The National Security Agency's Captive Audience

 

The 2002 U.S. Information Awareness Office—Knowledge is Power—Seal

Rear Admiral John M. Poindexter—Information Awareness Office Director

 

1972 Supreme Court Dissenting Opinion re Government Surveillance

 

This case [ Laird v. Tatum] involves a cancer in our body politic. It is a measure of the disease which afflicts us. Army surveillance, like Army regimentation, is at war with the principles of the First Amendment. Those who already walk submissively will say there is no cause for alarm. But submissiveness is not our heritage. The First Amendment was designed to allow rebellion to remain as our heritage. The Constitution was designed to keep government off the backs of the people. The Bill of Rights was added to keep the precincts of belief and expression, of the press, of political and social activities free from surveillance. The Bill of Rights was designed to keep agents of government and official eavesdroppers away from assemblies of people. The aim was to allow men to be free and independent and to assert their rights against government. There can be no influence more paralyzing of that objective than Army surveillance. When an intelligence officer looks over every nonconformist's shoulder in the library, or walks invisibly by his side in a picket line, or infiltrates his club, the America once extolled as the voice of liberty heard around the world no longer is cast in the image which Jefferson and Madison designed, but more in the Russian image.

Without judicial oversight or public knowledge, the U.S. government in 2002 was quietly compiling all-encompassing dossiers. Technology enabled, the Total Information Awareness—Department of Defense initiative—permitted infrastructure analysts to capture and store intimate data.

Citizen and business composites included, but were not limited to, e-mail accounts, social network contacts, phone usage, financial worth and health history. These no-cause-to-create profiles were congressionally discredited in 2003 but as the Edward Snowden released National Security Agency documents reveal these watch programs have remained in place.

Since his '05 appointment to National Security Agency Director, General Keith B. Alexander, has intensified Total Information Awareness surveillance policies.

There are many firms assisting the U.S. Intelligence Community but Booz Allen Hamilton is a favored player.

Electronic eyes, domestic and foreign, are able to roam the massive Booz Allen Hamilton-designed, government-financed repositories for mischief, profit and influence. A Utah desert facility, code-named Bumblehive, will soon house the captured data.

The kinship between the contracting parties may be too close for comfort. James R. Clapper, Jr., Director of National Intelligence, was a former Booz Allen Hamilton V.P.   John M. McConnell, the Bush-appointed Director of National Intelligence, presently works for Booz Allen Hamilton.

The Booz Allen Hamilton company, presently controlled by the Carlyle Group, has a history of chargeable improprieties and acknowledged in 2011 that the group Anonymous had breached its encryption firewalls. In its most recent financial statements, Booz Allen Hamilton reported that 98% of its billion dollar plus income was supplied by the government.

Over the years, numerous National Security Agency surveillance violation complaints have been filed in federal courts and all have been dismissed. The reason: lack of evidence.

Government intrusion issues are addressed by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. Judges currently serving were chosen by Chief Justice John Roberts.

As punishment for publicizing embarrassing reality, Edward Snowden has been charged with: Theft of Government Property—Unauthorized Communication of National Defense Information—Willful Communication of Classified Communications to an Unauthorized Person.

From the point of the June 2013 U.S. universal spyware disclosure, the President and his representatives have issued Edward Snowden extradition requests and have promised economic sanctions for any country providing Edward Snowden safe haven. These actions raise ponderous questions.

At the close of his presidency, Eisenhower warned of perpetual war and the consequences of being under the influence of the military-industrial complex.

Eisenhower's words:

Throughout America's adventure in free government, our basic purposes have been to keep the peace; to foster progress in human achievement, and to enhance liberty, dignity and integrity among people and among nations.

Progress toward these noble goals is persistently threatened by the conflict now engulfing the world. It commands our whole attention, absorbs our very beings. We face a hostile ideology -- global in scope, atheistic in character, ruthless in purpose, and insidious in method. Unhappily the danger it poses promises to be of indefinite duration.

...an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence --economic, political, even spiritual -- is felt in every city, every State house, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the militaryindustrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.