Dear Conservative Friend,
The NSA actually admitted to the fact that they truly do spy on us through social media! Think about how many social networks do you and your families use today? If you’re like me, you probably didn’t realize how many because they are everywhere and becoming part of our experiences. You have email, maybe Facebook? Instagram? What about Pinterest?
Regardless of your personal social networks, YOU and I belong to a social network that we didn’t even know about!
A September New York Times report stated that in 2010, the NSA had started to build a social network that could chart any American’s online social connections with the data it collected through its various anti-American SPY programs like PRISM.
It sounds like what Facebook calls, Facebook Open Graph, although it maps a person’s connections with other people through their online communications.
Why does the NSA or the Federal Government need a social networking tool like this??
The NSA is already snooping on you and your online actions and your email!
Now, according to the NYT report, which came from documents obtained by Edward Snowden, the government did this to “conduct large-scale graph analysis on very large sets of communications metadata without having to check foreignness.”
PRISM was unveiled in early June and since then, tech companies named as contributors in the program have been trying to distance themselves from having anything to do with it.
Part of that effort, the companies in question asked the federal government allow them to publish the number of federal data requests they receive on an annual basis. Those requests were rejected by our government, of course!
The companies in question are suing the federal government for the right to release those numbers! Good for them!
Obama’s administration is again intimidating people into towing the line for their dirty work!
This White House, this administration and this President are willing to do whatever they can to intimidate the GOP, and We the People into surrender!
We know that the real terrorists to our national security aren’t using these social networks or services, and yet the government continues to argue they must continue surveilling us. It’s good for us and we just don’t know it.
Yes, but that doesn’t matter. Obama believes that your activities on Facebook are key to stopping terrorism.
Isn’t the NSA required, by law, to check whether or not a target is a non-U.S. person??
Now, we see that this tool allows the NSA to use this system to bypass a non-U.S. person requirement! The NSA started to use this very same tool on Americans.
According to the leaked documents, the NSA pulls communication data from public and commercial sources alongside information like:
BANK CODES, INSURANCE INFORMATION, FACEBOOK PROFILES, VOTER REGISTRATION, GPS LOCATION, PROPERTY RECORDS AND TAX DATA!
This tool helps the NSA and the FEDERAL GOVERNMENT create a colossal web using your personal and private data. Plus, it links you to people you may not even know!
When will this abuse stop? When will normal Americans not have to “look over their shoulder” anymore? The NSA is not going away. The NSA will never leave YOU alone! Of course you are not a terrorist, but that doesn’t matter anymore. The NSA spying on you abuse continues right now! And we must let Congress know how we feel about this invasion of our privacy!
Despite all the media hoopla about the government shutdown, the abuse of privacy invasion of all Americans continues!
Last week, the New York Times reported: “Since 2010, the National Security Agency has been exploiting its huge collections of data to create sophisticated graphs of some Americans’ social connections that can identify their associates, their locations at certain times, their traveling companions and other personal information, according to newly disclosed documents and interviews with officials.
“The agency has multiple collection programs and databases, former officials said, adding that the social networking analyses relied on both domestic and international metadata. They spoke only on the condition of anonymity because the information was classified. But the new documents provided a rare window into what the N.S.A. actually does with the information it gathers.”
Orin S. Kerr, a law professor at George Washington University, urges: “Metadata can be very revealing! Knowing things like the number someone just dialed or the location of the person’s cellphone is going to allow them to assemble a picture of what someone is up to. It’s the digital equivalent of tailing a suspect.”
We must make sure that Congress curtails many of these privacy invasion tactics.
Just because the grid-lock in Washington continues, we cannot afford to forget about the dangers that still lurk when a powerful government can use any tool at their disposal to spy on their own people. We do have certain guarantees of privacy that the United States Constitution specifically addresses.
The Guardian, who originally reported the Snowden claims, says that the NSA stores metadata of millions of web users for up to a year, according to secret files. They report: “The Obama administration has repeatedly stated that the NSA keeps only the content of messages and communications of people it is intentionally targeting – but internal documents reveal the agency retains vast amounts of metadata. Metadata provides a record of almost anything a user does online, from browsing history – such as map searches and websites visited – to account details, email activity, and even some account passwords. This can be used to build a detailed picture of an individual’s life.”
“This can be used to build a detailed picture of an individual’s life.”
Much of the NSA’s data collection is carried out under section 702 of the FISA Amendments Act. This provision allows for the collection of data without individual warrants of communications, where at least one end of the conversation, or data exchange, involves a non-American located outside the United States of America at the time of collection.
Can you believe our own government is actually spying on us socially? That brings back remembrances of Adolph Hitler and his war against the Jews in Germany just prior to World War II!
Of course Obama’s mouthpiece, Jay Carney, White House Press Secretary, gives the standard answer when inquiring Americans plead to retain their privacy: “The NSA’s mission is to protect Americans and its interests from threats such as terrorism and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.”
If the NSA is so smart, why are 90-year-old grandmothers being spied on, being treated just like terrorists? All of a sudden “the mouthpiece” grows silent!
In spite of the turmoil between the two parties during the government shutdown, this is one area that many on both sides of the aisle can come together in a bipartisan way: to protect your privacy!
Congress is the “gatekeeper” for the United States Constitution and the freedoms to you that this document represents! They must vote against any invasions of your personal privacy, like our founding fathers wanted. Fax Congress!
The Washington Post reports: “The fact that the NSA collected cell-site data is a big deal. But so is the fact they admitted it. Days after the Oregon Senator (U.S. Senator Ron Wyden) asked whether the NSA had ever collected geolocation information on U.S. citizens, the agency’s director, Gen. Keith Alexander, admitted Wednesday that it had gathered data from cellular towers on a limited basis. It wasn’t an off-the-cuff disclosure or a slip of the tongue. The statement had been planned.”
NSA General Alexander: “Unintentional mistakes!”
To make matters even more embarrassing for the agency, within the past two weeks many reports have been leaked about various employees of the NSA who spied on significant others or former business partners.
One NSA employee spied on nine women without detection for six years!
General Alexander dismissed the massive abuse. He claims the NSA “monitoring tools were with rare exception unintentional mistakes.” It sure sounds like an Obama appointee!
However, Reuters says, “At least a dozen U.S. National Security Agency employees have abused secret surveillance programs in the past decade, most often to spy on their significant others, according to the latest findings of the agency’s internal watchdog. Charles Grassley (the head Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee) had asked the NSA internal watchdog to report on ‘intentional and willful’ abuse of the NSA surveillance authority as public concerns mount over the vast scope of the U.S. government’s spying program.”
Within the next very few weeks, the Senate and the House will be presenting several bills to curtail the spying by the NSA. These bills will include:
Reforming the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which allows the NSA and law enforcement to spy on Americans
Review Section 215 of the Patriot Act
Establishment of third-party oversight of NSA programs that spy on Americans
Eliminating the NSA’s bulk collection and data-mining of citizen’s internet and telephone records
Various privacy protection proposals are already on the table. It appears that this can be a bipartisan effort, even though there are Congressmen on both sides of the privacy issue.
Join the conversation on Facebook today!
In disgust at the lack of cooperative answers given by General Alexander this past week, U.S. Senator Ron Dryden (D-OR) reacted: “After years of stonewalling on whether the government has ever tracked or planned to track the location of law-abiding Americans through their cellphones, once again, the intelligence leadership has decided to leave most of the real story secret – even when the truth would not compromise national security!”
Recent revelations of employee abuse and the admitting by the NSA that they actually spy on social networks has added to the privacy concerns by lawmakers. And so it should.
You should be afraid…be very afraid. Your constitutional rights to privacy are being invaded. And we must let Congress know how we feel. Transparency is still key.
In spite of the government shutdown, the NSA spy machine continues!
Don’t permit it. Please fax your Congress today!
Sincerely,
Joe Otto
Conservative Daily
No comments yet - make the first one!