[governance] (Tangential) White House Defends Its Wiretapping Of Millions Of US Citizens

Thu Jun 6 10:42:46 EDT 2013

[Anti-American or anti-Democratic? China makes no bones about its 
political system, but this is done in the name of life, liberty and the 
pursuit of happiness... secret courts, war crime whistle-blowers without 
the audacity of hope...  Paging Franz Kafka, Frans Kafka please pick up 
the white telephones located in the lobby... ]

  White House Defends Its Wiretapping Of Millions Of US Citizens

Tyler Durden's picture <http://www.zerohedge.com/users/tyler-durden>
Submitted by Tyler Durden <http://www.zerohedge.com/users/tyler-durden> 
on 06/06/2013 09:44 -0400

Blink and you have likely missed Obama's latest Watergate moment, this 
time following the disclosure that the White House has instructed the 
NSA to collect millions of daily phone records from Verizon (and likely 
all other carriers). What is surprising to us is that this is even news. 
We reported on /just this/ in March of 2012 with "We Are This Far From A 
Turnkey Totalitarian State" - Big Brother Goes Live September 2013 
<http://www.zerohedge.com/news/%E2%80%9Cwe-are-far-turnkey-totalitarian-state-big-brother-goes-live-september-2013>" 
and then again in April 2012 "NSA Whistleblower Speaks Live: "The 
Government Is Lying To You 
<http://www.zerohedge.com/news/nsa-whistleblower-speaks-live-government-lying-you>" 
using an NSA whistleblower as a source. Still, no matter the 
distribution platform, it is a welcome development for the majority of 
the population to know that the same Stazi tactics so loathed for 
decades in the fringes of the "evil empire" are now a daily occurrence 
under the "most transparent administration in history." This is 
especially true in the aftermath of the recent media scandals involving 
the soon to be former Attorney General.

So what was the latest largely regurgitated news? Overnight te 
Guardian's Glenn Greenwald reports that the "NSA is collecting phone 
records of millions of Verizon customers daily" following a "top secret 
court order requiring Verizon to hand over all call data shows scale of 
domestic surveillance under Obama."

Some more from the Guardian 
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/06/nsa-phone-records-verizon-court-order?CMP=twt_gu>:

    The National Security Agency is currently collecting the telephone
    records of millions of US customers of Verizon, one of America's
    largest telecoms providers, under a top secret court order issued in
    April.

    The order, a copy of which has been obtained by the Guardian,
    requires Verizon on an "ongoing, daily basis" to give the NSA
    information on all telephone calls in its systems, both within the
    US and between the US and other countries.

    The document shows for the first time that under the Obama
    administration the communication records of millions of US citizens
    are being collected indiscriminately and in bulk -- regardless of
    whether they are suspected of any wrongdoing.

    The secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (Fisa) granted
    the order to the FBI on April 25, giving the government unlimited
    authority to obtain the data for a specified three-month period
    ending on July 19.

    Under the terms of the blanket order, the numbers of both parties on
    a call are handed over, as is location data, call duration, unique
    identifiers, and the time and duration of all calls. The contents of
    the conversation itself are not covered.

    The disclosure is likely to reignite longstanding debates in the US
    over the proper extent of the government's domestic spying powers.

*No it won't*. Because those who care, have known about this for a long, 
long time. Everyone else... well, they have their soaring 401(k)s to 
comfort them, sprinkled in with a little class warfare to keep things 
"fair", and of course Dancing with the Stars.

Finally, the White House was quick to explain why living in a 
crypto-fascist, totalitarian state is the New Normal: *it's for your own 
good, *you see.

>From Reuters 
<http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/06/06/us-usa-wiretaps-verizon-idUSBRE95502920130606>:

    *The Obama administration on Thursday acknowledged that it is
    collecting a massive amount of telephone records from at least one
    carrier, reopening the debate over privacy even as it defended the
    practice as necessary to protect Americans against attack. *

    The admission comes after the Guardian newspaper published a secret
    court order related to the records of millions of Verizon
    Communications customers on its website on Wednesday.

    A senior administration official said the court order pertains only
    to data such as a telephone number or the length of a call, and not
    the subscribers' identities or the content of the telephone calls.

    Such information is "a critical tool in protecting the nation from
    terrorist threats to the United States," the official said, speaking
    on the condition of not being named.

    "It allows counter terrorism personnel to discover whether known or
    suspected terrorists have been in contact with other persons who may
    be engaged in terrorist activities, particularly people located
    inside the United States," the official added.

    The revelation raises fresh concerns about President Barack Obama's
    handling of privacy and free speech issues. His administration is
    already under fire for searching Associated Press journalists'
    calling records and the emails of a Fox television reporter as part
    of its inquiries into leaked government information.

    It was not immediately clear whether the practice extends to other
    carriers.

It does. But what is most stunning in all of this is that the benevolent 
rulers who are here to "help us" have not made selling of any security 
illegal and punishable by death. Yet.

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