Nothing Changed At The NSA: The Freedom Act Is The New Patriot Act
[The following post is by TDV Editor In Chief, Jeff Berwick]
Politics itself is mostly a big show to distract the masses. Even if you can get a real libertarian or anarchist into government to gum things up for a few hours or days there is usually an army of bureaucrats there to do the bidding of their masters in the shadows.
The only way government can even be slowed or stopped would be to get libertarians/anarchists into dozens, if not hundreds of positions in politics and bureaucracy and have the backing of a significant amount of the public behind them (something we are trying to do in Canada and already have managed to create a ruckus in the upcoming federal election).
But the US has perfected tyranny to the point now that even if someone like Rand Paul, who is at-the-least, quite libertarian, can get rid of the Patriot Act it is just immediately replaced with something just as bad, or worse, and given an even better Orwellian name to boot.
The USA FREEDOM Act is just that, which Senate passed by a vote of 67-32, after key components of the USA PATRIOT Act expired, ending ubiquitous surveillance practices for but a short time.
Americans were told that The FREEDOM Act would bring reform of unconstitutional wiretapping, but they were lied to.
The FREEDOM Act legalizes what the decision of the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals made illegal: the bulk collection of American citizens’ telecommunications information. Thanks to FREEDOM, private telecommunications corporations are still agents of the state and must store personal information and hand it over upon government request. What's more, the FREEDOM Act was drafted by Gen. Keith B. Alexander, the NSA director of the time.
Alexander “saw the move as a way for Obama to respond to public criticism without losing programs the NSA deemed more essential,” reports Homeland Security News.
The FREEDOM Act is nothing more than a psychological operation against the American people to convince them they are free. The age of Orwell is upon us, wherein freedom is slavery.
How does it work?
It’s pretty straight-forward. In the old days, the NSA bulk collected data of Americans and even individuals abroad, like heads of state. Now, domestically, the system will function through case-by-case searches of records held by phone companies. So, not much has changed.
“It's being talked about like it's the Declaration of Independence or something,” said Robert Deitz, a former NSA lawyer. “These adjustments are marginal.”
The Associated Press broke this week that the FBI has flown spy planes over American cities, while in January the Drug Enforcement Administration acknowledged it maintains a widespread database of phone calls from the US to foreign countries in a program ceased in 2013.
So, it is reasonable to believe that government bureauc-rats are going to continue their ways.
“The damage that's been done to our intelligence capabilities is modest,” said Stewart Baker, a former NSA general counsel.
Academics tend to agree.
“No one should mistake this bill for comprehensive reform,” said Jameel Jaffer, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union. “The bill leaves many of the government's most intrusive and overbroad surveillance powers untouched, and it makes only very modest adjustments to disclosure and transparency requirements.”
Alas, it is merely the media that parrots the White House party line that NSA wiretapping powers have been greatly reduced. A fictitious narrative aimed at bamboozling Americans and people everywhere.
Conclusion
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