Congress Is Holding Hearings on Government Spying … Here’s a Cheat Sheet
If you’ve been too busy to catch up on the details of the spying scandal, here’s an overview:
- The government is spying on just about everything we do. Even the government’s attempted denials of this fact confirm it
- The government has adopted a secret interpretation of the Patriot Act which allows it to pretend that “everything” is relevant … so it spies on everyone
- There is no real oversight by either Congress or the courts. And see this and this
- Even a Federal judge who was on the secret spying court for 3 years says that it’s a kangaroo court
- Experts say that the spying program is illegal, and is exactly the kind of thing which King George imposed on the American colonists … which led to the Revolutionary War
- A former U.S. president says that the spying program shows that we no longer have a functioning democracy
- We can keep everyone safe without violating the Constitution … more cheaply and efficiently than the current system
- The top counter-terrorism Czar under Clinton and Bush says that revealing NSA spying programs does not harm national security
- Whistleblowers on illegal spying have no “legal” way to get the information out
- A high-level intelligence source says “we hack everyone everywhere“
- Spying started before 9/11 … and may have stemmed from an emergency program only meant to be activated in the case of a nuclear war
- Governments and big corporations are doing everything they can to destroy anonymity
- Mass spying creates an easy mark for hackers
- Mass surveillance by the NSA directly harms internet companies, Silicon Valley, California … and theentire U.S. economy
- Some people make a lot of money off of mass spying
- But the government isn’t using the spying program to stop the worst types of lawlessness
- Polls show that the public doesn’t believe the NSA
- While leaker Edward Snowden is treated as a traitor by the fatcats and elites, he is considered a heroby the American public
- While the Obama administration is spying on everyone in the country – it is at the same time themost secretive administration ever (background). That’s despite Obama saying he’s running the most transparent administration ever
- Top constitutional experts say that Obama and Bush are worse than Nixon … and the Stasi East Germans
- A Congressman noted that – even if a mass surveillance program is started for good purposes – it will inevitably turn into a witch hunt
- Surveillance can be used to frame you if someone in government happens to take a dislike to you
- Government spying has always focused on crushing dissent … not on keeping us safe
- An NSA whistleblower says that the NSA is spying on – and blackmailing – top government officials and military officers (and see this)
- High-level US government officials have warned for 40 years that mass surveillance would lead to tyranny in America
- A bill to stop NSA spying was narrowly defeated, momentum is building to rein in the programs, and Congressmen Holt and Grayson have introduced legislation to stop the mass surveillance
