New reports detail vast scale of NSA “mega data collection”
New reports indicate that the NSA engages in warrantless wiretapping of the audio content of telephone communications of Americans, and records and archives virtually all internet usage, everywhere.
The primary concern of the Obama administration, congressional leaders and top intelligence officials is to lie and obfuscate in order to conceal the true nature and extent of the spying.
The rapid pace of new revelations has been catching leading representatives of the American state in one blatant lie after another. On almost a daily basis, new information surfaces illustrating the vast, all-pervading scale of the NSA surveillance apparatus.
Bush administration officials and leading congressmen have repeatedly asserted that the American government does not monitor the content of telephone and other communications without a warrant. During a House Judiciary hearing on Thursday, however, Representative Jerrold Nadler cited a secret briefing with US intelligence officials exposing these assertions as lies.
When FBI director Robert Mueller claimed that the NSA required “a special, particularized order from the FISA court direct at that particular phone of that particular individual” in order to monitor communication content, Nadler responded, “We heard precisely the opposite at the briefing the other day. We heard precisely that you could get the specific information from that telephone simply based on an analyst deciding that…In other words, what just said is incorrect. So there's a conflict.”
Nadler's comment corroborate Snowden's assertion that, working as a low level analyst in Hawaii, he was able to “wiretap anyone from you or your accountant to a federal judge to even the president.”