No taxes', period! Again, Sec. 8 of Article I clearly states:

"The Congress shall have the power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises to pay Debts and provide for the common defense and General Welfare of the United States"

In terms of Obama's Affordable Care Act, wingnuts and Tea baggers have argued that the decision to buy health insurance must be a private one, and hence one can opt out or not. The government can't dictate such a purchase, even if it would bring down premiums for all. Thus, a young and healthy worker may simply decide the costs are not for her so she decides not to buy .But what if she then gets into a major auto or motorcycle accident and requires serious surgery? Without health insurance this means landing in an ER where the costs are much greater. Most of these costs are passed on to the regular insurance holders for whom it can be regarded as a kind of extra tax on them in higher premiums.

Multiplied millions of times this would represent a significant additional (and unintended) tax upon all the regular insurance buyers! In other words, it would be totally unacceptable. Thus, in the case above, the private decision to opt out has major impacts on the overall plan and purchases - so can't be tolerated. In other words, doing nothing - buying nothing, can be a private decision with huge deleterious public consequences! Now, is the Affordable Care Act somewhat cynical? Yes, I agree, and according to one University of Pennsylvania Law Review article: Making healthy young adults pay billions of dollars in premiums into the national health care market is the only way to fund universal health care coverage without raising substantial new taxes.

While my preference, if I were in charge, would be to raise new taxes, then let people opt out if they chose (after paying their taxes!)But again, being cynical or a law embodying it, is not proscribed by the Constitution. The most crucial aspect to grasp for any Constitutional insight(especially for students), is that it was written as a flexible set of rules which could be amended (as it has been) and not a dead hand authority restricting options, choices or novel inputs to adjust to the changing times. As I said, it's not a bible, nor should the Founders' words be treated as some kind of inerrant text (look at the provisions for black-slave citizens, to regard them as only 3/5 of white!).

The Second Amendment and right to bear arms is another case in point, which the Tea bagger crowd clearly sees fit to ignore when it suits their purpose. They insist the amendment gives them the "right to bear arms" but it does no such thing. The 2nd amendment in fact assured an equipped MILITIA (because no standing army existed when this section was written).  Thus, you were regarded as part of a state or local militia and that conferred the right! (And btw, they were allotted muskets with bayonets, not AR15s, Bushmaster .223s or Glocks!) Convenient then how these guys rag on the Constitution being "engraved in stone" but then alter it at THEIR whim!
 

Our aim then needs to be to rescue the concept of a living Constitution from being a whipping boy of the Wingnuts and tea bagger extremists. A Constitution by itself, after all, guarantees nothing. (Bolshevik Russia and Nazi Germany had constitutions). In effect, if there is no genuine spirit of liberty in the hearts and minds of citizens, then their nation's Constitution can be no more than just a "piece of paper" - as George W. Bush once memorably put it, when he enlisted a derelict judiciary to justify his (1978) FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) excesses. One thing everyone must understand is that Constitutions by themselves - including ours- don't protect our spirit of liberty, it is our spirit of liberty and the grasp of what it requires, which protects the Constitution. This is something that the Constitution idolaters, who claim to study this document so fervently and obsessively, have yet to learn.

In this sense, the Progressive opposition to Tea Party pseudo-Constitutional fetishism is correct, and their argument that if the Teepees had their way they'd repeal the whole of the 20th century is also. (They'd likely still regard blacks as 3/5 of a person too!)  It is time then to seize the document and prevent it from being corrupted by Tea Bagger hogwash if it means anything to us!

 

Sadly, once more, we see that these tropes and canards about the Constitution show that American Right wingers lack not only critical thinking skills but insight and education into the document they hold so dear.

 

NSA Troll Clapper Now Admits 4th Amendment Was Violated (Though He Doesn't Put It So!)

"Those who would sacrifice an essential liberty for the purpose of a temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - Benjamin Franklin

"In every government on earth is some trace of human weakness, some germ of corruption and degeneracy, which cunning will discover and wickedness insensibly open." - Thomas Jefferson, in 'Notes on Virginia'.

"Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone. The people themselves therefore are its only safe depositories. AND TO RENDER THEM SAFE, THEIR MINDS MUST BE IMPROVED." - Thomas Jefferson, 'Notes on Virginia'.

Less than a year ago on this blog I pointed out there were likely "thousands of 4th amendment violations"  thanks to the scurrilous NSA programs PRISM, MUSCULAR, XKeyscore.  See e,g,
http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2013/08/thousands-of-4th-amendment-violations.html

Now, we know there were millions, thanks to NSA troglodyte James Clapper's recent admissions of warrantless wiretaps.  Before examining Clapper's admission (which was cloaked in a pseudo-legalese cover) let us note the 4th amendment is very clear on the limits of warrants and how they are issued. The specific wording is:

"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”

Note, “secure in one’s person, house, papers, effects” implies PRIVACY! These are after all MY private papers, my private effects, my house, etc. If an inherent right to privacy was a myth then by all accounts being secure in one’s person, papers, effects wouldn’t matter. Hell, let the whole freakin’ world see ‘em! This is why in a fascist dictatorship “personal effects” don’t exist. “Personal papers” has no meaning. The state has full monopoly, de facto ownership on whatever the person has, even his own body. Hence, in fascist dictatorships, such as existed in Nazi Germany, all personal effects, papers could be seized by the Nazis on a whim or remote suspicion - under the Reich Laws. (The Reich laws, as Konrad Heiden notes, altered Weimar laws to render what had been originally illegal, legal.)

Clapper has finally admitted that the National Security Agency had a secret backdoor into its vast databases under a "legal authority"  enabling it to search for US citizens' email and phone calls without a warrant. This was revealed in top-secret NSA documents provided to the Guardian by Edward Snowden.

The previously undisclosed rule change allows NSA operatives to hunt for individual Americans' communications using their name or other identifying information. Senator Ron Wyden told the Guardian that the law provided the NSA with a "loophole"  potentially allowing "warrantless searches for the phone calls or emails of law-abiding Americans".

Now, we know - thanks to Clapper's admissions in his letter, the searches were indeed warrantless - and hence in violation of the 4th amendment.  This is according to the most recent Guardian report,
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/apr/01/nsa-surveillance-loophole-americans-data

According to Clapper, quoted above, NSA "performed warrantless searches on Americans' emails and phone calls."

We must not only thank Edward Snowden for the original revelations, but also Sen. Ron Wyden for keeping after Clapper to respond to his letters and 'fess up.  (After all, Wyden already knew the little rat lied before a Senate Intelligence Committee last March when asked directly if the NSA conducted mass surveillance of Americans.)

Of course, to Clapper 'fessing up isn't the same as it is for the rest of us. NO, it means delivering a mealy-mouthed wad of euphemistic babble which - for the weaker minded- is designed to assuage any doubts that it was legal by baffling with bullshit. Clapper's exact words as reported by The Guardian:

"There have been queries, using US person identifiers, of communications lawfully acquired to obtain foreign intelligence targeting non-US persons reasonably believed to be located outside the United States.

These queries were performed pursuant to minimization procedures approved by the Fisa court and consistent with the statute and the fourth amendment.”


Pay attention to the last sentence in particular, because this is where the attempted exculpation of his misbegotten agency resides.  He claims the "queries were performed pursuant to minimization procedures approved by the FISA court" but what were these anyway?  In fact, nothing more than the merest fig leaf. The merest cover to defend the searches (i.e. one "end" of a phone call is in a foreign country, say Barbados).

Most of these came under Section 702  of the misnamed "Patriot Act" - which the traitors in congress also helped approve. As Clapper pointed out:

“As you know, when Congress reauthorized Section 702, the proposal to restrict such queries was specifically raised and ultimately not adopted,”

So congress punked out, When the opportunity arose to protect citizens' rights under the 4th amendment, congress shat on it, and refused to adopt the protections. Traitors!  Let us also recall congress - instead of prosecuting the Bushites for their warrantless wiretapping - made those illegal searches LEGAL!  Thus, they perverted the existing 1978 FISA law as fully as Hitler and the Nazis perverted the original Weimar laws into "Reich laws". The point is that using such a nefarious tactic any act which was once condemned as illegal can be made "legal" - all that's needed is the political will and power to do so.   This is why Clapper insists in his letter that the procedures were "consistent with the statutes and the 4th amendment".

In fact they were not! The 4th amendment is clear in its wording - as I showed above. Individual warrants must be issued for individual acts. And no amount of perturbing the language or making laws that were once illegal, legal can alter that. In this sense, the laws that legalized the original warrantless wiretaps of the Bushites are themselves baseless and LAWLESS.  They overturned the real laws that afforded genuine protections in return for mock laws.

Senators Wyden and  (Mark) Udall,  in their response to the Clapper bafflegab, were blunt:

“This is unacceptable. It raises serious constitutional questions, and poses a real threat to the privacy rights of law-abiding Americans. If a government agency thinks that a particular American is engaged in terrorism or espionage, the fourth amendment requires that the government secure a warrant or emergency authorization before monitoring his or her communications. This fact should be beyond dispute,”

If congress really had the interests of Americans at heart, and the protection of their 4th amendment rights, they'd have prosecuted the Bushite criminals, as they ought to have for their torture and rendition exercises - and illegal wars.  But they punked out! They refused to exercise their authority to uphold the actual laws, much as the Nazis - once in power- overturned the existing Weimar legal infrastructure in the Enabling Act. 

The tragedy is that by legalizing lawlessness - as regards the Constitution and citizen rights - the country has proceeded down the path of a "gangster state"- to use the words of deep politics authors Michael Parenti, as well as Chris Hedges, see e.g. http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/bradley_manning_and_the_gangster_state_20130821

The Senators final comment is one which to which we all need to pay heed:

“Today’s admission by the Director of National Intelligence is further proof that meaningful surveillance reform must include closing the back-door searches loophole and requiring the intelligence community to show probable cause before deliberately searching through data collected under section 702 to find the communications of individual Americans."

NSA Gnome James Clapper: A Dope or a Nut?

It appears the liar and 4th amendment traitor James Clapper went on a tirade yesterday, demanding whistleblower Edward Snowden "return all the stolen documents" and calling the surveillance disclosures published by the Guardian, Washington Post, NY Times and other news outlets a “perfect storm” that would endanger American lives."  Of course, this is a pile of horse manure, as ripe as Clapper's LIES before the Senate Intelligence Committee in March of last year. So bad, that Patriot Act co-author James Sensenbrenner was led to assert in October(to the Guardian):

"Oversight only works when the agency that oversight is directed at tells the truth, and having Mr Clapper say he gave the least untruthful answer should, in my opinion, have resulted in a firing and a prosecution,"

And as for endangering American lives let's be mindful of Bruce Schneier, a security specialist, who wrote in The New York Times last July 3rd:

"The argument that exposing these documents helps the terrorists doesn't even pass the laugh test; there's nothing here that changes anything any potential terrorist would do or not do."

Evidently also, Clapper and his other NSA troglodytes never received the 'memo' that Snowden's documents are already electronically 'out there'  - in the proper hands of media sites that have agreed to disclose the content in quantized measures - as opposed to giant dumps. Even if Snowden were to agree to give back what he actually took, the copies of the documents would remain in cyberspace. Making one wonder if Clapper is a dope or a nut.

Reinforcing this, is that Clapper - arrogant ass that he is - offers nothing in compensation to Snowden - other than a "trial" (read kangaroo court mock trial) if he returns with what he has.  Is he joking or what? Why on earth should Snowden come back with his material to face a jury-rigged trial, likely from a military court, and a judge as biased as the one that sabotaged the Garrison case against CIA contract agent Clay Shaw?

Again, the sign of un unbalanced dope whose hubris and power have clearly gone to his head. Even more laughable, according to the Guardian account:

"Testifying before a rare and unusually raucous public session of the Senate intelligence committee that saw yet another evolution in the Obama administration’s defense of bulk domestic phone records collection, Clapper called on “Snowden and his accomplices” to return the documents the former National Security Agency contractor took, in order to minimize what he called the “profound damage that his disclosures have caused and continued to cause”.

Again, this is bollocks. The damage amounts to nothing, not one thing. The REAL damage is to these disgusting spooks whose act has finally been exposed for the world to see and who believe they have a license to gobble up everything about people in their metadata grabs. (And again, Obama is just as wrong to defend them- though as I've written before, he's likely coerced by their threats to do so.)

Clapper's "accomplices" bunkum is also choice, and an apparent imitation of the idiot Mike Rogers' recent rants about Snowden having "allies" in the FSB or Russian Intelligence. This despite the fact that Snowden has repeatedly said he acted alone in assembling and leaking a vast trove of information on the scope of US surveillance efforts.

Clapper also appears ignorant of the fact this was a conclusion  reportedly reached by the NSA’s official investigation into the Snowden leaks. SO again, he's either a dope or totally incompetent - if he isn't even aware of the conclusions reached by his own NSA.


 At the hearing, senator Ron Wyden, the Oregon Democrat whose questioning last March ended with Clapper lying to the panel about the deliberate collection of Americans’ data, pressed Clapper to give public answers on surveillance activities on American information “sent over the web or stored in the cloud” – references to NSA’s so-called “upstream” collection capabilities, which allow the agency to harvest data in transit. He also questioned Clapper on whether the NSA had conducted “warrantless searches” for “specific” Americans’ identifying information in its vast databases of foreigners’ internet content, an authority first reported by the Guardian.

“Can you tell us today whether any such searches have ever been conducted?” Wyden asked. To which Clapper responded:

“Senator Wyden, I think, at a threat hearing, this would ... I would prefer not to discuss this and have this as a separate subject. There are very complex legal issues here, I just don’t think this is the appropriate time or place,”

In other words, 'we gotta do these mass  metadata grabs but we can't provide you with any evidence to justify them'.  Confirming what many of us in deep politics already suspect, that the "terror" card is being played as an expeditious smokescreen to cover up an all -encompassing industrial -economic espionage program and - as a byproduct -  to monitor the masses. The last thing the security state wants to see, or be caught off guard on, is tens of thousands rioting in the streets and burning cars, etc. - as they are in the Ukraine.  This is irrespective of whether the cause is fouled water, as recently occurred in West Virginia, or because a new Occupy movement takes hold to mobilize against the banksters and Tom Perkins' spoiled rich.

Above all, the masses must be monitored so they can be controlled. Hence, the use of a mass grab spy program to compile lists of "enemies of the state" for Main Core.

Another misbegotten canard is Clapper's insistence that the mass data grabs are allowed under current law. Let me assert if this is the case, that law is an 'ass' and in violation of the 4th amendment. The reason is that even a cursory reading of the 4th amendment shows the wording is predicated on individualized warrants! Hence, you cannot have a collective seizure of data that conforms to the heart of the amendment. What Clapper is really defending is the bastardized version of the FISA law that was created and approved AFTER the Bushies were caught out doing warrantless wiretaps in 2006-08.

Again, for those with short memories, the original (1978) FISA law required individual warrants which had to be sought from a proper FISA court.  After Bush and his thugs were caught breaking it, congress - instead of prosecuting them - took the easy way out and made legal what had been illegal!  In other words, the "law" now on the books is an affront to not only the 1978 law, but the 4th amendment and was composed by traitors!

Perhaps the real reason Clapper and his NSA clones are frothing at the mouth  about Snowden and his disclosures was best expressed by a commenter on the Guardian forum (for the Clapper article):

·        Lightning strikes 300 Americans a year. Huge by comparison to terrorism. Maybe the real reason is the military budget. They cannot live without a threat equal to 20th century warfare. Why don't we let them defend us against space aliens? Terrorism is way down from the 1970s and paradoxically appears to be a receding threat. Ok, the worst months of Vietnam killed 2000 soldiers. It took years running two wars to reach that level. Times change. The real discussion is about making the citizens of America a replacement threat for the Pentagon to keep their budget. They have to do it in secret because the US is a Constitutional state.

Obama & Bill Maher: Mental Captives of the NSA - Security State

"Obama’s remarks about the importance of privacy obscured that he has not closed any door on the world’s most powerful surveillance agency." - Spencer Ackerman, UK Guardian, today

Well, the feedback is now in, after Obama's  NSA speech yesterday, and as Anthony Romero of the ACLU put it:

Today the president proposed a handful of incremental reforms, but unfortunately he missed this opportunity to stop all forms of bulk collection of innocent Americans’ data.

Obama's incremental reforms include: 1) NSA will no longer  hold Americans' phone records - though it will take months or years to accomplish (oh, and the gov't can still access your records if it needs to);  2) there will be "new restrictions" on spying on our allies, although a loophole is allowed (i.e. dependent on the definition of "close ally" and also the electronic spying can be done if a higher authority approves it); 3) there will be a "privacy advocate" or panel to appear before the "special" court in cases where a mass surveillance order are pending. The advocate/s would presumably argue robustly to "lay off" bulk collection in certain cases.  It's a bit of an advance considering that previously no public input was permitted as to who would be included in NSA  bulk surveillance.

Oh, last but not least, Obama is promising privacy protection for foreign citizens of Europe etc., who can now expect their emails will no longer be logged, or their Twitter messages, Facebook pages.  Excuse me, let me back up: There won't be any such spying "unless there is a compelling national security purpose for the United States."

While these give a nod to civil libertarians, the 8 ton "elephant" in the room (concealed by a lot of fulsome privacy rhetoric)  remains bulk collection of metadata, which represents the most grievous violation of the 4th amendment. (See my previous post) Thus, Obama punted on what would have been the most significant advance and the real indicator that he respects the 4th.  Meanwhile, he has continued his dismissive tone toward Snowden, noting that the whistleblower's (Obama obviously doesn't believe he's one) disclosures have harmed U.S national security. This despite the fact Obama wouldn't have even had to present a nominal appearance of civil liberties defense had Snowden not done what he did.

Indeed, mounting a full-throated defense of the NSA, Obama actually said:

"They're not abusing authorities in order to listen to your private phone calls, or read your emails. We cannot unilaterally disarm out intelligence agencies."

Of course, no one is asking him to do that. What we are insisting on is that we revert back to the original surveillance standards under the 1978 FISA law, which required specific warrants issued and out in the open, vetted by open courts, not secret rubber-stampers. From this, it's clear either Obama doesn't get it or he doesn't want to, or he's a mental -psychological captive of the security statists. 

To reinforce my point,  Obama did not once mention that even  judges on the FISA-"Redux" courts (redone after a pitiful congress made legal Bush's original warrantless wiretaps) have found the NSA has consistently and repeatedly overstepped its bounds. Hell, even the original authors of the Patriot Act  (Sens. Jim Sensenbrenner and Patrick Leahy) have said so! 

However, as I noted in my last blog post, Obama can perhaps be forgiven, certainly if he's an unwilling mental captive. He surely knows how the security state thwarted the administrations of Eisenhower and Kennedy using nefarious tricks. In the case of Ike it was the 1960 Big Four Summit, blown up by the U-2 incident contrived by Richard Bissell and the CIA. In Kennedy's case, it was the S. Vietnam coup and overthrow of the Diems, engineered by the CIA (unknown to JFK) cutting off all funds from the Commodity Import Aid Program. (For much more on this, see James Douglass': JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters.)

In effect, Obama knows he only has three years of his 2nd term left. He wants to leave with some kind of a legacy, especially if the Affordable Care Act meets expectations. What he doesn't need, and certainly fears, is the security state undermining him - possibly by launching a bogus terror attack, along the lines of the 'Operation Northwoods" template. If you don't know what Northwoods is, you need to google it!

So therefore giving them what they want is in his own best interests, to at least have a good chance of his presidency ending on a solid upbeat note.

As for Bill Maher, after his HBO show ('REAL TIME') last night - namely the interview with Glenn Greenwood (who published a series of articles on Edward Snowden's released files in the UK Guardian)  I must include him as a mental captive of the security state as well.  I refer to his reactions to specific Snowden statements as "bat shit crazy" - even after Greenwald corrected him and noted that HIS reactions to Snowden's statements as "bat shit crazy" were what was bat shit crazy.

But then, what can we expect of a guy who, in his Nov. 22 show, claimed that any conspiracy thinking was in the same category as god belief. Now, THAT is bat shit crazy! (In my Nov. 23rd blog post : 'What Have We Learned This Past Week',  I skewered Bill's take, as well as that of his guest, Katty Kay.)

Bill at one point asked Glenn Greenwald:

"Wouldn't you agree that every time Edward Snowden opens his mouth he says something completely bat shit nuts. He reminds me a lot of Ron Paul. I agree with what he says, I nod along, then he says something totally batshit."


When Greenwald pressed for specific examples, Maher replied that Snowden said:

"These programs were never about terrorism they were about social control and diplomatic manipulation."

Maher adding: "That's crazy. They were about stopping terrorists."

He also gave another Snowden quote:

"They can use this material to go back in time and scrutinize every decision you've ever made and find every friend you've ever discussed something with."

Then asked Greenwald, 'This is nuts, right?'

To which Greenwald replied:

"No, Bill, what's nuts is the fact that you think that's nuts. Let me explain why. A lot of the stories we've reported have nothing to do with terrorism. They're about spying on economic summits in Latin America, oil companies in Brazil, democratically elected leaders of our closest allies who have nothing to do with terrorism. His point is that, of course, some of this is directed at terrorism, but this massive system that's been built, the huge bulk of it, has nothing to do with national security. It has to to do with the reasons why the people in political power always want to surveil various populations because it does give them greater power.

As for slowing down the internet, that comes right from documents that we've published, because the NSA collects everything and then stores it for a long enough time so that in their words, it 'slows down the internet' so they can go back at any time and see your entire history. Where you browsed, what kind of search terms you entered, to whom you've been speaking or emailing, I mean look, he's a 29-year old who's not a trained politician. He doesn't have aides whispering in his ear- what he should say, he's not adept at that. That's what makes him so impressive. It was an act of conscience that he just stepped forward as an ordinary person."

Maher still couldn't get the implications into his head, retorting that Snowden's claim that they know every friend you've ever discussed anything with is 'fucking nuts' and "we'll just have to agree to disagree on what's fucking nuts." Yeah, right. Bill,  you need to wake up and smell the coffee. That means stepping out of your Denial domain.

The main point missed by Bill is that Snowden's statements are entirely consistent with the NSA bulk collection of  data, including one's email address books (which we now know the NSA has, globally) and its long term storage - as well as the long term phone records and their storage. If they have the records of those, then they fucking A- DO know who all your friends are, in terms of which names on their email, phone lists match those with whom you've communicated the most. This isn't relativity or rocket science.

The fact that Maher didn't appreciate or get this, discloses he's either lost a step, or has not done enough homework on exactly how far reaching the NSA programs are.

I still have faith in Bill and am hoping that in some future show he retracts his BS, admits he was talking out of his ass regarding his opinions of Snowden, and rejoins the "good guy" branch of  libertarians. In the meantime, along with Obama, I will have to classify him as a mental captive of the security state.

See also:

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jan/17/obama-nsa-speech-surveillance-reforms-fight

http://www.salon.com/2014/01/17/obamas_nsa_reforms_the_devil_in_the_details/

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/mary-shaw/53710/amnesty-says-nsa-revisions-fall-short

Edward Snowden Vindicated by Judge's Ruling That NSA Dragnet Program is Unconstitutional

"I have little doubt the author of our Constitution, James Madison,  would be aghast"

"The government does not cite a single instance where the program actually stopped an imminent attack"

 - Federal Circuit Judge Richard Leon ruling against NSA super dragnet spying yesterday.

Richard Leon is another hero and defender of the Constitution irrespective of whether or not his momentous ruling on the NSA monster spy programs are overturned on appeal. We know it only takes one voice, even in the minority, to espouse truth and constitutional principles even if liars, reprobates and traitors are arrayed against them - to the extent of re-doing earlier laws (like the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) to render the illegal, legal.

Judge Leon, in a 68 -page ruling issued in Washington on Monday, argued that the bulk collection of Americans’ telephone records by the National Security Agency is likely to violate the US constitution, in the most significant legal setback for the agency since the publication of the first surveillance disclosures by whistleblower  and constitutional hero, Edward Snowden.

Judge Leon declared that the mass collection of metadata probably violates the fourth amendment, which prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures, and was "almost Orwellian" in its scope. In a judgment replete with literary swipes against the NSA, he said James Madison, the architect of the US constitution, would be "aghast" at the scope of the agency’s collection of Americans' communications data.

You have nailed it, Judge Leon, and I already noted this in many previous posts. The 4th amendment is VERY clear that specific warrants must be issued, not mass warrants! I don't give a fuck how "inconvenient" it is or how long and arduous that process might be. Tough shit! Either adhere to the principles or admit you're traitors to your constitutional oaths. People can read the words of the Fourth for themselves below:

“The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”

Read it slowly and carefully, especially the emphasized portions over again. Clearly, the NSA MASS-grabbing of data violates directly the 4th amendment, and yeah, I'm as much a stickler about the 4th as the gun people are about the 2nd.

As I noted before, "secure in one’s person, house, papers, effects” implies PRIVACY! These are after all MY private papers, my private effects, my house, etc. If an inherent right to privacy was a myth then by all accounts being secure in one’s person, papers, effects wouldn’t matter. Hell, let the whole freakin’ world see ‘em! This is why in a fascist dictatorship “personal effects” don’t exist. “Personal papers” has no meaning. The state has full monopoly, de facto ownership on whatever the person has, even his own body. Hence, in fascist dictatorships, such as existed in Nazi Germany, all personal effects, papers could be seized by the Nazis on a whim or remote suspicion - under the Reich Laws. A fundamental right to privacy, meanwhile, insists there exist bona fide entities that one can uniquely own, e.g. papers, effects – including photos or what not- that are private. Without this fundamental right, then, “personal papers, effects” has no meaning hence the 4th amendment is meaningless.

It is clear to me that Judge Leon recognizes this, even if neoliberal coward and administration mouthpiece Jay Carney (calling for Snowden's return and prosecution) doesn't. Will Carney ever pull his head out of his ass? Probably never!

But what do you expect from Carney? The ruling, by the US district court for the District of Columbia, is a blow to the Obama administration, and sets up a legal battle that will drag on for months, almost certainly destined to end up in the Supreme Court. It was welcomed by campaigners pressing to rein in the NSA, and by Snowden, who issued a rare public statement saying it had vindicated his disclosures. It is also likely to influence other legal challenges to the NSA, currently working their way through federal courts.

Judge Leon expressed doubt about the central rationale for the program cited by the NSA: that it is necessary for preventing terrorist attacks. “The government does not cite a single case in which analysis of the NSA’s bulk metadata collection actually stopped an imminent terrorist attack".

Leon added:

“Given the limited record before me at this point in the litigation – most notably, the utter lack of evidence that a terrorist attack has ever been prevented because searching the NSA database was faster than other investigative tactics – I have serious doubts about the efficacy of the metadata collection program as a means of conducting time-sensitive investigations in cases involving imminent threats of terrorism.”

If such instances  of actual success - based specifically on the dragnet programs - are not cited, then obviously we can't ascertain if the protection of the program is all based on some BS smokescreen  or not. Telling us that to provide the information would "risk national security" is horse patootey and insults our intelligence. It also gives cover to the spooks to do whatever the hell they want.

Leon’s opinion also contained stern and repeated warnings that he was inclined to rule that the metadata collection performed by the NSA – and defended vigorously by the NSA director Keith Alexander on CBS on Sunday night – was unconstitutional. (Alexander, treating us all like untutored children or idiots insisted he saw no other way to do the collection other than by mass dragnet - as one cheeky Denver Post letter writer put it, he could as well "put us all in prison then he can see and hear what we're doing and when any time he wants.")

Leon added:

“Plaintiffs have a substantial likelihood of showing that their privacy interests outweigh the government’s interest in collecting and analysing bulk telephony metadata and therefore the NSA’s bulk collection program is indeed an unreasonable search under the fourth amendment,”

Leon also said that the mass collection of phone metadata, revealed by the Guardian in June, was "indiscriminate" and "arbitrary" in its scope.  He also wrote:

"The almost-Orwellian technology that enables the government to store and analyze the phone metadata of every telephone user in the United States is unlike anything that could have been conceived in 1979,"

Referring to the year in which the US Supreme Court ruled on a fourth amendment case upon which the NSA now relies to justify the bulk records program. But he also implied that the later revision of that law was the main outrage: since it was done after the Bushies perpetrated warrantless wiretaps after 2005.  The pusillanimous punk traitor congress- instead of holding Bush to account and impeaching his sorry ass - let him get away with it by changing the 1978 FISA law to make mass warrantless wiretapping legal. It is amazing how few know about this and that all appeals to the later revised "law" are bogus.

Meanwhile, in a statement released subsequent to the ruling (related to Glenn Greenwald), Snowden said:

“I acted on my belief that the NSA's mass surveillance programs would not withstand a constitutional challenge, and that the American public deserved a chance to see these issues determined by open courts. Today, a secret program authorized by a secret court was, when exposed to the light of day, found to violate Americans’ rights. It is the first of many.”

We can only hope and trust this is the case, and that if and when it ends up at the Supreme Court they will perform their constitutional duty irrespective of their ideology.

Lastly, I was delighted to see Colorado Senator Mark Udall, a leading critic of the dragnet collection, welcomed the judgment.  In his words:

"The ruling underscores what I have argued for years: [that] the bulk collection of Americans' phone records conflicts with Americans' privacy rights under the US constitution and has failed to make us safer,"


Maybe one of these days, Mr. Obama - a  constitutional scholar at one time - will begin to see that.

TIME's PERSON of the YEAR? It Has to be Edward Snowden!

Anti-NSA demonstrators pay homage to Ed Snowden back in October.

As the scuttlebutt heats up over who will be TIME's Person of the Year, most of those who've been paying any attention at all believe it to be a no-brainer: Edward Snowden! The reason is simple: No other man or woman on this planet has done more to enhance the knowledge of citizens as to how their rights have been gutted by mass, indiscriminate surveillance, than Ed Snowden.  No other person has done more to expose maleficent deeds, including spying on allies and setting up an ancillary 'Patriot Act' program called "Main Core" to identify future "enemies of the state".  No other person has disclosed the extent to which the national security fascists have run amuck - even to the extent of seizing citizens' laptops - as disclosed by Green Greenwald on the UK Guardian some months ago (as occurred to his partner at Heathrow Airport - compliments of the GCHQ, NSA's Brit "sister".). 

Given this, and the fact knowledge is power, and the knowledge transmitted by Snowden also amounts to a global influence on world events, decisions -  on which the  'Person of the Year' is supposedly based, Snowden is a simple choice.  Yes, yes, the political class -  all in bed with the national security state   - will howl like stuck pigs, what would you expect? Their warp and woof is lies, political subterfuge and keeping us all deaf, dumb, blind and stupid. If we all had been kept as quiet, ignorant little sheep left to our own material consumption, debt and distractions,  they'd have no complaints about Snowden. But because this one Constitutional patriot opened daylight on their shenanigans he thereby became Public Enemy Number One. Never mind, to real citizens he's a hero for exposing the extent to which our 4th amendment rights have been gutted by false legislation that actually rendered legal what was once lawless.

What are some of the many contributions Edward Snowden has made in the last 6 months?

- Revealing the PRISM and XKeyscore programs of the NSA to gobble terabytes of "metadata" and other data, simply because the technology allows it. This, in direct violation of the 4th Amendment which demands specific warrants apply. But because a cowardly congress couldn't bring itself to prosecute the Bushies (who used warrantless wiretaps from 2005-07) then it made their lawlessness legal retroactively via a  2011 Fisa redo, with new rubber stamping Fisa courts replacing real ones (set up under the original 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act).

To acknowledge these mighty contributions of a true patriot, not a paper patriot, Jesselyn Radack, a former Justice Department ethics advisor,  now a director with the Government Accountability Project, read a statement from Snowden to a crowd of NSA protestors back in October:

 

 

"This isn't about red or blue party lines, and it definitely isn't about terrorism. It's about being able to live in a free and open society."

Indeed! But Snowden's June-July revelations were just the beginning.


- In September, before a U.S. -Brazil meeting Snowden revealed how the U.S. and NSA had spied upon the email messages of Brazilian President, Dilma Rousseff. Outraged, Rousseff took to a UN podium to decry the tactics, e.g.

She said:

"Without respect for a nation's sovereignty, there is no basis for proper relations among nations,"

This ought to be a no-brainer. Because to spy on another country is to display malignant distrust of the spied -on nation. It therefore undermines polity, as well as civility, and in the process destroys any potential for normal relations or mutual respect. I would advance the same regarding the relation between a state and its citizens. If the former intrudes and spies on its people, then it mistrusts them at the core, and the citizen - knowing this - has no choice but to mistrust the state.

Rousseff added:

"Without the right of privacy, there is no real freedom of speech or freedom of opinion, and so there is no actual democracy."

In other words, people denied this right - by NSA intrusiveness - via XKeyscore, PRISM or whatever, are inhabiting a Potemkin democracy. They have no true freedom of speech because they can't know how their (spied and mass-grabbed) speech is being used.

But without Snowden's justifiable revelations we'd never had been made aware of this!

Rousseff went on to say (ibid.):

"Tampering in such a manner in the affairs of other countries is a breach of international law and is an affront of the principles that must guide the relations among them, especially among friendly nations. A sovereign nation can never establish itself to the detriment of another sovereign nation. The right to safety of citizens of one country can never be guaranteed by violating fundamental human rights of citizens of another country."


- Within another month, Snowden revealed the extent of the NSA's spying on our own European allies.  This centered on grabbing up the cell phone messages of Germany's Angela Merkel. As the word leaked out, German Defense Minister Thomas de Maiziere told German ARD television the alleged surveillance would be “really bad” if confirmed. He added:  “The Americans are and remain our best friends, but this is absolutely not right.”


These revelations prompted a full court press to rein in the NSA spooks via new legislation ('USA Freedom Act')  touted by Patriot Act co-authors, Jim Sensenbrenner and Patrick Leahy.  Quoted in the UK Guardian, Sensenbrenner said:


"Oversight only works when the agency that oversight is directed at tells the truth, and having Mr Clapper say he gave the least untruthful answer should, in my opinion, have resulted in a firing and a prosecution,"

Referring to Clapper's lying before a Senate Committee earlier, in March. Sensenbrenner's outrage occurred even as it was disclosed that Americans' communications were supposed to be destroyed as soon as possible, but they could be kept by NSA  for up to six years to see if they meet certain criteria, according to recently declassified guidelines (pdf). In addition, it was learned that metadata about nearly every phone call made within the United States, kept in another NSA storehouse, can be saved for five years. 


Meanwhile, a New York Times report revealed that the NSA keeps a wide range of information about Americans' communications for up to five years in online databases and another ten years "offline for 'historical searches". Also revealed is that an FBI agent can open an intrusive investigation with no reason to suspect criminal activity, and any resulting information can be kept for 20-30 years, even if it has no relationship to the investigation.

All of which prompted Sensenbrenner to tell the Guardian:

"We had thought that the 2006 amendment, by putting the word 'relevant' in, was narrowing what the NSA could collect. Instead, the NSA convinced theFISA court that the relevance clause was an expansive rather than contractive standard, and that's what brought about the metadata collection, which amounts to trillions of phone calls." 


- Leading to the most recent revelations of the NSA "CO-TRAVELER" program which gobbles up 5 billion cell phone calls each day from around the world.  According to the most recent Guardian report, e.g. 

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/dec/04/nsa-storing-cell-phone-records-daily-snowden
 
"The spy agency is said to be tracking the movements of “at least hundreds of millions of devices” in what amounts to a staggeringly powerful surveillance tool. It means the NSA can, through mobile phones, track individuals anywhere they travel – including into private homes – or retrace previously traveled journeys.

The data can also be used to study patterns of behaviour to reveal personal information and relationships between different users."

If Edward Snowden doesn't receive the 'Person of the Year' award, then one can only conclude the award itself doesn't matter as it's not based on its own fundamental criteria!

No American Ought to be Complacent About NSA Mass Spying - Even with Gov't Shutdown

"I know the capacity that is there to make tyranny total in America. And we must see to it that this agency and all agencies that possess this technology operate within the law and under proper supervision so that we never cross that abyss. That is the abyss from which there is no return.” - Sen. Frank Church, referencing the NSA in 1975.

"Those who would sacrifice an essential liberty for the purpose of a temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."- Benjamin Franklin

According to assorted complaints from the NSA head spooks, including James Clapper and others, NSA hasn't been able to adhere to their full mass-spying mandate on account of the government shutdown. And so, we keep hearing the same complaints trotted out that we heard after Ed Snowden exposed this indiscriminate spying: "We're not able to protect Americans as long as this goes on". Of course, this doesn't even pass a basic laugh test. A number of former NSA people have made it clear this extreme 'haystack' approach - trying to find one "needle" to keep all of us safe - is pure bollocks.

Now, as reported in the UK Guardian we learn that the author of the Patriot Act, James Sensenbrenner, is up in arms and outraged at how NSA expanded the language in the original act to expand the FISA basis for searches. This conservative Republican who co-authored the Patriot Act is preparing to unveil bipartisan legislation that would dramatically curtail the domestic surveillance powers it gives to intelligence agencies.


Sensenbrenner's imminent bill in the House of Representatives is expected to be matched by a similar proposal from Senate judiciary committee chair Patrick Leahy, a Democrat. It pulls together existing congressional efforts to reform the National Security Agency in the wake of disclosures by whistleblower Edward Snowden. So again, we must honor and offer kudos for Snowden for exposing this - else we'd never have known about it - and nothing would have been done. So yeah, Snowden deserved the "Integrity in Intelligence" award he just received - probably the only one in government who deserves it.


Certainly Clapper doesn't! According to the Guardian, Sensenbrenner isn't taking Clapper's earlier lies lightly. He's  called for the prosecution of Obama's director of national intelligence,  who admitted misleading the Senate intelligence committee about the extent of bulk collection of telephone records.   According to Mr. Sensenbrenner:

"Oversight only works when the agency that oversight is directed at tells the truth, and having Mr Clapper say he gave the least untruthful answer should, in my opinion, have resulted in a firing and a prosecution,"


Certainly, if Obama had any balls at all, he ought to have fired Clapper on the spot. But then, I don't know, since he never prosecuted the Bushites for their war crimes (including torture and launching an illegal pre-emptive war), or went after Wall Street's denizens the way he should have, perhaps he is simply lacking the intestinal fortitude to make the hard decisions. I may be wrong, but I am - truthfully - not sanguine about any upcoming deals he plans to make with Repukes to keep the gov't open.

Or maybe Obama is terrified of the pseudo-liberal twerp, Dianne Feinstein. The Guardian notes that while Clapper has apologized for the incident, NSA reformers expect a fierce backlash to their proposals to rein in his powers in future. Sensenbrenner again:

"I anticipate a big fight, and Senator Feinstein has already basically declared war. If they use a law like Senator Feinstein is proposing, it will just allow them to do business as usual with a little bit of a change in the optics."

Why should Feinstein "declare war"? Hell, her hubby is one of the NSA contractors doing the spying, as the Guardian disclosed months ago! So, obviously, she has a vested interest in keeping this thing going the way it is, not in changing it. Which is another reason she needs to be replaced on the Senate Intelligence Committee: conflict of interest.  Another thing that bugs me: Why have the lazy U.S. media not exposed this?


Meanwhile, Sensenbrenner's twin effort with Leahy to introduce legislation via the House and Senate judiciary committees is partly intended to circumvent such opposition among intelligence committee leaders.  But make no mistake, without a leash being put on Feinstein, it will be a brutal drawn out battle and there is no assured positive result. This is also why Americans can't allow themselves to become complacent but ought to be fax blasting or emailing their reps to get this thing done.


Fortunately, there is plenty of support among other intelligence committee members. Democratic senators Ron Wyden and Mark Udall, who were first to seize on Snowden's disclosures as a way to make public their longstanding concerns, recently teamed up with Republican Rand Paul and colleague Richard Blumenthal to propose similar reforms of the NSA in their own bill.

Still, ordinary Americans need to care and can't let their guard down by pabulum from the spooks. By now, most people are aware that the NSA collects massive amounts of information on ordinary Americans. NSA Chief Keith Alexander would tell you that the government must collect the entire haystack to find the needle. But what happens to the rest of the haystack – the information about law-abiding citizens that gets swept up under ever-expanding collection authorities?

You may not want to know. In theory according to one Guardian columnist, the agencies involved in mass spying are obligated to separate the "needles" from "haystacks". In practice? Not so much.  Americans' communications are supposed to be destroyed as soon as possible, but they can be kept for up to six years to see if they meet certain criteria, according to recently declassified guidelines (pdf). Metadata about nearly every phone call made within the United States, kept in another NSA storehouse, can be saved for five years.

You haven't seen the worst, and a recent New York Times report revealed that the NSA keeps a wide range of information about Americans' communications for up to five years in online databases and another ten years "offline for 'historical searches'".


In addition, many other government agencies retain information about innocent Americans, according to a new report from the Brennan Center for Justice. Take the Federal Bureau of Investigation. As its mission transformed after 9/11 from crime-solving to terrorism prevention, the bureau dramatically expanded its legal authority to gather information about Americans with no basis for suspicion. At the same time, few if any additional restrictions were imposed on its powers to keep and share that information.

Today, an FBI agent can open an intrusive investigation with no reason to suspect criminal activity, and any resulting information can be kept for 20-30 years, even if it has no relationship to the investigation. Similarly, the FBI keeps so-called "suspicious activity reports" that are determined to have no relevance to terrorism – but may reflect Americans' constitutionally protected speech or other activities – for 30 years in a widely-accessible database.


Meanwhile, the National Counterterrorism Center, established in the years after 9/11 to serve as a central repository for terrorism-related information. The center issued guidelines last year allowing it to keep and search non-terrorism databases of Americans' information for up to five years, a ten-fold increase over the previous limit.

Why should we care that the government may keep and share information about us? If the government is only looking for terrorists, the vast majority of us surely have "nothing to hide".

But the government's broad sweep for information can land innocent Americans on watchlists from which it is difficult, if not impossible, to extricate themselves. Furthermore, history teaches that the accumulation of personal information about law-abiding citizens carries tremendous potential for abuse – including harassment of minorities, political enemies, and social activists.

NO American ought to put up with such clear 4th amendment violations!

Sensenbrenner, meanwhile, has rightly fulminated at how NSA's spooks have expanded the original definitions beyond their intended bounds. He told The Guardian:


"We had thought that the 2006 amendment, by putting the word 'relevant' in, was narrowing what the NSA could collect. Instead, the NSA convinced the Fisa court that the relevance clause was an expansive rather than contractive standard, and that's what brought about the metadata collection, which amounts to trillions of phone calls."


While the dissemblers in NSA and elsewhere have pointed to this 4th amendment- violating approach as the only way to reliably get data and "keep us safe". Sensebrenner, however,  claimed that NSA director general Keith Alexander only pointed to 13 possible suspicious individuals found through this method during his recent Senate testimony. According to Sensenbrenner.


"The haystack approach missed the Boston marathon bombing, and that was after the Russians told us the Tsarnaev brothers were bad guys,"


Make no mistake that none of this is tolerable. No American ought to turn a blind eye if he or she in any way embraces the Constitution.  More fundamentally, we ought to appreciate that keeping information about ordinary Americans "just in case" upends the traditional relationship between a democracy and its people. It effectively establishes a presumption that citizens are potentially guilty until proven innocent, and that the government has the right – even the responsibility – to stockpile information that may eventually prove their guilt.

In other words, it paves the way to a totalitarian fascist state. Thanks to Snowden we may have averted this future, but an immense political battle remains - and no one ought to relax their guard until our government is returned to its normal respect for our Constitutional protections.