EVERYONE in U.S. under virtual surveillance by federal government (and why)

The government of the United States is not of the people, by the people and for the people. And it has not been for a very long time. Maybe not even in the memory of anyone alive today. We all know it. Unfortunately there seems to be damned little we can do about it. But having spent most of my life as a historian I also know that the established order can and eventually will be overthrown, no matter where or when. Either by outright revolt or crashing down under its own weight.

What is the "established order" controlling America? Steve McCann at American Thinker has a thorough understanding of it: an entrenched system of career politicians, sellout journalists whose lust for limelight eclipses love of truth, elitist academic types depending on the public treasury to justify their inflated sense of self-important, lobbyists and crony capitalists with a vested interest in making sure things stay the way they are, political hacks...

Corruption looks after itself.

That's why it should come as no surprise that according to a former top encryption analyst with the National Security Agency, the United States government - through the Federal Bureau of Investigation - is compiling the mother of all data mines: a vast repository containing EVERY e-mail, tweet, text message and God knows what else sent by American citizens. WITHOUT the Constitution-mandated search warrants for such a thing.

What surprises me however, is that if William Binney is telling is us true, then it represents a brazenness we haven't seen yet from our own government. It's been the understanding of many who have researched such things that for at least the past decade the National Security Agency has employed a system called ECHELON to monitor communications not just within America but throughout the world. Indeed, it's the international scope of ECHELON which has allowed the NSA to keep a listening ear on American at all: ECHELON keeps tabs on phone calls and electronic exchanges between the geographical United States and other countries... which, the government argues, does not require judge-approved warrants. A colossal using the letter of the law to defeat the spirit of the law. Not that that should be a surprise either...

But according to Mr. Binney, our government has taken it to a whole new level of abuse:

The FBI records the emails of nearly all US citizens, including members of congress, according to NSA whistleblower William Binney. In an interview with RT, he warned that the government can use this information against anyone.

Binney, one of the best mathematicians and code breakers in the history of the National Security Agency, resigned in 2001. He claimed he no longer wanted to be associated with alleged violations of the Constitution, such as how the FBI engages in widespread and pervasive surveillance through powerful devices called 'Naris.'

(snip)

"...what I’ve been basically saying for quite some time, is that the FBI has access to the data collected, which is basically the emails of virtually everybody in the country. And the FBI has access to it. All the congressional members are on the surveillance too, no one is excluded. They are all included. So, yes, this can happen to anyone. If they become a target for whatever reason – they are targeted by the government, the government can go in, or the FBI, or other agencies of the government, they can go into their database, pull all that data collected on them over the years, and we analyze it all. So, we have to actively analyze everything they’ve done for the last 10 years at least.

(snip)

"It’s everybody. The Naris device, if it takes in the entire line, so it takes in all the data. In fact they advertised they can process the lines at session rates, which means 10-gigabit lines. I forgot the name of the device (it’s not the Naris) – the other one does it at 10 gigabits. That’s why they're building Bluffdale [database facility], because they have to have more storage, because they can’t figure out what’s important, so they are just storing everything there. So, emails are going to be stored there in the future, but right now stored in different places around the country. But it is being collected – and the FBI has access to it."

A long read, but technically rich and altogether persuasive.

Why must our government believe it has to look upon We The People as potential enemies to be numbered, catalogued and monitored?

Because to those in power, the established order must be preserved at all cost. Because, again, corruption looks after itself.

Personally, I think Batman had the right idea...

Even the Caped Crusader "gets it" (click to enlarge)

Someday, perhaps this country will crash hard enough to knock the lechers and parasites off of their lofty perch. Perhaps then true leadership will come to serve the American people. There would be few better gestures of faith in the common citizen than to abolish the National Security Agency, reign-in the FBI and give the CIA a good hairy eyeball.

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"Meet the new boss, same as the old boss..."

President Obama plans to uphold the power that George W. Bush asserted in regards to spying on Americans without a warrant.

So much for not sacrificing our ideals for safety that Obama kept talking about this past week after he got sworn into office.

I hate to say "I told you so" but... many people, including myself, were screaming as loud as we could during the past several years that the horrible precedents that Bush was setting, would likely come back to haunt us. For almost eight years, Bush got away with violating the Constitution - in both rule and spirit - and his cheerleaders kept assuring us that Bush "had no choice" but to do these things to keep us secure.

Now those same powers have gone to a man that many of these same people have not been able to hide their sheer hatred toward. And however it is that Obama might choose to exercise those powers, these same people have no moral or logical grounds to oppose him.

Consider whatever else I might have otherwise posted about this, as an exercise for the reader.

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Robotic "bugs" might be spying on you

Eric Wilson passed along this... strange... story: apparently there are teeny-tiny robotic cameras that are flying around disguised as bugs. And they seem to have already begun to be deployed...

Vanessa Alarcon saw them while working at an antiwar rally in Lafayette Square last month.

"I heard someone say, 'Oh my god, look at those,' " the college senior from New York recalled. "I look up and I'm like, 'What the hell is that?' They looked kind of like dragonflies or little helicopters. But I mean, those are not insects."

Out in the crowd, Bernard Crane saw them, too.

"I'd never seen anything like it in my life," the Washington lawyer said. "They were large for dragonflies. I thought, 'Is that mechanical, or is that alive?' "

That is just one of the questions hovering over a handful of similar sightings at political events in Washington and New York. Some suspect the insectlike drones are high-tech surveillance tools, perhaps deployed by the Department of Homeland Security.

Others think they are, well, dragonflies -- an ancient order of insects that even biologists concede look about as robotic as a living creature can look.

Eric has a great idea: "Now this might be a good way to incorporate Insecticons into a Transformers sequel w/o being hokey!!" :-)

For the rest of the story mash down here.

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