AMERICANS need to be INFORMED what the NSA's Mass Surveillance programs are really about.
AMERICANS then need to DECIDE the proper boundaries of government POWER.
Whistleblowers William Binney, Thomas Drake and Edward Snowden are all American HEROES.
They ALL shone a light onto MASSIVE government abuses - that's what important whistle blowers do.
They are ALL ordinary men who have done EXTRA ORDINARY things.
They have ALL risked EVERYTHING and wrecked their own lives for the benefit of OTHERS.
What other definition of hero is there?
Arguments about breaking the law are SPECIOUS.
Governments decide what is LEGAL.
Human beings decide what is MORALLY RIGHT.
Owning slaves was legal - that does not make it morally right.
The people who ran the Underground Railroad that helped slaves break free, broke the law.
They are now recognized as heroes.
The Nazi's changed German law to ensure everything they did was "legal".
Intimidating and murdering political dissidents, killing upwards of 10 million of their own citizens in wars of aggression and gassing 6 million Jews was NOT morally right.
William Binney reported upwards, through the proper official channels, what he believed to be massive abuses of government power.
The government had pointed their massive foreign intelligence gathering capabilities at their own citizens - specifically against the 4th amendment of the Constitution.
He reported how the privacy safeguards in Thin Thread were deliberately removed to collect surveillance data on EVERY AMERICAN.
The government raided his house and pointed a GUN at his HEAD for his trouble.
They have hounded him for years.
Thomas Drake was charged under the Espionage Act for reporting massive government waste and abuses of power.
He was threatened with 35 years in jail for telling the truth to the American people.
The charges did not hold water and were dropped at the cost of pleading guilty to a misdemeanor.
Drake's life was still wrecked - he now works in an Apple store giving technical advice.
And now we have Edward Snowden.
Snowden put his life on the line and wrecked a very comfortable life, because his MORAL PRINCIPLES did not allow him to do otherwise.
He wanted to let the American PEOPLE decide what is MORALLY RIGHT, not the government.
He reported that ALL Americans are now being spied upon, through the collection of hundreds of millions of phone records and trillions of pieces of other electronic surveillance on the internet.
I believe, like Snowden, that NO government should have that much power - it is too ripe for abuse.
The Founders thought so too, that is why they included the 4th Amendment in the Bill of Rights - "All persons shall have privacy in their persons and papers".
It is my belief that :-
What the government is now doing is ILLEGAL under the Constitution.
What they are now doing is MORALLY REPUGNANT to every decent human being.
It should be up to up to the American PEOPLE to decide.
But first :-
There needs to be TRANSPARENCY about what the government is actually doing - the government is trying desperately to cover up what it is doing.
Let's INFORM the American PEOPLE - they certainly haven't been informed yet - despite the revelations so far in the news.
Let's inform the American public of the implications of a MASS SURVEILLANCE STATE.
Let's inform them they would no longer be free.
Then let's have a proper debate with a WELL INFORMED public.
And then let's see what the American PEOPLE decide as to what is MORALLY RIGHT and what are the proper boundaries of government POWER.
That is the American way - there is NO OTHER WAY, if we are to remain the "Land of the Free".
Appendices
1. Thin Thread - the FOREIGN surveillance program from the 90's.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ThinThread
2. Alan Grayson explains to Congress and the American people, the data collection of hundreds of millions of phone records and the spying on EVERY American through Prism.
3. The NSA's Mass Surveillance programs do NOT make Americans safer.
The NSA cannot come up with a single example that it has stopped a single terror attack, despite all their protestations to the contrary.
3.1 Top National Security Experts : Spying program does NOT make us safer and spying leaks do NOT harm America.
NSA leaks help, rather than hurt the United States.
http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2013/06/top-national-security-experts-spying-program-doesnt-make-us-safer-and-spying-leaks-dont-harm-america.html
3.2 There is NO evidence that the NSA's spying program has stopped ANY terror attacks.
(The information could of been found with a WARRANT after PROBABLE CAUSE had been found.)
The Dirty Little Secret About Mass Surveillance: It Doesn’t Keep Us Safe
http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2013/06/the-dirty-little-secret-about-nsa-spying-it-doesnt-work.html
3.3 Boston was a MASSIVE intelligence FAILURE - it should of been stopped.
The NSA's Mass Surveillance programs are making EVERY AMERICAN LESS SAFE.
http://ian56.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/boston-was-massive-intelligence-failure.html
4. All the Infrastructure a Tyrant would need, courtesy of Bush, Obama and Congress.
We are one step away from a turnkey Police State.
http://ian56.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/all-infrastructure-tyrant-would-need.html
5. What the NSA's Mass Surveillance programs are REALLY about - wielding political power.
They are to collect material with which to blackmail and intimidate political enemies and troublesome citizens.
They are NOT anti-terrorism measures.
http://ian56.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/verizon-revelations-tom-clements.html
6. Clapper and Feinstein are caught lying - BIG TIME and the implications of a MASS SURVEILLANCE STATE.
http://ian56.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/feinstein-and-clapper-finally-admit.html
7. William Binney on the dangers of a Mass Surveillance State
William Binney's interview with Amy Goodman from Democracy now from 2012.
Almost an Orwellian surveillance state
http://privacysos.org/node/589William Binney on how America's FOREIGN Surveillance capabilities were turned inwards to spy on EVERY American.
http://nyti.ms/OxyaoB
8. The extent of the mass data collection on EVERY American
ALL phone records, including Meta data giving location.
The contents of ALL phone calls
ALL Emails
ALL texts
ALL voicemails
ALL SKYPE conversations
Large amounts of social media activity
ALL internet searches
ALL internet sites visited
Large amounts of electronic financial transactions - bank accounts and purchases etc.
9. Some of the political enemies, dissidents or rivals that are to be targeted
Occupy protesters
Leading climate change protesters
Tea Party activists
Gun rights activists
Troublesome journalists (there are not many of those these days, the vast majority of mainstream journalists are lapdogs for the Establishment)
National politicians - members of Congress
Federal judges
State politicians
Leaders of State Parties
Critics of the NSA
Vocal critics of government policies
etc. etc.
There are now something like 800,000 people on government watch lists.
Probably at least half of them have nothing whatsoever to do with Islamic Extremism or Terrorism.
They are people the government DOESN'T LIKE and wants to CONTROL.
10. How the NSA went rogue - Amy Goodman | Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2012/apr/26/how-national-security-agency-gone-rogue
11. The massive $2bn datacenter the government has built to store all the data and spy on EVERY American
12. Prism : Concerns over government Tyranny are legitimate | Guardian
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