NSA: Judge says watching "almost Orwellian" and UNConstitutional

Who'd a thunk it?  WHO is watching the Watchers?

From Homeland Security NewsWire:

  Federal judge has ruled against federal agency overreached // Source: bigstockphoto.com

 Surveillance

 Federal judge: NSA's collection program violates Constitution

17 December 2013

 A federal judge, describing the NSA metadata collection program as “almost Orwellian,” yesterday ruled that the program which systematically collects and keeps records of all Americans’ phone calls most likely violates the Constitution.

  “I cannot imagine a more ‘indiscriminate’ and ‘arbitrary’ invasion than this systematic and high-tech collection and retention of personal data on virtually every single citizen for purposes of querying and analyzing it without prior judicial approval,” Judge Richard J. Leon wrote. “Surely, such a program infringes on ‘that degree of privacy’ that the founders enshrined in the Fourth Amendment.”

 The judge ordered the agency to stop collecting data on two plaintiffs’ personal calls and destroy the records of their calling history.

In his 68-page ruling, Judge Leon described the program’s technology “almost Orwellian,” and suggested that James Madison, the author of the Constitution, would be “aghast” to learn that the government was encroaching on liberty in such a way...

Much more here.  

WHO is watching the watchers?

 Meanwhile in other 'security' related news:

Senate confirms Jeh Johnson as new DHS secretary

 From New York Times comes this question - which must surely be rhetorical:

Surveillance: Cozy or Chilling?

By NOAM COHEN

Published: December 14, 2013 

LAST year, two literal-minded Supreme Court justices were considering whether police officers needed a warrant before placing a GPS tracking device on a suspect’s S.U.V. when they ended up having a rather fanciful argument: What would the founding fathers make of a GPS device, anyway?  

To Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., the question was preposterous: what would be the pre-digital version of a GPS device, he asked? An officer tucked in the undercarriage of a coach? “This would have required either a gigantic coach, a very tiny constable, or both — not to mention a constable with incredible fortitude and patience,” he noted in a footnote regarding the case, United States v. Jones.

But his partner in the argument, Justice Antonin Scalia, didn’t accept the obvious mockery: the image — “a constable’s concealing himself in the target’s coach in order to track its movements” — is “not far afield,” he wrote. 

It was a bizarre enough exchange in itself. But beyond the technical details of the case, the justices were essentially grappling over a proper metaphor for digital surveillance. Some people — especially those inclined to be forgiving of new cybertools that can be used for spying — cast the issue in historical terms, seeing the connection between a smartphone and a landline, for instance, or between digital records and the paper records once kept in City Hall. 

Those who are more skeptical, however, tend to favor more “1984”-ish imagery. They are not content to say, oh, that’s just an algorithm reading my email, a technique Google’s Gmail service uses to place ads. Reading for them is necessarily human, even when it is done by a computer. And because of those diligent computers, more third-party reading of correspondence is being done now than ever in human history. Similarly, a smartphone — an unprecedented combination of personal journal, photo album, record library and correspondence desk — becomes something distinctly different from an old landline.... 

A very interesting discussion.  Read the rest here.

Is it paranoia if they really ARE watching you?  Pay attention.

Entrenched Complacency Ensures Enslavement of Americans

A VERY important column from War On Terror News:

06/13/2013

Entrenched Complacency Ensures Enslavement of Americans

It does not surprise me that the most powerful politicians and their appointees feel impervious to the constraints of the Constitution.  Those that seek power, ferociously guard the power they've attained, while seeking more to obtain.  They'll do whatever they can get away with to obtain and retain power.  It's as a natural a characteristic as a lion eating a gazelle.  In recognition of that, the Founders constrained the government and politicians, and emplaced protections and rights for the People.
What astounds me is that the American People are not outraged by the abuses of power exposed in recent weeks and months.  It has been one scandal after another, each more comprehensive and abusive than the one before it.  It is more surprising that some of the media has condemned some of the scandals than that they've worked overtime to condone the scandals.  

This cycle began with Benghazi, and an obvious lie by the Administration that it was 'just a protest turned violent.'  It took months, but Congress was beginning to get to the heart of the matter, that the Administration wasn't just asleep at the wheel, but willfully turned the lights and phones off.  It ignored months' worth of pleas from diplomats for more security, including on the day of the attack.  It ordered re-inforcements to not assist.  Those who work for the State Department should have been upset.  Those with a military background are and were angry.

More recently, we learned that the IRS was targeting the  ruling party's opponents.  The IRS has become a tool and force to paralyze the effectiveness of groups that support the US Constitution, and call for smaller government.  Supporters of the party in power were less apt to be upset than those that were affected by the un-Constitutional targeting by an arm of the Government.

Then we learned that the Justice Department had seized the phone records of AP employees and a Fox news journalist.  The MSM was finally mad.  True Americans of every stripe condemned the seizures as unlawful, and against the 4th Amendment.

More recently, we learned that a Judge had ordered Verizon to provide the data of every single one of it's customers to the NSA.  The information collected is so enormous that the data is updated every single day.  Then we learned the NSA was also collecting information via Google, Facebook, and other web based programs, with a program called "Prism."  The internet giants deny they accepted their role in it, but that doesn't mean much.  The government may have worked with or without the permission of the corporations.  Nor can we reasonably expect honesty from those corporations, particularly since they are already snooping on their users.

The worst part about that is not that leaders of both parties knew about it, and defend it, but that so few Americans find anything wrong with it.  The Politician in Chief has confirmed that the programs exist, and defends the "necessity" of it.  The Speaker of the House defends the program.  The Senate Minority Leader condemns not the program, but the individual that leaked evidence of it.  There's no one truly denying that the government is spying on every single American, on either side of the aisle, and very few that say there's anything wrong with it.

Sure, there are a few Americans out there screaming bloody murder about the obvious and serious abuses of the Bill of Rights by the government, and they are the same ones that have been trying to wake up Americans for years.  At a time like this, those that have been noting the abuses for years, should be sitting back and thanking newcomers to reality.  The public outrage should be deafening.

So, why isn't it?...

MUCH MORE of this MUST READ column here.

Wake UP America!!!