NSA Whistleblower: Justice Department Covers Up Crimes of Obama, Bush Administrations

[sad sally]

By: Kevin Gosztola Tuesday May 8, 2012

In a recent segment from Current TV‘s show “Viewpoint,” host Eliot Spitzer interviewed three National Security Agency whistleblowers: William Binney, a former technical director; Kirk Wiebe, former senior analyst; and Thomas Drake, a former senior official. Each man talked about what he saw the NSA do when they were employees. Each of these whistleblowers directly explained the threats to civil liberties posed by the lawlessness of the NSA in the past decade.

Much of what is shared in the segment was already shown, but since what the NSA did constitutes illegality and corruption that have gone unpunished, it is worth highlighting key points.

Drake recounts that shortly after 9/11 he discovered that “a legal regime—the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act”—was now being “absolutely violated by NSA in league with the White House.” FISA created a special court to provide warrants for wiretapping, but NSA was increasingly abusing its authority and was secretly and unconstitutionally eavesdropping on Americans. Drake knew if he remained silent he would be “complicit.”

“The vast capability of the NSA was increasingly being turned inside the US,” Drake says. “To surveil networks, emails, phone calls, etc.” Hundreds of millions of calls from individuals in the United States were surveilled as part of “Stellar Wind.”

“The United States of America was turned into the equivalent of a foreign nation for the purposes of dragnet electronic surveillance,” Drake adds.

http://dissenter.firedoglake.com/2012/05/08/nsa-whistleblower-justice-department-covers-up-crimes-of-obama-bush-administrations/

[pmorlan1]

1. Great piece

Great piece by Kevin Gostola. I would encourage everyone to watch the short video clip he included.

[leveymg]

2. I'm curious as to why this post (and the subject) is so widely ignored at DU

Have people simply given up reading and talking about the subject of their ongoing loss of 1st, 4th and 5th Amendment Constitutional Rights? Isn't this growing silence how tyranny takes hold?

Aren't we all complicit in this by our silence and ceasing to speak up, while we still can?

[truebrit71]

3. At this point in the election cycle what's the alternative?

Do we aid the weakening of the President by the rw thereby increasing the likelihood of an Rmoney administration?

I am far from being a big fan of many of this Administrations policies, but frankly I don't see any other option than to support him because the thought of a Corporate Stooge like Rmoney in the WH frankly keeps me up at night...

[sad sally]

4. Appears that way, doesn't it? It's hard to imagine that under a Bush/Cheney reign, Democrats were

outraged by the Patriot Act's attack on 1st Amendment rights. Yet when the President renewed and expanded it to further define the definition of terrorism, there were only wimpers of objection. Americans who participate in nonviolent civil disobedience may very well find they are considered terrorists.

The government may investigate and spy on anyone they want because of that person's association with a particular religious or political group.

The Department of Justice directive encourages federal, state, and local officials to resist and/or limit access to government records through Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests, even denying documents exist when they actually do.

The Patriot Act, in direct contradiction of 4th Amendment rights of unreasonable searches and seizures, gives judges the right to authorize secret searches based only on the Government’s assertion that a “significant” purpose of an investigation is gathering information related to “terrorism,” as the government defines it.

Wiretaps, collection of e-mails, visited websites, medical records, library activity, employers records can all be collected with no probable cause necessary, and those providing the records don't have to reveal that your records were provided to the government.

5th and 6th Amendment rights have been eliminated, as Americans can now be jailed and have no legal representation, without formal charges or proof of witnesses or evidence against them. Once jailed, the right to speedy and public trial may never happen.

Although our President says he has stopped torture, rendition to other countries where torture is acceptable continues, which is against the 8th Amendment. Rendition and torture by others for the US, paid for by the US.

Obviously, our lost liberties wern't regained by the switching administrations, and as we silently watch these amendments fall, will the rest of the constitution be next?

[leveymg]

5. The rest of the Constitution doesn't really matter if we've already lost Amendments 1,4,5,6 & 8.

As the sad song laments, "This is not America."