Our Continued Loss Of Freedom, Part 2: The CIA Hacking Of The Constitution and Our Privacy

One of the reasons why America has been such a wonderful experiment in government is because of the many freedoms that the Founders guaranteed via the Constitution and Bill of Rights. America has lifted more people out of poverty and created a legendary middle class that has never been matched anytime in history. Freedom comes in many different ways and each of those ways helps make Americans wealthier and freer to live their lives as they want.

But for the next few days we will be examining how that freedom mission and promise has been severely impaired by the American political class. We have often discussed on how our freedom of speech, freedom of religion, economic freedom, and other freedoms have been eroded over time by our politicians. And as the next few days will prove, these politicians have continued to impose their will on us until we will them to stop.

Previously, we focused on how our economic freedom is being stripped away by over taxation and over regulation of the Federal government. And when you think about it, without economic freedom, i.e. the freedom to keep the fruits of our labor, there really cannot be many other kinds of freedom. If you were allowed to keep more of your income and wages, you could:

• Send your kids to better schools.
• You could more easily start your own business.
• You could donate more to charities and needy individuals that you want to help.
• You could take more and better vacations.
• You could live in a better house or drive a better car.

Without economic freedom, freedom in other parts of your life become much more restrictive.

Today, we will talk about the freedom of being left alone and privacy and how the political class and the out of control government bureaucracy they oversee is destroying both our privacy and the Fourth Amendment:

We have previously discussed the reality that the Obama administration had stepped up its Orwellian spying effort, via the NSA, when it started to collect just about every electronic communication of every American without getting a warrant, without due process, and without probable cause. Fortunately, Eric Snowden uncovered the Obama spying network which resulted in some safeguards being put in place. 

However, the Obama administration spying effort was an unprecedented violation of the Fourth Amendment. And who knows what information the government still holds about every American and whether or not they really stopped the spying. While the government claimed they stopped the spying on innocent Americans but who knows if they did, they certainly did not announce their spying plans and operations the first time around.

But before we move on to the latest government intrusion into our lives, this time via the CIA, let’s quickly review how the Obama administration and Federal government spied on other, non-Americans. We go through this list to illustrate how the NSA, the CIA, and the Obama administration had no trepidations about spying on and violating the privacy of famous people. If they had not qualms or morals about spying on the following people, I doubt they had or would have qualms about spying on you:

• The Federal government spied on a private meeting between German Chancellor Angela Merkel and UN Secretary Ban Ki-Moon regarding a climate change meeting they were having.
• Obama was briefed that the Federal government was “monitoring” Merkel in 2010 but allowed it to continue.
• The Federal government tapped the phone of the Chief of Staff for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees.
• The Federal government intercepted messages of the Director of Rules of the World Trade Organization.
• The Federal government intercepted Italian diplomatic cables that involved Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu.
• The Federal government intercepted conversations between European Union and Japanese trade ministers.
• The Federal government targeted five top European Union officials for long term message interception including tapping their phones in several different countries.
• The Federal government targeted the Italian ambassador to NATO for long term message interception.
• The Federal government tapped a private meeting between French and Italian prime ministers regarding the Italian banking system.

Even worse than this spying and message interception is the reality that the U.S. had actually signed an agreement with the United Nations that it would not do such spying. But much like the Obama administration and the Federal government which ignored the Fourth Amendment, the administration and Federal government apparently ignored their formal agreement with the United Nations. Again, proving that the last administration and the current Federal spying operations would have no qualms about spying on American citizens.

Back to the CIA intrusion into our lives and the lives of others around the world as they enhance their ability to trample our Fourth Amendment rights. According to the latest releases by Wikileaks, the CIA has been busy creating and collecting various computer viruses, malware, and spying capabilities from around the world and from within the CIA itself. 

Unlike the NSA, which at least has the illusion of getting warrants to spy on people, according to the Wikileaks information, the CIA’s cyber effort has no trepidations about screwing around with people’s lives and privacy:

• The Wikileaks release of its latest documents shows that the CIA has collected a massive, detailed catalog of secret computer hacking tools.
• These hacking tools can be used to turn computers, Internet router computers, smartphones and web-enabled televisions into remote electronic spying devices.
• The hacking tools were so good that they would enable CIA personnel or others to by bypass the encrypting software of both Apple and Android smartphones.
• This information was among the 9,000 documents that Wikileaks released, what promises to be just the first set of stolen CIA documents.
• Some of the documents show CIA personnel discussing how to hack Apple and Android smartphones in order to ascertain someone’s location and audio and text messages in addition to taking over a smartphone’s microphone and camera.
• This is interesting because the Obama administration had promised smartphone manufacturers that it would tell those manufacturers what security gaps the government uncovered and yet we now see that during that administration the CIA was actively trying to find ways to exploit those smartphones, indicating another potential Obama administration lie.
• But it is not just smartphones that are at risk since one program called “Weeping Angel” can turn a Samsung Internet connected televisions into listening devices which can send family and other conversations back to the CIA.
• Other CIA hacking programs can corrupt car control systems, which in the era of self driving cars would allow the CIA to turn a car into an assassination vehicle.

All of this is very Orwellian “1984” stuff. Given the history of the previous administration and that the NSA and CIA often operate on the edges or beyond the limits of the law and Constitution, this is very scary stuff. And adding to the scary nature of an out of control U.S. intelligence community is the reality that it is highly likely, given that Wikileaks implies it has a lot more CIA stolen documents that it could release, it appears that the CIA’s hacking library may now be out in the real and virtual world, allowing America’s enemies to raise havoc with our lives.

We have discussed the reality that we have allowed the American political class to limit our economic freedom and now it appears that we are at the mercy of intelligence agencies that have little or no incentive to obey privacy laws and morals and the Constitution. Orwell would be so proud.

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.bankruptingamerica.org
http://www.conventionofstates.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w