Jackbooted Thugs-- Not Just Ferguson But Facebook Too

The erosion of accountability for criminal activities by our elites will lead to the end of democracy… or worse

I'm not the first one to point out that in the last week we've seen what conservatives, tea-tards and libertarians have been warning us about for years: the thuggish jackbooted foot of the overly militarized government on the throat of the citizenry. Except, for the tea-tards and conservatives, it's just fine since the citizenry with the jackboots on their throats are African-Americans. And by "conservatives," I'm not just talking about Republicans. How many Democrats do you hear speaking up against the police brutality and authoritarian excess? Some… but not enough.

So what's overbearing police brutality Ferguson, Missouri got to do with unconstitutional domestic spying by the U.S. government? Do you want your entire online life opened to the world? Looking at pornography and interacting in sexual ways online is still the biggest function on the worldwide web. Imagine that. The NSA had a record of every single thing you've ever said or searched for online. Everything-- and forever. You comfie with that?

In his recent book, The Edward Snowden Affair, Michael Gurnow reminds us that when Cheney made the decision to throw caution to the winds and shred the constitution, he was able to coerce-- sometimes without much coercion at all-- Microsoft (which includes Hotmail and Skype), AOL, Facebook, Apple, YouTube, PalTalk, Yahoo, Google and Dropbox into complete cooperation with the Bush Regime's decision to spy on the entire country.

What is considered of interest to an analyst has mind-numb- ing implications. When a person is cited as a target of suspicion, the NSA starts “contact chaining” at a minimal distance of "two hops." For example, Bob is an American foreign exchange student spending a semester abroad at the University of Oxford in England. He wants feedback on his paper comparing suicide bombers in Iraq to acts of domestic terror in the United States. He sends it to his Harvard advisor for review. The essay includes the keywords "al Qaeda," "White House," "jihad," "bomb," "Iraq," "Koran" and "Obama administration." This throws up a red flag, and the NSA designates Bob as a person of interest. Intelligence will then investigate any- one found in his email account or whom he has “friended” on Facebook. This is the "first hop." The NSA then proceeds to the second hop. It looks into anyone electronically associated with the people now under the radar after the first hop. In other words, Mary has emailed Bob and Susan has "friended" Mary. Even though Bob has never met and does not know Susan, she is now being investigated by the NSA. (Six days after Gellman’s article debuted, NSA Deputy Director John Inglis informed Congress that analysts were permitted three hops.) Scientific studies of social networks show at three hops, roughly half the American population can be permissibly surveilled. For Facebook and Twitter account holders, the likelihood is greatly increased. The average degree of separation between random users is only 4.74 and 3.43 respectively. Statistically, someone utilizing Facebook has an 84 percent chance of being “targeted by association.” A person posting on Twitter runs an 87 percent risk. Before 9/11, the Justice Department had deemed American contact chaining illegal.

Perhaps the only thing more frightening than "friending" a person who "liked" something which a government target also listed as a Facebook hobby, thereby placing an innocent websurfer under federal suspicion, is the NSA can access real-time data, i.e., live surveillance. This means an analyst has the ability to watch people as they casually surf the Internet.

Gellman highlights one of the primary differences between the participating Internet businesses and the NSA-mined telecoms: The Internet firms didn’t have to be ordered to submit their data. They merely acknowledged a "directive" from the attorney general and director of national intelligence in exchange for legal impunity. In the event a developing Internet enterprise refuses to play along, 2008 legislation permits the FISC to make a company "comply."

Suggestive of a gag order being in place, a Google representative speaking on condition of anonymity stated, "From time to time, people allege that we have created a government 'backdoor' into our systems, but Google does not have a ‘backdoor’ for the government to access private user data." Gellman specifies that the few congressional members privy to PRISM, such as Wyden and Udall, are also not allowed to express their opinions because they are "bound by oaths of office to hold their tongues."

When a guy like Mark Udall speaks up-- and very publicly-- and says CIA Director John Brennan should be fired, that's a really big deal… even if the corporate media completely ignores it and buries it. Udall: "After being briefed on the CIA Inspector General report today, I have no choice but to call for the resignation of CIA Director John Brennan. The CIA unconstitutionally spied on Congress by hacking into Senate Intelligence Committee computers. This grave misconduct not only is illegal, but it violates the U.S. Constitution’s requirement of separation of powers. These offenses, along with other errors in judgment by some at the CIA, demonstrate a tremendous failure of leadership, and there must be consequences. "The CIA needs to acknowledge its wrongdoing and correct the public record in a timely, forthright manner-- and that simply hasn't occurred under John Brennan's leadership. Such an acknowledgment is necessary, whether we're talking about spying on Senate computers or about correcting misleading and inaccurate information about the CIA's detention and interrogation program. An internal CIA accountability board review isn't enough."