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Watch Abby Martin interview Mark Klein on Breaking the Set starting at 15:30:

Abby Martin Breaks the Set with AT&T Whistleblower Mark Klein

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However, years before Snowden’s damning disclosures, two former NSA insiders had also blown the whistle on the dragnet spying regime. Bill Binney was NSA Technical Director from 1965 to 2001 and Kirk Wiebe was Senior Analyst within the NSA from 1975 to 2001. They both resigned after 9/11, outraged by the unconstitutional assertions of power within the agency.

As a pioneer of the now-defunct ‘Thin Thread’ program, which upheld the privacy of US citizens, Binney broke away from the NSA after witnessing the erosion of privacy rights under the banner of national security. Wiebe, equally disgusted by the NSA’s blatant disregard for the rule of law, left his post in protest against the indiscriminate violations unfolding outside the view of the American public.

More than a decade into the “War on Terror”, it’s startlingly clear that civil liberties are under attack. And in the digital age where telecommunications continue to play a more central role in our everyday lives, the NSA’s expanding net of surveillance poses a grave threat to free and open societies worldwide.

“It’s like the Wizard of Oz. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain. That’s what game they’re playing.” –Bill Binney

MR

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Two Top NSA Veterans Expose Shocking History of Illegal Spying

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AM: Bill, you were one of the creators of the pre-9/11 data collection surveillance program called ‘Thin Thread’ which actually did have privacy protections instated for American citizens. Why was this program abandoned and what kind of system replaced it?

BB: Well it actually wasn’t abandoned. The back part of the analysis part, the part that allowed them to deal with massive amounts of data and index it was taken in to manage, that was the way that they were able to build surveillance on the entire world. That particular program was that powerful and that’s why we put in those protections. So that it would be impossible for them to abuse it. That was the first thing they removed when they took it into the new program Stellar Wind.

AM: And Kirk, after you had found out what they did to ‘Thin Thread’ how did you, Bill and other intelligence insiders address these concerns within the government and how were these concerns met from officials.

KW: Well, in reality we had been trying to address what had been going on within the NSA in terms of modernization for years and it’s kind of like 9/11, the events of 9/11, were the culmination in our minds of our failure to get those at the agency to see the potential of what we were developing, what Bill had invented in the ‘Thin Thread’ project. And it was within six weeks of 9/11 that we end up–Ed Loomis, myself, Bill Binney–retiring from NSA in absolute disgust because we had failed. We had been trying to tell them that they were going to fail and we lost the battle.

AM: And Bill, in 2007 the FBI raided both of your homes along with other officials who had spoken out on the false premise that you guys had leaked classified documents or information to the press. What was that experience like for your and were you surprised by the aggressiveness of the response?

BB: Well yes, you see I had been cooperating with the FBI in their investigation into the New York Times leak for months, several months, about four months before the raid and when they came at me it was rather–it’s hard to understand why they would do that and why they were here pointing guns at me too and my family. So it’s a question of what was this all about and finally it didn’t take me too long to figure out what they were really doing was trying to intimidate us because this was like the morning after the second day after Gonzales’ testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee about the terror surveillance program that the president had talked about which was–he only talked about the warrantless wiretaps at the time–but there were many other programs that involved CIA and also NSA that included spying on everyone in the country and building knowledge and understanding of their lives of everybody as they were living them. So it was a matter of pulling–actually it was a computer program reassembling dossiers on everybody in the country and the world eventually. So it was clear to me at that point that that’s why they were there. To keep us quiet.

So I started getting mad at these people while they were still there. So that when I reported to the FBI the real crime why they were sent there which was Bush, Cheney, Hayden and Tenet, which was the core of individuals who decided to subvert the constitution and violate all the laws, basic laws that we had in statutes at the time and I told them what it was–Stellar Wind Program–what data they were using, how they were organizing, what it was doing and I was telling that to all the FBI agents on my back porch.

So the only one who was cleared for it was the one fellow who was the special agent in charge Paul Mauric [sic]. He was the only one who was cleared for that program. The only thing he could do when I was doing that was look at the floor because what I was doing was causing him a problem, cause it was telling all these other agents (FBI agents) what crime is being committed and that they weren’t cleared for it. They were not cleared for this program. So now we had to have a meeting outside before they left my house of all the agents round the cars. They couldn’t leave until he instructed them on what they could not say.

AM: Wow and Kirk, in the case of Thomas Drake, of course, it went a little bit farther to say the least. Talk about exactly what the FBI did to him.

KW: Well, let me frame it a little bit for you. In November of 2009 Bill Binney and I received a communication from our lawyer. After we were raided in 2007, we went halfsies on a lawyer rather than pay two. The lawyer was a former US prosecutor so we thought he’d know how to deal with the government. He told us to lay low. In November 2009 he sends us an email that says “guys I just got an email from the Department of Justice. They’re coming after you.”

So Bill and I made an appointment with him an we went in to Baltimore and sat down at his desk and he was completely surprised by this move. He thought it would go away. Well it wasn’t. That was the end of that for the holidays. It was November when we got this message. Come January, we get another email. There’s a new prosecutor for the government. The other one had left government. And we are being offered letters of immunity if we are willing to sit down with the FBI and the prosecutor for the Department of Justice and answer questions about Thomas Drake. And so Bill and I agree we’ll do that. We knew Tom had done nothing wrong. Easy, let’s go. We go down to the FBI facility just outside DC in Maryland and separately we address questions. The questions were mostly questions like “Did you meet with Tom Drake? On what occasion?” And of course we had lunch with Tom, said hello but nothing very interesting. “Did he talk about mulching papers, destroying evidence?” No, no, sorry. Tom’s an honest guy.

So long story short we get letters of immunity in February saying we are under no further threat in this entire matter (Bill Binney and I). They then threw their attention on top and we think it’s because he’s the one who went to the press. NSA was very much trying to–and the government for that matter–send the message “If you work in the intelligence community and you talk to the press you’re going to get hammered.” And so they wanted to make an example. Whether they won the case or not was not important to the government. They wanted to send a message and that’s why they went after him.

AM: And they actually said they reclassified this document that he had specifically taken was unclassified. Extremely shady.

KW: Absolutely right. Absolutely right.

BB: It was also material that they had independently released publicly and Jim Bamford provided that to the judge Bennett and the court.

AM: Kirk, I wanted to–actually Bill, let’s talk about Edward Snowden. Tomorrow of course is the anniversary of the leaks. I wanted to play a quick clip from his NBC interview. Let’s check that out.

ES: They found that we had all of the information that we needed, as an intelligence community, as a classified sector, as the national defense of the United States to detect this plot. We actually had records of the phone calls from the United States and out. The CIA knew who these guys were. The problem was not that we weren’t collecting information. It wasn’t that we didn’t have enough dots. It wasn’t that we didn’t have a haystack. It was that we did not understand the haystack that we have.

AM: And of course this is why you guys left in outrage. You agree with his assessment here?

BB: Yeah, I know the specifics of it. Like six or seven phone calls from San Diego back to the Yemen facility. And by the way, both ends were known. Both numbers were there. That’s how caller ID works. And you’re talking about switches. And the switches have to know exactly how to pass or where it’s coming from, how to pass the other line back. They have to have the information to make the connection otherwise it doesn’t happen.

AM: Why expand the haystack if the haystack was already there, available and could’ve prevented the terrorism?

BB: Well the very simple reason they did that was for money. It was to build up an empire of an industrial complex around NSA and other agencies and that’s exactly what they’ve done. They spend on the order of $70 billion a year on contracts.

AM: Well let’s go along with the NSA apologists–Hayden, Clapper–who say that there’s no tangible evidence that the NSA is actually using this data against us so why should we worry. What’s your response Kirk?

KW: It’s a silly statement. NSA operates behind a wall of secrecy. You need a clearance just to enter the building. And so what goes on being those fences and facilities is unbeknownst to anyone except NSA. So NSA has a license to say what it wants to and no ability to challenge it, virtually none.

BB: I would also add that it’s not so much NSA using the data as it is law enforcement, FBI and DEA. They’re using this data directly. They have ways and means of interrogating directly. Director Mueller testified to this to the Senate Judiciary Committee. He said he had access to a technology database which he put together with DOD where he could go in and get emails with one query, get all past emails and all future ones as they come in on a person. What he’s doing is he’s going into the NSA database because NSA and DOD is responsible for communications, that’s email. And so they got all these Narus devices around the network collecting all these emails. So they’re going into the base they’re creating, interrogating all this material to get criminal activity.

AM: Yeah, as Edward Snowden has said repeatedly this is about potential for retroactive prosecution. Kind of building this whole framework around people.

BB: That’s exactly what they’re doing.

KW: Exactly right.

AM: We’re going to take a break now and we’ll be back with the two NSA whistleblowers. You guys stick around.

[BREAK]

AM: And we’re back with NSA whistleblowers Bill Binney and Kirk Wiebe. Kirk I want to with you. When Obama took office he was briefed on these programs. He decided to go forward with them. Why do you think he did this given that he ran his presidency on a platform of transparency and strict constitutional adherence?

KW: I think its the result of what I call “technospeak.” When the NSA talks about what it does it tends to put them in difficult abstract terms. It also uses words to deceive. So for example the NSA will say “we aren’t doing such and such under this program.” But what program are they doing it under? So these are correct statements in front of Congress but they’re meant to mislead, to be deceptive. So I’m not sure that Obama ever understood or fathomed really what was going on. You’re never sure that anybody does. Congress swears they get briefing all the time but still don’t understand—

AM: Well it certainly didn’t look like Bush knew but I find it hard to believe that Obama, constitutional lawyer, wouldn’t at least want to know. “Hey, what is this mass spying grid that we have?”

KW: Exactly.

AM: Bill even before Snowden made his revelations you had said that the US had turned into a police state. I was wondering if you could expand on why you made that comment and what Snowden’s revelations have kind of exposed that have helped further cement that notion.

BB: Well I said it because I knew the capacity of collecting information on everybody, mostly their focus was on the United States initially but it spread around the world so it’s really collecting the data of everybody on the planet and I knew the capacity of the systems involved. There was no limit on what you could do with them that I saw anyway when I left there. The point was how were they using it and that came out with Director Mueller in the FBI when he testified to the Senate Judiciary Committee on the 30th of March of 2011. It’s on the web. Where he said he got together with the DOD and created this database.

Well that told me that he was interrogating all the email collection that they were making. He also had access to the phone network. He said he talked about phone data too–not at that interview but at another one. So they were using this data for police operations. And so it was–and Reuters published an article on it in August of last year talking about the DEA and the SOD (the Special Operations Division) which was specifically to look at the data that NSA collected to find criminal activity and then they would use that to go arrest people. And after the arrest they’d say “wait here in this parking lot. Wait for a truck to pull in. Go arrest the guy. Bring the drug dog in and go sniff out the drugs.”

The policy was you could not use any of this information documented in any court records and you couldn’t tell the judge or the prosecutor or defending attorneys about it. You had to do a parallel construction. That meant they knew where the data was, so you do your normal policing that you would do to find evidence and then you substitute that for the NSA data as the basis for arresting them. Well I call that basically a planned program perjury policy run by the Department of Justice of the United States. Now it’s not only the United States now because they share the–with foreign counterparts. So that goes all the way around the world. So they’re subverting the entire judicial process. Here and around the world. So they’re really undermining democracy everywhere.

AM: Right, that’s important to point out. This is the Five Eyes. This is not just the US.

KW: It’s not just five eyes.

AM: It’s a lot more.

KW: Yes

AM: Kirk, there’s been alot of criticism of journalist Glenn Greenwald for the way he’s distributing the leaks. I want to see if you are happy with the process of how the leaks have been distributed.

KW: You know it’s almost a moot discussion for me because we have a government subverting the constitution. That’s what we should be focused on. Not the picayune details of Greenwald’s leaks etc. I think for an unindoctrinated, non-intel person he’s probably done a pretty good job. People ask me when you look at what has been leaked by the Greenwald Snowden team. I tell people “well what does it mean to you when you see PRISM?” They say “nothing, it means there’s a word. I don’t know what it means.” Well that’s right. You don’t. And so most of what’s on these slides are a bunch of names shown in relationship to each other but it’s difficult to interpret what’s going on because the words are few and if you’re not part of this system it’s difficult to know. You have to infer. Now Bill and I have an advantage. We’ve dealt with this kind of speak before so we can infer things from it. But I think they’ve done a pretty good job.

AM: And you know, Snowden’s clearly not an anarchist. He doesn’t want to abolish the government. He doesn’t want to abolish the NSA. He’s made a deal with these journalists to actually vet every document, to consult with the government as we found out. He’s very careful in the way that he wants this distributed. Bill, any comments on that?

BB: Basically when I look at that I see what he’s released and what he’s published and I don’t see any damage to the United States at all. Because, after all, when they claim this is irreparable damage they’re doing that just to hype up the attack on the person. What the slides are really showing is that we do all this stuff everybody knew we were doing anyway. So the other point is very simple. What alternative do people in the world have? If you don’t want to use the phone that’s a choice you can make but you can’t use any phone. So you have no choice. Just because we’re monitoring phones–if you have to communicate you have to use a phone or email or something–so you have no choice. That’s like all the Verizon people know there information is being transferred to the government but they haven’t changed companies. Why? Well it’s their choice.

AM: Another good point made in the United States of Secrets was that this is not just about government surveillance. This is about corporate surveillance but people don’t seem to care as much because it’s used for advertising collection instead of intelligence gathering but it’s very scary you have an apparatus working in conjunction with each other.

KW: That’s exactly the point.

BB: You see the industry can’t come and arrest you and put you in jail. The government can. But when they cooperate they can add extra dimensions to what the government has knowledge–in terms of knowledge–what the government has against you.

AM: Bill, you brought up a really good point about a minute ago when you said there’s people that knew about this for ten years. You guys had been saying this. You’ve been yelling from the rooftops as well as other people like Thomas Drake. What is your response to people who say “Snowden hasn’t brought us anything new. We already knew about this. The documents don’t tell us anything”?

BB: The response is pretty simple. This is irrefutable evidence. Up until then they could’ve denied it and said “no, that’s not what really true,” but now with the evidence–that’s why he took all that data out–because that was the only way to convince people. Now he has the evidence which is the government’s data. So the government–there’s no way they can deny it.

AM: Exactly. We have the documents. Finally. You brought up a good point as well when you said that people were focusing on character assassinations and the way that all of this is being done. Why? Why are people focusing so much on Snowden and Greenwald and not the leaks.

KW: That’s a good question. You know, over Europe right now there’s a greater debate about this entire matter. They seem to appreciate the threat more than the typical American does. We’re spoiled. We’ve now enjoyed this country for two to three hundred years but we’ve never lived under a dictatorship. We’ve never lived under the Nazis. We’ve never lived under the Stasi, the secret police. The Germans and many of the Europeans have and they remember those harsh conditions and they don’t want that to return. So I think that’s why they understand it and get it a little bit better. But I think most of the polling I’ve seen, pretty much the majority side with Snowden on this one which is encouraging because it is all about the constitution. It really is.

AM: Yeah, no matter how much they try to frame it “hero-traitor,” it really is about the content of the documents.

BB: It’s like the Wizard of Oz. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain. That’s what game they’re playing.

AM: Bill, I wanted to play another clip from the Snowden interview where he talks about what it means to be a patriot.

ES: Being a patriot doesn’t mean prioritizing service to government above all else. Being a patriot means knowing when to protect your country, knowing when to protect your constitution, knowing when to protect, your countrymen, from the violations of and encroachments of adversaries. And those adversaries don’t have to be foreign countries.

AM: That clip really resonated with me. Do you agree that you sometimes have to break the law to stand up for what’s right Bill?

BB:Well let’s put it this way. There’s several things that are involved here. The oath of office that everyone takes in government, including the Congress and the President and everybody else, is to protect and defend the constitution, not the government, not defend an agency, not defend a president. So that’s the first thing. Secondly, the point that he was making in terms of standing up is really what their responsibility of citizens is. You have to stand up to defend the constitution. You cannot sit by and be quiet. If you acquiesce to it, you know, if nobody speaks up you get a state like the Nazis developed. That’s fundamentally what it is and we’re on that path now with section 1021 of the NDAA where it talked about giving the president the power to declare someone a terrorist threat, to take them off the street with the US military, to incarcerate them indefinitely, give them no due process. That’s–that’s not the Nazi order at 48 issued in 1933. That’s exactly what they did. If you go on the web you can read it. It says basically the same thing.

AM: Right, at what point are they going to stop following orders and stand up for what’s right. Kirk, what’s your opinion on the USA Freedom Act. Of course it’s been transformed quite a bit. Passed in the House now, waiting passage in the Senate.

KW: Disappointment. Much disappointment. While it narrows metadata collection using counts of tops from a known or suspected “bad person,” when you do the math the numbers are still huge numbers of innocent people who get swept up into this vacuum cleaner. All along Bill and I and others have tried to build a system (the Thin Thread that we talked about earlier) that was focused on–very closely on known bad people and there relationships with others yet to be determined but collecting all the metadata but encrypting it to protect of all those innocent people out there. That gave you the best chance to find things you didn’t know about and also focus analysis on the things you do know about and do your job and make sure you cover that well. With that kind of technique we don’t think we would’ve had a Boston Marathon, for example, explosion and so forth. So NSA is not operating at optimal, what we would call optimal levels of analysis. So when I look at the Freedom Act narrowing metadata it sounds good in the protection of privacy but it really doesn’t afford that much and I hear nothing about it encrypting the innocent, the identities of innocent people. So NSA can still look at those people illegally as far as I’m concerned.

AM: We have about a minute left but for people like me and the audience who’s watching this show I feel like we really want to get our hands on encryption and try to figure out how we can protect our data online and I feel it’s not as user friendly as I guess it should be. What’s your advice to people who want to protect their data?

BB: I think if they are after you there’s no way virtually that you can do that. Unfortunately, that true. Because I look at it this way. There’s so much capability even if you have encryption once you decrypt it’s in your system–

AM: That’s a reason for them to look at you.

BB: Yeah, and then once you put it in your system in a decrypted form they can come through and break into your computer and take it off that way so it doesn’t make any difference what you do. My point all along is that’s why I called it a police state is that Ronald Reagan said that we are a country with a government. Well now we’re a government with a country. That’s what we’re turning in to.

AM: 10 seconds.

KW: Well I would just simply say if you encrypt all the metadata they can’t get to your content because they don’t know to who it belongs.

AM: Amazing to have both of you on. Bill Binney. Kirk Wiebe. Really appreciate it you guys. Thank you so much for what you’ve done. And that’s our show you guys. Join me again tomorrow when I break the set all over again. Thank you so much.

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Transcript by Xavier Best, Photo by Wikimedia Commons

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Daniel Ellsberg called Edward Snowden’s revelations of government spying, “the most important leak in American history.” As the public learns more and more about secret government programs to spy on U.S. citizens, it is tempting to believe that it is all about Edward Snowden and his startling disclosures. This is far from the truth. In fact, almost a decade ago, conscientious employees of United States government spy agencies such as the National Security Administration (NSA) and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) began reporting on abusive and seemingly unconstitutional government polices including torture and deliberate spying on innocent U.S. citizens.

Abby Martin interviewed three former employees of government spy agencies with a combined total of over 40 years experience in government positions. These interviews revealed that torture is official U.S. government policy, and that spying on innocent U.S. citizens is much more pervasive than the federal government’s response to Edward Snowden’s disclosures would seem to indicate. Taken together with Snowden’s revelations, these interviews paint a picture of an out of control federal government that has slipped the reins of morality and the US Constitution, and is determined and able to do whatever it desires without regard to legality or the Constitution.

Russell Tice, a satellite systems specialist, worked over 20 years in various government agencies including the NSA and Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA). In 2004, while performing his government assigned duties, Tice was shocked to learn that the U.S. government was spying on innocent U.S. citizens. Tice revealed what he knew to reporters for the New York Times and the Austin American-Statesman, and the story was published. Tice hoped the exposure would help put an end to what he considered to be illegal and unconstitutional activity on the part of the government.

NSA Blackmailing Obama? Abby Martin Speaks to NSA Whistleblower Russ Tice 

Thomas Drake is a former NSA senior executive and NSA Chair at the National Defense University. He worked on the Trailblazer Project, another program that intercepted cell phone, email and internet communications, and was a predecessor to the PRISM project revealed by Edward Snowden. Convinced that Trailblazer was illegally violating innocent Americans’ privacy, Drake and several others reported their concerns through proper government channels including the Department of Defense Inspector General. In 2007, all those involved were raided by the FBI. Drake was charged with violating the Espionage Act. Meanwhile, he continued to reveal waste, fraud, abuse, and violations of privacy perpetrated by the NSA to reporters, including those from the Baltimore Sun and The New Yorker.

 Advice on Trusting Your Government from NSA Whistleblower Thomas Drake

John Kiriakou is a former CIA analyst and case officer, a former senior investigator for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and former CIA Chief of Counterterrorist Operations in Pakistan. He resigned from the CIA in 2004 after being recruited to supervise a program of water boarding and other “enhanced interrogation” methods. He refused to participate because he felt the methods to be immoral and equivalent to torture. In December 2007, while being interviewed on ABC News, Kiriakou stated his opinion that water boarding was torture and that he knew through personal experience that it was official U.S. government policy. From that day on, Kiriakou states that all his activities have been monitored and investigated by the Justice Department. Eventually, in 2012, he was charged and convicted under the Espionage Act and sentenced to 2 ½ years in prison. This made him the first and only CIA officer ever to be convicted under the Espionage Act.

CIA Whistleblower John Kiriakou: ‘If I Tortured, I’d Be Free’

It’s a lot worse than you think.

On being briefed on Snowden’s revelations, Democratic member of the U.S. House of Representatives, Loretta Sanchez, said:

“What we learned in there is significantly more than what is out in the media today… I can’t speak to what we learned in there…but I will tell you that I believe it is just the tip of the iceberg”

In their discussions with Abby Martin, Tice, Drake, and Kiriakou all related their knowledge that illegal government activity is a great deal more intrusive and pervasive than even Snowden’s revelations illustrate. Russell Tice described a computer program known as ECHELON that allows the government to spy on innocent American’s phone calls, emails, and other internet activity. He personally witnessed a number of alarming examples of government abuse of this system including warrantless spying on:

– News organizations and journalists
– U.S. companies that do business internationally
– Financial institutions
– State Department personnel including Colin Powell
– 3-star and higher Admirals and Generals including David Petraeus
– Prominent law firms and lawyers
– Supreme Court Justices including Judge Alito
– United States Congressmen including Barak Obama when he was a Senator
– Friends, family members and personal residences of all of the above

A high level NSA source told Tice that orders to spy were coming from Vice President Cheney, himself.

Both Tice and Drake stated that they had personal knowledge that the government did look into the contents of the information they obtain and not just the “metadata” as President Obama now claims. Thomas Drake noted that the PRISM program revealed by Edward Snowden had taken the violations of privacy he objected to in the Trailblazer Project much further. “PRISM demonstrates that there is collusion between the U.S. government and the most powerful, largest internet service providers, not only in the country, but in the world. The government is essentially given direct access or the equivalent of direct access to subscriber information on a very large scale, including the content of their information.”

Attorney Jesselyn Radack is a Director of the Government Accountability Project, and the attorney who represents both Drake and Kiriakou. She explained that the PRISM program expands wiretapping without a warrant, like that which occurred in the Trailblazer Project under the Bush administration. Now, with PRISM, the government has direct access to the nine largest internet service providers in the world, including Google, Microsoft, and Apple. Radack stated that this is in direct violation of a number of federal laws as well as the 4th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

In addition to PRISM and the other spying efforts brought to light by Snowden, Drake believes that, “there are additional orders and there are additional programs that have not been revealed…I think that once those come out, several other shoes will drop. I think the government is desperate to protect the deepest of the secrets.” Drake believes that what will be revealed is that government spying treats U.S. citizens no differently than foreign nationals. He believes that the “Foreign” in Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) is irrelevant. The act might be more accurately called the Surveillance Act. He feels that all citizens in the U.S. and other countries are virtual subjects of one large surveillance state.

On the issue of torture, John Kiriakou emphasized that torture was not just a rogue activity carried out by isolated U.S. government agents. Kiriakou knew from personal experience that torture, during his time in the CIA, was an official U.S. government policy authorized from the President of the United States on down.

Russell Tice summarized the feelings of the group: “Every means of communication in this country, everything, is being watched by the federal government, and that is Orwellian, and that is the trademark of a police state.”

Why is the government doing this to us?

Thomas Drake gave the most succinct explanation for the rogue actions of the U.S. government. When asked by Abby Martin why he felt the government was doing this, he answered, “Because they can. They have the power.” “ Information is the currency of power,” Radack added. “More and more information is the name of the game.”

There is nothing to stop the intelligence agencies from doing this. So called oversight of intelligence activities is no oversight at all, explained Drake. The FISA court operates in complete secrecy. Congressional oversight committees are being briefed in secret, and those present are sworn to secrecy regarding what they learned. Even taking oversight into account, there is only a very small number of people who know what is going on, explained Drake. The FISA court virtually never denies a request to spy. In 2012, the FISA court approved nearly 2,000 requests for surveillance and turned down none. “This is unprecedented,” Drake said. “How can such deep secrets exist in a democracy, a constitutional republic, without something giving – and what’s giving is our fundamental rights and liberties.”

Drake further explained that this spying serves what he refers to as the “surveillance state.” “It serves a very, very large contractor base. Staggering amounts of money are being made off the fear mongering since 9/11. You now have an entire industrial scale mechanism. A number of contractors are feeding off of it, and it’s a lot of money. You also have those in congress who are supporting and enabling it. This has become normalized.” Drake believes that this process has now taken on a life of its own. “They are not going to give up the secret power willingly,” he said.

Russell Tice suggested that the spying was a means of control. He believes that the upper echelons of the intelligence community collect compromising information on individuals in order to influence their future behavior. In this sense, the executives of the intelligence community comprise a sort of shadow government that has the power to vet candidates for leadership positions in government, and put leverage on the three branches of government to get what they want. As evidence of this theory, Tice pointed out that U.S. government intelligence agencies were not affected by the sequester, but nearly all other government agencies were.

Tice describes how candidate Obama pledged to stop National Security Letters and other forms of abusive government surveillance and to support whistleblowers. Even though Tice was a lifelong Republican, he supported Obama for that reason. Once he was elected, however, Obama changed. Those promises never materialized. Obama continues to lie about and cover up the extent of U.S. government spying, and he has prosecuted whistleblowers more zealously than any President before him. “Is it because he is being controlled?” Tice wonders. Tice notes that before Edward Snowden presented the world with incontrovertible proof of unconstitutional government spying, the media neglected to report on the issue. This was true even though Tice and others exposed this activity years ago. Tice suggests that “another interest” making use of compromising information obtained through illegal spying was applying leverage to the media to keep them quiet.

There is debate as to whether or not all this government spying is even effective or helpful. In light of the Boston bombing and the underwear bomber, internal government reports suggested that perhaps intelligence agencies were getting too much information to effectively analyze and predict attacks. Nonetheless, the government makes ample use of fear mongering to defend their actions. Drake and Radack, debunked the government claim that NSA spying programs have stopped at least 50 terrorist attacks. Drake posed the question, “How many of those “terrorist plots” were stopped, disrupted or prevented solely on the basis of secret surveillance programs and not by other means.” Radack added, “Even if we got that answer, there is no way to verify it. The government has told huge lies, and yet we are just supposed to trust them to tell us how many terrorist plots they have foiled.” It does not make sense. “They say they can only tell us so much, but this administration has not been at all shy about bragging about the “terrorist plots” that it disrupts,” she said. “Or that it manufactures then disrupts,” Abby Martin quipped.

If the US government does it, it’s not illegal.

There is a two tiered justice system operating in the U.S. today. There is one system of justice for those who do the government’s bidding without question, and another system of justice for those patriots who hope to improve the government by pointing out its flaws.

No one responsible for the illegal warrantless wiretapping that took place during the Bush administration is in jail. In fact, the government made it all legal after the fact. No one responsible for the unconstitutional surveillance revealed by Edward Snowden is being prosecuted or is in jail. The Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper, who lied to Congress about the extent of NSA surveillance, is not being prosecuted and is not in jail.

John Yoo, Alberto Gonzalez, Donald Rumsfeld, and others who conceived of, authorized, implemented, and oversaw torture are not in jail. None of the attorneys who papered over torture with tortuous legal analysis are in jail. Former CIA agent, Jose Rodriguez, the man responsible for destroying the tapes showing evidence of CIA torture, is not in jail. In fact, he is on a book tour discussing the great benefits of torture.

“None are in prison, none will ever be prosecuted,” says John Kiriakou.

Uncle Sam to the conscientious – proceed at your own risk!

John Kiriakou refused to take part in torture, and exposed torture by the U.S. government in hopes of putting an end to it. He is going to jail for 2 ½ years, convicted under the Espionage Act. Kiriakou was convicted even though the author of the law he supposedly violated testified on his behalf. He is in jail even though he demonstrated no mal intent. He is in jail because the presiding judge disregarded and disallowed legal precedent regarding mal intent. John Kiriakou is in jail after the government prosecutors were able to meet in secret with and give secret information to the presiding judge that Kiriakou was not allowed to hear or rebut. In fact, after she alone heard the secret so-called “evidence,” the presiding judge publicly stated that she wished she could have sentenced Kiriakou to 10 years instead of 2 1/2 years.

John Kiriakou has been audited by the IRS every single year since 2007, when he stated torture was official U.S. government policy.

Thomas Drake exposed unconstitutional government spying as part of the Trailblazer program. Thomas Drake was prosecuted under the espionage act. To avoid an even worse sentence, Drake was forced to plead guilty to a misdemeanor. He lost his job and his pension and was required to serve one year of probation.

Bradley Manning exposed war crimes. He is in prison for many years. Edward Snowden exposed unconstitutional government spying. He had to flee the United States where he would certainly be in jail, to Russia where he is free.

John Kiriakou feels that this is all an intentional program of harassment on the part of the government. The government wants to punish critics in any way possible for the purpose of having a chilling effect on others other who would criticize, blow the whistle, point out evidence of waste, fraud, and abuse, or expose government crimes.

What hope do we have?

Forty years ago, the Supreme Court ruled that the President of the United States, Richard Nixon, was not above the law. Americans hailed whistleblowers for having brought down the President for his utter lawlessness. How did we get from prosecuting the criminal to prosecuting the messenger? “We have strayed so far,” notes Abby Martin.

Today, President Obama, who was elected to office promising to shut down Guantanamo Prison, closes the office responsible for doing just that shortly after he wins re-election

John Kiriakou observes that we have had an incremental loss in our civil liberties over the years that were accelerated after 9/11, but there has been surprisingly little public outrage.

Today, the United States government is known for:

– Intercepting phone calls and emails without a warrant
– Vaporizing innocent people including American citizens with missiles from predator drones
– Mistreatment of prisoners in Guantanamo Bay
– Extraordinary Rendition
– Indefinite pretrial detention
– Coercive “enhanced” interrogation techniques (A.K.A. torture)
– Zealous harassment and prosecution of political dissidents (whistleblowers)

Is there no hope? Have Americans accepted this loss of civil liberties without a fight?

Russell Tice does not believe so. He is still out there speaking out against government abuse.

Thomas Drake does not believe so. He is still speaking out too. “I do believe, if the conversations, debate, and discussions that people are now having are any indication, people are growing more uncomfortable with what’s been going on,” he says.

Jesselyn Radack does not believe so. She continues to defend and advocate for the whistleblowers. She notes, “Congressman Jim Sensenbrenner who wrote the Patriot Act is coming out against all this. Senators Wyden and Udall and others you think wouldn’t have a problem with this are coming out against this too, and Republican libertarians and progressive Democrats have joined forces saying it is unacceptable for the government to have this much power hidden from the people.”

John Kiriakou does not believe there is no hope. “I’ve come to realize this case is so much bigger than I am…It is so much more important for free speech and freedom of association, it is so much more important for freedom of the press. I just hope that there is enough rage out there…that it helps someone in the future stand up to the justice department and to stand up to these infringements on our civil liberties.”

Bradley Manning has not lost hope. He is going to jail rather than ignore the injustice he wanted to stop.

Finally, Edward Snowden has not given up:

“Everyone everywhere now understands how bad things have gotten — and they’re talking about it. They have the power to decide for themselves whether they are willing to sacrifice their privacy to the surveillance state.” “I do not want to live in a world where everything I do and say is recorded. That is not something I am willing to support or live under.”

The rest is up to us. As Abby Martin said, “We should all be speaking up. If we don’t stop this now, who knows where we are going with it.”

Written by David Wiggins

In an exclusive interview with the Guardian’s Glenn Greenwald, Snowden explains that NSA analysts have the technological ability and blanket legal authority to snoop on anybody. “Any analyst at any time can target anyone. Any selector, anywhere… I, sitting at my desk, certainly had the authorities to wiretap anyone, from you or your accountant, to a federal judge, to even the President.” 
 
The story sent shock waves through diplomatic circles and the corporate media.  But it’s just the latest story in long wave of recent scandals, including the Associated Press phone records subpoena, the IRS- tea party investigation, the Rupert Murdoch phone hacking and Occupy Wall Street undercover police informant and provocateur revelations.  
 
Snowden further explained the far-reach of NSA capabilities to intercept every mode of our private lives, by saying “with this capability, the vast majority of human communications are automatically ingested without targeting. If I wanted to see your e-mails or your wife’s phone, all I have to do is use intercepts. I can get your e-mails, passwords, phone records, credit cards.”
 
His bold confession is not to be understood in a vacuum.  There are countless videos of low level US government personnel poking gloved fingers around travelers’ genital areas, causing permanent distress and embarrassment.  Racial, religious profiling and clever contrary profiling of white infants and grandmothers  is now encountered at train stations, bus stations and highway checkpoints as well.  For more than two centuries, this heavy, iron fist did not figure anywhere in the American republic.

Now, police departments across the country issue “administrative subpoenas,” i.e. without a search warrant signed by a judge, to routinely seize troves of customer details from mobile carriers, enabling them to track the whereabouts of millions of subscribers.

High tech surveillance drones are being acquired to spy on Americans while the constitutional scholar and Nobel Peace Prize President uses predator drones to kill thousands abroad, including women and children and American citizens, without bothering to bring any criminal charges in court, let alone convict them of any crime.

Often, the targets’ names are unknown. The killing is based on appearances called signatures: purported intercepted speech, including emails and people the targets are associated with.  Its a remote, high tech way to profile targets and it is in this context that Snowden’s revelations should be digested.

The assertion that only bad guys need to worry about PRISM is very naive.  Something as innocent as dialing a wrong number could bring you unwarranted scrutiny.  Someone with an ax to grind could drop a dime on you and wreck your life.  
 
The intelligence services and the military take a prophylactic approach.  This means they increasingly believe that with programs like PRISM, they can identify
likely criminals and terrorists before a crime or terrorist act has occurred.  
 
For all its acronyms and technical jargon, the PRISM spy program rests on a simple premise: Secretly record all information about everybody, everywhere at all times, then archive it forever.  Since any human being has the potential to become a criminal or terrorist suspect in the future, a dossier on that person will be readily available, including who that person has associated with in the past

The dossier focuses on four areas: financial transactions, phone records, Internet records and travel logs.  This diary of bytes makes it possible to ruin anybody under any pretext at will.  It creates undreamed of leverage of the state to terrorize the individual and groups of individuals. All manor of abuse is justified under the ‘War on Terror.’
 
An exhaustive review is beyond the scope of this article, but a few simple but clever changes of habit can go a long way towards protecting yourself from warrantless, illegal, unconstitutional and invasive collection of your genuine private information.  To begin, I will focus on the encrypted payments and communication system called Swiftcoin.  From a recent press release:
 
“Users running the Swiftcoin application present a challenge to eavesdroppers. This free application requires no identification or payment to download. Once installed, it enables users to opt out of the common email servers operated by large corporations that are obliged, under gag orders, to provide back door access to invasive, over reaching public and private interests.

Swiftcoin, like numbered Swiss bank accounts, does not identify users by their names. Unlike bank accounts, the user number changes every time he/she presses the send button. The Swiftcoin application may be moved off the user’s computer into a pen drive and opened up again on another computer at will. Swiftcoin users can not be traced by name, by IP address or by device. “
 
This is called deep encryption because the literally encrypted communication, including its “meta data,” is not identifiable unless the user chooses to make her wallet id public.  Every sent message departs from a new “location” or the same location as the user wishes.  The same is true for the recipient.  Every message or payment is unique and may employ disposable meta data.   In addition, the user device itself can be substituted at will.  Furthermore, a Swiftcoin wallet can be moved to a pen drive and uploaded to a different device.  All of this makes it substantially more difficult to spy on and record a user’s activity, because the correlation between a Swiftcoin id and a particular person is tenuous.  Swiftcoin does not rely entirely on encryption which, at the end of the day, can be cracked by cryptographers.  The very way that Swiftcoin is designed to be used does not lend itself to tracking any individual over time.

 
Alas, the Swiftcoin homepage states that it is not available to U.S. citizens.  However, the Swiftcoin telegram remains freely available to all regardless of nationality.  Every new user may receive ten free Swiftcoins, ( good for 10 000 telegrams; every Swiftcoin ” telegram ” costs 0.001 Swiftcoin ) which is returned to sender upon a return mail from recipient, for a net cost of zero to send and receive a telegram.  No money or purchase of Swiftcoin is required to download the program and use the telegram feature.

Written by Daniel Bruno for Media Roots