Government Gone Wild, Part 8: Three More NSA Whistleblowers Come Forward, Part One Of Their Tale Of Their Bravery

This is the ninth installment in a series on government snooping and the destruction of the Fourth Amendment as it pertains to the Federal government and the NSA’s confiscating just about every form of electronic communications of every American under the false guise of fighting terrorism. This Orwellian and creepy snooping has resulted in skyrocketing book sales of George Orwell’s dismal prediction of a future dictatorship in this country in the novel, “1984.”

In fact, you can still take the quiz that asks you to choose whether a certain aspect of government intrusion and spying is from Orwell or from the Obama administration at the following link:

http://www.loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2013/06/government-gone-wild-part-4-orwell-or.html

The first installment in this seemingly never ending review of the Fourth Amendment destruction can be accessed at:

http://www.loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2013/06/government-gone-wild-part-1-verizon.html

Today’s discussion focuses on three more NSA whistle blowers who have come forward to verify that the original whistle blower, Edward Snowden, who truly upended the apple cart of government snooping secrecy, was correct in his facts and in his actions to come forward as a concerned American who was scared about us losing our freedom and privacy to the Federal government.

This now brings the total number of outed whistle blowers on this administration’s secret surveillance of Americans to at least six. We have Snowden and the three new NSA whistle blowers. We have California Congresswoman Maxine Walters who publicly told the world in February that Obama had a giant database containing every American’s electronic communications. We also have Shia LaBeouf who told Jay Leno in a 2008 interview that an FBI movie consultant told him that the government was listening in on up to 20% of Americans’ phone calls, an assertion that is in complete conflict with President Obama’s claim that the government was NOT listening to our phone calls.

The claims and accusations made by the three new NSA whistleblowers are just as scary and dire as Snowden’s. They were interviewed together in a June 16, 2013 USA Today article and interview. The entire article can be accessed at:

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2013/06/16/snowden-whistleblower-nsa-officials-roundtable/2428809/

Some of their more serious assertions and claims from the article are just as creepy and scary as Snowden’s:

• Thomas Drake, William Binney and J. Kirk Wiebe worked for the National Security Agency for many, many years and actually were deeply involved in developing the very systems that are now snooping on every American without due process or cause.
• According to the article, for years the three whistle-blowers had told anyone who would listen that the NSA collects huge swaths of communications data from unwary U.S. citizens with their audiences ranging from their immediate supervisors to Congressional committees to Federal investigators, and now the news media.
• Although they had spent decades in the upper management levels of the NSA designing and managing the current data-collection systems, they are speaking out now because they now believe their systems and work have been turned against Americans.
• Like Snowden and the brave State Department employees who spoke out because of the unnecessary murders of four innocent Americans at the Benghazi consulate, these three brave Americans have also been investigated as criminals and forced to give up careers, reputations and friendships built over a lifetime of serving America.
• Drake: “And we are seeing the initial outlines and contours of a very systemic, very broad, a Leviathan surveillance state and much of it is in violation of the fundamental basis for our own country — in fact, the very reason we even had our own American Revolution. And the Fourth Amendment for all intents and purposes was revoked after 9/11. …” Comment: Destruction of the Fourth Amendment, as witnessed by insiders who were close to the mechanism that did the destruction.
• Radack: “He [Snowden] is someone who exposed broad waste, abuse and in his case illegality. ... And he also said he was making the disclosures for the public good and because he wanted to have a debate.”
• Binney: “Ever since ... 1997-1998 ... those terrorists have known that we've been monitoring all of these communications all along. So they have already adjusted to the fact that we are doing that. So the fact that it is published in the U.S. news that we're doing that, has no effect on them whatsoever. They have already adjusted to that.” Comment: Which gets to our position yesterday, do we really think that the terrorists are that stupid to use basic, unencrypted communications modes?
• Drake: “I mean, it's [the Verizon secret court order to give up telephone information] the first time we've publicly seen an actual, secret, surveillance-court order. I don't really want to call it "foreign intelligence" (court) anymore, because I think it's just become a surveillance court, OK? And we are all foreigners now. By virtue of that order, every single phone record that Verizon has is turned over each and every day to NSA. There is no probable cause. There is no indication of any kind of counterterrorism investigation or operation. It's simply: "Give us the data." ... “ Comment: Scary observation and actual fact that we are now all “foreigners” in our own country.
• Drake and Binney: “One is that the FBI requesting the data. And two, the order directs Verizon to pass all that data to NSA, not the FBI. What it is really saying is the NSA becomes a processing service for the FBI to use to interrogate information directly. ... The implications are that everybody's privacy is violated, and it can retroactively analyze the activity of anybody in the country back almost 12 years.”
• Binney: “Now, the other point that is important about that is the serial number of the order: 13-dash-80. That means it's the 80th order of the court in 2013. ... Those orders are issued every quarter, and this is the second quarter, so you have to divide 80 by two and you get 40. If you make the assumption that all those orders have to deal with companies and the turnover of material by those companies to the government, then there are at least 40 companies involved in that transfer of information. However, if Verizon, which is Order No. 80, and the first quarter got order No. 1 — then there can be as many as 79 companies involved.” Comment: So the assertion by this administration that only top line telephone call information and only Verizon information was confiscated is probably bogus.

That concludes the first half of the story that these three brave whistleblower/American heroes told USA Today. We will conclude their stories and insights tomorrow along with our conclusions of what needs to be done to fix this liberty sapping situation.

Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at:

www.loathemygovernment.com

It is also available online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Please pass our message of freedom onward. Let your friends and family know about our websites and blogs, ask your library to carry the book, and respect freedom for both yourselves and others everyday.

Please visit the following sites for freedom:

http://www.reason.com/
http://www.cato.org
http://www.robertringer.com/
http://realpolichick.blogspot.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w

Liberty's Death By A Thousand Cuts - Ron Paul's Warning, Part 1: The Root Causes

Let’s take a step back from gun control lunacy and Obama Care idiocy and talk about something more basic today and tomorrow: freedom. The following thoughts are from the last speech given in Congress by long time Texas Congressman Ron Paul.

Congressman Paul has been one of the very people in the Washington political class who has sincerely worried about the erosion of liberty and freedom in this country. This loss of freedom was usually at the hands of overreaching, overbearing, and over politicized politicians and their usually ineffective, wasteful, and dangerous policies and legislation.

Many smart people throughout history have correctly observed that freedom is seldom lost by a sudden outburst of tyranny. It is usually lost over time, bit by bit, kind of like death by a thousand cuts. You do not notice how much freedom has eroded away until it is too late to stop the erosion.

Congressman Paul’s points do a great job of pointing out how that slow erosion, how those tiny cuts have dramatically reduced our freedom in this country without most of us noticing. It is a good starting point to determine if this path of slow tyranny is a good path for America or if there is truly a need to change the path back to our heritage of liberty as outlined in the Constitution. Is it a continued road of ignorance or back to the enlightened road of free will, free expression, and freedom from the shackles of politicians and government.

The first part of his speech goes down a checklist of freedom reducing acts from just the past few years:

"[Still] our liberties are restricted and government operates outside the rule of law.. Here are a few examples:

- Debt is growing exponentially.

- The Patriot Act and Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act legislation passed without much debate, have resulted in a steady erosion of our Fourth Amendment rights.

- Tragically, our government engages in a pre-emptive wear, otherwise known as aggression, with no complaints from the American people.

- The drone warfare we are pursuing worldwide is destined to end badly for us the hatred builds for innocent lives lost and the international laws flouted.

- It’s now the law of the land that the military can arrest American citizens, hold them indefinitely, without charges or a trial.

- Rampant hostility toward free trade is supported by a large number in Washington.

- Sanctions are used to punish countries that don’t follow our orders.

- Bailouts and guarantees for all kinds of misbehavior are routine.”

To these gross impositions on freedom, the root causes of our liberty loss, we should add a few more causes:

- You are not living in a free country when all forms of government confiscate, on average, over 30% of an American household’s income every year.

- You are not living in a free country when about 500 people in Washington, people you have never met, can force you to purchase a product or service of their choosing, as witnessed by the health insurance mandate demanded in Obama Care.

- You are not living in a free country when the central government controls your elder years medical care (via Medicare).

- You are not living in a free country when the central government controls a large portion of your retirement income (via Social Security).

- You are not living in a free country when the central government controls a large portion of your pre-retirement medical care (via Obama Care).

- You are not living in a free country if your ability to go to college, via student loans, is dependent on the actions and whims of Federal government politicians.

- You are not living in a free country if your ability to get a home mortgage, via Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, is dependent on the actions and whims of Federal government politicians.

- You are not living in a free country if the Federal government’s executive branch can independently and arbitrarily designate any American for assassination and then actually commit that assassination without due process of law (e.g. Anwar al-Awlaki).

- You are not living in a free country when a President can seize control of all forms of communications when he alone decides it is in the national interest (Executive Order - Assignment of National Security and Emergency Preparedness Communications Functions)

- You are not living in a free country when the Federal government can collect and store every electronic communication any citizen makes (e.g. email, text messages) in massive data storage centers (e.g. Bluffdale, Utah) without due process, a warrant, or privacy protection.

- You are not living in a free country when the Federal government executive branch thinks it can affix a GPS tracking device to any citizen’s car without a warrant (see U.S. Vs. Jones decision).

- You are not living in a free country when crony capitalism wastes billions of taxpayer dollars every year without any redeeming societal benefits (e.g. Solyndra, Fisker, Telsa).

- You are not living in a free country if the executive branch can circumvent Constitutionally mandated government appointment reviews via a "czar" politburo.

When taken in total, the above actions by the American political class have shot us a long way down the road to tyranny. In light of these actions, the Congressman’s speech addresses some very serious questions to all Americans:

“Why are sick people [Americans] who use medical marijuana put in prison?

Why are Americans not allowed to use gold and silver as legal tender as mandated by the Constitution?

Why is the Transportation Security Administration permitted to abuse the rights of any American traveling by air?

Why haven’t we given up on the drug war since it’s an obvious failure and violates the people’s rights? Has nobody noticed that the authorities can’t even keep drugs out of our prisons? How can making our entire society a prison solve the problem?

Why do we sacrifice so much getting needlessly involved in border disputes and civil strife around the world and ignore the root cause of the most deadly border in the world - the one between Mexico and the U.S.?

Why does changing the party in power never change policy? Could it be that the views of both parties are essentially the same?

Why is there so little concern for the executive order that gives the President authority to establish a “kill list” including American citizens, of those targeted for assassination?

Why is patriotism thought to be loyalty to the government and the politicians who run it, rather than loyalty to the principles of liberty and support for the people? Real patriotism is a willingness to challenge the government when it’s wrong.”

Thought provoking questions that every American needs to ask themselves if liberty and freedom in this country have any chance of surviving. We are well on our way to a thousand cuts and once we get beyond that magic number, the ability to restore our freedom and liberty will become next to impossible. Those forces that do not care about these Constitutional concepts, the American political class, will be too entrenched to give back the freedom they took away from us.

Congressman Paul’s insights and questions should be our wake up call. These should be the starting points and road map of taking back our country from the those who use our country for their own political gain, personal enrichment, and selfish ego satisfaction.

Today, we laid out the root causes of our problem, the erosion of liberty. Tomorrow, we will review the back half of the Congressman’s speech which lays out the types of behavior that is needed to stop the bleeding before it is too late.

Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at:

www.loathemygovernment.com

It is also available online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Please pass our message of freedom onward. Let your friends and family know about our websites and blogs, ask your library to carry the book, and respect freedom for both yourselves and others everyday.

Please visit the following sites for freedom:

http://www.reason.com/
http://www.cato.org/
http://www.robertringer.com/
http://realpolichick.blogspot.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w