I'm not trying to make you paranoid or anything, bit if you're one of those naive people that think YOUR civil rights have never been
violated by the federal government; you better thing again…
Did
you ever get the feeling you were being watched?
And
watched by the government?
There’s very good reason to feel that way, says a whistleblower from the
National Security Agency who says everyone in the U.S. is under virtual
surveillance by federal authorities.
In an
interview
with RT, William Binney, a former mathematician and code breaker at the
NSA, says the FBI records the emails of nearly all Americans, including members
of Congress, and warns that the government can use this information against
anyone.
“The FBI has access to the data collected, which is basically the emails of
virtually everybody in the country. And the FBI has access to it,” Binney said.
“All the congressional members are on the surveillance too, no one is
excluded. They are all included. So, yes, this can happen to anyone. If they
become a target for whatever reason – they are targeted by the government, the
government can go in, or the FBI, or other agencies of the government, they can
go into their database, pull all that data collected on them over the years,
and we analyze it all. So, we have to actively analyze everything they’ve done
for the last 10 years at least.”
Binney resigned from the agency in 2001, as he no longer wanted to be part
of alleged violations of the U.S. Constitution.
He says information is being collected in bulk without even requesting
providers.
“I don’t think they are filtering it. They are just storing it,” Binney told
RT. “I think it’s just a matter of selecting when they want it. So, if they
want to target you, they would take your attributes, go into that database and
pull out all your data.”
When asked if he himself was on the target list, Binney responded, “Oh,
sure! I believe I’ve been on it for quite a few years. So I keep telling them
everything I think of them in my email. So that when they want to read it
they’ll understand what I think of them.”
Binney actually blew the whistle on NSA practices during the term of
President George W. Bush, but with President Barack Obama now in office, he
says, “it’s getting worse. They are doing more. He is supporting the building
of the Bluffdale facility, which is over two billion dollars they are spending
on storage room for data. That means that they are collecting a lot more now
and need more storage for it. That facility by my calculations that I submitted
to the court for the Electronic Frontiers Foundation against NSA would hold on
the order of 5 zettabytes of data. Just that current storage capacity is being
advertised on the web that you can buy. And that’s not talking about what they
have in the near future.”
Binney is a
2012
recipient of the Joe A. Callaway Award for Civic Courage, which is awarded
to those who stand out for constitutional rights and American values at great
risk to their personal or professional lives.
RT suggested his former colleagues at the NSA might view him as a traitor
for exposing their practices.
When asked how he felt about them, he said: “They are violating the
foundation of this entire country. Why this entire government was formed? It’s
founded with the Constitution and the rights were given to the people in the
country under that Constitution. They are in violation of that. And under
executive order 13526, section 1.7 – you cannot classify information to just
cover up a crime, which this is, and that was signed by President Obama. Also
President Bush signed it earlier as an executive order, a very similar one. If
any of this comes into Supreme Court and they rule it unconstitutional, then
the entire house of cards of the government falls.”
He says the government is doing its best to try to keep the issue out of
court.
“And, of course, we are trying to do the best we can to get into court. So,
we decided it deserves a ruling from the Supreme Court. Ultimately the court is
supposed to protect the Constitution. All these people in the government take
an oath to defend the Constitution. And they are not living up to the oath of
office.”
