Today the media is all abuzz about a secret court order, requested by the FBI, demanding that Verizon turn over to the NSA all call metadata both international and domestic for its subscribers.  Glenn Greenwald and the New Your Times have amazingly similar articles about it, making one wonder if one copied from the other.watch full movie Star Wars: The Last Jedi 2017 online

Essentially, the stunning lack of regard for privacy under Bush has continued and probably increased under Obama. The only difference is that Obama is using the secret FISA court to rubber stamp its abuse of power and sidestep Constitutional protections.  The Obama administration, like the Bush administration before it, is telling the American public to “Trust us.  While we are secretly collecting information about everything you do, we are also secretly respecting your Constitutional rights.”  Only idiots and mindless loyalists could possibly fall for such a ridiculous line.

There have been never ending attempts by government to leverage off the 9/11 attacks to gain unfettered access to all private information for individuals and businesses. Most well known of these invasions of privacy is the USA Patriot Act.  Another is the Total Information Awareness program advocated by SAIC and Admiral John Poindexter and established under DARPA.  When that drew lots of public and Congressional ire, the government simply disbursed the program’s constituent parts which have continued to be further developed over the years.  Carnivore (FBI) and Echelon (NSA) are among the more well known electronic communications interception programs operated by U.S. government, but it’s safe to assume that the government also has finger-tip access to all electronic medical and financial records of U.S. citizens as well.

While it is not clear whether such orders have been served on other U.S. telecom companies, I think it is fair to assume that to be the case.  Given the adversarial stance that the federal government has taken with respect to ordinary citizens and given their aggressive attempts to access and gain gain control over all personal information of U.S. citizens, the only conclusion one can come to is that this is probably only the tip of the iceberg rather than some anomaly.

I think this establishes beyond any doubt that both democrats and republicans will continue to advance the American surveillance state regardless of lip service to the contrary.  But that’s okay, folks.  Later on you can still play dumb and claim you never saw it coming as is always the case when people suddenly open their eyes and find themselves living under the thumb of a totalitarian government.