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Senator: 'Plenty' of Domestic Surveillance We Still Don't Know About
An anonymous reader writes: In a recent interview, Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) has complained about the Obama administration's failure to shut down the NSA's bulk collection of phone metadata. This program and most other programs we've heard of were disclosed by Edward Snowden. But Snowden couldn't tell us everything. When asked if there were further domestic surveillance programs about which the public knows nothing, Senator Wyden said, "Yeah, there's plenty of stuff." The ones he knows about are classified, so he couldn't elaborate. "Even in cases where the public has been informed of government practices, Wyden warned the government still collects far too much information on millions of citizens with virtually no accountability."
If a bunch of Republican senators could get together and write a letter outlining the details of these abuses, I'm sure there wouldn't be any consequences (to themselves) whether the spying is classified or not. Plus, it would be a great way to limit the powers of the federal government and stick it to Obama at the same time!
And besides, he's a senator. He is actually in a position to talk and be heard by people that matter. Moreover he's the one telling us that there are even more programs, and that he disagrees with the expansive privacy violating abilities the make possible.
The downfall of this "more perfect union" is going to be from within and in the name of protecting it from terrorists.
"... stop being an enabler and speak up."
Most people are locked in the matrix of their upbringing and education, they are quite literally spinning in terms of exhaustion/being distracted by stress of school/work and debt (paying the bills). We'll not get into poor parental environment or upbringing which heavily interferes with all of that. And yes you can be manipulated without knowing it.
Reason doesn't work the way we thought it does:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PYmi0DLzBdQ
This (mass surveillance) by the NSA and abuse by law enforcement is just more part and parcel of state suppression of dissent against corporate interests. They're worried that the more people are going to wake up and corporate centers like the US and canada may be among those who also awaken. See this vid with Zbigniew Brzezinski, former United States National Security Advisor.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ttv6n7PFniY
Brezinski at a press conference
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0kmUS--QCYY
The real news:
http://therealnews.com/t2/
http://www.amazon.com/Democracy-Incorporated-Managed-Inverted-Totalitarianism/dp/069114589X/
http://www.amazon.com/Shadow-Government-Surveillance-Security-Single-Superpower/dp/1608463656/
http://www.amazon.com/National-Security-Government-Michael-Glennon/dp/0190206446/
Look at the following graphs:
http://imgur.com/a/FShfb
http://www2.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/wealth.html
And then...
WIKILEAKS: U.S. Fought To Lower Minimum Wage In Haiti So Hanes And Levis Would Stay Cheap
http://www.businessinsider.com/wikileaks-haiti-minimum-wage-the-nation-2011-6
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hnkNKipiiiM
Free markets?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WHj2GaPuEhY#t=349
Free trade?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ju06F3Os64
http://www.amazon.com/Empire-Illusion-Literacy-Triumph-Spectacle/dp/1568586132/
"We now live in two Americas. One—now the minority—functions in a print-based, literate world that can cope with complexity and can separate illusion from truth. The other—the majority—is retreating from a reality-based world into one of false certainty and magic. To this majority—which crosses social class lines, though the poor are overwhelmingly affected—presidential debate and political rhetoric is pitched at a sixth-grade reading level. In this “other America,” serious film and theater, as well as newspapers and books, are being pushed to the margins of society.
In the tradition of Christopher Lasch’s The Culture of Narcissism and Neil Postman’s Amusing Ourselves to Death, Pulitzer Prize-winner Chris Hedges navigates this culture—attending WWF contests, the Adult Video News Awards in Las Vegas, and Ivy League graduation ceremonies—to expose an age of terrifying decline and heightened self-delusion."
Important history:
http://williamblum.org/
Wyden's on-record questioning of James Clapper – wherein Clapper answered "No sir... not wittingly" to Wyden's "Do you collect any information on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans?" question – is cited by Snowden as the event that pushed him over the edge, and caused him to disclose the US domestic spying programs. Wyden's patriotism set the whole thing in motion.
Sousveilliance means basically watching the watchers. In this modern world collecting information about people continues to get easier, not just by governments but by the business world as well (Google and Facebook to name a couple of prominent examples). The only real defense the general public has against this is to watch back so we can stem the abuse of the data collected.
Author David Brin writes a lot about this at his blog, Contrary Brin including his current post, "Armed with Cameras". His basic thesis is that you're not going to stop all of this enhanced surveillance even if you pass laws against it. It's too easy to do. So the answer is to sousveil, watch back intently enough so we can call the watcher out on their abuse.
BTW, I'm proud to have Ron Wyden as one of my Senators. He's in a position to know an has been at the forefront of curbing government abuse of surveillance for a long time.
...is for good men to do nothing.
Edmund Burke
If the government has done nothing wrong, they should have nothing to hide.
Prove anything by multiplying Huge Number times Tiny Number
You better read that again.. This time, pay attention to the part that says this "shall in all Cases, except Treason, Felony and Breach of the Peace