It Always Feels Like the NSA is Watching Me! (Update)

And I have No Privacy...

Except of course, Glenn Greenwald is lying again. Glenn is a lying Libertarian who gave George W. Bush a pass on the Patriot Act, Warrantless Wiretaps, the Iraq War and leaving Americans to die in New Orleans because George W. Bush lowered Glenn's taxes. Anything else Bush did is inconsequential in comparison.

And it seems Greenwald is lying about the NSA snooping campaign. From the New York Times,

The companies that negotiated with the government include Google, which owns YouTube; Microsoft, which owns Hotmail and Skype; Yahoo; Facebook; AOL; Apple; and Paltalk, according to one of the people briefed on the discussions. The companies were legally required to share the data under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. 

They opened discussions with national security officials about developing technical methods to more efficiently and securely share the personal data of foreign users in response to lawful government requests.  

While handing over data in response to a legitimate FISA request is a legal requirement, making it easier for the government to get the information is not, which is why Twitter could decline to do so. 

Details on the discussions help explain the disparity between initial descriptions of the government program and the companies’ responses. 

Each of the nine companies said it had no knowledge of a government program providing officials with access to its servers, and drew a bright line between giving the government wholesale access to its servers to collect user data and giving them specific data in response to individual court orders. Each said it did not provide the government with full, indiscriminate access to its servers. 

The companies said they do, however, comply with individual court orders, including under FISA. The negotiations, and the technical systems for sharing data with the government, fit in that category because they involve access to data under individual FISA requests. And in some cases, the data is transmitted to the government electronically, using a company’s servers.

In my capacity as a Police Officer I do know that Apple has declined to provide me information about stolen Apple products I have recovered from thieves. Youtube, Snapchat and Facebook have rules detailing how I can get information about users. I can't just call up and ask for the identity of a user of those sites, nor can I simply fax over a request with the Department letterhead though I have successfully requested they digitally secure and cache as evidence certain pages without a court order. But, obtaining that information has always been done pursuant to a Warrant.

Of course, Glenn Greenwald and others are already convinced that President Obama is guilty and Glenn has repeatedly asserted that Barack is worse than Dick Cheney so why not *break* a giant snooping news story which happens to be falsified if it serves the greater good of smearing Barack and advancing Greenwalds' bona fides.

Update:
A former CIA employee (not an agent) who handed over NSA documents to Glenn Greenwald has revealed himself and fled to the Peoples' Republic of China

On May 20, he boarded a flight to Hong Kong, where he has remained ever since. He chose the city because “they have a spirited commitment to free speech and the right of political dissent”, and because he believed that it was one of the few places in the world that both could and would resist the dictates of the US government. 

In the three weeks since he arrived, he has been ensconced in a hotel room. “I’ve left the room maybe a total of three times during my entire stay,” he said. It is a plush hotel and, what with eating meals in his room too, he has run up big bills. 

He is deeply worried about being spied on. He lines the door of his hotel room with pillows to prevent eavesdropping. He puts a large red hood over his head and laptop when entering his passwords to prevent any hidden cameras from detecting them. 

Though that may sound like paranoia to some, Snowden has good reason for such fears. He worked in the US intelligence world for almost a decade. He knows that the biggest and most secretive surveillance organization in America, the NSA, along with the most powerful government on the planet, is looking for him.

Government by the Plutocracy for the Plutocracy and of the Plutocracy

Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat, but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires – John Steinbeck. 

 "The federal government was never intended to be everything for everyone." - Chicken Hammer commented on my blog and oft repeated by conservatives everywhere.

This is correct, the Federal Government was created to Protect and Serve the Rich and Powerful.

Government was envisioned as a Tool of the Plutocracy in quelling Domestic problems and expanding Foreign Markets for exploitation.

All of Sudden Republicans in Congress are concerned about NSA cyber-snooping? Where was Jim Sensenbrenner's concern when he crafted the Patriot Act in 2001? Where was John Boehner's concern about wiretaps when he voted time after time to reapprove them? This level of out-right surveillance of the American People goes back further than the NSA whistleblower stating in 2006 the NSA has a Massive database of Americans' phone calls or in 2004 when President Bush declared, "a wiretap requires a court order. Nothing has changed, by the way."

But, let's leave aside the Surveillance State for today. The Government is not the Problem; they are but the Hitmen and Trigger Pullers for the True Evil in our Society the Class of Moochers known as the Rich.

The last 30 years has been the Reactionary Attempt by the Mooching Rich to reclaim the Power of Government for their sole use. Everyday brings further evidence that Austerity is but another name for Trickle Down Economics and is little more than the abject destruction of the Middle Class in order to create a Wage Slavery State in America.

Outright lying by Harvard economists Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff was for at the behest of the Rich to further destroying a Government which aids the Poor and Middle Class.

But, even amongst the Founding Fathers they knew that the Massive Income Inequality and the Ownership of the Federal Government by Corporations and the Rich would lead to Civil Strife.

The Richest 1% of this Nation doesn't make Anything or Do Anything, all they do is occupy the Rentiers position extracting a little financial gain from the toil of the 99% and the Billions of Economic Transactions that occur daily.

Yet, despite their complete and total destruction of the US Economy in 2007 Wall Street Banksters have regained their footing and are exerting their domination of the Economy again.

Between 2005 to 2007, Banksters issued $1.5 Trillion in Collateralized Debt Obligations. Synthetic CDOs, instead of the bonds themselves, are insurance-like derivative contracts on the bonds. "CDOs give investors a chance to bet on the creditworthiness of a basket of companies." (from Katy Burne of the Wall Street Journal) Those monies aren't anything other than gambling. Synthetic CDOs are back as Wall Street fights to defeat all controls on their recklessness.

Banksters, Hedge Fund Managers and Vulture Capitalists aren't creating anything. They aren't investing in anything. They are placing Bets on-top-of Wagers on-top-of Gambles... They are the computer virus and bad code from the movies Office Space and Superman III, siphoning off money they have no right to.