Dear Conservative,

Last week, President Obama stood before the American people and outlined how he planned to rein in the National Security Agency’s data-collection methods. While admitting that the NSA data mining program was too broad, the President chastised those who suggested that the government was spying on Americans and their phone calls. While discrediting those who argue the government is monitoring Americans, Obama promised in the same breath to reevaluate the NSA’s data collection standards. Well, which is it? Do we have nothing to worry about, or is the NSA program in need of serious changes?

Obama promised the American people that the NSA was “not abusing authorities in order to listen to your private phone calls or read your emails.” The problem is it turns out that Barack Obama wasn’t being entirely truthful. Or, perhaps he truly is ignorant of what is going on in his administration…

Bill Binney, a 32-year veteran of the NSA executive who literally created the agency’s mass surveillance program for digital information, recently admitted in an interview that the federal government is spying on virtually everything we do.

In fact, a recently declassified government document reveals that the NSA used data collected on American citizens to provide 2-3 tips to the FBI every day. The document reads that “the NSA has, on a daily basis, accessed the BR [Business Records] metadata for purposes of comparing thousands of non-RAS approved telephone identifiers on its alert list against the BR metadata in order to identify any matches.”

Meta data is information that wireless carriers collect detailing where, when, and to whom customers make their phone calls. Meta data allows the government to learn individuals’ social networks to potentially determine connections to illicit activity.

While the government admits in these documents that the NSA was authorized to collect some phone data, it also routinely broke the law and passed Americans’ data on to domestic law enforcement agencies without a warrant!

Force Congress to STOP the Obama administration from violating your Fourth Amendment rights!

Make no mistake: While Obama might still be lying to the American people, the intelligence establishment has been spying on Americans long before he entered the White House.

Since 2006, the intelligence establishment has been unlawfully collecting data on U.S. citizens on a massive scale. Ever since then, the NSA has provided 2-3 tips to the FBI each day using this data it collected on U.S. citizens. That’s a handful of times every day that the NSA passes illegally obtained information on to law enforcement without justification or a warrant!

How does the government get away with this? Well, it turns out that the NSA and other intelligence agencies have become extremely skilled at “laundering” this illegal data. Just as a drug dealer would need to launder money to stay off the government’s radar, agencies like the Drug Enforcement Agency have routinely used NSA-intercepted data while simultaneously claiming that it came from “confidential informants.” So the issue of legality has not stopped the government from using the data that it illegally collects from American citizens.

The problem is that the government is storing this data for future use without any evidence of a crime being committed. While the NSA is not allowed to examine this meta-data without a warrant, it continues to store these records anyway. And it makes sense… the government simply doesn’t have the resources to keep real-time tabs on every citizen. BUT, if you end up slipping up in the future and these unelected bureaucrats decide you deserve extra scrutiny, the government can petition to reopen your already stored meta-data to build a case against you.

This isn’t how our criminal justice system is supposed to work! The Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution protects each citizen from unlawful searches and seizures. The NSA data mining program is unlawfully seizing your meta-data until you step out of line and a search is actually warranted!

Force Congress to STOP the Obama administration from violating your Fourth Amendment rights!

This may have started as a way to fight terrorism, but the collection of Americans’ meta-data is now used by domestic law enforcement to prosecute non-violent criminals. The NSA and other intelligence agencies are using national security to justify collecting your meta-data, only to launder it and pass it on to law enforcement for domestic, non-terrorism investigations!

Now you see how Obama delicately crafted his response. He told us that the NSA does not monitor Americans which, according to leaked documents, seems to largely be correct. But the NSA does launder and pass this data onto other law enforcement agencies which use it to target us domestically!

For far too long, we have allowed Democrats and Republicans to frame the NSA debate around national security. Now believe me, I am all for reasonable programs that protect the United States from deranged terrorists who mean to do us harm. But while this debate is being framed around terrorism, no one is calling the government out on laundering this data and illegally using it to prosecute Americans for domestic crimes!

Every day, law enforcement uses illegally obtained and laundered data to investigate U.S. citizens for domestic crimes. This is unconstitutional and unjust and it must be stopped!

If Congress has any backbone at all, it will put an end to these blatant Fourth Amendment violations. Yet only you, the voter, can force Congress to act! You must stand up against these unlawful searches and seizures because if you don’t act, soon you too could find yourself in the government’s crosshairs!

Force Congress to STOP the Obama administration from violating your Fourth Amendment rights!

Joe Otto

Conservative Daily