Secret FISA Court Judge Roger Vinson Orders ALL Your phone records collected. Photograph by Ben Twingley/AP
“Cockroaches do their best Work in the Dark.”
Years before the existence of the National Security Agency (NSA) was ever acknowledged, many of us read evidence that NSA was out of control. Now thanks to the anti-constitutional “Patriot” Act a FISA Court judge (Roger Vinson) was discovered secretly ordering a major phone company (Verizon) to turn over all of YOUR phone records to NSA.
“All government without the consent of the governed is the very definition of slavery” – Jonathon Swift, “Drapier’s Letters“, 1724
This massively anti-constitutional privacy-invasion program only came into a strong light because of a secret court decision leaked to England’s Guardian newspaper “NSA collecting phone records of millions of Verizon customers daily.“ (This Presidential program to spy on phone calls of millions of Americans was first revealed in a 2006 USA-Today article by Leslie Cauley “NSA has massive database of Americans’ phone calls.“)
“Exclusive: Top secret court order requiring Verizon to hand over all call data shows scale of domestic surveillance under Obama”
“The order, signed by Judge Roger Vinson, compels Verizon to produce to the NSA electronic copies of “all call detail records or ‘telephony metadata’ created by Verizon for communications between the United States and abroad” or “wholly within the United States, including local telephone calls”.
“including local telephone calls” !!!
Why is NSA collecting your metadata important? Because a NSA-CIA Director admitted that they kill people purely based on metadata !
There are far too many reasons the “2013 Number One Most Censored Story in the United States” is “Signs of an Emerging Police State.“
FISA Court Order to Spy on Americans – Full Text
FAQs:
Q. How long have phone records been collected by this program?
A. At least 7 to 12 years; Seven years, since 2006 according to Senator Dianne Feinstein and more likely 12 years, since 2001 according to USAToday and Bloomberg News.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein: “As far as I know, this is the exact three month renewal of what has been the case for the past seven years.” (News Conference June 6, 2013)
Q. Are every phone company’s records collected ?
A. The only public evidence is the Court order for Verizon phone records. However security experts agree that the NSA program would be worthless without records from all the major phone companies. No official is denying that the records from all phone companies are collected. USA Today reports that ATT and Bell South are doing the same thing.
Q. Who knew about this?
A. Presidents Bush and Obama (as well as hundreds to thousands of NSA staff). The President and NSA claim they “briefed” the entire US Senate, but some Senators are hopping mad now that they know what is going on.
Sen. Saxby Chambliss: “This has been going on for seven years under the auspices of the FISA authority and every member of the United States Senate has been advised of this.“
Q. How long does NSA keep your data?
A. Permanently; forever.
Q. Is it Constitutional?
A. Clearly No.
No American government agency can collect information on you without your consent unless and until you are convicted of, or arrested for, a crime, or if there is some actual and specific physical evidence shown to a Judge that you are suspected of a crime.
This program directly and severely violates the privacy provisions of the Fourth Amendment (protecting you against unreasonable (and secret) Search and Seizure) and Fifth Amendment (protecting you against self incrimination).
NSA and its other secret agencies falsely claim “collecting” your information is constitutional because they don’t “read” or use it until you are suspected of a crime.
“Their data is not being looked at. Their data is in a database which can only be looked at [with a court order]. – Congresswoman Jane Harman, CNN June 11, 2013″
Thus your privacy is “protected.” Right? . . .
No – Wrong !
Video Cameras in Your Shower – “But we won’t look at them.”
That’s the equivalent of NSA secretly installing video cameras in your shower and bedroom – “but we won’t look at the photographs until you are suspected of a crime.”
“The threat to democracy lies not only in the evisceration of the Fourth Amendment’s prohibition of unreasonable searches and the Fifth Amendment’s guarantee of due process, right against self-incrimination and coerced confessions and other rights that form the backbone of the criminal justice system, but also in eroding freedom of the press, seeing journalists and reporters as “aiding and abetting” the criminal telling of government secrets. Secrets, by the way, that shouldn’t even be secret.” – Coleen Rowley, FBI special agent and legal counsel, Whistleblower – on CNN
If your Congresswoman or Congressman cares even faintly about your privacy and security they will immediately :
1. Explicitly Revoke authority of NSA (and all other US Clandestine agencies) to collect(1), store, use or read communication information on any US citizen not convicted of, or charged with a crime.
2. Make it a crime for NSA and any government employee to collect, store, use or read communication information on any US citizen not convicted of, or charged with a crime — unless it was done by accident.
3. Revoke the FISA Court’s Secret Authority.
5. Wholly delete all records collected by this anti-constitutional program !
Call your Congress-wo/man Now – Click here
and there needs to be a serious penalty for anyone who does this, — to “chill” (severely discourage) all government staff them from even dreaming of doing this again —
6. Prosecute Criminal Indictments on every government employee who designed, created, implemented and defended this outrageous violation of every innocent American’s privacy – starting with current Director of National Intelligence James Clapper caught lying to Congress about this on national television and refusing to correct his bald-faced lie for months. Don’t forget to indict former NSA Director Micheael Hayden and “Keith ‘Get it All’ Alexander.”
7. and finally, for the truly informed – Dismantle the NSA because it is so harmfully incompetent and was created illegally.
# # #
References:
Judge Vinson’s Secret FISA Court Order (thanks to former NSA employee and American Hero Edward Snowden and Britan’s Guardian newspaper). (Actually USA Today reported this exact program in 2006, but the media and public took little notice.)
Further Reading:
ACLU explains NSA’s Surveillance Order
Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF): NSA Spying on Americans FAQs
Original public exposure “NSA has massive database of Americans’ phone calls” by Leslie Cauley, USA TODAY, May 11, 2006
New August 2015: Washington Post Article exposing how NSA keeps your “incidental data” for years even though they are supposed to delete it immediately.
The earliest hint of this “sea-change” was when President Bush decreed that the NSA could now spy on Americans. The New York Times reported on this in 2005 “Bush Lets U.S. Spy on Callers Without Courts” after sitting on the story for a year. However, this article only discussed getting data from a few hundred to a few thousand calls – not hundreds of millions of calls. (Does it make you wonder if the New York Times also sat on these “details” since 2004?)
The US Government is Spying on us !
We used to worry about the Soviets and KGB spying on us.
But they were only spying on our government and maybe a bit of business.
NOW our own government is spying on US .. AND DEFENDING their spying !!!
Which country is spying on its own law-abiding residents and citizens ?