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Americans Are The Most Spied On People In World History

George Washington's picture




 

TechDirt notes:

In a radio interview, Wall Street Journal reporter Julia Angwin (who’s been one of the best at covering the surveillance state in the US) made a simple observation that puts much of this into context: the US surveillance regime has more data on the average American than the Stasi ever did on East Germans.

Indeed, the American government has more information on the average American than Stalin had on Russians, Hitler had on German citizens, or any other government has ever had on its people.

The American government is collecting and storing virtually every phone call, purchases, email,  text message, internet searches, social media communications, health information,  employment history, travel and student records, and virtually all other information of every American.

Some also claim that the government is also using facial recognition software and surveillance cameras to track where everyone is going. And – given that your smartphone routinely sends you location information back to Apple or Google – it would be child’s play for the government to track your location that way.

As the top spy chief at the U.S. National Security Agency explained this week, the American government is collecting some 100 billion 1,000-character emails per day, and 20 trillion communications of all types per year.

He says that the government has collected all of the communications of congressional leaders, generals and everyone else in the U.S. for the last 10 years.

He further explains that he set up the NSA’s system so that all of the information would automatically be encrypted, so that the government had to obtain a search warrant based upon probably cause before a particular suspect’s communications could be decrypted.  But the NSA now collects all data in an unencrypted form, so that no probable cause is needed to view any citizen’s information.  He says that it is actually cheaper and easier to store the data in an encrypted format: so the government’s current system is being done for political – not practical – purposes.

He says that if anyone gets on the government’s “enemies list”, then the stored information will be used to target them. Specifically, he notes that if the government decides it doesn’t like someone, it analyzes all of the data it has collected on that person and his or her associates over the last 10 years to build a case against him.

 

As we’ve previously documented, the spying isn’t being done to keep us safe … but to crush dissent and to smear people who uncover unflattering this about the government … and to help the too big to fail businesses compete against smaller businesses (and here).

And as we point out at every opportunity, this is not some “post-9/11 reality”.  Spying on Americans – and most of the other attacks on liberty – started before 9/11.

Senator Frank Church – who chaired the famous “Church Committee” into the unlawful FBI Cointel program, and who chaired the Senate Foreign Relations Committee – said in 1975:

Th[e National Security Agency's]  capability at any time could be turned around on the American people, and no American would have any privacy left, such is the capability to monitor everything: telephone conversations, telegrams, it doesn’t matter. There would be no place to hide.  [If a dictator ever took over, the N.S.A.] could enable it to impose total tyranny ….

We can debate whether or not dictators are running Washington. But one thing is clear: the capacity is already here.

TechDirt points out:

While the Stasi likely wanted more info and would have loved to have been able to tap into a digitally connected world like we have today, that just wasn’t possible.

That’s true.  The tyrants in Nazi Germany, Stalinist Russia and Stasi Eastern Europe would have liked to easedrop on every communication and every transaction of every citizen.  But in the world before the internet, smart phones, electronic medical records and digital credit card transactions, much of what happened behind closed doors remained private.

(And modern tin pot dictators don’t have the tens of billions of dollars necessary to set up a sophisticated electronic spying system).

In modern America, a much higher percentage of your communications and transactions are being recorded and stored by the government.

 

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Wed, 12/05/2012 - 19:19 | 3037541 CH1
CH1's picture

Maybe at this point they begin to merge?

Wed, 12/05/2012 - 17:20 | 3037149 LostAtSea
LostAtSea's picture

Cruising under your radar
Watching from satellites
Take a page from the red book
Keep them in your sights
Red alert
Red alert

Left and rights of passage
Black and whites of youth
Who can face the knowledge
That the truth is not the truth?
Obsolete
Absolute

The world weighs on my shoulders
But what am I to do?
You sometimes drive me crazy
But I worry about you

I know it makes no difference
To what you're going through
But I see the tip of the iceberg
And I worry about you

Absalom
Absalom
Absalom

  • Distant Early Warning - Rush
  • Wed, 12/05/2012 - 19:55 | 3037638 Strider52
    Strider52's picture

    LostAtSea: I had it at the first line. I know my Rush.

    Wed, 12/05/2012 - 17:07 | 3037096 jack stephan
    jack stephan's picture

    Reverend Lovejoy: I know one of you is responsible for this, so repeat after me: If I withhold the truth may I go straight to hell, where I will eat naught but burning hot coal and drink naught but burning hot cola...
    Ralph Wiggum: [scared] Where fiery demons will punch me in the back...
    Bart: [nonchalant] Where my soul will be chopped into confetti and strewn upon a parade of murderers and single mothers...
    Milhouse: [clearly nervous] Where my tongue will be torn out by ravenous birds...
    [A raven outside crows menacingly.]

    Wed, 12/05/2012 - 17:06 | 3037089 Uncle Remus
    Uncle Remus's picture

    In the case of the Stasi, that they didn't spy as much as they did on their own people was more than likely a technological impediment exacerbated by internal distrust. If they could, they would.

    Wed, 12/05/2012 - 16:53 | 3037042 aerojet
    aerojet's picture

    The only question I have is "Why?"  A system of total control in the US cannot possibly succeed.  It has to be the runaway defense industry causing all of it.

    Wed, 12/05/2012 - 17:30 | 3037212 BanjoDoug
    BanjoDoug's picture

    It ain't the defense industry that's doing this.....   it's our own government.   It may be built by defense contractors or other IT contractors.....

    Wed, 12/05/2012 - 20:39 | 3037739 SAT 800
    SAT 800's picture

    The military-industrial complex is your government. Once you get this straight; everything is much simpler to understand.

    Thu, 12/06/2012 - 00:04 | 3038219 willwork4food
    willwork4food's picture

    The central banking owners are your government, whom control the military, governments and medias. Once you get this straight...

     

    FIFY

    Wed, 12/05/2012 - 18:25 | 3037413 Grinder74
    Grinder74's picture

     

    It's not the applesauce that's killing you, just the apples in the applesauce!

    Wed, 12/05/2012 - 18:20 | 3037400 CH1
    CH1's picture

    Because... they... can!!!

    Fear-besotted cowards begged them to shred the Constitution and to make them feel safe. They willingly worshiped them on television every night. They were willing to be abused at airports. Wiling to consider everyone else a monster. Willing to believe whatever they were told.

    Are we really surprised that the entire Guv-Intel-Defence-Political complex went into soulless oppressor mode?

    Thu, 12/06/2012 - 00:00 | 3038207 willwork4food
    willwork4food's picture

    I do not recall begging these assholes to molest me everytime I fly or shred the constitution, Geneva Convention and every Christian Coalition bullshit doctrine that got them in office in the first place.

    Wed, 12/05/2012 - 16:38 | 3036997 Bastiat
    Bastiat's picture

     Das Leben der Anderen

    Wed, 12/05/2012 - 22:31 | 3038003 onelight
    onelight's picture

    good film -- deserved more attention it did -- thoughtful redemptive ending too

    Wed, 12/05/2012 - 17:32 | 3036963 El Viejo
    El Viejo's picture

    They threw out the constitution (including Lincoln) during every war and we are still here. As he implied in his interview if it goes to the Supreme court it will be declared illegal. As a citizen sworn to defend the constitution I consider this serious, but not a serious as Agenda 21 and our loss of sovereignty. Look what happened to Greece when they lost theirs.

    Wed, 12/05/2012 - 16:19 | 3036931 zanez
    zanez's picture

    Is that dude in the video Bob Newhart?

    Wed, 12/05/2012 - 16:26 | 3036964 George Washington
    George Washington's picture

    Nope ... he's the former NSA boss who set up the whole spying apparatus in the first place  ...

    Wed, 12/05/2012 - 16:32 | 3036979 Bastiat
    Bastiat's picture

    It's remarkable that he's alive.

    Wed, 12/05/2012 - 23:41 | 3038166 willwork4food
    willwork4food's picture

    Why wouldn't he be? The asshole probably has gov protection just like every dick and cunt in congress and the senate. I doubt very much that this fuck actually had a turn of heart. More likely the PTB are just playing their cards to make sure we know what the score is. I would say it's going to be almost fun when the shit hits the fan to scout out and hang a few of these 'honorable' citizens of the American Government for treason to the American People.Might not happen much, but it will happen.

    Wed, 12/05/2012 - 16:14 | 3036904 woggie
    woggie's picture

    the beast is on the gobble
    and all that matters is we're all headed for it's belly
    http://youtu.be/ntmthFyaYzY

    Wed, 12/05/2012 - 20:04 | 3037628 New World Chaos
    New World Chaos's picture

    WTF

    Make a video that doesn't suck.  If you know it's going to suck, stick to text.

    Make sure the video tells us something we don't already know.

    Give some real summary text instead of this gobbley-gook.

    Post it only a few times- in relevant threads- and then make a NEW video that tells us something DIFFERENT that we don't already know.

    Wed, 12/05/2012 - 17:27 | 3037196 A Middle Child ...
    A Middle Child of History's picture

    Hey loser!

    I hear a video on youtube is missing it's idiot, and the underside of a large boulder is missing it's occupant.

    Wed, 12/05/2012 - 16:39 | 3036901 falak pema
    falak pema's picture

    the KEY word in any global hegemonial system that respects itself is : CONTROL.

    And nobody is more dangerous to a despot, disguised as "defender of freedom" than  a man who shows him out to be "son of MAchavelli. So he has to be shut up ! We are not strong enuff to face the storm of debate on a level playing field!...Ask Wikileaks...

    Its a terrible testimony to Man's recurrent incapacity. 

    As Cicero appropriately said, as analyst of geopolitical trends : "a system can protect itself from the enemy without; aka 'Carthagem delenda est' of Cato's fame; but not from the traitor within!" The bane of ambitious political constructs.

    He spoke as an elitist, as a member of the Optimates clique, those whose opposed "populist" democracy as imposed by hegemonist Caesar, in his "smoke and mirrors" of 'popularae' takeover. Cicero was Oligarch but traditional one, based on legal senatorial status quo framework. The old unsustainable world...when an agrarian economy morphs into slave driven, effete empire! The name of the game changes, and the power structure with it!

    We go GLOBAL, and IT needs a dictator with a hegemonial vision of power; one that imposes from ABOVE, top down, the rules of global functionning. Does that ring a bell.....? Caesarian chimes...

    So since those Caesarian days, control is everything in western civilisation. And the irony of history is that Cicero was right all  the time he was wrong! 'Cos he incarnated the impossible equation of "speaking for the people" while being an advocate of "only the elites know what is good for the world". Power corrupts and oligarchy power...but then we fall from Charbydis of Oligarchy to despotic Statist monopoly called dictatorship. Its an impossible conundrum : reconciling power and progress. But its a forever recurrence, like a testo-spring of generational rejuvenance,  as each age of power gone west leads to inevitable entropy fed deflation...Nemesis of power dreams gone astry. 

    And all hegemonial constructs respect their own core values; not those of the people but of the "skull and bones" elites dressed up as populist "libertarian" values; which only makes the power divide of collective riches spike under "HF type entrepreneurs", such as to even make an avowed statist Jacobin blush with envy...How did they manage to do that, these avowed sons of capitalist entrepreurship? They are more "keynesian" than those statist shills they overtly despise. My, has Machiavelli corrupted us all beyond recognition. 

    Ah! If only we had read history!  The circle of life. Conquistadors of capitalism burning the world for universal empire! 

    Pax Americana is no different to Pax Romana, or Pax Espagna! 

    Wed, 12/05/2012 - 20:59 | 3037778 JOYFUL
    JOYFUL's picture

    ///Pax Americana is no different to Pax Romana, or Pax Espagna///

    Correct...once again our resident sleuth has stumbled upon all the evidence needed to wrap up the case, and, refusing to bear witness to his own forensic skills, leaves it for Watson to sum up the obvious conclusions...how very patrician!

    Merika, like the other imperial powers before it's time,(why no Pax Britannica?)has been destroyed as a result of it's penetration from within by diasporic demons hiding under the shield of "judaism" in order to organize the systematic collapse of the host system...

    no Machiavellis needed to solve this riddle, but our urbane hero from the Midi risks being recast as more of a Peter Sellers type Pink Panther than a serious sleuth of history by indulging in such serial oversights!

    Thu, 12/06/2012 - 06:39 | 3038572 falak pema
    falak pema's picture

    Hey Joyful, here is a bit of true history for you : http://riifr.univ-littoral.fr/wp-content/uploads/2007/04/doc61.pdf

    Its an historical update of the Italian monetary system since the middle ages to our current times.

    It treats ALL the issues that ZH likes to dwell on and its written by a scholastic from university background who has done their research IN DEPTH. (Unfortunately it is in french for ZH readers, I do apologise. But French documentation is very rich on those historical issues for obvious reasons). 

    Now coming to your pet theme of a Venetian based jewish/Khazarian conspiracy to destroy western civilization; recurrent theme and "civilization's poison pill" you keep harping about; here is their conclusion on this Very issue, page 15 :

     

    Mais ni à Anvers, ni plus tard à Amsterdam, les Juifs ne jouent le premier rôle2. La commercialisation de la vie économique a commencé en Italie au Moyen Age, c’est à dire dans une région et à une époque où le rôle des Juifs était insignifiant. Ils n’ont pas joué un rôle déterminant dans la naissance du capitalisme.

     

    So much for your Khazarian gibberish and its place in the dustbin of History!....

     

    I would recommend that all people who read french read this short document as its a wonderful summary of the historical thread of how commerce and monetary interplay grew over the ages.  How the money line became as important as it is thanks to the Italians, who dominated its dissemination even to the Flemish towns.

     

    Written in 2003 this document predates our current crisis but already SEES the seeds of its impending arrival in the convoluted post modern age without any moral values.

    Good reading to all !

    Thu, 12/06/2012 - 07:57 | 3038677 JOYFUL
    JOYFUL's picture

    I'm truly sorry, mon liege, but you have both implicated and eliminated yourself in one fell swoop of the pen as a source to be trusted or even given the slightest regard...

    its written by a scholastic from university background who has done their research IN DEPTH.

    For something close to 80 years now, the education of the western peoples has been hijacked and held hostage by the program of 'general education' as organized and funded by the foundations which were created on behalf of the moneypower in order to advance their social program...

    nothing and no one who\what be product of said assembly line is to be trusted in the least, due to the indoctrination that takes place in the minds of all those innoculated in the curriculum of the sionist led usurpers intent upon destroying the very cultural legacy which you pretend to emblify and protect...

    just the other day here I was encouraging you to take the necessary measures to avoid falling upon your own sword, and ending it all in the fruitless and arcane method of the japanese tradition of hari kari...yet you have gone n done it to yourself anyways...

    it must have been fate...

    o wait, you don't believe in anything outside of the rational...

    ok...we'll call it product defect, and hope that you can be included in a product recall program!

    Thu, 12/06/2012 - 08:02 | 3038684 falak pema
    falak pema's picture

    dodging facts with phony rhetoric...amen to that! 

    That document is not written by COleman of mustard nor La Rouche of American purity souche.

    Facts are facts, don't bend them. Defend your thesis with facts or just go back to drinking GAelic ale. 

    Thu, 12/06/2012 - 08:44 | 3038733 JOYFUL
    JOYFUL's picture

    weakest riposte ever, mon frere...your case may not be fixable, and therefore require to be towed to the scrap yard...

    towing charges will apply!

    Wed, 12/05/2012 - 16:13 | 3036900 Bob
    Bob's picture

    WASHINGTON—In a stunning development that has left every federal institution reeling, the U.S. government’s legislative branch was arrested this afternoon on 23.3 million separate charges of manslaughter, sources confirmed.

    http://www.theonion.com/articles/congress-arrested-on-manslaughter-charg...

    Wed, 12/05/2012 - 22:22 | 3037973 nmewn
    nmewn's picture

    I'll settle for one at a time...

    Attorney General Eric Holder’s >>>chief of staff,<<< Gary Grindler, plans to resign his post at the Department of Justice on Wednesday. Grindler was directly involved in the Operation Fast and Furious scandal.

    Congressional investigators from House oversight committee chairman Rep. Darrell Issa’s and Senate Judiciary Committee ranking member Sen. Chuck Grassley’s offices detailed Grindler’s involvement in a recent report. They say Grindler, with other senior DOJ officials, “attended a detailed briefing on Operation Fast and Furious in March 2010.”

    http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2012/12/03/Holder-s-chief-of-staff-to-resign-after-direct-involvement-in-Fast-and-Furious

    Wed, 12/05/2012 - 23:03 | 3038052 Bob
    Bob's picture

    Find one who isn't on the take at DOJ, with only everday reality for evidence, in the ongoing financial crime spree that plagues our nation, and I'll say maybe he/she should keep his job, rather than going to prison with the master class. 

    "Fast and Furious" is pretty weak shit. 

    Too bad Issa's moral outrage can only reach that far.  He's a cheap snake just like Holder.  Those two assholes would look good in orange jump suits, sharing a single set of ankle chains, breaking rocks under a merciless desert sun.  

    Fifty years sounds about right.

    Wed, 12/05/2012 - 23:15 | 3038107 nmewn
    nmewn's picture

    "Fast and Furious" is pretty weak shit."

    I beg to differ, this is what GW's post is about, surveillance.

    What everyone usually misses is simply this, the DOJ's object of Fast & Furious was tracking (if you believe what they say their object was with the program) and it was a complete success.

    The object was, to break federal law, by allowing strawman purchasers of guns to not be reported or arrested (in some cases giving the strawmen the money to actually purchase the guns) in order for the guns to go to international drug cartels...who would then use them to kill people...so the guns would turn up at the crime scene...to be tracked as a murder weapon.

    It was a success in that regard...the only problem was the bodies...tracked back to the DOJ...over two hundred of them Mexican and two American.

    Weak?

    Thats a criminal enterprise.

    Wed, 12/05/2012 - 23:21 | 3038127 Bob
    Bob's picture

    Oh, a criminal enterprise.  Guess I don't notice those. 

    Wed, 12/05/2012 - 16:08 | 3036880 stiler
    stiler's picture

    last line of the interview: "they're not living up to their oaths of office."

    Is not this what is wrong with our country? People do not live up to their oaths. Presidents don't, politicians and marriages don't. And why not? Because there is no fear of God. We have left God as a nation-- indeed the entire world has. 

    Interesting that they don't want it to go to court, to a judge.

    Wed, 12/05/2012 - 21:56 | 3037911 Vendetta
    Vendetta's picture

    Blankfein is doing God's work, so all will be fine

    Wed, 12/05/2012 - 15:59 | 3036845 The Alarmist
    The Alarmist's picture

    Makes you want to hold up the old foam finger and chant, "We're number 1!" or "USA USA USA!"

    Wed, 12/05/2012 - 15:53 | 3036825 Bob
    Wed, 12/05/2012 - 16:43 | 3037010 falak pema
    falak pema's picture

    she must be a fan of the same books I read! 

    But does she know the way out?

    Its a double whammy; statism and private neo-feudalism...

    Wed, 12/05/2012 - 15:45 | 3036793 Beam Me Up Scotty
    Beam Me Up Scotty's picture

    Go to the ATM.  Get cash.  Avoid plastic.  Then they don't know if you are buying groceries, or a Playboy magazine.  Some anonymity starts with use of cash.

    Wed, 12/05/2012 - 17:37 | 3037244 edifice
    edifice's picture

    Yes, but avoid self-checkout lanes. The cash scanners are capable of reading serial numbers on the bills.

    Wed, 12/05/2012 - 19:24 | 3037556 CH1
    CH1's picture

    True, but you can go to the Starbucks with the stoner behind the counter. :)

     

    Wed, 12/05/2012 - 15:50 | 3036814 The Alarmist
    The Alarmist's picture

    When they ask you what you spent all your dough on ... and they will ... the answer is "Hookers and Blow."

    Wed, 12/05/2012 - 16:29 | 3036970 12ToothAssassin
    12ToothAssassin's picture

    but that *IS* what I spend it on.

    Wed, 12/05/2012 - 17:16 | 3037139 CrockettAlmanac.com
    CrockettAlmanac.com's picture

    I lost all my hookers in a boating accident. Now I have to cut my own bait.

    Wed, 12/05/2012 - 20:03 | 3037658 Strider52
    Strider52's picture

    Soon you will become a Master Baiter... (crickets)

    Wed, 12/05/2012 - 22:04 | 3037930 UGrev
    UGrev's picture

    Enlarge your Avatar and that will be truth!

    Wed, 12/05/2012 - 20:47 | 3037750 SAT 800
    SAT 800's picture

    ! good grief.

    Wed, 12/05/2012 - 17:25 | 3037187 Thecomingcollapse
    Thecomingcollapse's picture

    +1 Now that there was some funny stuff!! I saw what you did there!

    Wed, 12/05/2012 - 15:39 | 3036773 Hapa
    Hapa's picture

    make sure you let our handlers know how we feel about them.  since they're listening, you might as well be in their face

    Do NOT follow this link or you will be banned from the site!