German TV: Snowden Says NSA Also Spies on Industry

[JDPriestly]

63. The people of the United States did not authorize the NSA to do some of the things it does.

Nor did Congress.

An independent executive branch board has concluded that the National Security Agency’s long-running program to collect billions of Americans’ phone records is illegal and should end.

In a strongly worded report to be issued Thursday, the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board (PCLOB) said that the statute upon which the program was based, Section 215 of the USA Patriot Act, “does not provide an adequate basis to support this program.”

. . . .

The divided panel also concluded that the program raises serious threats to civil liberties, has shown limited value in countering terrorism and is not sustainable from a policy perspective.

“We have not identified a single instance involving a threat to the United States in which the telephone records program made a concrete difference in the outcome of a counterterrorism investigation,” said the report, a copy of which was obtained by The Washington Post. “Moreover, we are aware of no instance in which the program directly contributed to the discovery of a previously unknown terrorist plot or the disruption of a terrorist attack.”

Lots more information in the article.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/independent-review-board-says-nsa-phone-data-program-is-illegal-and-should-end/2014/01/22/4cebd470-83dd-11e3-bbe5-6a2a3141e3a9_story.html

This program is completely unnecessary. It is easy to get a warrant to obtain records when needed.

The Constitution requires a warrant. No administration can conduct a program as obviously unconstitutional as the NSA surveillance.

Wouldn't it have been great if an employee of Freedom Industries had come forward and told W. Virginians that the tanks that spilled the toxic liquid into the W. Virginia river could easily leak?

Isn't it great that one employee from a tobacco company had the honesty and courage to come forward and tell the American people that the tobacco companies knew their products were poison?

Whistleblowers are as much a part of the democratic system and our justice system as are our elected officials.