Comprehensive Summary of 21st Century U.S. Government Spying

In case you have been too busy to keep up with ALL the spying scandals, official and unofficial, here’s an overview:

• The government is spying on just about everything we do 

• The government has adopted a secret interpretation of the Patriot Act which allows it to pretend that “everything” is relevant … so it spies on everyone

• The government’s mass spying doesn’t keep us safe

• NSA spying did not prevent a terror attack on Wall Street

• There is no real oversight by either Congress or the courts.  And see this and this

• Even a Federal judge who was on the secret spying court for 3 years says that it’s a kangaroo court

• Experts say that the spying program is illegal, and is exactly the kind of thing which King George imposed on the American colonists … which led to the Revolutionary War

• We can keep everyone safe without violating the Constitution … more cheaply and efficiently than the current system

• The top counter-terrorism Czar under Clinton and Bush says that revealing NSA spying programs does not harm national security

• Whistleblowers on illegal spying have no “legal” way to get the information out

• A high-level intelligence source says “we hack everyone everywhere“

• Some people make a lot of money off of mass spying

• Spying started before 9/11 … and may have stemmed from an emergency program only meant to be activated in the case of a nuclear war

• Governments and big corporations are doing everything they can to destroy anonymity

• Mass spying creates an easy mark for hackers

• Polls show that the public doesn’t believe the NSA

• While leaker Edward Snowden is treated as a traitor by the fatcats and elites, he is considered a hero by the American public

• While the Obama administration is spying on everyone in the country – it is at the same time the most secretive administration ever(background). That’s despite Obama saying he’s running the most transparent administration ever

• Top constitutional experts say that Obama and Bush are worse than Nixon … and the Stasi East Germans

• Surveillance can be used to frame you if someone in government happens to take a dislike to you

• Government spying has always focused on crushing dissent … not on keeping us safe

• An NSA whistleblower says that the NSA is spying on – and blackmailing – top government officials and military officers (and see this)

• High-level US government officials have warned for 40 years that mass surveillance would lead to tyranny in America