Saturday, August 17, 2013

You Won’t BELIEVE What’s Going On with Government Spying on Americans

[ Washington's Blog - http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2013/08/you-wont-believe-whats-going-on-with-government-spying-on-americans.html ]

You Won’t BELIEVE What’s Going On with Government Spying on Americans

New Revelations Are Breaking Every Day

Revelations about the breathtaking scope of government spying are coming so fast that it’s time for an updated roundup:
  • NSA whistleblowers say that the NSA collects all of our conversations word-for-word
  • While the government initially claimed that mass surveillance on Americans prevented more than 50 terror attacks, the NSA’s deputy director John Inglis walked that position back all the way to saying that – at the mostone (1) plot might have been disrupted by the bulk phone records collection alone.  In other words, the NSA can’t prove that stopped any terror attacks. The government greatly exaggerated an alleged recent terror plot for political purposes (and promoted the fearmongering of serial liars).  The argument that recent terror warnings show that NSA spying is necessary is so weak that American counter-terrorism experts have slammed it as “crazy pants”
  • The feds are considering prosecuting the owner of a private email company – who shut down his business rather than turning over records to the NSA – for refusing to fork over the information and keep quiet.  This is a little like trying to throw someone in jail because he’s died and is no longer paying taxes
  • Mass spying . Indeed, the Pentagon now sees the collection of “big data” as a “national security threat” … but the NSA is the biggest data collector on the planet, and thus provides a tempting mother lode of information for foreign hackers
  • IT and security professionals are quite concerned about government spying
  • Congress members are getting an earful from their constituents about mass surveillance
  • Only 11% of Americans trust Obama to actually do anything to rein in spying
  • A Congressman noted that – even if a mass surveillance program is started for good purposes – it will inevitably turn into a witch hunt