Obama-Holder’s “Justice” Dept Seizes Major Media Phone Records – including Home Phone Records (and don’t forget Obama-Alexander’s NSA tapes your every Phone Call.)

If you and I oppose tyrannical acts – have we reached the limits of our endurance with U.S. Spying on us?

US Attorney General Eric Holder Seized AP Phone Records

Chief executive Gary Pruitt said the Associated Press was told on Friday the Justice department had gathered records of outgoing calls from more than 20 phone lines.

“The Associated Press has described the US government’s secret seizure of its journalists’ telephone records as a “massive and unprecedented intrusion“.

Mr Pruitt said there could be “no possible justification for such an overbroad collection“.

“The justice department has provided no explanation for the seizure.”

“However, officials have previously said the US Attorney’s Office in the District of Columbia was conducting a criminal investigation into information contained in an AP story last year.

“Published in May 2012, the article was about a CIA operation in Yemen that foiled an al-Qaeda plot to blow up a US-bound airplane.”

“I am very troubled by these allegations and want to hear the government’s explanation”- Senator Patrick Leahy, Judiciary Committee chairman (Democrat)

The American Civil Liberties Union accused the Obama administration of “press intimidation”.

Darrell Issa, chairman of the investigative House of Representatives Oversight and Government Reform Committee (Republican) told CNN —

“They had an obligation to look for every other way to get it before they intruded on the freedom of the press”  

AP Chief Gary Pruitt wrote

“These records potentially reveal communications with confidential sources across all of the newsgathering activities undertaken by the AP during a two-month period, provide a road map to AP’s newsgathering operations, and disclose information about AP’s activities and operations that the government has no conceivable right to know.”

Not Just Call Records – The White House and FBI have all Your Phone Conversations

NSA’s General Keith B. Alexander, U.S. Army: Spying on Innocent Americans – and Proud of it!

Some believe NSA’s electronic surveillance program is only a “pen register” limited form of wiretap where only basic call data such as originating and receiving telephone numbers, time of call and duration are logged that have much lower legal standards than conventional wiretaps, and are not subject to Fourth Amendment protection.

But they may not be aware of three (3) NSA programs that collect and store phone conversations: NUCLEON, British GCHQ’s “Tempora” and the Boeing-Narus System.

NUCLEON, so secret and so newly exposed there is no Wikipedia page about it as of this writing, provides a way for NSA agents to listen to your calls in real-time and also to listen to recordings of calls you made last month – or last year.

The British GCHQ’s “Tempora” is officially a UK project to collect phone conversations, but somehow they incorporate some 250 US-NSA agents to review your phone calls.

The Boeing-Narus System stores copies of all emails and phone calls sent inside the United States

“National Security Agency whistleblower William Binney reveals he believes domestic surveillance has become more expansive under President Obama than President George W. Bush. He estimates the NSA has assembled 20 trillion “transactions” — phone calls, emails and other forms of data — from Americans. This likely includes copies of almost all of the emails sent and received from most people living in the United States” – and more.

“WILLIAM BINNEY: Right. All they would have to do is put various Narus devices at various points along the network, at choke points or convergent points, where the network converges, and they could basically take down and have copies of most everything on the network.”

That means the content of every phone call.

Boeing-Narus’ CEO McNerny

In fact Boeing-Narus marketing vice president Steve Bannerman brags about it.

“Anything that comes through (an internet protocol network), we can record. We can reconstruct all of their e-mails along with attachments, see what web pages they clicked on, we can reconstruct their (voice over internet protocol) calls.”

“Every day, collection systems at the National Security Agency intercept and store 1.7 billion emails, phone calls and other types of communications.“- Washington Post

“I can tell you that no digital communication is secure. These digital communications will be found out, the conversation will be known.” – former counter intelligence FBI agent Tim Clemente

“[Federal authorities] certainly have ways in national security investigations to find out exactly what was said in that conversation,” – former counter intelligence FBI agent Tim Clemente

“N.S.A. eavesdrops without warrants on up to 500 people in the United States at any given time. The list changes as some names are added and others dropped, so the number monitored in this country may have reached into the thousands since the program began, several officials said. Overseas, about 5,000 to 7,000 people suspected of terrorist ties are monitored at one time, according to those officials.” – New York Times

“The NSA is too busy illegally recording our private e-mails, texts, Facebook posts, and phone calls to figure out how many of us are already caught in their net. And, furthermore, there is nothing Congress can do about it.” 

NSA Director’s Alexander’s careful choice of words lets me understand that NSA won’t do the dirty work of the actual interception of private communication — it will outsource the Constitutional violations to Internet service providers and cellphone companies.

The Obama administration has shown it doesn’t care about criminal acts by governments (or Wall Street Bankers) what really angers it is those who expose criminal government actions.

The New York Times Editorial explains how this Constitutional violation intimidates Whistleblowers from reporting illegal government actions.

It makes me wonder – If this does not trigger our tolerance maximum – what is our limit ?

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References:

Associated Press Letter of Outrage to Attorney General Holder Insisting that he Destroy the records and provide a prompt explanation.

Update: “Carl Bernstein: AP Phone Scandal a ‘Nuclear Event’”

Whistleblower: The NSA Is Lying–U.S. Government Has Copies of Most of Your Emails

NSA has massive database of Americans’ phone calls – USAToday

Call detail record

Narus (Boeing Subsidiary)

30 trillion emails / year by Americans

Congressional Outrage Over AP Phone Records

Bush vs. Obama: Who is More Wrong-Wing ?

New York Times Editorial “Spying on The Associated Press”