"Just Because We Call Ourselves A Democracy Doesn't Mean We'll Stay One"

Flowing through its servers and routers and stored in near-bottomless databases will be all forms of communication, including the complete contents of private emails, cell phone calls, and Google searches, as well as all sorts of personal data trails—parking receipts, travel itineraries, bookstore purchases, and other digital “pocket litter.” It is, in some measure, the realization of the “total information awareness” program created during the first term of the Bush administration—an effort that was killed by Congress in 2003 after it caused an outcry over its potential for invading Americans’ privacy. The ACLU and other groups are challenging the 2008 FISA Amendment Act which gives the NSA almost unchecked power to monitor Americans international communications without a warrant.  The Supreme Court will hear arguments in this case, Amnesty v. Clapper on October 29.

August 24, 2012

Those are the words of National Security Agency whistleblower William Binney from this excellent and very disturbing video on the government’s warrantless surveillance program from The New York Times website yesterday:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/23/opinion/the-national-security-agencys-domestic-spying-program.html

Binney discusses the scope of "Stellar Wind", an NSA program that is gathering information (and ultimately creating profiles) on everyone in America. The storage facility to hold these massive amounts of data is currently under construction in Bluffdale, Utah. According to Wired:

Flowing through its servers and routers and stored in near-bottomless databases will be all forms of communication, including the complete contents of private emails, cell phone calls, and Google searches, as well as all sorts of personal data trails—parking receipts, travel itineraries, bookstore purchases, and other digital “pocket litter.” It is, in some measure, the realization of the “total information awareness” program created during the first term of the Bush administration—an effort that was killed by Congress in 2003 after it caused an outcry over its potential for invading Americans’ privacy.

The ACLU and other groups are challenging the 2008 FISA Amendment Act which gives the NSA almost unchecked power to monitor Americans international communications without a warrant. The Supreme Court will hear arguments in this case, Amnesty v. Clapper on October 29.