Many people would rather not believe that the businesses that provide us with high speed internet and cell phone service would allow the government to step in a monitor what we are doing and saying over the optical lines of our latest technology. The fact is that there is clear and obvious evidence that in the business of citizen monitoring there is a lot of money to be made. We are not so free as we think, especially when it comes to checking your email or making that call home to mom.
4. Set up an internal surveillance system
In Mussolini's Italy, in Nazi Germany, in communist East Germany, in communist China - in every closed society - secret police spy on ordinary people and encourage neighbours to spy on neighbours. The Stasi needed to keep only a minority of East Germans under surveillance to convince a majority that they themselves were being watched.
In closed societies, this surveillance is cast as being about "national security"; the true function is to keep citizens docile and inhibit their activism and dissent.
You may say no way, but much of the general public does not know exactly what goes through the legislature by way of our government to be able to watch what we do in the name of national security. The Patriot Act, Homeland Security, CALEA, and other government devices have been implemented and strengthened in the name of fighting terrorism. Much of the following information has been gathered by concerned citizens and former and current employees of internet and service providers. Since I, myself, cannot cite them, this will have to suffice as their due credit for the comprehensive research and documentation of what has been called an "Orwellian" nightmare. All documents referred to were found via wikileaks.org.
The "Total Information Awareness" program received a great deal of opposition by civil liberties and rights groups, but it was later passed under the name, "Terrorism Information Awareness." The growing link between government agencies and the private sector for the purpose of eavesdropping on citizens is alarming. AT&T maintains secret rooms where only those with NSA clearance can enter (Mark Klein, AT&T). Reports have been uncovered about the difficulties and ways around tapping fiber optic transmissions, conferences are held to bring together law enforcement and communications technology providers, and increased measures are placed on the capabilities required of technology systems to allow them to be tap-able (CALEA Memo). A recent New York Times article does an excellent job of telling the full AT&T story and the following lawsuit filed by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) with Mark Klein as a party to the lawsuit since he had recovered documents and had personal accounts from working at AT&T. It is now a well known fact that under the auspices of terrorist threat, the general public is being wrongly watched and monitored through illegal eavesdropping on international phone calls to a key word search software for emails and internet searches. What is happening to our privacy, where are our rights?
Privacy is not a word used in the U.S. Constitution, however there are a lot of words not used in the Constitution including marriage, children, food, or books. Are we to then believe that we do not have a right to any of these since it is not listed? The Constitution is supposed to be a document that outlines what the government is authorized to do, what is not listed in the Constitution, the government has no power to do.
Amendment IX:
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
Amendment X:
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
The powers that are not listed in that great founding document of our country are our own to which no one else can lay claim. The Bill of Rights was an after thought because the framers felt that the Constitution laid out easily the limited powers of the government. It was later added when they were worried that there would be misunderstanding. That is why most of the amendments that comprise the Bill of Rights explain the few things the government can and cannot do.
The Libertarian, Harry Browne, writes:
"There really are only two areas of the Constitution that every American should understand and understand well:
Article 1, Section 8 — which enumerates the areas in which Congress has the power to legislate. You'll notice that no power is given there for Congress to pass laws regulating health care or education or charities or agriculture or any of thousands of other areas in which politicians now tell us how we must act.
The Bill of Rights — which makes it plain that the government has no authority to do anything that isn't specified in Article 1, Section 8."
When the rights of citizens are disregarded and the "enemies of the state" are increasingly the people of that state, we have reached a dangerous compliance with facism. Increasing the war powers of a President or government are often what is seen as most important and shows support, but what we then forget to do is check those powers and question what is truly happening. Thankfully we have the few like Mark Klein who will assist in exposing the wrongs of the government in conjunction with those who would make money off of our collective insecurity. When has increased surveillance ever led to increased security?
England is years ahead in restriction of its citizens, let us hope that we do not go this far:
Read Step One,Step Two & Step Three.
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